About Church and Christmas

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In the very small town where I grew up there were two churches, one little and one big. My family went to the little church.

And when I say family, I mean it. Not just my immediate family but aunts, uncles, cousins. And neighbors that were like family from our very small town. And when I say little church, I mean that, too. We filled up that very small church every Sunday.

On Sundays, we entered quietly, reverently, craning our necks to look back to see who was whispering so loud before the service started, or worse, laughing. Not that laughing was bad, it just wasn’t part of the proper preparation in waiting for the priest to parade from the back of the little church. But talking, visiting and yes, laughing, were definitely heard after we had paid God his attention, after the climax of the Sunday story – holy communion – had taken place. First communion with God, then with our family and friends.

Going to church was a part of the fabric of our lives, but living in a very small town, the church building itself belonged to us in special way. It was very normal to enter the church on a Sunday, but if we were to go in on another day of the week, it felt different to me, like I wasn’t sure where to stand or what volume of voice to use. But I welcomed it, those odd times of meeting there and the feelings it created in me.

Every year before Christmas, my mother and aunties and almost-aunties would get together to clean the church, enlisting any of their children who were around to help wash the windows and polish the pews. I’m sure it was done more often, but perhaps I remember this best because it preceded decorating the church for Christmas. It was exciting to change the landscape where we worshipped, to anticipate the birthday of the Christ child once more.

I loved being in that church on not-Sundays – the weightlessness of standing around the altar where usually only the priest and altar servers walked and the giddiness of being somewhere sacred and secret. And at Christmas, we would descend into the old basement to retrieve the annual decorations, the most fascinating being the small nativity scene that would be set up on the communion table, the small figures watching as parishioners came in and placed their host in the cup, like the taking of attendance.

It was my first nativity set that I remember. Long before Christmas decorations started multiplying in stores like Helga Hufflepuff’s cup in a vault in Gringotts, the same precious decorations were brought out year after year, with no thought of replacing them. Because they were part of the tradition itself, not just decorating, but remembering, cherishing. Maybe it wasn’t my first nativity set that I saw, but it was the first one I was allowed to touch, as we set it up on the table.

One of the wise men had lost his head. (Well, wouldn’t you if you met God in a manger? Though it seems rather funny – a wise man without a head.) No matter, he still counted – his body was there. It was small, but the whole set was small. Not much shuffling on the table was necessary to include this stable scene that reminded us all of Jesus’ humble beginnings as a man-baby.

The placement of the figures was important, it was part of the alchemy of Advent: the wise men three at one side, shepherds and sheep to the other. The angel with a tiny hook on a tiny nail at the apex of the stable roof. Mary and Joseph flanking the tiny little babe, center stage, like God is supposed to be. I was very young, but I always remembered how it was supposed to go.

I have two nativity sets now and I use the same guiding principles when I set them up. I take attendance as I pull them out of the boxes where they live hidden but waiting. I love how they represent everyone – families, blue collar workers, professionals, animals – and God. Everyone may not be related, but they come together in small spaces and represent the same thing every time: a family.

God’s family. Everyone is included. Even if you lost your head – you are welcome, you are part of the family. Even if you are dressed kind of odd or shabby and you stink like sheep poop – you are welcome, you are part of the family. Even if your beginnings aren’t perfect – that’s not his real dad, you know – you are welcome, you are part of the family. And yes, sheep and camels and all manner of animal friends are part of the family, too.

Angels above us. God with us. In a very small stable in a very small church in a very small town, but representing Everywhere.

About Two Christmas Stories: Part Two

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Mr. Edwards meets Cowboy Santa. (illustration by David Lockhart)

There is something about finding a familiar story in an anthology that makes me happy. Kinda like, I knew this was good! The second story that I loved from Treasure of Christmas Stories was one called Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus, excerpted, of course, from The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Prairie is actually the second of several books that Wilder wrote about her family experience that bounced between homesteading and moving on in the late 1800s of the American frontier. I loved those earliest books best that showcased littlest Laura with her affinity to her Pa and to always striving for, but never quite matching, perfect older sister Mary’s attitude and behavior. (I won’t touch the un-PC-ness of Wilder’s books as they read in this day and age. For now.)

Ahem. Back to Christmas.

Before Disney Plus and YouTube, before smartphones and separate rooms for every activity, the winter months on the prairie allowed for huge swathes of time for the Ingalls family to sit before a roaring fire in their open-concept home and. . . sew. Or make bullets. Or listen to Pa play the fiddle or read the Bible (on Sundays) and then go to bed.

And so, we find Laura and Mary in the days before Christmas staring out the window at the rain wondering if Christmas will come that year. Because Santa is the one that brings Christmas and snow brings Santa’s reindeer and Santa’s reindeer bring the jolly old elf. And for some reason (probably because of some well-intentioned Ma-and-Pa propaganda) Santa’s reindeer could not come across the roaring creek that was being fed by the constant rain. Like some magical Texas gate.

This is confirmed by Pa when he comes in with a wild turkey for Christmas dinner. The creek is not abating. And here we find out how the propaganda found its footing: Ma and Pa agree that their friend Mr. Edwards, a fellow homesteader who had been invited to Christmas dinner, would not be foolish enough to risk crossing the wild creek for a wild turkey drumstick.

“Of course, that meant that Santa Claus could not come, either.”

And so for a whole page we have to endure the girls going to bed unhappy and Pa so disheartened that he can’t even play the fiddle and Ma suddenly, in spite of all reason, hanging up the girl’s stockings and whispering to a protesting Pa that she could give the girls the last of the white sugar. I repeat: MA HUNG UP ACTUAL SOCKS THAT ACTUAL FEET WENT INTO, PLANNING TO FILL THEM WITH A BAKING STAPLE.

We are so freakin’ spoiled these days.

All that foreshadowing had to lead somewhere and, you guessed it, a cold and wet Mr. Edwards suddenly shows up on their doorstep. When he confesses to Ma and Pa that it wasn’t Christmas dinner that compelled him, but the thought that the little girls would have no gifts on Christmas Day, an eavesdropping-and-supposed-to-be-sleeping Laura sits bolt upright in bed and demands to know if he saw Santa Claus.

While Ma fills the stockings, Mr. Edwards distracts the girls, answering all their questions about him meeting Santa on the streets of Independence, Missouri: how Santa was too old and fat to swim across the river himself, how Santa recognized Edwards from when he was a little boy sleeping in a corn-shuck bed in Tennessee, how Santa led Mr. Edwards over to his pack-mule to retrieve gifts for the girls who lived yonder on the Verdigris River. (Thus solving the snow problem, reasoned Mary.)

Here’s where the real magic happens: as a young girl myself, I would pore over the description of the simple gifts the girls received, as if they were as valuable as those the Magi presented the baby Jesus. A glittering new tin cup. (“Now each had a cup to drink out of.”) A long stick of peppermint candy. (“Sucked…till each stick was sharp-pointed on one end.”) A heart-shaped little cake. (“Made of pure white flour, sweetened with white sugar.”) A shining bright, new penny. (“They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny.”)

And then, the piece de resistance. Mr. Edwards starts pulling sweet potatoes out of his pockets, nine in all. At that point in my life, I had never eaten a sweet potato before (and did not until I learned their magic firsthand at the Christmas table of my husband’s family.) But surely, they must have been better than regular un-sweet potatoes.

The ensuing description of the Christmas meal was not so compelling because I wanted to eat their food. It was because I wanted their delight, their satisfaction, their wonder. And yet it was generated by such simple things like sweet potatoes you can now find in any grocery store and pennies which you could now find discarded on the ground because they aren’t worth anything anymore.

Now I am not particularly fond of camping. Transport me back to Little House on the Prairie and I would probably be more whiny than a rusty door hinge in a haunted house. But I don’t have to go back in time or take a vow of poverty to appreciate the good messages that Laura Ingalls Wilder has sown into her story.

Things are sweeter when they are unexpected and rare.

Holidays are best celebrated with friends and family close.

The simple things really are the best.

I am thankful today for good stories that help me remember this as December rushes onwards to Christmas Day.

About Two Christmas Stories: Part One

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At this time of year when I was a kid, I loved to read a little Scholastic anthology called Treasury of Christmas Stories.

It held all sorts of important Christmas readables: Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Fir Tree (spoiler alert: it ends badly for the title character), the words to carols like Deck the Halls (half of which I already knew for sure – fa la la la la, la la la la) and Clement C. Moore’s precedent-setting poem that taught everyone what Santa really looked like (‘chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf’).

Two stories were my favorites.

The first one was called Christmas Every Day written by W. D. Howells. It’s a story within a story – an impudent little girl asks her father to tell her a Christmas story and, perhaps sensing a learning moment, he relates to her a cautionary tale of sorts. The little girl in the story petitions the Christmas Fairy, begging her to have Christmas every day. (Fairies have always been powerful females.) After many, many pestering letters, the Fairy acquiesces, with the caveat that “she might have it Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having it longer”.

You can imagine how it played out. Regular Christmas came: full stockings followed by presents followed by too much candy followed by a full turkey dinner extravaganza followed by sledding until the little girl came in with a stomach-ache and then everyone in the family went to bed early, cross.

But then the next day, it happened again. And the next day after that, and so on and so on, for the entire year.

Turkeys went up astronomically in price, then became scarce. Cranberries cost a diamond apiece. The woods became stubble fields, all the trees cut down to be decorated indoors. And people became poorer and poorer, buying presents and serving up Christmas the way Christmas was supposed to be done, day after day after day, ad nauseum. Well, except for the storekeepers and delivery persons – they were making a killing.

It was intolerable, but unstoppable. All the other holidays were obliterated, except April Fools’ Day, when everything was fake, which actually provided some comic relief.

It’s not that far off from where we are now, with Christmas creeping into the stores sooner and sooner. It used to be that Christmas displays went up sometime after Remembrance Day and it was exciting to see. Then we started to get confused in October when the Halloween treats were juxtaposed with candy canes and chocolate Santas. Now people are tripping over each other trying to snap up Costco’s newest Christmas offerings – in July – because once they’re gone from Costco, they’re gone.

I don’t like the stores messing with my calendar in this way. And I don’t like them telling me how Christmas is supposed to be done. I will never understand who shops in those “Christmas All Year” stores, much less what ______________ individual owns them. (You can insert your own adjective – I didn’t want to be too disparaging.) I like Christmas music to stay in December and even for snow to stay the heck away until then, too. (But that might be asking too much of the Christmas fairy. Because: Alberta.)

A very telling part of the Christmas Every Day story is when people get so tired of giving each other presents that they aren’t even nice about it anymore – they just fling them over fences and into windows saying, ‘Take it, you horrid old thing!’

The impudent little girl gets what she wants. (illustration by David Lockhart)

Ouch. Getting a present “thrown” at you can hurt. But it’s a lot like getting a gift that was shopped for under duress, given because they “had to” and, to add insult to such injury, was paid for with a 22% interest-bearing credit card. Someone I follow on Instagram, a well-known, not un-rich person, was recently advocating a gift-free Christmas, as she has done for the last thirteen. But not just gift-free: debt-free and guilt-free, to boot.

I have to admit, though I am averse to the commercial Christmas that is peddled these days, I still like giving gifts to people I love and appreciate. I like receiving them, too, if the same sentiment comes with them. I like to buy or get a new Christmas decoration (or two) each year. And I embrace the Christmas transformation that happens in my house, in town, on television, on the P.A. system in stores – in December. Just the opposite of it being the same thing every day, it’s nice to embrace the different-ness of Christmas. A weary world rejoices.

Ironically, in the story, the Christmases stop on Christmas Day the following year. People are relieved, then ecstatic. They throw out the candy and burn all the presents. The different-ness that has come is celebrated.

The little girl pays a visit to the Christmas fairy to thank her and this time to make sure that Christmas will NEVER, EVER come again. To which the Christmas fairy very wisely says that “now she was behaving just as greedily as ever, and she’d better look out.” They finally agree to go back to good-ole-once-a-year Christmas in the end.

There’s a lot to be said for the special-ness of things that come once a year, the excitement of revealing things that have been hidden for a long time, that you almost forgot. My little story book is fun to revisit when it comes out of its Christmas box where it lives for the other eleven months. It can even be surprising like a visit from Santa in a little house on the prairie when you didn’t think he’d make it.

But that’s another story.

About Reading and Smart-ness

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A hallmark of the home that I grew up in was the Edmonton Journal. And to me the best part of the Edmonton Journal was the Sunday color comic pages.

The only “stories” I can recollect my mother reading aloud to me were those short vignettes in the funny papers. Every Sunday, it was our ritual: mom and I would lie side by side on her bed and she would read the comics to me. Even when I learned how to read for myself, I insisted that she keep doing this except then we would take turns voicing the different characters. Like a backwards bedtime story, when she was done, Mom went to sleep. It was the only nap that she let herself take all week.

And so, my reading career began with the comics. Short, sweet (well, not always), clever, enigmatic – and with pictures! – the Sunday comics were my high literature at the time. They paved the way for a love of comics that remains true, even though I don’t read many now. Peanuts, Hi & Lois, Blondie, B. C., The Wizard of Id, Tumbleweeds, Beetle Bailey, Funky Winkerbean and Hager the Horrible were the friends that populated my early years, along with Cookie Monster, Mr. Dressup and the Friendly Giant.

Perhaps comics just fit my style, my reading style. I like finishing things: the last cracker in the box, the last of the shampoo in the bottle, the end of a pot of coffee. Finishing things clears room for what’s new. Which is another thing I like. Starting things. Comics are short, started and finished in one sitting.

Much of my reading is like that. Not that I have to finish a book in one sitting, but I like to clearly see the gratification of the end. But because I think it’s healthy to challenge my own preferred parameters, I recently slogged my way through Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, basically skim-reading the last 300 pages. At 950-pages plus, it is a Moby Dick of a book. And all I can think is that I could have read three normal-sized books instead. “Finished three” is better in my economy than “finished one”, even if by page count it’s the same thing. Three stories will always trump one. Ask any self-respecting toddler who begs for “just one more story” to put off the dreaded task of going to sleep.

I worry, sometimes, that this is a failure of mine, that I lack intellectual fortitude. I don’t like tackling the long and hard books. Most Pulitzer or Booker prize winners either baffle me or bore me to tears. I prefer Newbery winners, books written for middle-grade kids and “YA” – young adults, and even Caldecott winners, the best and the brightest of the picture books.

But make no mistake: just because these books are written “for children” doesn’t make their creators any less talented or intelligent than those “other” book winners. Hanging out in the children’s book world on the interweb has confirmed that the authors and illustrators of children’s books are masters in distillation of words and expression of images, and every bit as prolific.

Is it about “smart-ness” – that I don’t like much literary fiction or books written in an Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close manner? It hurts my head just to try and figure out some of those books. Yes, it’s art, and yes, there’s room for All The Art. But there’s also room for All The Readers.

I don’t think that my early love affair with comics set me up for this. Rather, I think I was lucky to be introduced at a young age into the genres of literature that I love. Comics, picture books, kids lit: there’s just as many of those on my Read and To-Be-Read lists as good adult books I have loved.

Well, maybe a little more. Maybe I’m just not that “smart”. Or maybe I’m just not that “old”.

About Reading

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Hello, my name is Bonnie and I am a Reader.

Not just a reader. I am a capital ‘R’ Reader. A Nerdy-Nerd Reader.

It is with reluctance that I admit that I prefer reading to, umm, pretty much anything. Right beside all the pairs of reading glasses that I referred to in my last blog post, you will probably find a book: on my desk, in my purse, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, on my bedside table and in the car. While waiting in line at Costco (buying more reading glasses, hello?), I will pull out my purse-book and read. In fact, in the middle of a particularly good book, I will pick the long lineup.

My reluctance at admitting this is because, well… people. People don’t like to hear that they’re not as exciting to hang out with as the latest Cormoran Strike (and Robin!) installment from Kenneth Galbraith (a.k.a. J. K. Rowling). Or whatever Anne Lamott, A. J. Jacobs or Liane Moriarty has cooked up lately. Or whatever C. S. Lewis, A. A. Milne or Agatha Christie cooked up a long time ago.

An exception might extend to hanging out with other people who supposedly love books, but that doesn’t always go well (as you can find out here.)

Given this preamble, you might think that I was a reading prodigy – someone who first read at the ripe old age of maybe…four. But no, you would be wrong.

Although I grew up in a Reading Family, I was slow to the uptake. I can remember my eleven-year-old sister lording it over five-year-old me that I did not know how to read yet. And me, baffled that I had been denied the keys to the Reading Kingdom. After all I had been a dedicated fan of Sesame Street: it was a large part of my pre-school education.

Here’s a painful memory: in Grade One, our class was separated into two reading groups. If you were ahead of the curve, you joined the Bunny circle. If you weren’t, you were relegated to the Brownies.

Three things bothered me about this.

First: Bunnies were my favorite. I mean, seriously, my name? Bonnie? Pretty close. I had a bunny collection. I was quiet and nervous. I felt denied from something that I truly related to.

Second: What sort of sense did Brownies and Bunnies make, except starting with the same letter? I could have more easily accepted Brownies and Greenies. Or Bunnies and Turtles. But maybe that’s just me.

Lastly, my own favorite Auntie Evelyn was a substitute teacher at the time. So, there was a first-hand family witness to my Brownie-ness.

I don’t remember if I had an aha! moment – like when it all clicked for me. But eventually I could read and our class became One Big Happy Reading Circle. By Grade Two I was a Confident Reader and loved to be called on to read aloud in class. Until that one day after the day I had stayed home sick when the whole class learned about Silent Letters. (Silent Letters are jerks.) How was I supposed to know it wasn’t an IZLAND? IS? LAND? I can’t even.

You can be sure I never forgot that lesson. In fact, I have now become a Corrector. As in, umm, you’re pronouncing it wrong. Okay, maybe I just say it to you in my head. Unless you’re my husband. (Sorry, Rick.)

Given, these early episodes of Reading Trauma, you might guess I was ready to throw in the Proverbial Reading Towel. Except that trauma aside, there were Reading Mysteries that were unveiled that were just way too interesting to me. And not just the literal mysteries of Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden or Encyclopedia Brown. Reading held the key to learning about Ancient Greece (a favorite era), New York City (where it seemed all Scholastic books were set) and Lions and Scarecrows and Wizards of Oz.

And so books continue to intrigue, inform and entertain me. My bunny collection might be long gone. But my book collection is going strong.

About Limitations: Getting Older Doesn’t Have to Suck

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In Rick’s family they tell a very endearing story about his grandparents. His gramma, no doubt spurred on by a story of someone losing their sight, decided that in the event she should become blind, she should probably practice. Just, you know, in case.

The dead of night, with all its present darkness, provided such a reminder to Gramma as she woke up and needed to use the bathroom. She got out of bed and, keeping her eyes closed against any intruding glow, she shuffled her way to the bathroom. Unfortunately for Gramma, she never noticed Grampa was already on the toilet, until she shuffled right into him.

I’m not sure how much she “practiced” after that.

One good thing about practicing for bad things is that you sometimes get prepared for things you didn’t expect. (Let’s just say that Grampa not alerting Gramma to the fact that he was already there did nothing to alleviate her ensuing fright.)

No one should like to imagine worst-case scenarios – unless you make your living as a life-insurance risk analyst. And some people do just fine floating along in their everything-is-awesome! bubble. But sometimes it can help us realistically to look ahead to the future and say, not just What if? but When…

As in: When I get older, I’m gonna be okay with it.

I’m gonna be okay when my skin on the back of my hand doesn’t bounce back but instead stays like that when I pinch it. In fact, I might find it amusing.

I’m gonna be okay in the gym with walking on the treadmill instead of running. After all, my target heart rate is going down as I get older, so I’m just being responsible.

I’m gonna be okay when I am so tired at 9 o’clock at night that I want to cry but then wake up two hours later and am WIDE awake. And I’ll even be okay when I finally feel sleepy again but then have to go to the bathroom. STAT.

I’m gonna be okay when my kids want to show me something on their phone and first say, “Hey, Mom, get your glasses.” Of course, I have a pair on my desk, in my purse, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, on my bedside table, in the car. . . and I keep buying them in bulk at Costco.

I’m gonna be okay when “young people” look at me aghast when I reminisce about phones being attached to walls; about sneaking in to work early to use the photocopier for personal reasons; about writing cheques to pay the rent; about how circus performers, carnies and ex-cons were the only people you ever saw with a tattoo; about getting up to change the channel (there were only two) on the television; about how people used to be able to smoke in restaurants; and about not being able to instantly Google who was the actor that played Steve Urkel. (It was Jaleel White.)

I’m gonna be okay when I know NONE of the nominees for the Oscars by name. (Unless they’re from “my generation”.) In fact, I’m Not. Even. Gonna. Care. And if I do, that’s what Google is for. After all, Einstein didn’t even bother to remember his own phone number because he knew he could look it up.

I’m gonna be okay when I have to have bunion surgery. Twice. Because hey, who’s gonna complain about a two-week stay-cation on the couch? I don’t have to get up to change the channel anymore, remember?

The thing about Gramma was that she wasn’t being morose – she was one of the most optimistic people I ever met. Her middle-of-the-night-blindness-practice was kinda kooky, but it was her way of proving to herself that, come-what-may, she was gonna be okay.

And anyways, if you’re awake in the middle of the night, it is something to do.

About Pain and Limitations

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I hurt my wrist last week.

With Remembrance Day falling on a Monday this year, my usual exercise class was cancelled that day. My trainer texted me that evening and offered me a make-up spot in her Tuesday morning class. Since I regularly go Monday, Wednesday and Friday, this meant I would do strength training two days in a row. Which usually spells trouble for this body.

As tough as I like to think I am, there’s nothing like Heather’s Boot Camp to show me: Oh, I’m NOT.

I mean, I do okay but I’m nothing like the poetry-in-motion that Heather is when demonstrating a new move. Performing her routines run the gamut for me from: I feel awesome! I’m knocking it out of the park! to What fresh hell is this? My execution can be more like a limerick than a sonnet on the poetry scale.

Any time I make the mistake of agreeing to two of her hard workouts in a row, I wind up in just a little more pain than I bargained for. I’m not talking about general exercise soreness – I’ve been at this long enough to have moved past that. It’s more like me standing at the foot of the stairs wondering how to convince my knees to bend again.

Except this time, it’s my wrist. My right wrist. Operator of all happy things like pens and can-openers and hairbrushes. It never before occurred to me how important the wrist is to the fine-motor skills needed in pinching and grasping. Administering my daily morning eyedrops? Nearly impossible with my right hand. Lifting my coffee cup to my lips? Excruciating. (I’m not talking about physical pain: I nearly spilled my coffee!)

And may I go out on a TMI-limb here and mention how important a strong wrist is in the act of wielding toilet paper? Yeah, it’s a thing.

Lucky for me, the state of my wrist is not affecting my ability to poke at a keyboard. But it does send me down that rabbit hole of thinking: What if I couldn’t write anymore, via pen or pencil or laptop?

This very painful scenario was demonstrated to me the week before in my writer’s group. That evening we pulled individual prompts from an envelope, which we would have twenty minutes to write about and then read aloud for the group. One of our older members gave an exasperated sigh when she drew: Write about something you can’t do anymore.

Sitting across from her, I noticed that as the rest of the group was scribbling away nonstop, she was writing very little, and nothing that looked like full sentences. When it was her turn to reveal her prompt, it was suddenly clear why: old age had caught up to her and what she couldn’t do anymore was hold a pen and write. We gave a collective groan, understanding that the act of holding a pen and scribbling was an integral part of feeling like a writer.

But.

Does not being able to hold a pen change the fact that she still is a writer? No, it does not. She admitted that she can still use a keyboard. But neither implement is necessary to write. A person could “write” by dictation or by videorecording if conventional options weren’t available.

I have struggled with calling myself a writer, especially for the years when I was writing very little and mostly for myself. But I’m slowly embracing that label as I have come to understand writing as part of my identity and not necessarily what I do.

That being said, while I am able, sore wrist and all, I need to act on that identity and write. Even if no one reads it. Even if it hurts. Even if it’s just a blog. It’s all writing and it all counts.

About My Little Boys

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My sweet boys: Tim, Simon and Gil circa 2000 – sorry about those L. A. Kings pjs, Tim 🙁

[Welcome to Throwback Thursday here on the blog. In honor of my last post where I talked about the newspaper column I used to write (and also in honor of weeks that disappear due to our fiscal year-end), I am gifting you, dear reader, with a re-print of one of those old columns. Disclaimer: some of the opinions and word choices of 2001-Bonnie are not those of 2019-Bonnie.]

Led by my oldest son, the three little men in my house have suddenly developed a fascination with the female gender. At three, five and seven, they aren’t exactly ready to date, but the five-year-old has been proposed to, and has accepted.

What appears to be so interesting to them is the idea that girls are not only different physically, but in other ways as well. Besides the body parts that require special equipment (eventually), there is also a sense of wonder at why girls generally don’t like to wrestle like they do and why they prefer Barbies to Batman. They giggle madly when we pass by the ladies undergarments in clothing stores and they struggle with the reason why they can’t be in the room when Mom says she’s getting dressed. Curiosity sometimes does get the better of them. A little while ago, Timmy (the engaged one) did walk in on me. Noticing my interesting underwear, he turned on his heel and ran to his brother yelling, “Gil, come see Mom’s funny t-shirt!”  

As the lone female in my little family, I realize that I am their ambassador to the female world, a commission that I hope I can represent well. When Simon was born, I was not disappointed at all with having three sons. I certainly had enough people reassuring me that I would be the princess of the family.  So far my boys have only made me feel like Xena the Warrior Princess as they beg me to make them cardboard swords while I threaten them with great doom if they go careening through my royal kitchen one more time.

There are certainly times when I struggle to explain the differences. As three sets of eyes watch me apply my makeup in the mirror and they question my motives, it’s hard to conceal my girlish vanity. It’s a lot easier when daddy’s around since all he has to say is “Because!” and they know that’s his final answer.

What I hope we convey to the boys in daily life is that boys and girls are not so different in how we should treat each other. Just because Mom is a better whiner, doesn’t mean Dad should let her get away with it. And just because Dad has better excuses, doesn’t mean he can’t wash the dishes. 

Until then, my oldest son has it all figured out. Just yesterday he told me, “Mom, girls can do anything that boys can do except one thing…wear swimming trunks!”

About a Million Years Ago

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Bill Watterson’s incorrigible Calvin

About a million years ago (okay, it was around twenty – yikes), I wrote a weekly column for our local newspaper. You know, back when people read the local newspaper.

It was a fun little column called Home Front and the essays centered on my life as a mom of three little boys who not only chose to stay at home with them full time but who also morphed into a homeschooler. Of three healthy (read: energetic) little boys that I birthed within four years. Oy.

They weren’t jump-off-the-roof-thinking-they-could-fly little boys. (Although one of them was a draw-on-the-side-of-the-minivan-with-a-rock boy.) But they were constantly hungry and curious and silly and infuriating and they gave me plenty of fodder for my column. Oh sure, I wrote about a few other things but really, it was mostly about them.

After about 5 years, I gave it up. And I sort of gave up writing. Well, public writing anyways.

As much as I wanted to be a writer, it just kept getting overshadowed by everything else: children, homeschooling, our business and, not the least reason, my lack of self-confidence. Instead I descended into my journals and only came up for air once in awhile to submit a re-worked piece somewhere or to write a play for the kids at my church to perform at Easter or Christmas.

Stephen Pressfield, Jeff Goins and countless others of my close, personal writing gurus would all tell me (via their various books on creativity and writing, whose advice I paid cash money for) that, published or not, I AM A WRITER. It’s not negotiable.

And somehow, it’s not. My brain thinks in Times New Roman and in blank pages being filled up. I get excited (no, not that kind of excited) fondling the keys on my laptop. I think about how I would write about some everyday scene I witness on the street and I see the people in my life as characters, not just…well, people. (Sorry, people.) I write all the time, but in an undisciplined, illegible handwriting, only-in-my-head kind of way.

In the last couple of years, the desire to write outside of my head again has been irrepressible. Sort of in an REO Speedwagon I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore kind of way. (Or, for those of you who didn’t live the 80s, in a Justin Timberlake Can’t Stop the Feeling kind of way.)

One of the things I have to reckon with is that it’s okay to put it out there. I’m a 52-year-old woman who doesn’t have small children to hide behind anymore – they’re all very big and while I could actually hide behind them, they’ve all moved out. But I still have things to write about. Even if I never had kids, I would have things to write about.

I spent a couple of years a bit unmoored when the empty nest hit me. Lucky for us, my husband and I enjoyed the re-coupling phase when we became Rick & Bonnie again, not just Gil, Tim and Simon’s mom and dad. Because that happens for awhile, or for always, if you let it. But I also had to figure out who Just Bonnie was – aside from Rick and aside from the boys. And like an earwig of song you haven’t heard in forever that reverberates in your head ad nauseum (I’m talking to you Coward of the County), the thing that won’t let go is: I AM A WRITER.

Well, I argue with myself nonsensically, isn’t everybody? Noooooo…apparently not, says Jeff and Steven and others afflicted with this disease. Not everyone is born with this insane desire to spill the contents of their brain, their heart, their guts out for public consumption. Just like everyone is not a reader (gasp!) or a nature lover or a photographer or a lawyer or a plumber or a philatelist (whatever…look it up).

I am surprising myself with this little blog – this will be week 10 for me. I have not figured out everything yet, but I am seeing the beginning of a body of work again, like that pile of newspaper columns I saved from a million years ago.

It’s kind of my blog snowball. When one snowball gets too heavy, here’s hoping I’ll remember to just start another one. And then another one after that.

About the Time I Went Ziplining and Almost Didn’t Make it (Across)

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How cute are we? All of us over 50 and zip-lining for the first time!

Last summer, when visiting with our friends Dave and Lynn at their cabin in Invermere, Rick and I were propositioned with the opportunity to go try a zipline for the first time.

“I was thinking we could…” Any sentence that starts like that from our friend Lynn is a guarantee that she has “plans” – and we have learned to be game and to follow her lead.

On the drive over to Valley Zipline Adventures where we would be hanging our lives out to dry over a mountain gorge, I made the mistake of bringing up the classic early-90s-mountain-climbing-Sly-Stallone movie Cliffhanger. I like to do fun things like that. It’s how I roll. (Can anyone say foreshadowing?)

Specifically, I was referring to the opening scene when (oops, spoiler alert!) someone doesn’t quite make it.

Actually, she plummets to her death.

Some might attribute it to nervous energy. I mean, I was all-in, good-to-go BUT: riding on a zipline does require a modicum of trust. However, I don’t really get scared unless I sense imminent bodily harm. (Like the last time I went skiing and the black runs were very icy and I cried all the way down the mountain. Twice. But that’s another story.)

No, I think it has to do more with agency. If I’m the one driving the bus, so to speak, or propelling myself down a mountain, per se, then my life is in my hands. If I suddenly feel I have no control, then I become a basket case. (Well, maybe another example would be if my husband was driving the bus. Can anyone say back-seat driver?)

But in the case of the zipline, it was no different to me than getting into the seat of a roller coaster at Disneyland and getting strapped in for the ride, which I will happily, gleefully do. (Again and again, please.) I completely trust Mr. Disney’s engineers and safety-checkers. They like taking my money, so they’re not gonna kill me. It’s not good for repeat business.

Maybe it was because my friend Lynn and I were enjoying a chat. Maybe I just think that if Rick listens to the instructions, I will also automatically know what to do. Maybe it was that our trial mini-runs suspended 6 feet above the ground were easy-peasy. “I got this,” I thought to myself.

It’s a bit nerve-wracking, standing on the edge of a very high platform, to will yourself to jump off it, even though I was, so to speak, strapped in for the ride. But that was the only way for the ride to start so, leaving Rick behind, I followed after Dave and then Lynn, not wanting to be dead last. (Did I really just say dead?)

Heights don’t bother me. In fact, they exhilarate me. As I was skimming along the cable for the first time, I made sure to look down and really enjoy the experience. But then the next platform that I was headed for came in close and I heard, “Grab the rope, Bon!”

Rope? What rope?

Needless to say, dear reader, you can guess what happened next. That’s right: gravity. Not gravity downwards, but backwards along the cable. I had missed catching the rope that would secure my landing and my friends watched me now move away from them, going slower and slower, until I stopped somewhere in between where I left and where I was going.

Thankfully, our guide, who was standing waiting with Dave and Lynn, called out helpfully, “This is good! Now you can all see how we rescue someone!”

It’s NEVER been my life’s ambition to be a cautionary tale for anyone. But the fact was, I was stuck until my cheerful guide came sliding back along the cable to begin the arm-over-arm task of hauling me to the safety of the next platform. Which took a little bit of time.

Hanging from a cable several hundred feet above the ground inspires several thought processes: admiration for the quality craftsmanship of the German-made straps and carabiners that were holding me up; humility for my life held literally in suspension; and wonder at what the hell I was thinking when I didn’t listen to the directions for landing my first zip.

One of the best things about getting older is that I have learned to stop taking myself so seriously. There was a time that I would have been humiliated at having missed the rope, at having to be rescued. I might have cried. I still hate to put anyone out, but the fact was, I had paid for this adventure and part of that included being taken care of by my guide. Even if I didn’t listen to him.

I used to let things like this hold me back – the idea that i would look stupid (Look at me! I’m the only one who screwed up!) or unattractive (Does this harness make me look fat?) or incompetent (She can’t even catch a bloody rope!) But one thing life has taught me is that, for the most part, everyone else is too concerned with themselves to really care what I’m doing.

Put another way, it’s just not that big a deal. Sure, everyone had to wait for me. But then, I guess I dragged out the experience so we got more value for our money, right? I was with Rick and my friends, who love me, and were more concerned for me than disgruntled. Which is actually a good strategy for adventure: try to travel with people you love and who love you – they’re more gracious when stuff goes: Oh no.

And, let’s face it, making stupid mistakes is a surefire way to at least remind you not to do THAT again. I landed all of my subsequent jumps brilliantly. You could say that I was an excellent student. Well, you could, except for that first time, when I almost didn’t make it across.

But then, it really wouldn’t have made a very good story.