Transformations

I have lived my entire life in Canada. Since I can remember, I have known that the climate is not for me. But life offers sometimes inexplicable paths, and today I am prepared to believe that it is nothing more nefarious than that. The path has led me here, after all.

I have struggled. I have struggled with depression; with betrayal by those I have loved; with betraying my own dreams and needs, and no doubt those of others as well. I am blessed, however, with a supportive family, amazing friends (old and new), two amazing children, and a resiliency that I thought was tattered beyond repair.

I still struggle with faith, and with finding meaning and sense. I realize that everyone doesn’t need to make sense of the world. But I do, and that is perhaps my blessing and my curse. But through some miracle I have faith in myself, and a vision of a new life that begins again each day, with a new day. And I am learning to let that be enough.

I have had a lost weekend of sorts, but without the benefit of a Yoko or her personal assistant. I am on what may be the last trip of that lost weekend, before I return to reality, such as it is. And this is what I have discovered in the last 7 months:

1 – I’m the most myself when I’m doing something a little irreverent, a little crazy, a little bit spontaneous, or all of the above. I know this because the people that really know me tell me this all the time. And I think they know it because I have proven it to them over and over again. This is a lesson in surrounding yourself with the right people, the people that make you MORE, the people that don’t want to change you.
2 – I am, as a recent husband told me, a flower that wilts and may even die if left out of the sun too long. Lesson learned. I know this and remind myself every time I breathe the warm air of summer at home, or of the winter somewhere civilized. And if I permit myself to forget this lesson, I will wilt again.
3 – I will either marry again numerous times (two completed marriages so far – I now object to calling them “failures”), or not at all.
4 – Writing is teaching me patience. I write when the mood strikes me; I write what inspires me on a given day. And I don’t give myself deadlines, I just try to write, or even just think about characters and plot lines, every day.
5 – I don’t need to be the parent I planned to be two marriages ago. I will be the parent that follows her heart and gives her children all the love and acceptance that follows from that. I think I will be providing mostly love and adventure more so than stability, but I’ve decided that’s why kids have two parents – their dad seems to be pretty much dialled in on the stability part.
6 – The universe is always speaking. You just need to listen, and sometimes take a leap of faith. Sometimes daily. And if you don’t, you will literally be struck on the head repeatedly until you start to listen. In my case, I had two concussions in two months that made me reassess everything that was left after my second marriage dissolved into a sinkhole.
7 – This will be a terrifying way to live. But I’ve never really been scared of much, so what the hell.
8 – Change is a constant, and ought not be feared. See 8, above.
9 – I’m happy.

That’s a pretty good list of accomplishments in seven short months, I figure. And I suppose on the days I feel like I haven’t accomplished very much, I can just remember how I felt a year ago, look to tomorrow, and smile. Or skip along the sidewalk or go for a swing in the park or have another ice cream cone, should it strike my fancy.

The Universe is Yelling at me

Sometimes this is a good thing.  We as humans have been taught to ignore our instincts, to devalue them, to look down our noses at people who do follow their instincts. And I honestly don`t know what force is at work. But I do know that I now stop and listen when the universe yells. Because it has not steered me wrong yet. Whereas my overdeveloped primate brain has steered me wrong. PLENTY.

Married two lawyers. That was not instinct, I can tell you that. Stupid brain.

Stayed in a career I hated for almost twenty years. That was definitely not instinct. All other animals know to run and not look back when their instincts tell them to flee.

And you know what? I`m pretty sure the universe has never yelled at anyone:

HEY!  HEYYYY!!!! You are enjoying your life TOOOO much. Go get a job that takes over your life, makes you feel important, stresses you out, and makes you stay in it because you are afraid to go back to not being important. YOU NEED TO BE IMPORTANT!

No. The universe is not interested in any of that. What it does seem to be interested in, is:

1. self-awareness

2. playtime

3. naptime

4. meeting and learning from new people

5. pushing past your comfort zone.

6. doing the things you dreamed of as a child.

 

Problem with that is, I always wanted to be a cowgirl. Who knows, maybe it will be fun.

Elephant Enlightenment, Dysfunctional Family Style

Elephant Enlightenment – Dysfunctional Family Style

There are certain events from my childhood that have echoed through my life with disproportionate significance. The Dumbo the Flying Elephant Debacle is one of them.  On a family visit to Disneyland when I was five years old, I had no greater wish than to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant.  But for reasons beyond my ability to comprehend, we had to wait all day before I could finally soar above Fantasyland aboard a fibreglass elephant with freakishly large ears.  To this day, I remember the sense of frustration and unfairness that overshadowed a day that should have been a highlight of my young life.  I was the precocious younger sister in a family of two children. My older brother was the perfect, quiet, sometimes sickly well-behaved child. In stark contrast I was the inquisitive, persistent, and rambunctious little girl with energy to burn.

That day at Disneyland, all the signs were there that I was not, as I have always been told, the Golden Child in my family. There was ample evidence of this that day, and over the years. But childhood in a dysfunctional family is often fraught with contradictions.  The public face of the family is there to disguise the dysfunction within, whether it be alcoholism, workaholism, or physical abuse. 

 

One of the hallmarks of the dysfunctional family is denial.  As part of the smokescreen created to hide the dysfunction within, children are often assigned specific roles in the family. For example, a child may become a scapegoat to divert attention from the behavior of an addicted parent.  Another typical role is for a talented child to be set up as an overachiever or “golden child” frequently paraded to the world as a shining example of what must obviously be a healthy, nurturing, family.  As a result, children in this type of environment often grow up to doubt their perceptions, having been told throughout their developmental years that what they were seeing was actually something quite different.

 

In my case, I believed I was the Golden Child because I was brilliant, accomplished, charming, and athletic.  I was told that my brother and I were treated the same.  I believed that the world revolved around me, because I was the golden child and therefore the world was my oyster. Except that it wasn’t.   The world revolved around my alcoholic parent first, and my brother, the first-born male, second. I actually came last. This was evident that day at Disneyland, although I didn’t realize it for years, because I was always told that the world revolved around me, and that I should be eternally grateful for my vaunted position.

Which brings us back to Dumbo the flying elephant.

So there we were at Disneyland. Early in the day I became transfixed by the Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride. There it sat, in all its glory, in the middle of Fantasyland, among other, far less trance-inducing attractions such as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I used all of my charm and persuasive skills to convince my parents to let me ride Dumbo, or one of his eight to twelve variously coloured incarnations.  I’m sure it went something like:

MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY: Can we go on Dumbo?  Can we go on Dumbo?  Can we go on Dumbo?  Can we go on Dumbo?  Can we go on Dumbo?

Disneyland’s current promotional description of that very ride lends gravitas to the tragedy of my lengthy wait:

“Soar high in the sky on a fanciful flight above Fantasyland aboard Dumbo the Flying Elephant. . . It’s an exhilarating thrill that is sure to lift your spirit and remind you that, if you believe in yourself, anything is possible!”

(taken from: ) https://disneyland.disney.go.com/attractions/disneyland/dumbo-the-flying-elephant/


But for some reason I had to wait.  So, as the non-Golden Child, I toddled along that day to every single other attraction that anyone else in my family had the remotest interest in seeing.  And finally, after five or six bouts of tears, my mom and I finally rode Dumbo the flying elephant.  It was the purple one. It was the highlight of my young life.  My dad and brother didn’t bother to ride it. They thought it was too lame.  This was another lesson that I learned early in life: other people have the right to make you feel like what you want either doesn’t matter, or at the very least is stupid, girly, and not worthy of their time. 

I would like to be able to say that I saw all of this for what it was, and valiantly rose above the limitations of my dysfunctional family.  But alas, I did not.  I spent many years over-achieving and considering anything less than perfection to be a failure, and believing that all of my accolades made me the Golden Child worthy of praise and unconditional love. But after decades of watching my brother get preferential treatment on everything from deciding what restaurant to go to, to financial support, my brainwashed mind finally saw that (gasp) the world is not a meritocracy. And my family certainly wasn’t either.

I would also like to be able to say that I took this realization with great grace and aplomb, and carried on with head held high and self-esteem intact.  But that isn’t how these things tend to work.  Instead, I spent a number of years in crisis, taking responsibility for everyone else’s shortcomings, trying to fix everything around me, and wondering why I felt so empty even though I was clearly so very capable and successful. But self-esteem is often one of the first casualties of the dysfunctional family.  To the girl who is taught that she only has value if she is beautiful and brilliant and accomplished (even though she is still after all, just a girl), every failure is a near-fatal blow to the self-esteem.

But I did eventually ride the purple Dumbo with my mom, who has always done her utmost to be there for me, even though she knew that she could only do so much within the confines of her own invisible shackles. And I finally figured things out for myself, because that is what I do. Because, despite my dysfunctional upbringing, or maybe because of it, I am extremely independent, and capable, and resilient as all get out.  

Maybe I will even get a tattoo someday:  a purple flying elephant to remind me that, when the wait is over and I finally board that whimsical purple pachyderm, in the immortal words of the Disney promotional team:

“It’s an exhilarating thrill that is sure to lift your spirit and remind you that, if you believe in yourself, anything is possible!”

The Soundtrack to New Beginnings

Music serves as an important emotional backdrop for beginnings and endings, and everything in between. And with music, as with life, we sometimes don’t understand what we are hearing until much, much later.  Now, I’m one of those people who often doesn’t listen to lyrics; although if they are great lyrics, I generally do. You know, anything by The Tragically Hip, Led Zeppelin, some of the semi-lucid ravings of Kurt Cobain.  Let’s face it though, most of the lyrics out there aren’t great lyrics.  And much like many of the mundane lyrics we hear day in and day out, the days pass, often with little of importance being said by or to us; sometimes things of importance are said but are not heard. And that is the way of things I suppose.

I think many of us have a soundtrack to our lives. For some it is quite conscious; mixed tapes in the eighties, CD’s burned off Napster in the late 90’s, and now playlists.  For others it emerges by accident, or at least by serendipity.  You know what I’m talking about: you hop in the car to take off for a road trip just to exorcise a bad week or month or year from your memory, and the radio is playing Martina McBride’s This One’s For the Girls.  Followed by Knee Deep by the Zac Brown Band. Followed by Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing by Chris Isaak (on a different station, obviously). I don`t know if the universe was trying to tell me or if I was determined to tell the universe I was embarking on one hell of a road trip, but that sendoff certainly didn`t hurt.

For people like me who are always seeing meaning and pattern and connection in the events of their lives, these moments are pivotal, defining even.  I know that there are dozens of “logical” explanations for how signs or symbols appear or happen or become noticeable only at certain times in our lives.  But I don`t think why it happens is nearly as important as the fact that it happened, and how it makes us feel. Does it matter that the song Red Red Wine makes me think of dancing in a bar in Banff when I was nineteen, rather than anything that actually has to do with that song, or its lyrics? Of course not.  What matters is that it makes me feel like a carefree college student that just wants to dance, instead of whatever haggard, beleaguered, or defeated version of myself I am wrestling with on any given day.

For six months now, my IPhone has been defaulting to play the songs on it in alphabetical order, and the song that queues up, repeatedly, is Accusations by the Skydiggers. Luckily, I didn’t get sick of it the first 400 times I listened to it on a cassette tape many years ago, which usually is a guarantee that I never will. And my kids don’t mind it either, which is saying something.

It has started to make me laugh now, when I plug in my IPhone,  or my bluetooth in my car just syncs up and starts playing it before I have a chance to decide on a musical theme for the moment.  Because regardless of what it`s about (I still don`t quite know), I know this:

• it reminds me of a simpler time
• it is upbeat and catchy, easily singable, and it makes my heart sing and my soul dance each time I hear it
• it reminds me that no matter what is going on in my life, I can always make a new decision and start afresh (See my earlier post: Taking the Long Way Around)
• It reminds me that people are going to think what they are going to think,  lie if they want to lie, and do what they need to do so they can sleep at night. And that is the way of things, I suppose.
• it reminds me that no matter what else happens, there is still that little girl inside me with the mischievous glint in her eye and crooked smile. She is a fireball, she is courageous and full of joy, and when she comes out to play, there will be a story or six to tell.  I am Tara Ewashy and I can do whatever the hell I want. Because I`ve done it before and I shall do it again. Just watch me.

 

 

Accusations all around, you didn’t know this is nothing new

Accusations up and down you, now you don’t know what to do

Accusations confound you Graham says we need some proof

Accusations surround you why don’t you try the truth

Everybody wants to shake you up to put you down

Everybody wants to wrap you up and tie you down

 

Conversations well spoken you know this is nothing new

Conversations, promises broken, now I don’t know what to do

Everybody wants to build you up to pull you down

Everybody wants to tie you up and tie you down

Not me, not me, no,  not me

 

Accusations all around you

Accusations all around you

Accusations all around you

Just a Broken Toy – February 2, 2014

For a time it was the favourite toy. No toy could be better. It did everything, and it was shiny and perfect. But he took it with him everywhere. He took it in the bath. He took it out to the sandbox. He took it to bed (sometimes crushing it – oops). He knew there would never be another toy like this one.  But as he became used to it always being there, he stopped being quite so careful about taking care of it. The first time it was scratched, he actually thought he might cry. But the second scratch was hardly noticed. And one day he left it out in the rain (oops).  After that, it couldn’t do everything it was supposed to do. He still loved it, but there was no point taking it everywhere with him if it didn’t flash and spin and make him laugh. So it was forgotten. First for a day. Then for a week. Then one day he tossed it carelessly in the garbage. He couldnt even remember why he liked that old broken toy to begin with.

He had a new toy. It was shiny, it flashed and spun and made him laugh. there would never be another toy like this one.