Author Archives: creegirlinalonelyworld

The next 6 months are going to set you up for the rest of your life. I know that sounds a bit urgently dramatic, but the time is now.  You have been learning, absorbing, observing, slightly contributing, waiting for something, but still mostly fearful. You’ve been tiptoeing around, half stepping forward then two stepping back, afraid of what you can do. Well, now it’s time for you to be fearfully brave.

In my modest words of wisdom, this is only the first step but probably the most important- You need to find a way to keep your motivation.  For years you told yourself “I’ll do it later” and never did. Don’t get me wrong though, I understand more than anyone your ups and downs, but now is the time to do it. That’s all. Take it from me and Nike Inc. and just do it.

Moving on to the next bit of advice – You need to get organized and I mean now. This one won’t be easy but you need to do it. If you want to find more meaning in your writing, your projects and your contributions to the world, you need to organize mentally and plysically and to make that effort.

Last, in this very brief but necessary letter – You need to believe in yourself. Yes, that may sound a little bit Disney but it is actually crucial. To do this you do need to keep working on yourself, keep focused and don’t give up.

There. That is my advice to you. And don’t worry, this is just a start, the beginning of the writing life that you have always wanted.  Buuuut..time to end this multiple personality-esque letter and let you get to work.

Love,

You

P.S. Laugh as much as you can and love even more. xo

{This blog post is a letter from my ’12 Days of Writing’ journal entry that I thought I would share}

Original Draft entry

 

(Edited April 13, 2020)

Yes. I’m quite sure someone laughed when they were told the world was round. As I’m sure someone rolled their eyes when they were told that one day we would be able to fly amongst the clouds. And I am most definitely sure that many did not believe man would land on the moon, nor that women would eventually vote, and that our technology would soar. The biggest farce was that Donald Trump was running for President. All of these things were once written on the ‘It’ll Never Happen List’, but only the last one will really hit North America where it hurts most.

But I digress, moving on.

A lot of what I have been reading lately has got me thinking, and you know that is never good, but in light of to believe or not to believe, all of this reading has let me to ask, Why is it so hard for our northern communities, First Nation and non, to invest in a renewable/recycle based economy? 

And forgive me for adding this but:  for the love of God, please stop planning the majority of our future around mining, logging and oil/gas!!!  

There, I said it.

Continuing on.

Some of these thoughts then lead me to wonder whether or not is it a common belief that this is the only way to prosperity? There is so much money and funding filtered to the non-renewable resource pile, with little attention given to the more sustainable bucket, that like in the Donald Trump predicament, this will eventually hit us where it really hurts. 

Well I suppose it’s not so hard to believe that one of the reasons is that we have been apathetic about educating ourselves on various paths that encompass free thinking, innovation and ecological harm reducing strategies.  This may be why we have yet to see a large interest in investing in something like building design, for example.  

“People from around the world use our regenerative design framework to create spaces that, like a flower, give more than they take.” The International Living Future Institute

‘To give more than they take’, is such a simple phrase but one with great importance.

The balance between sustainable and unsustainable is still very far off. Corporate greed focused on non-renewable extraction does a good job of targeting large, perceptively poor populations who are in need of an economic boost and employment opportunities to give their support to go ahead to start digging, cutting, etc. They are also campaign masters and political pocket fillers, which tip the scale towards a short lived ‘thriving’ economy. To be fair though, this happens globally, and not only here in Canada. The scary part is, for those who attempt to look beyond that scope of dependence are often ridiculed or silenced, and even killed.

I rather like Leonardo DiCaprio’s statement in the documentary film Before The Flood, when he references back to a much younger Leo who believed that something as simple as changing to LED lightbulbs would help. Although I don’t think he was necessarily wrong in that we do need to continue to contribute individually as much as we can but we have to recognize that things are moving at an accelerated pace and it’s time to ‘up the ante’.

So what do we do? Individually, collectively?

Once we see where consumption has governed our daily and professional lives, we can start to make the necessary changes bit by bit and push forward the movement of a healthy future. In the article Quiet Moves Toward a Renewable Resource Based Economy from the Huff Post, about moving towards a more organizational/business sustainable future, the ending provides with some hope on the horizon:

The change we need will be given operational meaning by the organizations we work for. Just as our organizations learned to incorporate occupational safety, financial reporting, performance measurement, customer relations, employment law, social media marketing and many other elements into their standard operating procedures, so too will they need to incorporate a concern for the physical dimensions of sustainability. They will pay more attention to their use of energy, water and other materials. They will think about recycling and designed reuse of finite materials, and staff will devote significant effort to reduce the environmental impact of organizational outputs. These changes will be slow and steady and like the tortoise, may not attract much attention until the hare is finally passed.

These are not fast acting changes, nor are they the only changes our region (and the world!) need to make, but I have not given up or have stopped believing it can and will be done. In fact I give it more thought now than I ever did; how will it happen? When will it happen? Is it already happening? How will it look when it happens? How can I make it happen? Those questions will work themselves out if we find a way to move beyond the comfort zone that we have built our whole lives upon.

And why is it also important that we challenge the tired (but popular) belief that ‘it will never work’.

Because whether we believe it or not… they told us we would never vote, we would never fly, and we would never make it to the moon. Let’s prove whoever ‘they’ are wrong, yet again.

.  

Scary, isn’t she? 

Hmm, maybe only to the Status Quo Army Cadet Corp.

As I’m doing my laundry this evening, I happen to see my daughter’s bath toys hanging in the net holder in the tub. I catch myself pausing, staring at them for about 20 seconds then I continue on with my chore.

Interesting?  I suppose not.  Random?  I suppose yes.  A good reason to write?  For sure.

Seeing her bath toys hanging there provokes a deep emotional response and I almost cry. I miss her. My lovely, interesting, funny, comforting 7 year old. But before you jump to the conclusion that she has passed on from this world to the next, she hasn’t. She lives with her father.

That bit of information, I assume, makes you wonder why? Is it because she’s not a good mom? Does she have problems why she can’t look after her own kid? No good. Poor kid. BAD MOTHER. Those are some of the things that I picture people wondering or saying. Why? Because I have confronted it before.

Here’s a little more to the story. I left my marriage and moved away from my community and my 2 youngest still live with their father there, the oldest lives with me.

Has the sympathy or empathy for me diminished yet? Probably. Most of the time I’ve accepted other people’s opinion of me and tried to toughen up and not let it bother me. I’ve done my time in “explanation mode” and learned to stop trying to defend myself, because after all these years later, as long as we make it work behind the curtain, then it’s really no one else’s business.

But just because we can make it work, doesn’t mean that it’s easy.  Not at all.  Most of the time, it takes a lot of energy to get away from the feeling of giving up and taking the plunge in the self-pity abyss of thinking you are a bad, terrible, horrible parent. I do have to say though, that this happens much less frequently as the years pass, but it is one of the toughest things I have experienced, and I have allowed myself to feel it when I need to.

I’ve also reconciled and put to rest the feeling that because I made decisions about my life, my marriage and my family, I deserve to feel the pain of missing my children. Only bitter and negative people would think that. But, they wouldn’t think that if they were in that situation themselves.  So no, I don’t buy into that. I love my children and I am totally allowed to miss them. I will find a bit of clothing, or toy or some other kind of keepsake lying around the house from their time here and I pause. I don’t always cry but I do always get the feels.

It may seem as though I am in “explaination mode” with this post, but I assure you, I am not.  Realistically blended or divorced families are becoming more abundant and I am beginning to realize that maybe I am not the only one who feels this way. Maybe I am not the only one who suffers through the episodes of guilt (in addition to the regular bouts of parenting guilt), the loneliness and pain of missing them.

I can’t speak for my kids but I know it’s not always easy for them either. I keep my comfort in the one thing we have all silently agreed on, and that is that we are going to put love first. We may butt heads and there might be a lot of raw feelings, tears and hurt, but we will always love one another, and we will always put that love ahead of anything else.

 

 

When it comes to social media, I truly like seeing the family/friend updates, pictures, memories in the making, creative posts, funny jokes, personal heartfelt stories shared…but…

.. the amount of global tragedy intertwined is really disparaging. It leaves me wondering, a bit too often,  “What the hell is wrong with this world?” 

We all do our part to contribute to sharing our own perspectives, thoughts, and solutions. Some are brilliant and uplifting, to see people who are not bound by a narrow scope. The possibility people, the solution seekers. So I have to wonder again, Is that the hope? The people and the inspiring actions we hang onto when the overwhelming and overbearing plague, the lack of human conscience, is attacking the spirit of Mother Earth? Mother culture? Yes. It is one ray of hope.

Our eyes so subtly give us an example of the balance we seek. Open too long and we suffer. Closed too long and we slumber. We blink to balance. And if our visual sense can no longer function, we rely on the other senses, the unity within our body, to create that balance. We do not simply give up and die. 

If we look at our eyes as metaphor for the relationship we have with our own bodies to that of the world, and see the world through our own bodies, a clear picture of our contribution or lack thereof is quite apparent.  What are we thinking, saying, doing, or not thinking, not saying or not doing that contributes to the health of Mother Earth?  Not to say that health issues cannot strike no matter what. Like natural disasters, lightening strikes…accidents….things do happen outside of our control. The biggest lesson in that is not to allow ourselves to become bitter, but to control our responses, and our own actions.

We can end the unnecessary tragedy. We can restore the balance. It’s not about government laws, or pieces of paper. And it’s not going going to be easy either. 

Common goals have to be more than just making money, having “more”, or being “happy”. We must weave together the basic elemental fabric of what we need to exist. The purpose, values and way of life that will allow all people, in all walks of life, to thrive as one with Mother Earth. 

#HopeForHumanity #OneLove