The littlest things...

I haven't written on these pages in a long while.  So much has happened.  The long and the short of it is that I decided not to write about it - I decided to live it and remember it. 

There's a part that lives in the back of my head that has always questioned my need for validation.  Always.  Even when I was little.  I used to get accolades for just being me, and I got used to it I guess.  And the ol' scrapping young parents and abandoning daddy routine kind of lends itself to people pleasing and approval seeking.

Plus I was raised in a musical family and demonstrated a bit of talent at an early age.  

This all sort of culminated in this super people pleasing, approval seeking, hyper sensitive, hyper vigilant little smart musical guy. 

And here I am today.

Deciding that the need to share my growth is not about validation; that it's instead about demonstrating that miracles do happen and they're not barn-burners usually.  They're little beautiful experiences that shape who we are.

Not much has changed though since "a long day ago" as my youngest would say.   I'm still a sucker for attention:  A bit loud, a bit of a show boat, always the performer and the quipper of terrible and sometimes hurtful jibes and jokes; I mean well.  Really, I do. 

But now I'm more painfully aware of my dark tendencies. The ones that try to convince me to leave the A-Game outside the park for a while and bring the bullshit B or C game instead.  It took four trips to rehab, three or four failed relationships, a couple of sons who had to live without their daddy full time, and an incredibly wonderful, patient, loving, wise, intelligent, heartfelt woman who, for God knows why, loves me still. 

And reams of paper, electronic ramblings, some meaningful some bullshit, songs sung around a fire or a kitchen table or even onstage, meetings with indigenous leadership, liars, drunks and the holiest of the holy (sometimes in one day),  trips across the land and back again;  I rubbed shoulders with Ministers, PMs, religious leaders, teachers, doctors, lawyers, drunks, addicts, oilmen, foresters, environmentalists, actors, musicians, Chiefs, the insane, the mundane and incredibly odd, unique and otherwise beautiful. 

I've stayed in Hyatt Regencies, Westin's, Drakes and Hobo Motels from coast to shining coast.  I've slept in tarp homes, on piles of dirty clothes in musty rodent and insect infested basements, under trees, on benches, in cars and in the matrimonial beds of far too many.  

I've flown, sailed, rowed, walked through so many shoes, ran and ran; sometimes I've sat; sometimes I've stood.  And I've driven over a million kilometers, mostly looking over my shoulder at the real and the imagined or to a horizon beautiful, but unreachable and sadistic.

I've been inspired, devastated, broken, elated, bah humbug, terse, unkind, violent, black as the night, and bright as the sun's great uncle.  I've been every colour that the wheel of emotion can muster and I've been some that aren't even perceptible to the human condition, for the most part.

All the while, it's been the little things that have kept me going.

Those moments in the sun, when the light passes through the birch and aspen just right, and the warmth fills you with a joy that only the universe in her majesty can know.

Or the way the first splashes of the sweat lodge slowly make their way to one's shoulders and warm the Vishudda and Anahata.

The first kiss, or sometimes even the 900th, the way it tickles the lips and makes a smile break and the tongue tingle when you least expect it.

Life is the majestic dance of the harmonious bond of electrons, elements and ephemeral.

And oh, I have missed so much of it.  Chasing my tail, breaking my stride, stumbling and bumbling, making up, making out, faking it and covering my tracks and my ass and still, always, maintaining (albeit weakly) the illusion that I was something special. 

Yeesh.  

But today, I am here.

Bringing the A-Game.  One day at a time, and praying for rain.

So, after a wonderfully humble and special

ceremony last night, four kilometers from my son's childhood homes and the site of my two broken attempts at the miracle of father-son relationship (thank God we're moving through it and thank God for the amazing, poignant resilience of children), I passed the night in a place that has been both a salvation and a bane to me; one of the most challenging trigger locations that I absolutely can't avoid because where there is pain, fear and self loathing, there sometimes lives love, unconditional and sublime, a warm bed, and fridge full of food (um, and a nearly 90 year old kokom).

Then today, a visit with my two favourite women in the world, some berry picking in the light rain in the middle of what I used to think was an inhospitable wilderness of Wonder Bread, and then this: 

This was the warmest and most welcoming feeling this universe has ever afforded me, made better because the sisikwan belonged to my late mother, Asiniwaciskwiw...  Lorraine (Deits) Sinclair.  And that little girl there, Mya Grace, is the first girl to make it sing and dance since mom passed.  And little does Mya know that she reminds me so much of my mom with her stubborn streak, competitive nature, daredevil ways and gentle but powerful soul.

And that little boy there, John, carries the name of his late grandfather, John Brown, who worked hard and raised the beautiful family that gave me Theresa Lynn and earned the respect of all the people that he helped with his dedication - people whose very dedication I admire today.

Five minutes on the way home for lunch.  A moment in time, and in the truck.  Hopefully soon in ceremony or in the arbour, but a beautiful moment nonetheless;  and an affirmation that we are not our pasts and that we are all capable of change and deserving of the best things that life can offer.

Ekosi. 

xox
S.