Where's the message?

We are in our lives. We are creating life where there was not one before. Sometimes this feels artificial, other times natural. I cannot say with any certainty which way I feel more inclined toward. I realized with an immense start that we assumed this country property at precisely the same age my father and mother assumed theirs back in 1972. The irony of this quite took my breath away. We started to build a life here, almost as if the five years in Toronto had been only a preamble. True, the Toronto place had been our first house and our two children had been conceived there and we did very much love that house (We stopped by our Vietnamese neighbour family on the last day, and C and I cried on the matriarch's 70-plus year old shoulder and she scried openly with us - it was *very* difficult to leave their embrace). But we definitely felt we were starting something here, not continuing from a life in the city.

I remember thinking that it felt odd to be teaching certain things to a child - blow your nose to get the snot *out* for example. Why would you need to teach this, and should it not be logical and inherent somehow? It also felt odd to teach a child that there is a causal relationship between eating food and having energy. I realzed that I had not, as a parent, expected to do so much teaching. I don't now know what I expected in place of this, but it seems quite logical to me now to present ideas to children and have them form their lives and ideas by the words from my mouth (and actions, of course). I welcome this teaching thing, and am very careful with my recognition of it. I am stoked by the idea that this is a way that my children can absorb some of me into them; a gift from my soul to theirs. But I am certainly mindful of the great responsibility teaching brings. Abusing this great privilege is something to be careful not to do and to allow a child to draw his/her own conclusions.

And so with this in mind, I realize that we are teaching ourselves what it means to live in life. Moving here has done this. We have our mortgage, we have tasks to do around the property to keep it in shape, we have routines to keep with the children, we have Christmas cards to write, we have basement seepage to be aware of and act on, we have bills to pay, we have joy to bring to children, we have down-time to relieve ourselves with... an endless series of events and necessities waiting before us like a wedding's receiving line. We move forward each day, shaking hands with the events and necessities and moving on. This is how I perceived my parent's lives as a child (why on earth were they interested in the news on TV?), and I am gratified and sobered by the reflection that I am they and they are us.

The message is within me and it is to create my own.

Ugh

This is me today: