the 5 big regrets

A nurse wrote this article that outlined the most common regrets that she had heard from her dying patients.

For the shortened version, here are the 5 top regrets/wishes:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Do I have regrets? Of course. 

There were times when I've held back, when I haven't taken the plunge. I've waded around in the shallow end, just watching. waiting. wishing. scared.

But there have been other times - when I've dared to do something new, risen to a challenge, or bitten off more than what I thought I could chew, or risked, pushed myself in some way, like diving into the deep end. And it's been rewarding.

jumping into the deep end

As I'm writing this, I can hear a woodpecker drilling away at a tree - persistently working at its task. It makes me think about the times when I could drill deeper down, but don't, for whatever reason. 

Drumming is also something that comes to mind - joining in a drum circle, becoming part of something that's larger than me, adding my own rhythms to the music of life.

And dancing. Dancing instead of sitting on the sidelines or blending into the background like a wallflower. To engage instead of just consume. 

5 of my wishes: To dare. To dive. To drill deep down. To drum. To dance.

what is productivity?

"A new report finds that 20% of Canadian homes do not have internet access. Currently, the report characterizes these homes as - quote - productive."

I heard this last week on CBC's The Current and I laughed out loud. Because in my experience, it's so true. Internet use (like what I'm doing right now) can suck up many, many hours if you let it. Some of it can be productive, but there are times when I have to force myself out of its swirling vortex so that I can actually accomplish something.

Some days, I can be bothered when I look back over the day and wonder if I was at all productive. Wasn't there more I was supposed to be doing with my gifts? More ways of reaching out beyond my walls? Especially when my kids were young, and my days consisted of diapers, nursing, and not much else, I longed for something measurable.

Mowing the lawn is measurable - I can see the improvement. So is cleaning, but that so quickly gets undone, so it's not quite as motivating. Some of the times when I feel happiest are when I've created something - a piece of writing, something sewn, a piece of artwork, or a gift. That feels incredibly productive but also life-giving because something of me went into it (not like cleaning or other chores - they don't quite make it on the creativity spectrum at all for me).

In yesterday's post, the poem by Mary Oliver exalts idleness. That watching, waiting, noticing, and being silent can be forms of prayer.

We've all heard that "idle hands are the devil's playground." Now I'm not so sure. Seems like idle minds (and bodies) are needed to pray and to really be present and attentive to God and to others around us.

I'm inspired by my grandma. Her productivity was in her work and her ability to create things of beauty. She would bake a pie, pick raspberries, weed the garden, hang out laundry, preserve some pickles, eat a hearty breakfast, wash, dry, put away dishes, and maybe even sew a little something - all by 8:30 am. It was humbling to see what she could accomplish, especially during my university years of sleeping in.

an example of my grandma's productivity

I'm inspired by my children. Their productivity is in their play. Sometimes this play means creating something artistic. Sometimes it means working alongside an adult, imitating their tasks. My younger daughter loves to get out her plastic lawn mower when we mow the lawn. She takes her job very seriously, walking back and forth over the grass and making sound effects as she goes. This is productive play for her, and she feels a part of what we're doing. My older daughter devours books and loves to play the piano. These leisure activities are expanding her mind and causing new connections in her brain - which seem like a very productive use of time!

the lawnmowing team

Many times my eyes are bigger than my stomach.  Every involvement and idea looks so appealing, and I love to just squeeze everything I can out of life, even if it leaves me all stressed out. Because it makes me feel productive.

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, . . . is to succumb to violence . . . The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace." - Thomas Merton

This quotation speaks to me, and I strive for a balance between productivity and idleness. I seek to focus - to let things go - so that I don't succumb to this violence of overactivity and overcommitment.

Wishing you a wonderfully productive and peacefully idle weekend!

one wild and precious life

In one of the comments to this post, a friend sent a link to this poem. And I just can't get some of the lines out of my head - the ones that I've highlighted below. I think it's just beautiful. 

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver

These words ring in my ears: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I sometimes think that being as productive as possible is the goal, but I love how this poem exalts idleness as potential prayer. Paying attention, slowing down enough to really watch, praying, and listening - these are some of the things I want to do with my one wild and precious life.

messy hospitality

Taking risks in extending hospitality is not something I often do. I play it safe: only invite close friends or family, and only when the house has been sufficiently tidied. So it doesn't usually amount to all that much hosting. I make excuses for not being more hospitable: our place is too small, we're too busy this week, cooking for a crowd stresses me out, we might act too hyper and misbehave (I can be quite unruly at times), and our house is too messy.

Which makes me think about the messiness of hospitality. Because things will never be perfect in our house - we live here, after all, 4 of us messies. And there will never be a perfect food or time or even house. We'd get a bigger house and still I'd make excuses. I need to just do it.

It can be messy to invite people in - you don't know what to expect. Questions swirl in my mind: will they like this food? Will the food turn out? Will there be enough? What will we talk about? Will they have a good time?

But I want to be open to this. To take risks in extending hospitality amidst the messiness of life. To welcome a stranger and to see what gifts could come from our encounter. To step out of what's comfortable. To reshape my priorities. To open my heart and home to someone else. To potentially host an angel.

"Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." Hebrews 13:1-2

Hospitality can be hard work, but I receive so many gifts in return. It can be deeply satisfying, filled with memories that stay with me long after the meal is tidied up.

"Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share. A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually." Jean Vanier

I have been humbled and abundantly blessed by the hospitality of those who have much less than me. Some of my most memorable experiences as a guest were in tiny, poor, or messy places. Or when the people were more important than the food that was served. Where relationships were treasured - regardless of whether the food or home could appear in Martha Stewart's magazine. 


The following is a journal entry that I wrote after visiting a mountain village on the island of Java in Indonesia years ago.

Today I had a lot to learn from the hospitality of the people in Indonesia. We visited a village high in the mountains, climbing worn steps until we saw the tops of the small buildings. We heard the loudspeaker from the mosque announce, “Come and meet our guests!”

Everyone in the village came to greet us - women, men, babies, children, youth. Their routine days stopped in order to accommodate our presence.

They welcomed us into a home. The people were very attentive and made us feel like honoured guests. Our hosts loaded the tables until there was no more room. Plates and bowls filled to the brim. Glasses of sweet palm juice. Piles of small bananas and rambutans and leechee fruits, juicy and sweet like candy as they rolled around in my mouth. Mounds of crispy chips, jiggly emerald puddings, and dried fruit dripping with sugary golden syrup. 

We asked them questions about their village, and they asked us questions about our countries. They told us that their lives were good - that everyone in the village had enough to eat and a house to live in. Then one man asked us, “How did your countries get so rich?” and then “What can we do to get rich like you?”

Those questions have stayed with me. I wanted to tell him that our countries need to learn to be more like his village - to be happy with “enough”, and to not always yearn for bigger and better. But who was I to tell him that? I was a rich person in his eyes. How can a rich person tell someone who is poor not to wish for wealth?

home is where the hearth is

My husband moved a lot growing up. For him, home is where the heart is. He's very flexible that way, and even feels a bit stir-crazy if we are too settled. Home is wherever his family is.

I lived in exactly two homes growing up: one farm until age 2, and then the farmhouse where my parents still live. For me, home is where the hearth is. It's the people too, but it's bedsheets fresh from the sun-kissed line and evening red-winged blackbird songs and antique glass doorknobs that sparkle like diamonds and perfectly planted rows of corn and acres that I could get lost in.

Now that I'm all grown up (!) and have kids of my own, I often think about these questions: what is home? What makes a house feel like home? How do you create that sense of home regardless of where you are or how far you've traveled from your childhood home? Because in my mind, home isn't the house we're in right now in suburbia. It works, and it's fine, but it doesn't really feel like home. To me, this is home:

Home is people, a place, a sensory experience, a feeling of welcome and belonging and all-is-right-with-the-world.

I want my kids to know a piece of land and love it like it's their own. And to know that they are deeply connected to these hills, these plants, this wild place.

To shimmy and slide down gravel pit hills, scoop tiny tadpoles from swamps, learn the perfect shade of a ripe raspberry, eat the best tastes of summer right from the earth, watch a blue heron fly overhead, and come home with hands and feet dirty from the warm, fertile earth.

To know the scratchings of deer on bark, the many shades of fungi growing on old trees, raccoon tracks in the mud, smooth brown chestnuts inside prickly shells, to swing so high they can touch the tops of the corn stalks. This is exactly what I want. This is home to me.

falling off the wagon

Already, you ask?

Yes.

I was doing so well for one day - I didn't buy anything or bring anything into the house for one whole day as part of my new challenge.

The next day I went grocery shopping and just brought home food - which is allowable. But then, in a moment of weakness, I logged on to kijiji and searched through the local bargains galore. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was driving home with a trunk full of an itsy-bitsy little bit of backyard clutter: a pool.

falling off the wagon

I felt extra sneaky because when I had broached the subject of The Pool with my husband a week earlier, he frowned and said, "It will kill the grass." I guess I didn't take that as an outright "no" because when he was safely in Winnipeg (24 hour drive away), I took matters into my own hands.

I thought about my reasons for buying the pool, and here's what came to mind:

• It was a good deal. Don't we all love a good bargain?
• It's a childhood fantasy of mine to have a pool on my property. And isn't that what adulthood is all about? Fulfilling childhood fantasies? 
• I could imagine a lovely summer family lifestyle avec piscine. I had visions of barbeques poolside, with the kids merrily splashing while the adults sipped wine coolers. All of a sudden, here was a fun reason to have friends over in the heat of the summer months. Here was a new lifestyle.

I know that this is how companies like Starbucks market their products. They say, "This is what your lifestyle will look like/feel like when you sip one of our lattes." And so I buy the lifestyle, and not just the product. I buy the vision of myself (what I feel like, and possibly how others see me) using that product. Sure, I like the taste too, but it's the coolness factor that tempts me and says "you really deserve this. Think about how relaxed you'll feel when you drink this expensive chai latte." I'm sold. Why does a cup of tea that can be made for 25 cents get sold for $5.00? Because I'm not just buying a mug of whipped spicy tea. I'm buying an experience; I'm engaging a brand. 

So many things have come into our house because of my imaginary lifestyles. Like home-school mom. I will most likely never be a home-school mom, but I have all the resources I'll ever need, saved from my teaching career. And then there's tap-dancing me. Why do I have tap-dance shoes when I took one class in university, and haven't since? Do I picture myself as a closet tap-dancer? Or mosaic-maker, with a whole huge bin of broken pottery waiting for that day when I'll feel like making a beautiful mosaic. Even being a teacher is an imaginary lifestyle for me right now. I haven't done this in 5 years. And then there's knitting-sewing-arts-and-crafter. I have enough supplies on hand to lead kid craft workshops every day for the next 2 months. Will I do this? Absolutely not. So why do I hold onto these things?

I keep other things because of fear and "what if's" -- what if I'll need this someday? What if my kid doesn't learn her multiplication tables because I got rid of that math game? What if I want to knit something out of the blue, just after I've gotten rid of my knitting needles that I never use? Most of these what if's are fairly stupid and easily solveable - if I want to knit, I can buy some new knitting needles. Easy. And there are other ways to learn multiplication tables. 

Some of my most satisfying, simpler times of living with enough were during camping, traveling, and living overseas experiences - making do with what I had, and feeling free - like it was more than enough.

So why can't I live like this at home, in my regular life? 

putting the house on a diet

Sometimes I read blogs of moms that have 4-6 children, who homeschool, farm, preserve, knit, practice yoga and daily meditation, sew, workout, and blog, among other lovely things. And I wind up feeling just a tad inadequate.

I think we like to show our shiniest sides - and that's ok. I have many not-so-shiny sides that I like to keep hidden. But, in the spirit of honesty, and just so that you know that I'm more than just a "make-preserves-out-of-roadside-weeds-and-backyard-bubble-tea-and-blog/brag-about-it" kind of girl, I'm about to show you the worst.

Are you ready for it?

kitchen counter (see the Easter baskets still there?)
embarrassing.

bedroom

somewhere there is a desk

I'm embarrassing myself just looking at these. Here's the thing: sometimes I yell, sometimes I fight with my family members, sometimes I'm grumpy in the mornings, and boy am I ever messy. So messy. And these are not just isolated piles, contained in one room of the house. They're EVERYWHERE.

I try! I really do. For a couple of days, I can be Miss Neat and Tidy. And you might be saying, "I've been to your house. It's not so bad."

I will tell you a secret. Unless you have stopped by unexpectedly, there are kind fairies who shove most of the main floor clutter into a storage closet like this:

stuff to be dealt with a couple of years from now

In an effort to simplify, and to de-clutter my mind as well as this house, I've decided that the house must go on a diet. It is getting too stuffed. It's bursting at the seams. Its metabolism is alarmingly low. Lots of stuff comes in, and few things go out. So we've got to find some ways to burn off excess fat from our house.

I thought that for the month of June - for 28 more days - I will give myself a "seriously-reduce-the-house's-input" challenge.

This is my "COME ON IN" list so far: library books, food, 2 new articles of summer clothing (this is a DIET, not a total fast)

And here's my "GET OUT" list so far: excess paper, books I'll never read, clothes I'll never wear, and maybe some other stuff too

And you? Does your house need to go on a diet too? Feel free to join in the fun!

holding seeds like prayer beads

As we were planting small rows in our backyard, I thought about the way of seeds.

The way a small wonder is contained inside, ready to explode into plant and fruit and seed.

The way the earth envelopes a seed and encourages it to thrive.

The way the wind blows and seeds scatter - planting themselves. Effortlessly.

The way my body has grown a seed into a beautiful baby. Seeds became prayers became girls.

And the way of these children - holding seeds like prayer beads. Planting. Daring hope to live and breathe, push out of the ground, grow and produce.

The farm-girl part of me knows that these are my prayer beads - each one planted with a prayer for rain and sun and growth and sustenance. The rhythm of planting: Plant a seed. Pray. Plant a seed. Pray. Cover with soil. Water. Hope.

I learned something interesting about beads: that the word "bead" comes from the Anglo-Saxon words bidden (to pray) and bede (prayer). Strings of beads are used in many religions - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism - to centre the mind and to pray.

So these seed beads help me to be centred and think of the bigger picture. Besides these little spiritual connections, it's just fun to dig in the dirt and get hands dirty. Don't you agree? Is planting a spiritual activity for you?

Some of my favourite poetry and stories have to do with planting seeds. Like this one:

Sowing Clover by Wendell Berry (in Selected Poems of Wendell Berry)

February 2, 1968
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

Or this quotation, from Henry David Thoreau's Faith in a Seed:

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

And this children's book: Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney, who scatters lupin flower seeds all around her town and on hillsides. Her grandfather had told her,

"You must do something to make the world more beautiful."

This is something I learned from my grandparents: to plant, to tend, and to rejoice in the harvest. And to live my faith in simple ways like planting seeds and praying. Now if only I had a greener thumb.