made for community

I often feel very alone. I am not completely isolated, and much less so than I was in Korea and yet the feeling is very real for me here at home many days. Is it because you don't expect it at home that it feels so much greater?

I just attended a conference on mental disorders and one lecture in specifically was really meaningful to me. It was given by Dr. Bruce Perry a well-known clinician and researcher in children's mental health and the neurosciences. (You may know him from his book, "The Boy who was Raised as a Dog.") His lecture brought me to tears. I have never had a biological explanation for my need of community.

Dr. Perry works with children and adults with various mental health issues. His main message was that the brain was plastic and fully able to change by means of sustained patterns (this is most significant as most of the mental health issues addressed were ones that are often deemed irreparable). Any affective therapy has to be relational and continuous. He showed us brain images of people before and after 'therapy' which he described as sensory repetitive actions that may include music, rhythm and movement (reflections of the heartbeat in the womb) and repetitive actions of emotional care and closeness, touch, respect, love, etc. The underdeveloped or damaged brains actually grew to fully functioning 'normal' brains as a result of this kind of therapy. This of course requires people to be regularly committed to people's lives. And as Dr. Perry described in ways that we might find so simple such as simply sitting with people, listening to them, respecting them, being honest and genuine, etc. These experiences and interactions actually grow humans brains! They heal them from former abuse or illness.

It was fascinating to hear that these 'slight' works of human closeness and connectivity are the answer to so many of our mental health issues. Sadly, the relational commitment that is needed for this type of 'therapy' is hardly valued in our society and is often unavailable and unfunded. Dr. Perry lamented how money is used to throw medicine upon patients when it may only aid symptoms at a small scale. He repeatedly asserted that other people and communities heal these problems, not doctors or medicine, etc. (this coming from a Doctor!) I felt as though I was in a sociology lecture by a biologist who was claiming that we live in a relationally impoverished society and that we need to re-engage. Our mental health issues are a social issue and relationally enriched environments actually promote and sooth the brain's growth and change.

He also talked of mental health issues growing in the elderly or those that live in environments where positive human contact is limited or absent. I immediately thought of myself in Korea for the first three months or so. I went to get a manicure (which I never do) and as soon as the woman touched my hands I actually had to try to hide the tears rolling down my cheek. At that moment I realized I hadn't been touched in months and how much that affected my being (in ways I don't even know). I ended up getting more manicures in Korea than I have in my lifetime.

The point, I know, is very clear and most of us attest to. We need other human beings. We need community, love and support. We know we need it when we are alone and sad and wish someone was there to sit with us. We know that when we receive encouragement and hugs our spirits and emotional states are lifted. And now for me I was given another point of view by Dr. Perry on how much people actually affect our physical and mental states. It is as though what I have been longing for was further confirmed. I am on the verge of a mental breakdown! Just joking... BUT, I feel that when I am alone, something is wrong. And that is a right feeling. It is wrong in that we are not meant for it. We were made for community.

meine schwester laura (the writer) on a portrait of our lives

The ladybugs lying creviced between the tangled green carrot leaves, left an impression forever imprinted in my mind; as home. Home; the smell of fresh bread being pulled from the oven. Home; the sound of a guitar being strummed from downstairs. Mom had a knack for making things beautiful. She could pull pine cones from the front yard and frost them with golden spray paint. She would have them sitting in a green basket by the fire, looking as though they had been taken from a Martha Stuart magazine.

She was the cool hand that rested on my forehead at night, or the comforting smell that hung over me during our nap times when Stephanie was away at school and Paul was lying in his crib.

Mom was born in a small town called Taber, in Alberta. She grew up in a time, when her Grandpa owned the only Burger joint in town and she could go over with her friends for free ice cream. She ran among the hollyhocks and caught bumble bees in glass jars. On hot summer nights her and her friends would take turns on the swings outside, then scream as the bats would come out, flying round their heads. Independent and free-spirited mom took a road trip with her best friend Penny out to California when they were 16. She was married when she was 22, and had Stephanie at 24. She first discovered that she had cancer in 1989. She was 29 years old and had three children.

At that point I still clung to the ideal. The mother who was ready with a steaming cup of hot chocolate after I had come home from a winter walk with Papa. The one who’d pull out her guitar and sing late at night when I was lying in bed; the one who’d take out her paints and sit by the window, sketching patiently the robin’s nest in the tree, then carefully filling the sketching with colors from her pallet. She sketched me once when I was 4. I fidgeted and tapped my foot as she followed the long bangs that cut across over my eyes, the dinosaur shirt I’d always wear; the round cheeks.

Her mother, my Grandma had a lighthouse station on Vancouver Island when I was growing up. It was here I began to love the ocean. The phosphorescent lights dancing in schisms upon the tripping waves. The empty echo of the foghorn as it sounded among the crevices of hollow caves, etched with old sketches of the people who had lived within them years ago.

Grandma had my mom when she was 16 years old. She married her high school sweetheart, my Grandpa, but he left her to be a rock star in California, at least that was the plan. He wasn’t ready to grow up, but my Grandma didn’t have a choice. Still, the love that was present with the voices that sang around the piano was real, and each time we left a visit with my Grandma, my mom and her would be in tears.

Grandma: the scent of cigarette smoke, which somehow seemed comforting to me as I curled up and laid my head on her shoulder. The hands that would play Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on our piano until I begged my mom to teach me the music. Grandma, laughing behind her video camera as she recorded us jumping up and down, pulling on moms arm, begging to be understood.

We’d go out onto the ocean in a boat, watch the waves lap up against the side; Stephanie would catch a starfish, Paul would catch a trout. We could watch the Orca whales raise their black, shiny bodies into the sunlight, then back down again into the dark depths of the mysterious waters, which I imagined would go down for miles and miles into complete darkness.

Oma came with us to the Lighthouse once, Oma, my dad’s mom. Oma: thick German accent, amber necklaces, would cuddle with me and tickle my arm, would jump up to the sound of music to dance, would laugh at our antics, would watch as we’d scrub the tiles in the bathroom, “not until they are perfectly clean!” and then she’d take us out for ice cream.

Oma was born in Berlin, Germany. She witnessed the atrocities of Hitler in World War 2. She shuddered in horror in the bunkers as Berlin was bombed out. She was not immune to the weakness and strength of the human spirit, she loved God despite her hard life. She was already married, with five children when she immigrated to Calgary, Alberta. Difficulties at home did not dispel a deep and transforming love for God and in all this ugly pain...beauty.

When I was a child she had a farm. We would take trips and spend vacations on this farm, where moonlight danced in the brook, and tadpoles whisked across our toes. Where the trees whispered their secrets, surrounding an old and forgotten barn. I’d stand at the mouth of this barn and shiver in delightful fear at what might come out of it! I fell in love with wide open spaces, with the dusk and with the cold, distant stars.

In the mornings Oma would sit at the window, sipping her coffee, seeped in warm bathing shoots of morning sun, I could tell she was not alone and so I’d tiptoe down the stairs, open the front door and go outside in my black rubber boots. Met with the sound of a thousand bird choruses, met with the singing of the cattle, met with the One who sat with Oma too.

There he was again, in the hospice as Mom lay there, looking at us through gleaming eyes. “I love you,” she said, “I am proud of you.” There he was again, surrounding us all, remembering us, holding us, asking us to trust. To trust what? To trust the heaviness, for he has held it up, to trust that after darkness comes light, to trust that in the garden, where the ladybugs slept and the bumblebees buzzed...that in the ocean, where the darkness hid large creatures that broke over the surface of the water to our delighted screams...that in the firelight that leaped from the burning logs on the farm, our voices being carried into the woods in the far corner, to trust, that He surrounds all these things.

These three women shaped my life. They are my legacy, they are beautiful beacons of light and hope. Thank you Mom, Oma and Grandma, for loving me, for shedding the light you’ve had, on me.

-Laura Schoenberg

pie

Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?
- Shakespeare

..and cannot all things fall into quarite faciem eius semper? I am inclined to believe this endeavour be perhaps one of the most inclusive of experiences. Today it has brought me to food. I think I have just eaten something that brought me a little closer to heaven. :) Spiced Red Pear and Gruyère Pie. Contact me for the recipe if you like.
Oh, when domestic pursuits reward in such marvellous ways, simplicity turns her head and soothes this wanderer's soul.

The Kite Runner

It is hard to explain some responses. I don't know that I can explain well, but I know that I FEEL, deeply. I know that I must attempt at expressing or attempt in explaining and exploring these feelings - this response to this book I have just finished.

I read this book over about a month's time. In agreement with my sister, my initial reaction was to discard it due to the book's popularity and sudden hipe. It's silly, really. The book was quite captivating, beautiful, heartbreaking - a brilliant story. I have felt whisked away to a new land. I felt as though I was really watching things happen, as though I was there. I wept through most of it which is humorous mostly because I spent most of my time reading it in various coffee shops around Calgary. I just tried not to make a sound and hoped nobody would look at the girl clutching her book with tears pouring down her face.
Why such a response? Of course there is so much to weep about in it.. (the downtrodden, the stepped on, the abused. Beautiful humans treated as less for some bull-shit reason or another. Yes, these are truths to keep us grieved.) But there seems to be a theme that really tears at my heart. Something that brings me to tears wherever it appears, and that I perhaps insufficiently describe as selfless love.

In the book one boy serves the other. He serves happily, adoringly, simply and lovingly. There is something within this boy that drives him to utter servanthood to the point that he is almost entirely destroyed in his sacrifice for the other. To the end of his life, this love continued. It is perhaps similarly a Frodo and Sam effect, that also gets me.

I relate, I believe, on two levels. One, I stand in awe at the one who loves so effortlessly, so genuinely and truly, even when love is not returned. I am in awe of the seeming dichotomy of simplicity and most significant and greatest achievement. The one that is so simple achieves that which is most honourable in all the world. (The underdog, the lowest of low in society was treated so poorly and yet HE was the one more worthy than them all). And I weep that I seem to relate more to the boy who was served.

Secondly, this image, this theme is one that is so dear to my heart. It is like a small dream I have secretly kept hidden, packed away in a box labelled, 'Unattainable Ideals.' Almost forgotten and often abandoned it is written word like this, stories and images that bring me to remembrance that this is something that I deeply value, and maybe it truly exists.

I am sometimes embarrassed by how moved I am by many things (more so in my adult years at least). I am one who has definitely measured her life in terms of emotional experiences. My response to this book in particular sort of surprised me. I know there are deeper issues at play, but what I am thankful for is a reminder of something beautiful, something redeeming, something life-giving in the darkest and most tragic of circumstances - A love that I will press on to fathom, grasp and emulate.

resonance

this song has been one of my favourite songs for about a year now. it has brought me to tears how my spirit resonates with it. listen to it through and perhaps it will do the same for you. and if anybody knows what the piece actually is, let me know.

if i could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it

conventionality is not morality

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is - I repeat it - a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
-Currer Bell aka Charlotte Bronte

a piece of sky

Tell me where
Where is it written
What is it I'm meant to be?
That I can't dare
To have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree,
Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility?

It all began the day I found..
That from my window I could only see
A piece of sky.
I stepped outside and looked around.
I never dreamed it was so wide
Or even half as high.

The time had come
To try my wings
And even thought it seemed at any moment I could fall,
I felt the most,
Amazing things,
The things you can't imagine
if you've never flown at all.

Though it's safer to stay on the ground,
Sometimes where danger lies
There the sweetest of pleasures are found.
No matter where I go,
There'll be memories that tug at my sleeve,
But there will also be
More to question, yet more to believe..

The more I live - the more I learn.
The more I learn - the more I realize
The less I know.
Each step I take -
Each page I turn -
Each mile I travel only means
The more I have to go.

What's wrong with wanting more?
If you can fly - then soar!
With all there is - why settle for
just a piece of sky?

bereavement and legacy

My mother died September 12, 2001 of cancer. My great-grandma a year later at the age of 92. On the 15th my grandmother suffered the same fate as my mother in a hospice in Kelowna. I just got back from visiting her. Just got back from another birthday spent with a dying loved one. Birth and death meet again. It's hard to comprehend.

My grandmother is an amazing person. She is extremely humorous, light hearted, down to earth and most of all very loving. Everyone who has met my grandma has felt loved and the comfort of her generous hospitality. Grandma's life has not been free from suffering. She has endured trials of many kinds, and what amazes me about her is her constant joy and concern for others. She seems to always be stable. I felt the same about my mother. It was as though they had the secret to contentment - something I've been longing for my whole 26 years! :) I didn't know you could find it.

Being with Grandma, talking of life, memories, family, etc. brought me to a deep appreciation not only for domestic life (who knew?! ..who am I kidding, we all know domestic life in it's greatest form is amazing) but for family and simplicity. She has lived a full life, not because she has traveled the world or learned 6 languages or earned a PhD. She had a family and she loved them. She had fun with them. She grew with them. I watch home videos and remember and think, "Yes, it has been quite full!"

My Grandma was very close to my mother. She had her at 16. I think of Gilmore Girls. She told me two weeks ago that my Mom was the best daughter anyone could ever have. She said my Mom seemed to be born with a deep wisdom that she had even as a child. I can recognize this. As I said, my Mom appeared to not only know the secret to contentment, but also hold the key of freedom from the greater societal opinion and confinements therein. My Mom traveled alone with her friend when she was 14. She taught classes in her teens. She studied art at College and painted. She studied guitar and played and sang. She wrote poetry. She danced. She got her nursing degree. She loved the outdoors. She loved life! So far I see many similarities with me. Then my Mom got married, young. She was 22 when she married my father and 23 when she had me! If I followed in her footsteps I should be coming up on my third kid by now.

As I have written in previous posts, I seem to have a distaste for the traditional nuclear family life. But not because itself is undesirable or bad, but because I have seen it abused, and often miserable, confining and restricting. I believe it doesn't have to be this way. I've seen this in my family. Individuals make a family. Therefore, my mother being her independent, wonderful self continued as such. She had sleepovers in her 40's. She continued to paint, play, write, sing, etc. She was free and still independent (interdependent.. as we all are, aren't we?) She was also an amazing Mom (and cultivated the same freedom and love for life and others in us). Mom and artist. Mom and nurse. Mountaineer. Nutritionist. Counsellor. Friend.

I thank God that I was able to witness a woman who was not bound to a role. My grandmother said this, and I can't help but agree with her that my Mom was exceptional. I could really weep everytime I think about what I'm missing with her gone (and now with my wonderful grandmother gone).

So this is the legacy I am a part of. I'm the next woman up, with a life that so far looks quite different from the ones before me. I'm up for the challenge in learning exceptional love, contentment and liberation.


Great-Grandma Bodie
1910-2002


Grandma
1943-2009


Mom
1959-2001

clive on grief

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."