At street level

I was part of a group that performed a Homeless Street Count last night. Over 100 volunteers wandered the city streets identifying how many people were without shelter, sleeping rough. Each group had a specific geographic area to troll, a set of questions to fill-in, a clipboard with census sheet to mark off how many people were 'visibly homeless' and a shopping bag full of 'goodies' to give away to those willing to engage in conversation.

It was an interesting evening.

Of the four women in my group, I was the only one who worked in the sector. My three teammates called me the 'experienced' one. I didn't feel very experienced. I'd never participated in the street count before. I felt we were all on common ground. On street level looking for answers.

The purpose of the count is to identify trends -- the count has been conducted by the city every second year since 1992. Homelessness has risen by 32% every two years since the first count. Is that continuing? Are more people sleeping out? Are more people drifting into homelessness? The count helps project forward what facilities will be needed. And, with any luck, will help identify what's working. What's not.

Moments from last night stand out in my memory like dewdrops in morning sunlight. Crystal clear. A perfect prism encapsulating the moment, magnifying all that is wrong, all that is sad about homelessness.

It took awhile to find our feet on the street. We weren't sure how to approach someone. How to engage in conversation. The first man we enumerated walked past us. "Do you think he's homeless?" someone asked. "Hmmmm. Not sure." We backtracked and called out to him. "Excuse me. We're doing a street count. Would you be willing to answer a few questions?"

The man replied, his demeanour open, the tone of his voice pleasant. "Sure." He swayed slightly on his feet. A tattered black leather jacket hanging off one arm. A backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"

"Me? Hell no." He laughed. "I like to rough it. Expose myself to the stars."

"Do you ever use the shelters?"

"Not any more," he said. "I'm barred." He paused. Looked at us. Looked down at the ground. "I'm not a bad person," he pushed a rock away with the toe of his workboot. "I drink. That doesn't make me a bad person."

We gave him a couple of cigarettes. A bag of cheesies. A bottle of water. "Thanks for taking the time for chatting with us," we said as we parted and walked in opposite directions.

And so it went. We'd spy someone we thought looked homeless and ask them if they'd answer our questions.

And that's the part I had trouble balancing in the night.

We didn't ask everyone. We just asked those who's appearance deemed them to be part of the club of homelessness. Two guys walked by, their open necked shirts clean and crisp, a cell phone in one hand. No cigarette. No can of beer tucked into a pocket. we didn't stop him. Another man walked towards us, backpack, weary posture, unshaven face. We stopped and spoke to him.

We were making judgements with every step we took. Every person we met.

Now, some of the folks were easy to identify. Sleeping in the park. Sitting on a park bench, shopping cart parked beside them. A bottle of booze tucked into their bag but still visible. Shaggy hair. Shaggy beard. Scruffy clothes. Dirty hands. Torn pants. Scuffed up shoes. Those people were easy to identify. When we approached them they were always friendly. Always open about talking about their lives -- albeit determining fact from fiction was not so simple. Alcohol was generally the common ingredient in the mix of their perspectives.

At one point, we walked across a darkened parking lot and back in the corner sat three men. A case of beer sat beside them. Two boxes of donuts were open on the ground. In front of them, a small colour TV blared the news. We walked up, said hi and they welcomed us graciously. "Want a donut? The guy at the donut shop always gives them to us at 10pm. He's great."

We told them why we were there. I recognized two of them from the shelter where I work. They didn't recognize me.

They willingly answered our questions. Age. How long in the city? How long on the street? Where did they come from before here? Did they have a job? Did they ever use the shelter system? If not, why not.

They laughed and joked amongst each other. They regaled us with stories of their adventures (and misadventures). Stories of sneaking into boarded up buildings to stay out of the cold winter winds. Of cubbyholes with cable TV because the building management forgot to turn it off. Of cops swarming them in another parking lot where they'd set up their nightly camp because the building owners were afraid of their presence in the dark. They swore us to secrecy as they told us about one building manager and his inability to keep them out of his buildings.

I wondered why they asked us to keep their secret. And why they immediately trusted us when we quickly replied, "Of course." A vulnerability of the street. Misplaced trust. Trust given too quickly. A history of trusting the untrustworthy. An assumption of co-conspiracy? Assumed community?

We talked to teen prostitutes. Runaway teens. Elderly men with years and years of street life beneath their worn out shoes and pockets deepened with the weight of their hands buried deep within their depths, holding off the cold, clutching a bottle for support.

We put a granola bar in front of a woman lying on the grass in a park. She looked pregnant.vSound asleep? Passed out? A man walked by and told us, "She's okay. Just napping. She'll wake up in a bit and move on."

We talked to teens hanging out. Teens hanging on to some vestige of humanity as they politely thanked us for the chocolate bars and water bottles we handed out.

We didn't talk to one man wheeling a spiffy looking bike down a quiet avenue. His companion stopped to chat with us but he kept moving. Kept putting distance between him and us.

Them and us.

Two sides of the street.

One of the last men we talked to stood in front of us as we waited at a red light to cross the street. I wasn't sure about talking to him. He stood aggressively. His arms lifting up from his sides as if he thought he might be able to fly away. It was late. 11pm. Dark.

One member of the team tried to open a conversation with him. "Hi, we're doing a street count. Do you have a place to stay tonight."

The expletives flew fast and furious. The aggressive posturing pushed towards us. I offered him a cigarette. He thought I meant a smoke of something more potent. I backed away. We all backed away. We crossed the street. Kept walking away, his expletives colouring the air behind us.

As we worked our way back to our starting point, we came upon the first man we'd encountered earlier that evening. He was sitting on the sidewalk at the back of a gas station. Beside him, an older gentlemen sat in a wheelchair.

"Hey," the man said. "I know you. I met you before."

We smiled and reminded him of our encounter earlier.

"Oh yeah!" He was visibly more inebriated than before. He had trouble holding himself upright and unlike previously where his conversation was lucid and polite, his words were laced with expletives. He wasn't threatening. Just colourful in his speech. Between the expletives he kept insisting, "I'm not a bad person."

I asked the gentleman in the wheelchair if he had a place to sleep that night. "Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm going there." And he pointed down the street to a building two blocks away where those under the influence can spend the night.

The other man interjected. "I'm going to push him there in a little while." He interjected his signature phrase. "I'm not a bad person but they barred me anyway." and then he added. "I'll be careful with him." He pointed to his buddy. "I'm not a bad person. He's my friend. I take good care of him."

The language of the street. I'm not a bad person. He's my friend. I take good care of him.

The street with a language of its own. Colourful. Filled with expletives. Filled with the human condition pouring out in words of denial. Words of fear. Of pain. Of defiance.

The young woman standing on a corner, looking for business. "I'm not a crackhead," she told us when we asked if she had a place to sleep that night. "I got my own place. I quit doing that shit six months ago. I can take care of myself."

The young couple, tattoos and spiky hair, demographic markers on the dark side of the street. "We don't use no shelter. We can take care of ourselves."

Taking care. Good care. Any care on the street is not easy.

Being careful is not part of street life.

Exposed. Vulnerable. Naked to the eyes of passers-by. Easily identifiable. Easily targeted. Easily counted by census takers on a warm night in May.

We didn't ask everyone if they had a place to sleep last night. Only those who looked like they didn't. They were easy to identify.

And when we parted we wished them well and asked them to, 'be safe'.

Those are mean streets out there. You gotta be safe.

The gift of friendship

Siddarta, the founder of Buddhism wrote in the 4th century B.C., “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

In my teens and early twenties, I taught skiing. Teaching something I loved improved my skiing ability. The more I taught, the better I became at teaching something I loved.

It was a never ending circle of reciprocity. When I focus my thinking on that which is loving and caring, powerful and true for me, I create a world of loving care, a loving world where all things are possible, where healing unites hearts, where spirit unfolds wings, where friendship lights up my life with joy and laughter.

Yesterday, a woman I met through Choices came over for a walk and dinner. We don't know each other well. Our paths have crossed at Choices, I coached in one session with her, and we shared dinner at a friends not long ago. We spent a delightful evening chatting, exploring our common and not so common ground.

Through sharing openly our experiences, we built a foundation for a friendship that we both want to nurture. In sharing, we expanded our worldview to include the possibility of a new friendship in time. We lit a candle of friendship that will light our paths for however long the candle burns. The light from our individual candles will never be diminished, but our paths will be illuminated more brightly through the shared light of the friendship we have begun.

Frederick Koenig wrote, “We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

I am very blessed in my life. I have friends whom I love and I know love me. They have stood by me when I faltered. Applauded me when I soared high. They have lifted me up when I fell down, and leaned against me in their times of need as I shared my strength and courage with them.

Friendship is the gift that never ends. It is a gift filled with love and laughter, a reflection of the heart shining through the eyes of love. Friendship, like happiness, never decreases when shared. It makes the world a brighter place.

In honour of my friends, old and new, I celebrate your courage, strength and wisdom. I dance in the light of your laughter, joy and love. I soar confidently on unfurled wings filled with the breath of gratitude. Beneath their mighty span I am sheltered from stormy weather, lifted up in times of sorrow, and forever carried on the love you share so freely. You are an awesome gift.

Cicero, a 1st Century B.C. scholar, writer, statesmen and lawyer wrote, “Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.”

Thank you my friends. I am a better friend through living in friendship with you.

The question is: Do you count your friends as a blessing? Do you bless your friends with the gift of your laughter and joy, dancing in appreciation of the gift of friendship that brings happiness to your life today?

Medicine

He was a client of the homeless shelter where I work. An addict. A high school drop-out. At twenty-eight, when he graduated from a three-week job-readiness program at the shelter he said, while proudly holding his graduation certificate. "I've never graduated from anything in my life."

He didn't want to go work on an oil rig, or live in one of the northern camps and work seismic. He wanted to give back to the community. Contribute to making a difference in the homeless sector.

He got a job at the shelter as a care giver.

He didn't last long. Little over two months. And then he was gone. He'd fallen back into his old ways, someone told me.

I was sorry to hear he hadn't made it. He deserved better.

It's been several months since he left without notice. It's part of that life. People come and then they go. You never know if they're back using, or simply moved on. So, I was relieved to run into him at an event I attended last week at a transition house in the city. He's working there. Running their catering business. He's helping other clients to learn the craft. Teaching them how to serve, to order supplies, juggle priorities in a busy dining room.

And he's doing well.

He looked embarrassed when he saw me. "Hi," he replied to my effusive hello as he busily smoothed a tablecloth that didn't need smoothing.

"I'm delighted to see you looking so well," I told him. "I wondered where you were. I'm glad to see you're here."

"You are?" he asked, his hands stopping their constant back and forth movement on the tablecloth.

"Yes. You look like you're thriving."

"I am," he said, his smile breaking out into a grin. "This is a good place for me." He paused. "I wasn't ready for the other place. It was too much. I just couldn't deal with the stress."

"Good for you for recognizing it before it was too late," I replied.

"It almost was. Too late. I slipped back for awhile. But now I'm okay. I'm clean again and I'm going to stay that way."

"I'm really glad to hear that," I said.

"Yeah. Thanks. I still want to work with clients. I still want to help out, but it's just too much for me yet."

"You cannot help someone else until you give yourself the medicine you need to heal first." I told him.

He really looked at me then. Nodded his head. Grinned. "Thank you." And he went back to work.

Medicine. Love. Healing.

Five years ago I had a lot of healing to do. Five years ago, my daughters needed to heal too. They were angry. Hurt. Confused. Terrified. And I knew, I could not help them heal until I helped myself first. Until I gave myself the medicine I so desperately needed to soothe my raging spirit, my aching heart.

I wanted to pick up their anger and take it from them. To take away their pain and carry it for them. But I couldn't. To have done that would have denied my truth that I had been abused and needed to heal. To have carried their anger would have weakened me, and them. I was not strong enough to help anyone in those first months of freedom other than myself.

It was hard. So many people were angry with me. Disappointed. Confused. I wanted to make sense of what had happened so that they could understand and not be angry anymore. But I couldn't do it. So much didn't make sense and trying to make sense of the nonsense of that journey through hell only kept it alive.

I had to step away. To give myself some distance so that I could gain perspective, and strength. I had to find my courage to stand up for me before I could stand up to the weight of the anger and sorrow around me. I had to turn up for me before I could turn around and face the devastation I had left behind me on that journey through abuse.

I am blessed. In having had the courage and the wisdom to seek to give myself medicine first, I am strong enough to share my medicine with others today, and to ask for medicine when I need it. I am strong enough to share love and be loved.

What a glorious blessing. What a joyful gift.

The question is: Where do you withhold medicine from yourself by giving away that which you do not have? Where do you keep yourself down by helping others stand up before you?

Beyond Shangri-la

Mother's Day this year, as it has every year, presents me with a challenge. The card.

What card do I buy my mother?

I step up to the racks laden with cards extolling the virtues of 'Mother'. Syrupy words flow across the paper. Greetings that start with words like, "You were my mother, now you're my best friend." or, "Mother, you have always stood by me, guided me and loved me. You have...." and then the card goes on to explain all the mother has done to teach her daughter to be fierce and independent, accomplished and successful.

I read the words and my critic's minds leaps to my defence, ensuring I don't do something it deems hypocritical, "You can't send that one. It's not about your mother. We don't feel that way about her. Nope. Not that one either. You don't want to be just like her," and the head games go on and on.

Who would have thought buying something as simple as a card could present such a plethora of options, and awaken so many emotions?

My mother is a very sweet woman. Kind. Caring. At eighty-five, she is still one of the most beautiful women I have ever known. She was born in a French colony in India. A place the traumas of the 1930's Great Depression never touched and where WW2 brought her a husband, but no other conflict. My mother never knew deprivation until she left her home at the age of 22 to sail to the other side of the world with a man she barely knew.

"It was like Shangri-la," she once told me when I asked her about the land of her birth. "Nothing bad ever happened there. No one was ever mean or cruel. It was a perfect place." I wanted to challenge her on her memories, to tell her, 'that's impossible', but these were her memories, her history.

And then she told me about her crossing the seas. About entering the big bad world beyond the confines of the salmon covered walls of the sprawling estate of her childhood. A world filled with strangers who spoke a language she didn't understand, who held worldviews far different than the insular perspective of her childhood. "Your father wouldn't let me speak French," she said. "I was only allowed to speak English."

My mother was torn from the lands of her home, from the arms of those who loved her and cast upon a sea of change where even her language of love was forbidden. My father wasn't very forthcoming in his support. We can not give what we do not know, and my father knew very little of loving support. Very little of love or of being a 'family'. He'd been sent far from his mother's arms when he was a boy. He'd always felt he was alone. Always believed he had to take care of himself because no one else would.

Last night at my sister's, where we went to celebrate Mother's Day with a feast deserving of royalty, my mother sat quietly. Her eyes downcast, her mood defeated.

Her sadness has always scared me. Always caused ripples of fear to course through my veins. I remember my mother being sad most of my life. When we were young her sadness sometimes lead to her threats of killing herself. As adults, she still asks, "What's the point of living? I may as well be dead." I've never understood her sadness. And in my lack of understanding, I have struggled to unearth the cause of her pain by challenging her on her position. In my insistence that she explain herself and learn to understand me, I've been a challenge to my mother.

Last night, as we were sitting around chatting before dinner, my sister asked my mother, "What did you have for lunch today?" and my mother answered with a long description of the meals they served for breakfast and for lunch at the lodge where she lives.

I listened to their exchange and envied my sister her ease and devotion with my mother. At one point, my mother started to read the card she had given her, and my sister quietly took my mother's glasses from where they perched upon her tiny nose, and cleaned them. "How can you even see through these things?" she asked as she replaced the glasses on her nose. It is an exchange I have witnessed a hundred times between them. It speaks of the love and care my sister takes with my mother. It speaks to her ease and grace.

Me on the other hand. I'm more like a terrier. I want to dig into the conversation. To get to the meat of what's behind her depression. Her sadness. Her moods. I want to challenge her worldview. To upset the apple cart to see if there are any seeds that need to be unearthed. I want to understand why she wants me to be one way when I'm another. Why she wants me to do it her way and not my own.

It has been a constant thread of conflict between my mother and I. My desire to understand. My constant questionning. My need to make my own way. To find my own path. Perhaps it is that she fears I will be hurt. Perhaps she fears I will fall down. My questionning mixed with my lack of fear gives rise to her fears and thus, we never find common ground upon which to speak of matters of the heart.

I watched and listened to my sister and mother exchange simple words last night and felt my heart melt.

Love isn't a fierce battle to be won or lost upon the words that break open the vault enclosing our deepest fears. It isn't a deep, dark secret waiting to be unravelled to reveal the hidden depths of pain within. Love doesn't lurk in the secret messages hidden within a cypher buried in a vault that only time will tell of its mystery.

Love is in the simple conversations. The gentle touch. The cleaning of glasses so someone you love can see the world through clearer eyes. It's in the meal, lovingly prepared with a dish for every tastebud. It's laid out on the damask tablecloth where tulips grace a crystal vase, their purple heads nodding towards the family gathered round, inviting them to partake of the exquisite repast laid out before them as they share in the unbreakable bonds of familial history.

Love is in the quiet moments spread out between the words. It cannot be found digging furiously in the mud and muck of history. Love is in the moment. This moment where a mother and daughter exchange words about what they had for breakfast.

In the end, I bought a simple card. A card that expresses my love for my mother in gentle words.

She gave me the gift of my life. She carried me into this world with love and the belief that her love would carry me through life's journey. She wanted for me all she never had. All she could not give. Because that is a mother's love. To wish for her child to not know the fear and sorrow, the pain and hunger she has known. To want only for them to see the love in her eyes, and not the sadness of knowing she was powerless to protect them from the world beyond Shangri-la.

A Mother's Day Wish

To my daughters on Mother's Day.

I remember the day both of you were born.

Alexis in June. A warm (very warm for this city spread out across the rolling plains) summer's night. Thursday. Safe and secure in the womb, you were late arriving. I remember the moment I heard your first cry. You were still inside me. The doctor was performing a C-section and you cried before he'd ever lifted you out. I remember feeling my heart break open as a powerful wave of love washed over me. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. I remember being absolutely terrified to take you home from the hospital. Didn't they know I wasn't capable of taking care of such a miracle? Didn't they know I might drop you?

You were a quiet baby. Content. Always serene. You loved being held. Loved being able to observe whatever was going on. Did I mention you were a perfect baby? You were tiny, 5lb 11 oz. The nurses told me to wake you every 4 hours to feed you when I took you home. But you never wanted to be woken up. So, I let you sleep. From the first night you came home you slept 6 hours, then 8. Now that's perfection!

It is the legacy of your life. Perfection. Perfectly human in all your imperfections. Perfectly miraculous in all your being.

My winter baby Liseanne burst into the world on a cold, very cold, Saturday afternoon in January. We were expecting you on Valentine's Day but you didn't want to wait. There was too much living going on, out there, in the wide, wild world of wonder you create with every breath.

Impatient. Impetuous. Impervious to cautionary voices willing you to slow down, take your time, think about it before you do it. You carve a path of your own, pushing aside fear, leaning into the wind. You travel with gusto on the road of life, blazing a trail for all to follow, if they dare. I remember holding you in my arms, your sister beside me, the both of us staring with awe at your perfect being. You didn't want to be held. You wanted to get rolling.

I remember you trying everything first for Alexis, showing her where it was safe, warning her of impending disaster. Forever sprightly, a beautiful dancing fairy lighting up the night with her shining radiance and brightening the day with her fearless quest to live wildly on the lighter side of living.

My daughters, you have taught me what love is. You have taught me how to love. You have taught me to see the wonder in every moment. The story in every unfolding of the day leading to night.

Remember 30 seconds to tell a story about someone walking down the street? Or how we'd lie under a tree, staring up into the branches at the sky far, far above and whisper the tales of the WindStory Tree? Remember throwing eggs and dancing around the fire singing "Who are the witches, where did they come from?"

Remember wandering through the tombstones in the graveyard at the end of the street where Opa and Nana lived? And the stories we told of the people who lay in peace as we sat upon a velvety blanket of grass, surrounded by the whispering trees and birds calling?

Remember Easter Sunday at Granville Island, Liseanne with bunny ears and her basket of tinfoil covered eggs? Alexis and Vickie standing by laughing in wonder at her courage to walk amidst the throngs of people gathered on the steps, inviting them to have an Easter Egg.

Remember Tofino? Remember the fairy dancers sparkling on the water, the stories written in the sand awaiting your morning walk?

Remember dress-up and dancing in the night as if no one was watching and singing loud as if no one could hear?

Remember laughing meditation and waterfalls. Remember joy and tears and even sorrow.

This is life. Our life. Memories lovingly crafted upon the beauty of each day enriched by the wonder of you. This is my life. The one where you have spilled the paint pots all over the rug and danced barefoot in the brilliant hues spread out before me. This is my life to which you have added beautiful, golden threads of joy and laughter and all the colours of the rainbow.

You are life, my lovely daughters.

You are love.

I am blessed to have been given the gift of you both in my life. I am blessed to have been shown the path into the dancing light of joy where love shimmers in a vibrant rainbow of colour and life expands in wonder with every breath.

In your lives entwined with mine, I have been given the gift of ever-lasting love.

Thank you. I am blessed to be your mother.

For all mothers I wish you a day of rainbow colours. A life of vibrant hue from light to dark and back again. I wish you a world of never-ending joy where you are free to dance in the circle of love that connects you to the mother who gave you the gift of life and the mother who gave her hers and the mothers before her. We are all connected through the daughters who walk before and after us.

This is the circle of love into which we are born when we are first conceived within our mother's womb. This is the circle of love that sets us free to live upon the sands of time, dancing in the waves of love everlasting. This is the circle of love that gives us the gift of our lifetimes.

Happy Mother's Day!

Heart songs calling

Sunny skies soar overhead, my spirits rise.

C.C. and I had a 'fierce conversation' last night. One of those one's where feelings are exposed, truth revealed and hearts break open to the deepening possibilities of the power of love to withstand disagreements, overcome adversity and soar high into the unknown world of loving like we have never imagined.

I am a thinker. It is where I find my meaning, my understanding, my comfort. Getting out of my head, into my heart can be a challenge for me. My thinking wants to grapple with the words, to chew them around like cud until I can mash them into a palatable form that is safe for me to digest. In that process I am at risk of divesting what someone has said of their meaning as I work around their words to find a meaning that makes sense for me.

In those moments where I'm busily digesting, I'm not listening. My thinking leaves me at risk of avoiding feeling and of being touched by the rawness of what is being said. It can leave me exposed to not hearing what the other person has said with an open mind because I'm looking for the 'other' meaning, the 'deeper' context, the 'hidden agenda'. (And Mr. Rogers asks, Hello Children. Can you spell, 'Defensive'?) Because I'm looking to make their words 'safe' for me to consume, I risk shutting off my heart to the beauty and wonder of who they are revealed in the things they haven't said about themselves but have shown me through the words they've used to describe their feelings which they may not understand themselves, Or what they've said to tell me how what I do or say affects them.

This communicating with an open mind and heart stuff can be hard!

Writer, Neil Gaiman said, “I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

That's the challenge with communicating.... and loving come to think of it. I didn't come to earth with a 10 step guide to communicating perfectly where ever I may be on this planet imprinted on some dendron of my cerebral cortex. My childhood definitely didn't prepare me for it, though it has a lot of value in the 'what not to do' school of thinking.

Unfortunately, I didn't go to a school that had lessons on: How To Communicate 101. You know, a place where the teacher stands in front and says, "To communicate, you must... To love, you must..." and then hands out an instruction manual filled with easy to follow directions on how to love and communicate without ever being misunderstood or fall into misunderstanding with what was said. And can you beat that? The manual even comes with a decoder ring that deciphers what the other person said into simple meanings that even neophyte conversers can understand. Cool! Imagine that! The Complete Idiot's Guide To Communication. And guess what! It even comes with an inflatable dummy you can practice on! Yippeee. Communicating with the Dummy, 101.

Okay. Okay. So there's a kazillion dollar self-help movement out there that has as many books as there are unique snowflakes on how to communicate effectively and not be misunderstood or mistaken for some lowlife flake the other person used to know. Like snowflakes falling, however, conversation can turn from rain to sleet to snow to ice in the blink of an eye or the drop of an ill-placed word before the converser realizes the one with whom they're conversing is catapulting in with the ferocity of a cold front swooping down from the north replete with frigid climes falling.

That's not to say my conversation with C.C. last night was frigid. It was anything but! It is to say that in the course of our conversation I discovered all sorts of things about myself, my triggers, my fears, my self-defeating games, my strengths and wisdom too! that I hadn't known before -- which is one of the benefits of listening to understand and staying conscious of my patterns and my fears of communicating with an open heart and mind.

C.C. and I have weathered this storm. As we will weather others in years to come. Relationship isn't about smooth sailing. It's about sailing through whatever weather appears upon the horizon, confident that the love shared is a trustworthy craft capable of maneuvering the waterways of life spent living together.

Finding safe harbour after the storm is the gift we give each other when we openly and lovingly acknowledge our differences and embrace our shared experience. In our willingness to explore what is important to each of us, we deepen the respect we have for our individuality and gain understanding of where we share common ground.

Communication is not about making the other see my point of view. It is about being open and willing to acknowledge their position, and then being courageous enough to share mine.

Love isn't about hammering someone into a shape that will conveniently fit into the box I've conveniently labelled, "What you must do to be in love with me and for me to love you." It's about opening up the Pandora's box of fear and trepidation we carry around and seeing the wonder and beauty of the hearts and souls revealed within. It's about celebrating who we each are and honouring eachother's truth without fear that someone else's truth diminishes mine or mine their's.

There are all kinds of truth on the loving planet. It is the truths we are fearful of sharing about ourselves that open the door to deeper, more meaningful communication.

It is the fears we risk sharing, our warts and bruises, our scars that make us into the rich and multi-faceted, enchanting and entrancing human beings we are destined to be when we live this one wild and precious life passionately and fearlessly.

I have many fears. When I hide from my fears, I risk losing what I want most in life; To live fearlessly, passionately, completely. To be a human being of worth.

When I hide behind my fear of loving, I risk losing the love of this man who makes my heart sing. When I step through my fears into that place where love is all around, I risk nothing other than being the magnificent human being I am, in relationship with a man I love.

The question is: Are you fearlessly opening yourself up to communicating with the one's you love? Are you hearing their hearts song calling you to sing in harmony?

Getting up

I woke up angry. Annoyed. My mood a reflection of the snow outside -- unwanted, uninvited and definitely not something I want to cling too.

Life is serendipity.

I logged on. Opened my email and found an email from a woman who has just finished reading my book, The Dandelion Spirit. She writes, "My turning point/healing journey began in late 1997 when he walked out to be with his new 'soul mate'. I prayed to the higher powers to 'please let me learn this life lesson - I didn't want to have to go through this life lesson again' and 'let me make good from [what I perceived at the time was] bad'.

Looking back, I know I was 'used'. I had fallen for the promise of fulfillment of my dream to have my own family ~ I married the dream ~ not the person ~ I didn't really know the person I married ~ not the true person he was."

That dream of 'happily ever after' can be deadly. It doesn't leave much room for living real, being real, finding real value in the opportunity to grow from differences and disagreement. Disagreement does not equal rejection.

Last night, C.C. and I had a disagreement. In my sometimes, all or nothing thinking, I was feeling all washed out, all used up. What more can I do, I wondered? (Did I mention that is my victim's voice whispering?) I didn't sleep well. Spent part of the night writing a letter to him, trying to get clarity on my thinking and feelings. This morning, when I logged onto my site, the header of my post yesterday greeted me, "Falling down is an opportunity to get up."

Last night, there was a whole bunch of falling going on. Just take a look outside!

When we fall, it doesn't mean we have to stay mired in the muck. Just as the snow doesn't wash away the calendar date and the fact this is spring, a fall doesn't break the back of love -- unless we keep doing the same thing again and again, repeating the behaviour that brings us down and refuse to let the new growth of spring sprout up to bring renewed life and passion into our lives.

This morning C.C. and I have the chance to get back up and find the courage to forgive and the power to grow from this misstep.

This morning, snow covers the ground. Above, fluffy white clouds float across the sky, the spaces between their edges filled with blue.

The snow will melt, spring will rise and the air will be filled with the sweet scent of blossoming flowers and the twitter of birds again.

C.C. and I will grow beyond the edges of the anger, the hurt and the misunderstanding -- and as long we stay focused on the love we share and what we need to do to keep growing together. Closer through intimacy -- In-to-me-see.

I can't change the weather. I can change my mood by focusing on the kind of day I want to have, inside me, where the weather does not determine how I feel or what I do. That's my choice and today, I choose to see the brighter side of life, the zone outside my discomfort where I can grow and learn and love and be all I'm meant to be when I have what Susan Scott calls, Fierce Conversations. Those conversations that open the doors to truth. That place where reality grows in love, and commitment and intimacy abound.

The question is: Where do you go when someone you love falls down? Do you storm off into a cloud of anger or are you willing to step into the seas of forgiveness and find the path to where love grows and spirits expand to become all they're meant to be?