the need to paint

i can feel it
the need to paint
it calls me and i can feel myself unable to really engage with people
like my brain shut down
i know if i only spend a few hours, days painting
somehow the reality is that i will find the line back to others
but i can't paint
because there are so many deadlines
and i work 9 hours for every 5 i charge
and the boys stay up 2 hours too late
and i am tired
while i lie awake all night not sleeping
sluggish in the morning
wishing i could paint
i have maybe 15 paintings in my head
at least three major stories i could write
yet all i do is paid labour and home labour
all of which drain and do not replenish

when i paint
you will know
because once again i will be my self

it's a sad day for Canada

thank you its December

last month of a very long year!
I am working hard on the next phase of the project i am consulting for...still not sure about that "consultant" definition...I much prefer the old "contract worker"
anyway. I had to do a bunch of reading on what SWC wants in a proposal. its a little weird for some projects...i have to name how many --like real numbers! on who will respond to specific projects (eg 20 shelters will accomplish "x" by the end of such and such a month. which is hard to gauge when a project hasn't been completed and response is still not certain
ah well, its a learning curve
I am still bent on the moving bug. I am really and thoroughly disgusted with living in Vancouver. I hate my house, my neighbourhood, my routine. there are no interesting coffee shops near me and i am tired of my four walls that i work, live, raise boys and sleep within.
however, i am taking advantage of the rain to reread some of my fav books (and a few new ones) i read the much talked about Twilight series in 5 days (yes 4 books, being sick slowed down the momentum). I am now working my way through margaret atwood...
the boys had a super weekend. i think it helped that i bought a couple of used games (they played so nice!!!) and Pierce has taken up reading to his bro every night for about 15 minutes (i am amazed after the last months of feuding they were up to!!!!!)
i have been looking at work and PhD programs right across Canada. seriously i want out of the rain. it's been 7 years that we have lived here and i still cannot believe it. sometimes i wish i could put everything into storage and just go on a tour of the country. then decide where to live. ah but i have no desire to homeschool (or car school) the boys at this time in my life!
so there is my brain drop for december.
things to do in the new year is my final musing for this post. ah what to do with an entirely new year...

friday thoughts

hmmm i am having one of those days where i know i want more. i want change so much. i want to write for me again...searching for PhD options...schools, ect. thinking about a few of the stories i began to write and wondering if i have the nerves to take it on and begin to write.
i have been reading so much lately and wonder at the inspiration i am feeling.
i want to move...i want change....yet i am stuck. so stuck. the boys "need" the schools they are in. but i hate vancouver these days. seriously. my life is work, boys schools, boys doctor appointments, more work and occasionally i escape to a book.
i have been sick all week. some flu. but it actually wasn't all that bad because i was able to give myself permission to tell work i was too sick and i stayed in bed (a lot) and read and slept. drank lots of ginger ale. cuddled my dogs and watched a couple movies with the boys.
i am inspired by one of my good friends list of things to accomplish (i have not made one of these recently) and even more inspired by her posting it! nothing like stating ones intentions to the universe!
fearlessly i take the plunge forward each day. i know i want to move...but where and what work? and what about PhD? i want to live somewhere my boys can play outside and not have to worry about people and fast cars and gangs that they may join as they rebel.
it is raining yuck. makes me miss the snow. i know then there is the cold!

waking up

do you ever have a morning when you wake up and realize that months have passed. really...where have the days weeks ect gone? I know that 3 or 4 years ago maybe four...everyday was an invigorating new adventure. i barely slept (insomnia yes my dear night friend). i managed to attend school, raise children, go on walks in the woods, on the beach, paint all night, or write, have a lover... the time spun around me like leaves on a fall wind storm. i was so sure that every moment was going to be just like this. swirling so fiercely that tears stung my face.
then i woke up and it is today. i have a great job and cute kids. i sleep most nights and when i don't i diligently attempt to sleep. i have not painted in at least 6 months, although i have about 10 painting ideas sitting at the centre of my brain waiting, waiting to be brought onto canvas. i have not written anything that was not academic or for work in a year but there are stories on the tip of my tongue every night while i lie awake.
my dreams i used to laugh aloud as i recorded them for some shrink somewhere to divine the meaning of when i published them in my old age. and here i am.
i will share a dream i had two nights ago...these days i am having rodent issues (again) and still have the phobia of the darn things. ah the stories about squirrels and SFU i could tell..
so hear was my dream, or part of it:
i am sitting at the bottom of a tree and two people are talking to the mice. i can hear their prayers as they sing the rodents out of the floor. then i realize that my legs are part of the trees and then i can feel the mice climbing to the surface of my skin. i can see them racing to find a way out as the singing gets louder. (i cannot remember the words but the power raised the hair on my neck and my stomach shuddered with the vibration of their voices). my legs split like bark that has grown too tight on the tree and the slivers splash outward. then the mice run. they scatter around and i cannot move because my legs are split open. but they leave and i fall into the arms of the singers. then i wake.

all day yesterday i thought i ought to write that out. but i could not find the inner energy to record it. this used to be one of my great pleasures..after nights of insomnia i would have some crazy relevant dream and i would race to open my computer or journal to catch every thought as it tumbled out of my sleepy head.

i think i need to find time to paint. i need to pull the creative juices out of head and through my fingertips...or maybe i will wake up and it will be 2012.

trip to ottawa and back again

NEADS conference was fabulous! I am happy to be ending my term as the BC rep. It has been a great two years but I am feeling out of the loop as it has been over a year since my grad and i think that having a current student is a good idea! I will miss many aspects of the board, including the amazing people i worked with.
Had a blast at the conference itself and hope to keep in touch with all the new friends. thank the geeks for facebook and the amazing ability to instantly reconnect and be in touch! I look forward to working with all these individuals in the near future.
now as for the trip home...what torture, I was crammed into such a small seat and one the first leg of the trip, the women beside me were peanut fiends and after i asked them not to eat their bags (no joke) of peanuts on the trip they proceeded to discuss the difficulty it was for them to refrain from the peanuts and asked the flight attended several times before take up to please confirm that the flight was full and that i could not be moved. and they commented over and over on what a hard thing it must be for me to be allergic. all i could think--please forgive me i was tired--is that it would not be such a hardship if people refrained from eating peanuts in closed spaces (many people have this allergy!) AND it would not be nearly so trying for me if they would simply stop discussing it! normally i find people to be much more understanding about allergies and i also find these opportunities great to educate people on how they can make their world safer for persons with allergies.
sooo then on the second leg of the trip...the woman right beside me was wearing a LOT of perfume. I had already taken benadryl the first leg just to be safe so i had to re-dose myself. so i got a lot of sleep on the planes.
Ah and work...came home to a list of things to do. I am looking forward to writing an article for the DAWN-RAFH Newsletter on my trip to Toronto last month and the presentation i made there. (For ARM conference)
also I am compiling a "fact sheet" on violence against WWD. I am trying to keep on top of the stats can site so that I will immediately see when they get the stats on WWD for 2006 up.
the boys are great. they were happy to have me home and so were the doggies. so nice to walk into a house of hugs and kisses (of the boy and the dog kind)

November 6, 2008--rant on rain and life

it is raining and I am certain we slowly slip into winter...damn! I hate winter in Vancouver, I begin to miss Revelstoke, Sicamous, Nelson, even Prince George!!! all the more as the rain falls because i love the crisp morning snow in the mountains or up north and I despise this gray snot that falls from the sky for months.
and I am making soup...mmm chicken soup from scratch...for my soul because it rains
aside from the rain
there is good news down south (a new President may equal the change he promised)...I only wish we can find someone as charismatic and intelligent who can someday lead our own youth vote out to the polls.
yesterday I voted for the Vancouver municipal election--I am in Ottawa on election day.
ah yes and planning for Ottawa--last conference as BC NEADS rep. i will miss much of the committee and board people i have worked with over the past two years. I look forward to hanging out with many of them from the 13th to the 17th!
also yesterday, some headway was made in the matter of my older son. i had a meeting with a school that might take him on. they seem capable enough, i just worry that because it is a class of 10 very challenging kids, that he will be ignited by their behaviour and find himself in further trouble. I also worry that because the entire class is focused on managing "bad" behaviour that he will lose out on the academics and get bored and misbehave...
i miss having family terribly these days. there is nothing like family challenges to turn ones heart backwards and wish for the support that a family might offer. the advice, the home, the hands of help...i am tired of living on guard every day and waiting for the next bomb to drop.
all i can think about it the family in Ontario whose son was found, dead, yesterday...that boy ran away for many similar reasons as my son did on the same day (thanksgiving). my son was found, albeit he followed a couple strangers home from the park (thank the gods and angels these people called the police and did not harm my son)...but I am all too aware each time he decides to run that he may not be found by the police, the dogs, the helicopter, friends. it keeps me awake at night.
and i am drowing in paperwork these days...student loan repayment relief, childcare subsidy applications...all complicated because now i am "self employed" as a researcher/project coordinator...I have to see an accountant to sort out how to even fill these papers out. I just wish i could go on regular payroll. it would make my life so much easier...
i am tired, i am weary...i need my soup to be ready...

when is it a disabiity and when do we band together...

this has been a discussion that I have had many times in the university and in the work environment.

Accommodation is really what I have heard individuals struggle with. Invisible disability/disabilities is a challenge for those who live with them and for those who are not sure how to accommodate or include these individuals.

I appear to have (on most days) invisible disabilities. However, on a bad pain day (one of my challenges is physical), it becomes very obvious that I have a hard time walking and lifting things. I also have serious environmental, food and other allergies--these although invisible can kill me in minutes if I am not aware of my environment and diet all the time and make others aware. this alone has caused an air of exclusion to rise up when those planning events do not want to exclude certain food (such as peanuts) or inform guests not to smoke (not such a problem now) or not to wear perfume (when asked I find people still ignore or do not understand this. Several injuries and incidences (and genetics and health conditions) that have lead to disability are complex and the stories are not ones I want to share with everyone. Sometimes people are not satisfied with the label of the disability, they want to know how it came about or how it effects the person. Knowing something or one level when required (for say accommodation) does not give anyone who is not a friend the leverage to ask for more information. Technically, a doctors note is all that is "required". Personally. I am all about educating whenever possible, but have experience serious discrimination when I have been open about my experiences.

Further, for those with disabilities that are "visible" it is not required by you to state anything other than your required accommodation (for example why you are in a wheelchair or use a walker or if you were born without vision or hearing or if you have had an injury or disease that resulted in your present disability. It is your choice.

the question about when something becomes a disability rather than a condition is convoluted and perhaps set up mostly for funding agencies and doctors. BUT I believe it changes from one definition to the other when-- first the individual acknowledges it, and-- second when that condition has presented itself for long enough that one would recognize that the situation is not going to change and the "condition" is affecting the persons ability to interact in their life (job, school, home, friendships) and is likely to be permanent. All these things are so very complex and personal. A person who is born without vision has a different sense of the situation than a person who has a degenerative disease that will lead to blindness. the moment when the condition or health issue changes from health problem. disease, injury to disability is indeed a difficult moment to define.

earlier someone asked why deaf was separate from disability--the reasons for this as I understand them are that in our society, most persons who are deaf (not necessarily hearing impaired) do not consider themselves disabled (that is a label from outside). they are a unique society with their own languages. However, in moments when it is important to join with other groups, to fight for specific and universal access rights, many individuals who are deaf join with the larger disability community.

so there are my thoughts on it (well a couple of them anyway). I know that a discussion like this is fraught with toes that can be stepped upon. It is not my intention and I do hope not the intention of anyone in for an open dialogue. We as a group of individuals who face daily struggles trying to adapt to an environment that does not keep us in mind as it builds...we must challenge it and do so together (in specific and in diverse groups). this world only makes change when it is nudge and often kicked into doing so.

ponderings on a child and his alternatives

so my son is for the second time this year suspended. Everytime he is in the regular school system he is suspended over and over to the point that it has affected his education and he now has gaps in learning. Last year he went to one of the most amazing programs I have ever seen but unfortunately, due to funding, this program is only for one year, usually.
So here i am. a parent seriously worried about the future of my child who has a very challenging condition. He is very smart, very funny but completely unable to "swim" in the school system that has been built up in this country.
I have a very good friend who has a son with autism. she home schooled her son when he went from being verbal to stuttering. He was home schooled for 4 years and then slowly reintroduced into mainstream of a school she chose. She is my hero. He has done phenomenally well. She has listened to my struggles with this school challenge.
On Thursday night I thought long and hard and then called her and asked her advice on home schooling. She knows that I work from home and that I am an activist for the communities I support. After two evenings of discussions, I have decided at the "suspension" meeting next week, I will inform the school that he will no longer be attending their program. I do not feet that he is safe and I am not sure that other children will be safe as he is growing bigger.
I have felt a weight lifted, although this means that I will have to juggle my work (which i do from home or out of town), I feel already less stress, as he will not be somewhere out in an environment that does not have his best interests at heart--and how could they? they are understaffed and over worked and only recognize "certain" disabilities.
At home, he can do his work while I do mine, and we can do the outings that are necessary and maybe the extra close mum attention will help in ways that all the stress of school and their teams and their meetings will not.
I know my child and as much as he is so very challenging, he is also funny, and very intelligent and capable of great insight and kindness. I refuse to see any more of that destroyed.
so here I embark on another new path, home schooling my child. wish me luck.

The world on a Thursday

there are those days where one looks around and realizes they are alive and really really part and parcel of their own experience....at lease I have those days. The thing I have discovered is that I am so busy doing things that I sometimes forget that I am creating my life while I am doing. I used to live in a headspace where "do" was separate from "create" which was separate from "fun". Somewhere it all began to blend together. I became a mum, a student, and an activist. I became less of a by-the -clock worker, in my insomniac-spare-time artist, singer, lover, friend, athlete. It was all so gradual and overshadowed by immediate and necessary action--feeding children, writing papers, taking exams, filling out forms, going to doctors, arranging and then juggling childcare...
I love what I do these days. I love connecting with other activists and writing about what is going on in this country and others. I love going to conferences and board meetings and arguing for rights for women, mothers, students, disabled persons, children. I love my children. But I must admit do not enjoy the stress of it all right now. There is nothing to enjoy really when every minute is spent scrambling to address needs. I miss how much fun it can be.

on a Tuesday

this is one of those days. I came across a woman hating website that blames single mothers for all the problems of difficult teens, the lack of morality in the world. While said site rants on about the failures of single mother led families, it fails to mention POVERTY and LACK OF RESOURCES as possible reasons/explanations why women led houses may have multiple challenges. I will write more on this at a time when i am not so challenge by a day.
further on my day, i had a productive morning working on the NAAS survey. i have gathered what are hope are the key articles, read and made notes on them and now i write.
my reminder, from the servants of the gods, that I am only a single woman with disabilities and two sons with challenges beyond even professionals capable hands, is this--no daycare for you woman, parent, activist. I was fully funded and had been lead to believe all would be fine and so patiently waited while they were late with the paperwork. NO IT IS NOT OKAY to change a woman's funding like this. what it means is that i have to withdraw my sons out childcare and try to still work from home with them arriving a little after 3 PM and that they will be home and active as ever on all pro-D days and all holidays ( i have to work through this and it may mean working at night and sleeping while they are at school. I certainly do not wish to turn to the days when i was working, completing school and not sleeping leading me down the path of nervous breakdown.
I am going to rant and rail at those of you who are sleepy or lazy or ill-informed...get your sorry butts out there with your ID and your proof of address and VOTE on the 14th. you can find what you need on the web and you can research online the candidates. make good choices. show respect for the diversity of people who live in our country when you think about who should lead them. do not live as a person who does least harm, but as a person who does their most good in all situations. and when you can't breathe and think how you can still keep working. I have experienced great moments when like minded people came together, organized and stood past the cold and voted. the ability to change the world takes commitment of the best that you can give. that best changes on a day to day basis but it is the potential in each individual to do this.
ps I watched a movie that made me cry but still found inspiring--My life without me, 2003 directed by Isabel Coixet, starring Sarah Polley, ... It is based on the book Pretending the Bed Is a Raft by Nanci Kincaid. I so want to read that book now
I am off for now and hope a better day is ahead. I have not yet written my experience attending STAND for Housing put on by CALM at Little Mountain. personally, i wanted to squat in one of those empty suites to escape my heatless hell called home.

Back from Ottawa

so here i am home now and cringing with a migraine...ah allergies and weather combine to torture me!
the CRTC meeting was extremely informative. it's amazing what goes on behind doors that really effects such a large percentage of Canadians. The accessibility hearing is halfway done and many groups have only just heard about it (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2008/8665/c12_200807943.htm). many thanks to the CCD (http://www.ccdonline.ca/) for getting us out there and bringing disability groups up to date on the event and the next series of discusions.
i will keep info posted here and on my facebook site.
cheers