Now, the roles have reversed. Now I’m the mother of teenagers, who have recently complained that I lack decorum.  And it makes me defensive. I want to say things like, “I? Embarrass you? Why should you be embarrassed? What I’ve said has nothing to do with you and isn’t any of your business… isn’t it your bedtime, by the way?”

Coming full circle is a strange and curious experience. It’s not that I want to negate my children’s honest responses and feelings—I remember having them myself, after all. The mother-daughter relationship is complicated.

But when I look back, I realize that I perceived my mother as a one-dimensional personality, a cardboard cutout—and in some ways I still do. This is the woman who did laundry, made meals, had no history and only came to life when I got home from school. She only existed to serve my existence.

And I suppose that’s the way it should be. You don’t want to have a mother who doesn’t serve your existence: we call that neglect. Therefore, how can a child see her as anything else?

It is an excruciating thing to be a writer and not be allowed to express on paper what’s closest to the surface for fear of irritating someone else. Writers need to write about everything, it’s an outlet. Writing is how I make sense of my feelings, and how I make sense of the world.

It’s doubly excruciating to not be able to write about the experience of not being able to write.

In other words, I might get in big trouble for blogging—er—complaining, about this. (If I go missing, don’t believe the suicide note.)

Push presents? I wish this concept had been known 18 years ago, when I started having babies. In that case, someone owes me three. Can they be awarded retroactively?

Believe me, I understand the sense that labour is like being on the battlefield. I fought the good fight three times and lived to tell about it. Not everyone does, not even in the twenty-first century. Childbirth changed my body forever, and I will carry the scars for life. They are my battle wounds, and I wear them proudly.

But when people came to offer their congratulations to me in the hospital after the birth of my children, I remember respectfully requesting chocolate (and I thought I was being bold to do that!).

While my friends and family were happy to accommodate me, I had no idea that in a few short years, people (who weren’t even doing the pushing) would be getting expensive pinkie rings just for standing around watching the event.

We’re just too used to goodie bags. Such a thing didn’t exist when I attended my share of birthday parties as a kid. The party was for the birthday boy or girl, not for me. I was a guest: please bring a present, eat cake, pretend you like games and then go home, thank you very much. And make sure you buy something the kid likes, or you’ll hear about it.

Now, everybody gets presents at a birthday party, which is often held, by the way, at an expensive birthday venue. Cinema parties, public pool parties, amusement park parties.

And movie stars get goodie bags for going to a film festival or an awards ceremony. “Thank you for showing up…you came in and smiled, you tipped your hat, you looked great in your suit. Here’s some expensive cream and a new mobile phone. We hope you’ll promote them.”

I suppose sapphire pinkie rings are just for the wealthy at the moment, but such trends trickle down and I wonder if in the near future I will be asked to contribute to a push present fund for my younger women friends who are just starting their families? Does the push present party occur after the baby shower? Do we buy the proud father a commemorative gift, too? The thanks-for-standing-here-while-she-squeezed-your-hand-too-tight gift?

This concept of rewarding a natural process with an extravagant gift to mark the occasion seems like one more example of a hugely entitled generation who don’t really understand that suffering is part of life. “Woo-hoo, I went into labour, and it really hurt…buy me an expensive present!” Should we expect to be paid for such experiences?

Women have been grunting, screaming, moaning, vomiting and bearing down since the beginning of time, and until a science-fictionish way to grow babies outside our bodies becomes commonplace, we’ll keep doing it.

But we’ll survive. And we’ll eat chocolate. No pinkie rings required.

This is why I usually save book-reading for weekends or holidays, when I can be left relatively undisturbed and absorb the words from morning to evening,  to the wee hours, with only bathroom breaks and the occasional trip to the coffee machine—resulting in more bathroom breaks.

So you can imagine how hard I was gripping the pages of The Hunger Games and its two sequels (Scholastic, 2007, 2009, 2010), written by Suzanne Collins. I read all three books, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and MockingJay in nearly one sitting over the Christmas holiday.

This young adult series is fast-paced with an extremely-detailed plot, but also rich in emotion…the kind of book I aspire to write. Its geographic locations, technological imagery and perceptive descriptions of the division between rich and poor, inspired both admiration and just a teensy bit of jealousy.

It seems Collins must have plotted out all three seamless books, (at least loosely) from beginning to end, before she ever began knitting the first few words together.

Part dystopian, part science fiction and part romance, The Hunger Games trilogy centers on a teenage girl, Katniss, who ekes out a living in a poor section of a futuristic, re-envisioned earth. She is forced by a totalitarian government to participate in a barbaric yearly ritual in order to save her family. The games are viewed by a rich and shallow portion of the public, desperate for entertainment. Her actions set off a chain of events that lead to civil war.

Of course, the story is reminiscent of Roman history, with its powerful center and powerless provinces; its gladiators who butchered one another in the Colosseum; and the horrific experiences of early Christians and others tortured by crazy emperors for the entertainment of the masses.

It’s about the horrors of war, how children suffer particularly, and the tendency for humankind to repeat its mistakes.

The one thing I didn’t care for is the love triangle between Katniss, her best friend and fellow hunter, Gale, and the baker’s boy, Peeta.  The triangle resolves itself in a satisfactory way, but not because the main character took any initiative. She is remarkably oblivious to her own feelings, right up to the end, especially the ones that precipitate some herculean efforts to save these two fellows.

A little bit’s okay, but the author carries it all the way to the last couple of pages of the final book, and by then, I’m dying. I’m dying!

Some romance movies (chick flicks) tend to do this lately, too… Sweet Home Alabama (2002–Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey) for example.  They place a girl in between two equally-likable boys, and tell me to choose.

I hate that. Don’t mess with formula.

Just tell me who to like. Really. One of them has to be a dough-head, or what am I supposed to do? Break one of their hearts? I can’t do it! I can’t do it, I tell you.

I suppose my distaste flows from the fact that I don’t believe one can really love more than one person at a time. I think that’s silly. If you think that’s possible, there’s just one word for you: deluded. Go home, take a bath…light some candles, read a book… and make up your mind, for heaven’s sake.

I was thinking about my memorable moments today while I was elbow deep in Christmas baking. I was happy to observe that I had more than one.

Five years old: In my flowered flannel nightdress early Christmas morning, I hopped barefoot downstairs to find my mother crouched beside a Wedgewood-blue plastic dollhouse with white shutters (saltbox-style) sitting unwrapped under the tree. She looked up at me and grinned when she heard my sharp intake of breath.  I ran down and immediately started arranging the little orange furniture pieces, individually-wrapped in clear plastic.

Nine years old: Two Shaun Cassidy albums…sigh…I was going to marry him. I have no idea why it didn’t happen. Later, when he starred in the Hardy Boys series on television, I switched my preference to Parker Stevenson. He was taller.

Eleven years old: The first time I ever saw It’s a Wonderful Life late one Christmas Eve. The story enthralled me, and I pondered it for days afterward—“Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry!” Powerful stuff.

Thirteen years old: My older brother came home from university to celebrate the holidays, and we posed for pictures in front of the tree. I was wearing a white knit pullover with purple stripes and dolman sleeves that I bought with my allowance money. And I smiled because, for the first time in memory, my brother seemed happy to sit and chat with me.

Eighteen years old: On Christmas break from my study at a technical school near Toronto.  Didn’t I feel cosmopolitan, coming home to visit the country folk? Within a few short months I had doused my permed hair with henna, turning it a brilliant red, and got a very short 1980s mushroom cut (long in the front, short in the back). When I boarded the plane in Toronto there was no snow, just a mild, dull brown landscape. I wore a long black coat and black boots with a bow and skinny heels.  But I nearly slipped and fell when I landed in Moncton, where it had been snowing heavily for quite some time.  I slipped and slid everywhere I went that Christmas—but I had great-looking footwear.

Forty-three years old: Right now, right where I am. With my three fantastic, healthy kids who are growing up so brilliantly in front of me and my husband who, by example, teaches me about unconditional love and servanthood every day.  I am thankful for one more Christmas with my parents and other family members. I’m thankful for the things I was able to accomplish this year—releasing a first book and experiencing my first play production. And I’m thankful for my health and really, really good friends.

And though things often go wrong and there’s not always enough money and there are plenty of things that need to change, none of it really matters compared to all the greatness in my life. And with that in mind, to you and yours, I wish you the very best of the holiday season, and a healthy and productive 2012.

As I glanced up to grab my mug I noticed the Jehovah’s Witnesses trudging up the walkway to R’s house across the street. It’s the white house with black shutters on the corner, gaily decorated for Christmas in red bows and greenery.

The experienced fellow of the pair opened the screen door and knocked while the novice waited and watched at the bottom of the steps.

I watched, too, wondering what R would do when she opened the door.

After about 15 seconds, the door opened and the man stepped forward. But as soon as the door opened, it shut again firmly.

They had nary a moment to get out the first pleasant greeting when they were shooed away like so many bold gray squirrels going after a picnic in a city park.

I noticed his resigned look  as he retreated down the street on this chilly December morning. I felt a twinge of discomfort on his behalf. What a lonely existence, I thought. It can’t be comfortable to be constantly turned out on your ear.

But perhaps it’s not such a lonely existence. Is it possible that when there’s little comfort or acceptance for one’s ideas, pride can easily fill in the empty hole?

This pride attached to knowing that one is utterly and completely right and the knowledge that one is suffering for a higher purpose is the fuel that gets us from door to door, whatever we’re selling.

My lips curved in a little sheepish smile then, because I remember many times when I found the same subtle satisfaction in the idea that I had all the answers, at least about a subject or two—and I know that attitude served to severely annoy the people in my life.

Because someone who acts as though they know everything and have no questions at all ceases to be relevant to the rest of us, who are mucking about in the quagmire of life.

Oh, the insidious, prideful comfort of being right, even more so if you actually are right. Then, you’re really annoying.

Continuing to be teachable even as you continue to be convinced of certain things is the key to a life that bears healthy fruit.

I think that’s why I love the Bible so much because there are miracles and mysteries contained within its pages that seem contradictory at first blush. Yet with time and closer inspection, they morph into paradox—a riddle of missing information.

And as my life races by, wrestling with these issues through difficulties and disappointments has made me less cocky and more objective. It’s the process of wrestling that has helped me make peace with the things that I don’t understand.

Is this what I’ll say when they come to the door? I think it’s something you have to go through to appreciate.

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…Galations 5:22

Scheduling problems, bad weather and illness all interfered with a final 10K run for the group. As the nights grew colder and darker, it seemed that few wanted to venture out into the vast nothingness of the suburbs. (Perhaps running clubs should be reserved for the spring…but that’s another discussion.)

Completing this 10K has not created any great desire to run longer distances. I’m pretty happy chugging along at 5K three or four times a week, just for weight control and sanity. But I have learned the tools to run faster, and add a little more distance when I’d like to.

Through this process I’ve learned a few things about myself, would you like to hear what they are?

1. There’s strength in numbers. Call it peer pressure, call it accountability, call it an excuse for socializing—however you view it, I felt more responsibility to persevere and complete my goal because I made a public commitment.

2. Usually, I don’t give myself enough credit. I started off being able to run 5K very slowly. Did I appreciate that I could even do that? Not really.

Then I did 6K. Meh, well, big deal.

Then 7K. I huffed and puffed through it. It was hard.

Then 8K. It was really hard. Like, stop-in-the-middle-of-the-road-and-collapse hard.

Then one historic night, I managed 9K, with three other runners who were much faster, younger, and thinner than I. And I was shocked.

And now, I’ve met my goal, all by myself…10K, in 1 hour 30 minutes. Not great time (and I wasn’t whistling a merry tune by the end, either) but I did it…I really did it.

I was sore and tired and felt a bit weak, but wow! I’m so grateful for my health and for a body that moves the way it should. What an amazing machine houses our spirits.

3. I can accomplish more than I imagine, if I only try. You’re never as fat, wrinkly, dumb, poor, old or useless as you think. Really, I’m serious. We girls, we’re pretty hard on ourselves, don’t you think? How many activities have I automatically rejected in my mind over the years just because I figured it was impossible for me? Am I still dwelling on some irrelevant failure from 1986? The point is not whether I can do it, the point is whether I really want to do it.

4. I need other people more than I think. In the beginning, it was mortifying to be the slow one, the one who was constantly dragging the pace, but I quickly realized that the others in the group simply wanted to share their love of running with me and that seeing me improve was an encouragement to them, as well. Allowing other people to see our imperfections and receiving the gifts they wish to pour into us is not a sign of weakness, it’s the best of humanity. We are not dependent, we are inter-dependent.

And (arguably) the most important point:

5. Don’t expect to lose any weight if you’re still sucking back chocolate cake. And pudding. And oily grilled cheese sandwiches. And cookies. And fish ‘n chips…shall I go on? Well, you get the idea.

“This your book?” he mumbled.

I nodded, leaning forward in my seat. “Yes,” I answered, smiling.

“So you wrote it?” he asked again, eyebrows knitting together as he squinted at the back cover.

“Yes, I wrote it,” I said, adding my standard, “do you have any teen girls in your life? This is a novel for young adult girls.”

He glanced up briefly over the book cover as he continued to read. “Um, I have a couple of cousins.” He adjusted his droopy pants. After considering for a while, he put the book back down on the stack in front of me. “Well…I would buy it…but I didn’t bring any money.”

I gave him a sympathetic look and shrugged. “Ah…that’s too bad.”

Then his eyes fell on my fine-point Sharpie pens, two of them, lying side by side on the table. He pointed at them. “Ah! Those are great pens, aren’t they? I LOVE those pens!” he exclaimed. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and backed away slowly, like a monkey hoping to get away from a tiger before it pounces.

“Yeah. They’re great. I really love them, too,” I called after him, deciding not to pounce.

And so it was, my first of a very few conversations and I wished the line-up at my table was as long as the line-up for coffee.

My second favourite response are the old women at craft fairs. They pick it up, read the back, and then I love watching their eyebrows fly up when they figure out the subject matter. “Oh dear,” they say, “I can’t read that!”

They promptly drop the book and walk away.

I can’t say I enjoy doing this type of thing. I’ve spent many years volunteering behind a table, waiting for someone to buy something from me, looking at passersby in the eyes with a pleasant-but-not-threatening smile—whether it was for the development agency Compassion International, hoping families leaving a concert would sign-up to sponsor a child, or to sell tickets for some charitable event—and now, to sell copies of my own first novel.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s really useless unless people are expecting you and have come to the store purposely to buy what you’re selling. This is largely affected by how well-known your book is in the first place, and notoriety has to be achieved in other ways.

In one of his lectures and biographical sketches regarding education, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Leave this military hurry and adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience.”

Lifted out of context and applied to my current situation, I find I have little patience, and little awareness of the world around me.

Right now, life is just a goal. I find that the distance between my message and my audience is far too great. But I’ve only just started the journey.

Maybe a walk in the woods would help.

Take a deep breath or two. Look at the stars.

There’s always tomorrow.

Last night, I ran 9 kilometres with the running group and we did it in about 1 hour 12 minutes or so. The last kilometre wasn’t enjoyable, but I managed to finish, feeling a bit stronger than the week before when we ran eight.

It turns out that we have an extra week before the end of this running program…perhaps I counted wrong. I was never very good at math. Or, perhaps someone just wants to torture me. Either way, it’s nearly over.

Physical ailments:

1. Upper left thigh is aching a bit. What seems like a murmur might turn into a grouchy squawk during the final 10 kilometre run. Must stretch more carefully and mind my speed. It’s a romantic thought to imagine I could keep up with people who are ten years younger and in better shape, but let’s face it: I left the superhero gig behind about 30 years ago, along with my beach towel cape and clothespin.
2. The corns and calluses on the balls of my feet are really becoming a drag to scrape. If anybody out there has a cure, let me know.
3. My custom orthotic is three or four years old and is getting pretty spongy. If I don’t replace it soon, the plantar fasciitis in my right foot is bound to return. That’s not fun. The last time, I was off my feet for four months.

This week’s requirements:

A 3 kilometre-run, six 400-metre hills (5 kilometres), and another 5 kilometre run.

I can’t help it: I love the word “dude.” I giggle whenever someone uses it. Put it at the beginning or the end of any sentence, and it’s funny. If you can imitate Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure while you say it, so much the better.

Unfortunately, my children forbade me to use the word “dude” in any of my sentences. Ditto for the word “sick” –meaning good, not ill—not in my home or with friends or on Facebook. There are certain words in the English language that are off-limits to anyone over age 20…especially if that person is Mom, who immediately renders them uncool and unusable.

Of course, this isn’t the first time one generation has claimed exclusive rights over words and phrases.

I tried to explain the etymology of the word “dude.” The surfer culture of the early sixties popularized its present usage, when I was just a twinkle in my mother’s eye.  Before that, it referred to city slickers who vacationed on cattle ranches…How then could my twenty-first  century teenagers claim a monopoly? They just rolled their eyes.

As a teen in the eighties, if we were disgusted, we’d say things like, “Gross me Green—Call me Kermit!” (A reference to Sesame Street in its heyday.)  Other similar phrases were “Grodie” and “Gross Me Out The Door.”

“Decent!” or the aforementioned “Excellent!” were happy exclamations of wonderfulness, but “Wicked,” ‘Totally Awesome” and “Outrageous” were also acceptable alternatives.

The Head Bangers were heavy metal fans, the Space Cadets were the odd people with their heads in the clouds, a Hoser was a clumsy or stupid person who drinks lots of beer (coined by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in SCTV’s famous comedy sketch, The Great White North). A nice outfit earned the term Boss, Bombdigity, Happenin’ or Bodacious, as in, “That outfit is the bombdigity!”

I don’t remember being embarrassed by my parents’ language, perhaps because they didn’t try so hard to interact with me. They were too busy working and paying the bills. Our lives didn’t intersect much, and I didn’t question the fact that they probably didn’t understand me. So, as a modern parent, am I trying too hard?

Heck, no. I just like the word dude.

Wait your turn, kiddies. Right now, you’re basking in the glory of youth and coolness, but all will be a distant memory when you have children of your own. Until then: “Excellent! Party on, dudes!”

Note to self: pee before you go, dummy.

Since the hardest part of running with people is forcing oneself to keep up (or at least a few paces behind), it was brutal. It is continually humbling to know that my companions aren’t trying that hard.

But we completed the route nine minutes faster than when I’ve been doing it alone during the week—that’s where pushing yourself takes you. Farther than you’ve ever been.

I’ve been stretching myself in other ways too in the past couple of months, trying to promote my first novel in the regular style: readings, book signings, and looking for promotional opportunities. It hasn’t been easy for me. I don’t like personal attention.  But I’m quickly learning that how to sell a product is as important as the product itself, and to the sell the product, you have to sell yourself.  I can’t tell you how difficult it has been for me, but I’ve gotten through it by taking one step at a time.

Just like that 8 kilometre run. You finish one step at a time.  It doesn’t help me to think about the finish line, because I only see the yawning distance ahead. So it helps to have people require more of you—they come alongside and say, “Don’t stop, you can do it!”

When I’m alone, I stop when I feel like it. I plod along and don’t worry about it. The most stretching experience in this program has been having once-a-week running partners who push you through just at the time you’re running out of steam.

Or, when you just stop, exhausted—right there in the middle of the road.

“No, no, keep going!” they protest, from over their shoulders. Then they run back and push you along physically from behind.

Whether you allow yourself to be pushed depends largely on your attitude. I could quit. I’ve thought about it. But I’ve already gone farther than I thought I could, so why stop now?

This week’s homework: A 5 kilometre run, a 3 kilometre run, and five 400 metre hills (4 kilometres).

P.S. My next reading and book signing is at Chapters bookstore in Dieppe, New Brunswick. Sunday, November 20, from four to six pm. (I’ll be stretching, if you wanna come watch.)