Good News for a Change/The Secret is Out

For what seems like finally, after a million years, there is good news. Not little bitty good news, not staving off disaster good news, but genuine, hopeful good news. There is a job, a really good job. A job where he feels smart and appreciated and is astonishingly well remunerated. And we are grateful beyond words, beyond understanding - beyond belief. Still we walk delicately for fear that we are entering relief and joy a little too soon (there is precedent here, people). Still, we live in the hope and the belief that for once in oh-so-long, good things have begun again to come our way. The stack of bills that has been accumulating continues to rise, but at least there is a method to the madness of payment and the hopelessness which had been blanketing us has begun to dissipate.

And I do believe that Ez deserves it. Our family deserves it. This new baby, who has somehow been growing inside a body wracked with fear and pain and despair deserves it. Nahanni deserves it. But most of all, he does. This man who for the last three years has abased himself in many ways to support his family, who put his ego aside and worked through pain along all points in the spectrum because we needed him to - he deserves it. When the going got tough, not surprisingly, he did not fold up - we did not fold up. And that alone merits the opportunity which he is now being afforded.

So don't say I don't believe that he deserved it, that karmically he doesn't merit it...but still: I want to talk about this whole 'manifesting' thing.

I've read 'The Secret'. Like many others, I was 'doing' The Secret before there was a Secret. I meditated and worked and created and prayed. Some of it happened. Much of it did not. Most recently, when I finally swallowed all vestiges of pride and went to a retraining and employment counseling facility and saw the same counselor as Ez had, I was confronted once again with a version of this notion of 'creation'. This gentleman [who, let it be noted has been kind and helpful in numerous ways] eventually sent me an email suggesting that Ez and I 'examine the ways which we were creating this painful situation for ourselves'': the implication being that we were somehow responsible for creating our own misery. That somehow I had manifested for myself a spectacular fall from career grace; that Enriquez had somehow created for himself what we now know to be a ruptured tendon in his hand, through which he worked in debilitating pain for 5 months because he had to for us to survive. I felt hot under the collar to say the least and fully rejected the notion that we had brought his upon ourselves. We had tried in every way to remain positive and hopeful. As with anyone, we had some very tough breaks - perhaps more than we deserved, but would anyone really say we created them? Having worked for years; creating a website years before it was commonplace, doing with difficulty what Facebook now makes easy, trying, trying trying to make things work for this grand dream and high goals I had set for myself - through that I created the break of getting a great recurring on a series that was unceremoniously yanked out from under me when we most needed it because I was 'too much like' the other girl?

I have to say that it galls me thoroughly, this utterly Western, privileged notion that we can manifest riches and wealth if only we put our heads to it. Never does it seem to occur to proponents of this that those in the Third World may also want the best in life but though they can try to manifest all they want - slums are slums. Did those children whom Ez still vividly recalls living in the pestilent dumps of Manila create their lot? Did my four-year old brother manifest the car that struck him down, or my family the tragedy that blanketed its entire future? My friends and family who have suffered miscarriages? My dear friend whose wife has just left him and their daughter for some utterly selfish and puerile adventure - did he manifest that? Did their daughter, who thus far remains in the dark about the pain that awaits her upon her mother's return to reality? Read 'The Drunkard's Walk' which is a treatise on the randomness of life. Even 'The Outliers' though simple, gives a picture of the kind of good fortune which must accompany any of the kinds of great successes to which we all aspire.

It is so simple to claim that this desperately needed turn of luck was given us by dint of the power of positive thinking. The truth is far simpler and more banal. For once, we knew someone who knew someone and he helped put the two together. Yes, fortunately Ez had the right skill set and was ready and willing and able. But really, he would never have found it without the kind gesture of friends and the faith of the employer to see him. Where was all this "Oh, you made it happen for yourself!" when everything was falling to sh*t and we didn't know how we were going to pay our mortgage and our taxes (yes, CRA continues to plague me - damn, I gotta stop that creation) or how we could deal with this pregnancy and all that ensues? It is convenient to point to karma when things go well, but I dare you to tell me that any of the previous examples deserved or manifested that pain for themselves.

All this with the simplest caveat - I'm not a nihilist or utterly without hope or belief in the spiritual. We just spent days (all three of us) working on our vision boards, diligently trying to focus our spirits on the things we truly want for our lives. While we certainly hope for and welcome any divine intervention, we also have found ourselves at a point in life where we understand the role of chance, good fortune or its nemesis. We understand that there is no substitute for planning or hard work. We hope for the best, as always, but do not hold our breath for miracles. For us the miracles are small - our girl's laughter and her predictable footsteps on the stairs. A small heartbeat and good test results. Being able to eat non-white foods again. And small opportunities which mean big things in difficult times.

Always a Flame for You, My love

I could not begin to lie to anyone close to me -- it is obvious that this time has been hard. But there are moments of clarity and happiness, as always. Nahanni continues to be a great source of joy; her funny little voice, her infectious laughter and her innocent little heart are always a constant for us. When I am feeling bad there is so often a moment when I look at her and she is dancing her ballet, arms asunder, eyes closed in some passionate moment of union with her music and I am reminded to be amazed by the simplicity of the real things, the things you can touch and feel.

I continue to struggle with this current path, but I cannot help but feel that I must be breaking important new ground. I feel happiness invade this blackness when I peruse UBC or SFU course calendars, imagining entering the MFA program in creative writing or Midwifery. I am trying to keep grasping for the tendrils of something new to guide me through this time and I search my soul daily to ask what it might want.
I had a good experience in an audition yesterday for the first time in ages -- even though I had to dig deep and use some really difficult work, the kind of which I was questioning not long ago right here. Again, a pretty small part that I once would have turned my nose at, and actually something which on the surface was far simpler than I made it. But what I enjoyed was my using my process again, having a role that I could play with and make choices about and challenge both myself and the director with. I focused in a way I haven't managed for a while (out of despair, frustration, tiredness) and I really felt that I told a story much bigger than what was on the page. And that felt good. It felt good to feel like the 'old' me, the actor me. Which isn't to say that I haven't been doing these things, but this one was a blend of so many of the elements that it was like a new workout at the gym [the what? what's a gym?]. And really, other than the obvious 'need' part, I am content with the result. I achieved what I needed to do for me in that room.

Otherwise I am still trying to come to grips with this whole second-baby thing. It has not been anything like the first time, when I counted the hours until I had reached the first milestones. This time they have just...come, very much independent of me or my wishes. I seem to have only looked up and here I am knocking on the door of 12 weeks, that first trimester milestone that is so important. And even though I have been feeling apprehensive, sick, exhausted beyond words and even frightened out of my wits, I know enough to feel grateful. In the waiting room at my new midwifery practice today I met a woman with a 6-week old baby whose husband will be away for the next few months and she has just found out her mother has cancer, as does the mother of her best friend. She looked shell-shocked, as well she should. We talked about the struggles we shared as new mothers and I couldn't help but walk away feeling in a better place - as an old friend has said to me 'There is always more'. Money is simple in some ways, there are ways to get it. But I have a friend who has just suffered her 5th miscarriage (in itself a miscarriage of justice - no one should lose 5 babies) and I looked at this other woman and heard her story and I thought 'This is not cancer. This is just fear.'

And then I lay down on a scarlet couch in a softly lit room surrounded by pictures of curled up little newborns, the echo of their cries filtering in like muzak of the heart from other rooms. And she laid a little wand upon my belly and I heard that little tiny heartbeat woosh woosh--woosh woosh.
And I cried, exactly how I was supposed to.