Nurturing our Marriage

Bryan and I were given a great gift on Friday. Our friend Becca offered to keep the kids for the whole day so we could enjoy a leisurely all-day, no curfew date! She stayed the night so we could stay out as late as we wanted to. Wowee.

We fled for the mountains with our rain gear and hiking boots. The rain was pelting the windwhield as we drove, but we were happy and feeling alive and determined not to let the rain affect our day together.

We spent most of the day traipsing around Lynn Canyon and LightHouse Park in North Vancouver. We bush-whacked along the coast, scrambled on seaweed-slicked rocks and watched three majestic eagles soar on the breeze just above us. A small fleet of ships had set anchor in the water between LightHouse and Stanley park and we wondered aloud where they were from, what freight they were carrying.

We rested on the shore for a long time, leisurely picking up strings of conversation from long ago, easing into a restfulness together where we could really SEE eachother, and hear eachother's hearts.

The darkness began to settle around us. We stood slowly and stretched. We circled around and over the rockface a different way than we had arrived and loaded our gear and rain jackets in the truck.

The drive along Marine Drive was breathtaking. Dramatic evening light arched behind the distant lighthouse and surrounded the sillouettes of Madrone trees along the shore.

Since we were chilled and dampened from the rain, we decided to browse in a local bookstore and settle in with hot drinks. We ran into an old friend, talked about the books we had lingered with, returned into the night refreshed.

Much of our drive home was in silence. The rumble of road and soft patter of rain on the windshield was restful and sealed the feeling of solidarity and deep knowing between us.

We were reminded how important it is to spend time together nurturing our marriage in beautiful, natural settings. We are blessed to have family nearby who love our children and enjoy taking care of them so we can have dates together. But we usually go to a concert, or out to eat, or to a party with friends. And though these events are fun and encourage and inspire us in different ways, there is nothing like a day in nature together.

Ginger Tea, Garlic and Kleenex

Our family has been hit with a few strains of yucky colds. They have lasted almost two weeks and we are ready to be healthy again!

I bought an 8-pack of Kleenex and we are on the last box. I am surrounded by mounds of used tissue. Even though I am a nurse and have dealt fine with more blood and bodily fluids than anyone would want to, I am still significantly grossed out by snot. And the kids have not learned how to blow their noses all that well. So, their bodies have to "blow" their noses by repeated sneezes. oh. wow. I am struggling to maintain composure in all of this.

The rain continues to fall in these parts. The dampness is keeping loads of people ill. All of our family friends have at least one child with a cold. We seemed out of the woods on the weekend, but on Monday, we started sneezing and coughing again.

So, I decided this morning that we are going to pull out the big guns against these colds. I have some isotonic mineral water, lemon-flavoured cod liver oil and an herb tinture from our naturopath. I have chopped garlic and boiled ginger and vitamin C. I have plain organic yogurt to replace some of the friendly bacteria that has been killed by antibiotics for Alley and Soul-Baby's ear infections a few weeks back. And we are going to get lots of rest!

Our dear friend Becca (and Alley's Godmother) has offered to stay with the kids today so Bryan and I can have a day hiking together. She is a nurse, so I feel certain she will take good care of the kids in their sneezy, snotty state. And maybe a little fresh air and a break from the nose-blowing will do me good. I've been feeling cabin-feverish, if you know what I mean.

So, we will bundle up and head off for a day outside. I am really looking forward to it.

Feeling Hopeful

Sometimes I receive forwards and links that bring a surprising amount of joy into my life. When I first clicked into a YouTube video link called "Free Hugs", I wasn't sure what I would find. But suddenly, I found my heart expanding with a sense of goodness and hope as I watched barriers between strangers soften and dissolve. I had the same poignant feeling about a year ago when I bought (for my daughter) the DVD set of the first season of Little House on the Prairie. I hadn't watched it in years and we promptly sat down and watched 4 episodes in a row.

Observing the purity and love of the Ingalls family, their close-to-Earth lifestyle, and fierce familial loyalty literally warmed me from the inside out.

Another link I recently discovered through my friend Meghan is for the upcoming film Pregnant in America. There's an interiew with Ina May Gaskin (author of Spiritual Midwifery)and it looks like it will be an intriguing inside look into the over-mechanized, hospital-based, birthing "industry". It focuses particularly on the US medical field, but relates to some of what is also happening in Canada.

I feel hopeful when I glimpse efforts toward reclaiming humanity to live as we were created to live.

(photos: www.flickr.com)

Body for Life

My husband and I decided to accept the Body-for-LIFE challenge on December 1st. We are near to completing our first month and I feel safely in stride and ready to post about our experience thus far. For those not familiar with Body-for-LIFE, feel free to check out the website here for more information.

The author Bill Phillips has developed an organized, detailed fitness/nutrition guide broken down into specific workouts/meals over a 12- week "challenge" period. My husband and I have both read his book and refer to the website almost daily. We appreciate the simplicity of the plan: eat more often (small, nutritious portions) and exercise daily. He encourages 6 small meals a day with portions no bigger than the palm of your hand. At each of the 6 meals, you should have a balance of protein, healthy (low glycemic index) carb, and fruit or veggie. We work out 6 days a week, resting on the 7th and alternating between aerobic and weight training days.

I am feeling really good this week. The first three weeks left me sore as anything and more tired than before. My body ached all over after every workout. But this week, the 4th, I feel stronger, more alert, energetic and with a more elevated mood. I have gone down two jean sizes and tonight when I stepped on the scale at the gym, I was 6 pounds lighter. The fun thing about the program is that it is about converting fat to muscle. It's not based around weight loss so much as healthy body mass. Muscle takes up less room than fat, but is heavier. So even at the beginning when I had gone down a jean size (in inches) I hadn't lost more than 2 pounds. It's strange how the body works. I recently learned that it takes 3 calories to feed fat, but 25 to feed muscle. So just by replacing fat with muscle, my body will use more energy and burn more fat. I also just learned that women tend to see the most dramatic results around week 7. All the ground-laying, muscle-building work starts to pay off and maintainable body changes are more evident.

It definitely helps to be working at this challenge together. We have had a couple of "I just don't wanna" days. And it's been great to have close-proximity moral support and to laugh at eachother when we hobble around with sore muscles after a workout. So far, we haven't missed a day yet!

Drastic Vows Require Drastic Measures

On November 15, a dark and stormy night, my husband and I drove through a torrential downpour, past deactivated electrical wires to Regent College to absorb the haunting music of Over The Rhine.

I LOVE the music of Over The Rhine and for years have wanted to see them in concert. By a random Blog-searching fluke, I came across an e-poster announcing their coming appearance in Vancouver. Here's a few facts about this intoxicating-creating-dynamic duo. Did I mention their music is amazing?

Based on a small farm in Ohio, Karin Bergquist and Linford Detwheiler are a married pair of artists, devoted to creating deeply passionate music.

I was first introduced to Karin's ethereal and jazz-tinged voice during my years in highschool. The first song I heard, "Lullaby", still makes my skin tingle.

The band first began performing concerts together in 1990 at local Cincinnati clubs and small personal venues with audiences of mostly friends. An exerpt from their website reads, "Enveloping their listeners like family, Karin and Linford kept them close to the fold with simple candle-lit stages and playful handwritten newsletters."

In 2003, they hit a point in their career where they realized their marriage was falling apart. Linford wrote a letter to his fans with an explanation for their decision to cancel the last half of their Fall tour. In it, he described their marriage as a tree saying "there are two trees in our lives: one is our music and one is our marriage. Sometimes we water one or the other, hopefully both. We've poured our hearts and our souls into our music this year, and we've seen that tree bear a lot of fruit and flourish. But we've increasingly realized that there has been very little room left over for anything else including our relationship and marriage. As difficult a decision as it is, we've decided we must go home to do some much needed caretaking and work to preserve this part of our lives."

So, they went home. They sought the wisdom of a marriage counselor and the support of friends and family. One night, shortly after Christmas, Linford bought two cases of red wine and told Karin to meet him in the kitchen. That night and for many nights after, they opened a bottle and talked until it was gone.

Out of that painful, soul searching time came the redemption of their marriage and the conception of a new album: "Drunkard's Prayer". They chose to record the album in their living room, where a great deal of emotional healing and vulnerability had taken place. In Karin's words, "it's an album about two people finding their way home..."

My husband and I had read their letters and biographies and were interested to hear from them in person and to see their interactions, to put an atmosphere and persona to who we knew them to be through their various recordings.

We were struck by their drastic personality differences. Linford is slinky and lanky with a hunched posture and a mellow, lumbering gait. In the words of my husband, his thick brown hair flops over his head like "the humble curls of a black lab." He talks with a SLOW southern drawl with very little fluctuation of tone or affect. In other words, he is Mr. Mellow Yellow. He quietly and nonchalantly plays rolling melodies on the piano, finishing with a slight bow of his head. His thick, dark-framed glasses surround large, kind brown eyes.

Karin is sassy, fast-moving and fiery like a pixie. During the concert she spoke articulately and confidently in her vibrant red sleeveless shirt and her high-heeled shoes She shot perfect-pitched notes into the air like firecrackers. She seemed dominant and high-strung and determined. She laughingly explained herself as "nervous and type-A" and at one point she told the story of how angry she was at the airline for losing their luggage. Linford shruggingly spoke into the microphone, referring to the explanation of her "outbursts" as a "bitchy conviction."

We were surprised by their obviously opposite personalities.

But in the midst of the differences, we could tell they loved eachother and knew eachother well.

They seemed at home. We were inspired by their openness and the courage with which they chose to drop everything and return home to reconnect and fight for their marriage.

They risked their career and a whole lot of money. But they decided that drastic vows require drastic measures. And they have come through on the other side with another intoxicating disc to chronicle their journey through the deep waters.

DISCOGRAPHY

2005: Drunkard's Prayer, Back Porch Records
2004: Changes Come Over the Rhine LIVE
2003: OHIO, Back Porch Records
2002: The Cutting Room Floor
2001: Films For Radio, Back Porch Records
2000: Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings, Back Porch Records Re-release, digitally remastered with previously unreleased track.
1999: Amateur Shortwave Radio, Grey Ghost Records
1997: Besides, Scampering Songs
1996: The Darkest Night of the Year, Scampering Songs
1996: Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings, Scampering Songs
1995: Till We Have Faces, IRS Records Re-release
1994: Eve, IRS Records
1993: Patience, IRS Records Re-release
1992: Patience, Scampering Songs
1991: Till We Have Faces, Scampering Songs

The Perfect Family Vehicle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCY8qLYYVE0

We have experienced life with an unreliable vehicle for 10 months now. Back at the beginning of 2006, we were involved in a 7 car pileup on the bridge curving over the river and toward our town. It was a rainy January night around 8 pm. My husband had just picked me up from the hospital where I had worked a tiring 12-hour shift on our bustling maternity unit. I was 6 and1/2 months pregnant with our second child and our 2 and 1/2 year old daughter was in her carseat behind me.

The air was filled with light fog, and the constant spittle of winter rain slicked the asphalt, causing it to shine in the headlights. My husband was driving the speed limit in the right hand lane. He was watching the road, driving carefully amidst the blur of rainstreaked headlights and I was chatting about the events of my shift.

As we drove up a small incline in the road, I saw a grey car without lights on in the lane immediately ahead of us and yelled "Car!" when I realized it wasn't moving. My husband slammed on the brakes while intermittently pumping them against the slick road and we screeched to a full stop literally 2 inches from the car's rear bumper. The SUV directly behind us did the same, screeching to a stop within inches of our car. Unfortunately for the driver of the 3rd car, she was going way too fast and had no time to even depress her brakes. She slammed headlong into the SUV, which slammed into us, which caused our front bumper to become lodged quite determinedly beneath the rear bumper of the originally stalled car.

We continued to brace ourselves as the sound of screeching brakes cut through the night. Besides mild whiplash and residual anxiety, we were without injury. But the aftermath of car repairs and insurance delays continued for months.

Our car should have been totalled, but they decided to repair it instead. It has been difficult to know which repairs are a result of the accident and which are par for the course of owning a 1985 Volvo station wagon. Needless to say, our car "big blue," was already dragging it's legs like an old gopher, and is now crawling on its final front leg. Just last week, the heat and defrost function stopped working. And if you know anything about living in a rainforest, which I'm sure you do, you know that defrost and heat is essential.

The Volvo is mine and predates our wedding of 4 years ago. I bought it from my brother back in 2000 after "Mahli", my burgundy 1980 Volvo sedan, tuckered out. Both "Mahli" and "Big Blue" have served their time, carrying me thousands of miles between Arizona and British Columbia.My husband is 6 foot 8 inches and has done well to tolerate the low, cozy entrance to the driver's seat. For over 4 years he has wriggled and contorted his expansive frame into an insertable posture, tweeking his neck and back in the process. So, friends, we have started to look for a new vehicle.

For years, the Volkswagen Westfalia has been top on our list for vehicles to someday own. It is the perfect family vehicle. Most models seat 5 or 6, are fully camperized, sleep 4 adults and are fairly easy to repair if the owner is willing to slow down, take a swig of ginger beer and read the manual. We have also heard a lot of involved stories about these beauties breaking down at inopportune times, so that means we need a good one!

For a few months, we explored the possbility of owning a Mitsubishi Delica (check them out at http://www.japanoid.com/). These unique-looking vans seat 7, run for MANY kms per fill-up of Diesel, are imported from Japan, and are amazingly affordable at $7,000. We seriously considered the Delica and put our names on a list to be contacted when one was available. In the meantime, we visited two friends who had recently purchased one and were able to take a closer look. We discovered that the amount of headroom is less than our old Volvo! My husband looked like a giant on a mini-bike trying to fit into the driver's side. So, we abandoned that possibility. And now we are on the search for a sweet deal on a sweet Westy.

Feel free to smile and honk and to send good thoughts our way when you pass one on the highway.