Well, it’s just over 100 days since beethoven’s departure so it seems a good time to jot my thoughts down.  Typically, I think of a topic first and then I start to write.  Honestly, I have been having some trouble coming up with a ‘theme’ for today’s blog.  Things are going so well with Marco and I on our ‘great adventure’ that I wasn’t sure what I’d write about.  For those of you who don’t know, I did spend 21 of my last 100+ days visiting Australia, so while Canada has been living without beethoven for 100 days, I technically, have not.  In fact, between visiting, face-timing, phone calls and text messages I think it’s possible that we talk more than we ever did when we were living together.  That’s been a good thing! So, what has changed for us so far?

Photo booth in a train station somewhere between Halifax & Montreal in 1988…

When Marco and I met in Halifax, we were both in our late twenties and very independent,  having each lived on our own for quite sometime.  We were enjoying the freedom that comes with that independence and were very content with our lives as they were. However, we connected nonetheless, and as our years together clicked along, our strengths and weaknesses melded together.  Without realizing it, eventually we took on what we were best at and leaned on the other for those things we weren’t as good at, or things the other did better.  As practical as that was, it meant that we became dependent on one other for certain things.  For example, I stopped doing things like household repair jobs (in my past life, I had stripped my hardwood floors, re-enameled a bath tub, rewired some plugs and owned my own well-equipped toolbox). I began to focus more on cooking, which I loved to do, and dealing with things like making appointments for the kids, answering the phone (Marco’s most hated task), dealing with teachers, volunteering at school, and taxes.  Marco was the bike fixer, the guy who could always fix something that didn’t work around the house, whether it was a computer, a light fixture, the washing machine. He was also definitely the ‘plant guy’ – our various homes were always filled with plants, thanks to Marco.  Thankfully, we shared the housework (although I think Marco likely did the lion’s share.  We didn’t intend for this division of labour to happen, it just did. And, of course, we both compromised often – weighing what was really important and worth fighting over, and what we were willing to give up.

When faced with the prospect of Marco leaving, I panicked when I realized I had lost track of many things that I would suddenly need to be responsible for. I had lost confidence in my capabilities to do things for myself. In fact, if I am to be completely truthful, I could sometimes be a bit ‘needy’, which is not a characteristic that I’m particularly fond of. We’re four months into this journey and while I still prefer to have Marco home, I feel like I am getting my confidence back – the confidence that I can look after myself.  That’s such a great feeling.  Really that’s the person Marco fell in love with (at least I think so!) – the confident, strong-willed, independent student he met in 1987 at Dalhousie.  And it was the same for me – Marco was confident, not at all needy or demanding of my time, and to top it all off, he was really smart!  For awhile we each put up a good fight to maintain our personal space and our sense of independence, but eventually those lines grew a bit fuzzy and we learned the art of compromise and space-sharing.

As we spend this time apart, I feel like we’re actually becoming more like the two people who met and fell in love back in the eighties.  I know, that sounds so cheesy, but I don’t know how else to describe it.  We’re different of course – older, hopefully a bit wiser…but we’re also feeling confident about the choices we’ve made and about our ability to see this adventure through and to really enjoy the journey.  And, let’s face it, confidence can be pretty attractive. This adventure is reminiscent of our decision in 1991 to pack up with a tiny baby and move from Vancouver to the Netherlands, with no idea of whether or not it would work.  We didn’t even know if Marco had a job when we left Canada. We just knew it was something we had to do and it was worth the risk.

Well, enough of this blogging for tonight, I’ve got things to do.I still make an effort NOT to kill too many of Marco’s plants and it is a watering day.  As the weather improves I’m sure I will feel a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of digging up the garden and getting the planting done.  There are a few windows that need replacing.  It’s soon time to power wash the deck and get a new coat of stain of it once the weather warms up. At least the wood chopping is done for the season.  Oh, and the laundry…Marco had taken that over and now I have to squeeze that into my busy schedule as well.

I had this blog post all planned out.  I was going to write about how hard it has been to change gears – to go from a fast-paced work and home life, to some relaxing time here in Australia.  I was going to tell you about the difficulties I have with taking time to relax, to be ‘in the moment’ and to enjoy that moment, to separate work and leisure time. My blog would talk about the kids I watched at the beach the other day, how they were so very present and involved in what they were doing, whether it was carting huge armloads of seaweed back to mom’s towel, or doing pirouettes in the sand, or engaging in a full-on tantrum, they were so very present. I wanted to capture what they had.  I had it all planned.  But this blog is about being honest and telling it like it is at the moment.   I have spent lots of time describing the great things about this adventure.  This adventure IS filled with great things,  but there are also some tough moments and they aren’t just about being apart.  They are about finding a new way to be together as well.

As I’ve said, Marco and I haven’t really spent much time apart – while we got married a bit late, had our kids a bit late, once we were together, we were very much together.  Not always the perfect couple or the perfect parents, but we never faltered in our commitment to each other or to our kids.  Once we made this decision to live apart for two years, I focused on the excitement of the visits and the quality time we would spend together.

This first week together has been good, but I felt a bit unsettled – I think this came from the very high expectations I put on the short time we would have together.  With high expectations comes disappointment often.  Suddenly I expected every moment that we were together to be great – we would have a blast,  our relationship would suddenly be completely new and exciting (hey, maybe I imagined we’d even get younger).  Well, we can all see where this is going :).  Realistically, we are the same two people we were before.  Our relationship hasn’t suddenly turned into somebody else’s relationship since I arrived.  We still argue, I’m still messy and Marco is anything but…I’m still chaotic and Marco is linear.  We still get on each others nerves – ask the kids, we are so opposite that it’s a bit of a family joke!

Tonight we finally talked about it. Okay, I talked and then Marco responded.  That’s how we usually do it. Were we okay?  Were we still close?  Shouldn’t it be more exciting?  The visit is going well, really – we’ve seen lots of very cool things, had some good laughs – I’ve worked, Marco’s worked.  It’s been just as it should be.  Except for the expectation that it would somehow be different.  That was something that was in my mind, I think.  The real question is, do we need things to be different?  No, I guess we really don’t.  They’re okay just as they are, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this together after all these years.

I think that a lot of people wouldn’t do what we’re doing – be apart for two long years, at least not if they were happy in their relationship.  Sometimes, I over think this and I wonder if something is wrong with us that we’re able to do this and it’s okay.  But as we talked tonight, I realized that we can do this because we ARE okay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with us.  Every relationship is different and different doesn’t mean better or worse, it just means different.

Marco and I balance each other through our differences.  Science and art, chaos and order, introvert and extrovert, instant sleeper and insomniac.Marco found a blog called ‘The Daily Beethoven’ in which Beethoven’s average day is described.  He gets up at the same time, counts out 60 coffee beans exactly, makes  coffee every morning.  He follows the same structured schedule each day followed by a quiet evening reading and listening to music, maybe smoking his pipe. That’s Beethoven – Marco is willing to experiment with a bit more variation, but really he thought the bean counting was accurate. And the pipe…and music…okay, there may be more similarities than I’d first thought.  I, on the other hand, am a ball of chaotic movement – I get up, rush around, eat whatever I feel like, including leftovers for breakfast, sometimes leaving a trail of clothes behind me…I hurry to work where I enjoy doing 6 things at once, sometimes forgetting about lunch, sometimes being a bit too dramatic.  Then I rush home (I always rush places) and cause more chaos at home before heading off to do something else.  I don’t sleep much and I roam around the house at all hours.

We balance each other.  We respect our differences (except when we fight about them), we still have a lot in common – we value our good friends, gardening, nature, cooking, traveling and of course, our kids.  Our politics and our values are similar. We’ll always have some degree of conflict in our relationship because that’s who we are.  And just because the location and the furniture changed, it doesn’t mean we have to.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t always try to make improvements.  There’s always room for that.

So, now that I’ve sorted this all in my head, I’ll get back to that personal goal of figuring out how to live a bit more in the moment and to find more balance.  I might find out that’s just not for me, but it’s always good to try new things.

Here I am in Sydney…four days into my visit and we are settling in to our new reality.  We are about to enter our third month of this adventure, so this is still a work in progress.  I am still a big believer in the importance of change, but in my eagerness to embrace it before my trip, I decided to dye my hair for the first time in my life – not a serious colour change, just an effort to remove the grey hairs and brighten things up a bit.  It seemed like just the thing before my big trip, I’d never done it before and shouldn’t I do it at least once??  Things went well, I didn’t mind my new, slightly darker look, but change isn’t always good, as we know.  That night my head started to itch – convinced I must have picked up head lice instantly at my very high end hair salon, I think I made Marieke check over and over again over the next few days until I read that it’s likely no lice could even survive hair dye.  Definitely I was having a reaction and that reaction would continue until my third day here in Australia. All over my body…the itch just moved around from my legs to my arms to my stomach to my back, all the while continuing on my head, of course.  By the time I arrived in Sydney, I confess, I had taken benadryl, reactine, a xanax and a glass of wine (just one, honest).  I thought I might lose my mind!  Now keep in mind, this was over 24 hours of travel, I didn’t consume those all at once. Moral – not all change is good or necessary.  Having said that, this change that Marco and I made is still good change,we both believe that.

The first three days have been an adjustment – we’ve had fun, but it’s just starting to feel normal now.  For almost 28 years we’ve always had a shared space. Suddenly, we had our place in Winnipeg together, yet Marco’s place in Sydney was just his.  I felt like a visitor and I’m not sure I liked that or expected it.  I should have realized that would happen, of course.  The first day, aside from the itching, was fun – we walked to Coogee Beach and had lunch outside, wandered around the University, then sat outside on the balcony of Marco’s teensy weensy over-priced Sydney apartment and drank wine while looking out over the city with the ocean view (which, by the way, makes this expensive city worthwhile, at least for 24 months).  The next day was Saturday so we had two days before Marco would be at work again.  Suddenly, we had to try to find a way to live in this little space – moving the coffee table every time someone needed to stand up;  finding a spot for my things; figuring out how to fit both the milk AND the water in the little fridge…those minute details of sharing space.  It was like camping, except we hadn’t set up the tent together and somebody else packed the food. On Saturday, we bused downtown and checked out Circular Quay, wandered around the Sydney Opera House (only the outside, it was a beautiful day), drank coffee and ate chocolate at a lovely Belgian cafe…by the end I was exhausted.  I spent that evening sleeping and scratching and sleeping some more.  Sunday, we took a ferry to the Taronga Zoo – it was hot, filled with screaming over-heated children and it’s up a hill.  A huge zoo, uphill. While neither of us are ‘zoo’ people, we were excited to see a tasmanian devil, the tiny Australian penguins, kangaroos, wombats, a platypus and some lovely bird life. (I would have preferred to post a photo of the tasmanian devil or the wombat but they shy away from the camera, unlike the good old kangaroo).

I confess that when we arrived home I was a bit on the cranky side.  I was feeling out of sorts, still itchy, hot and not really sensing my place in this super organized, sparse, tiny apartment. That would have to change but it was up to me, not Marco – he was happy to share his world, at least I think so 🙂 …

Monday morning, Marco went off the work and I set about to embrace this new world.  How better to feel like this place is my home than a bit of retail therapy!  Off I went, feeling a bit nervous, although I’ve traveled alone all over the place, lived in Europe for five years as well.  I just haven’t done it for awhile, my brain is older now and I’m more likely to forget how to find my way home! I bought a few things we needed around the apartment, little things – some coasters, a colander, a small cheese grater, exciting stuff. Keep in mind, there was really only room for a lemon, some lettuce and maybe an apple in the fridge…once we squeezed in some cheese and olives. I organized a few things, and started to feel a bit better about it all. Over the first days, I got my computer set up so I could work in the mornings, I explored in the afternoons, then Marco and I would meet up for dinner and decide how we’d spend the next three weeks.  Short term plans include going to Sheherazade at the Sydney Opera House on Friday night, and heading to the Blue Mountains the following weekend.

It’s pretty good, in fact, it’s starting to feel really good here.  This tiny apartment is amazing in so many ways – a constant breeze from the ocean, the sound of so many different birds.  I am starting to enjoy the simpler way of living – stuff can weigh you down.  While almost everything in our home in Winnipeg has a story and is important to us, there is something to be said for a minimal lifestyle.  We FaceTime with friends and family, make plans for our travel over the next two years,  squabble a bit, just enough so it feels normal, and we laugh – a lot.  That’s the best part and what I miss the most when we’re not together. We really are doing okay with our new reality.

Oh, and I spent a couple of hours at Coogee Beach yesterday – forgot that my arms are short and didn’t manage to cover my entire back, forgot that I should put sunscreen on my forehead even though I have bangs so am resembling a blotchy lobster a bit.  That hole in the ozone over Australia is for real, everyone.  We need to care for our climate or we WILL leave a huge mess that our children will pay for dearly. And no one wants that.

Well, I’m off to sleep to the sound of the wind off the ocean, the crazy call of the sulphur crested cockatoos and the Australian ravens.  Life is really precious, I’d say, and my goal is to savour every moment. Our collective goal should be to work to preserve this world of ours, so that our children and grandchildren will have moments to savour as well.

Leafing through old photo albums this past week, I’ve been reflecting on my life with Marco over the past 28 years.  It’s been quite a journey and I thought that since you are following my life without Marco over these next two years, it might be nice to share our past and what brought us to this point.

Marco and I met at Dalhousie University, around 1987.  He was doing a PhD and I was working on my Masters.  He had traveled from the Netherlands to continue his studies in science, while my travels had twisted and turned through Canada while working in theatre as a props builder and stage manager – Regina to Vancouver to Banff to Calgary back to Vancouver to Niagara-on-the-Lake to Halifax.  We met at the Grad House in Halifax during a social event informally known as the ‘wine and sleaze’ party.  It was only for new grads like myself, but the scientists always found and photocopied the invitations and came anyway.  That evening was the start of our life together – we met during a bar fight while waiting in line for the washroom.  That romantic start set the tone. Let’s just say, we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day :).

When we graduated, Marco got a post doc at UBC in Vancouver, so off we went, camping from Halifax to Vancouver in a pup tent, with Ry Cooder stuck in the cassette player.  It came on whenever the car started, no matter what we did.  I still love Ry Cooder, so does Marco.

We got married in 1990 on the beach in Tsawwassen at the home of good family friends.  Freshly caught salmon, homemade beer and wine, bonfire on the beach.  It really was our kind of wedding even though our main reason for taking this formal step, was to simplify our lives should we, lacking a common country of citizenship, choose to reproduce…

In 1991 I was pregnant with Casimir (that wedding wasn’t for nothing!).  Even though we were married, it was really tough for Marco to stay in Canada following his post doc. There was an influx of immigration from Hong Kong and the system in Vancouver was overwhelmed.  We would stand in line very early in the morning, one of us would go get coffee, the lineup stretching for blocks, and hope to get one of the coveted numbers they gave out each day at Immigration.  After a few unsuccessful days of that, we decided to move to the Netherlands for awhile and try from there.  Casimir was only a few weeks old when we left.  It was a difficult time, far more difficult than a 2 year stint apart in Australia, I believe.  I remember feeding Casimir in a crowded airport waiting room in Vancouver.  There were no seats, so I sat in the bathroom beside a toilet, fed him and cried.  I know my Mom shed many tears as we left on our journey with her new grandson.  I didn’t think I could handle it either.

We lived with Marco’s parents for six weeks – they didn’t speak much English, I spoke no Dutch and I was a new and insecure mother.  I came to love them very much, but those were difficult weeks.  Marco found work at the Heinrich Heine University Hospital in Duesseldorf, Germany and after a relentless search for a place to live there (all the while carting our tiny baby with us in the snuggly, on buses, trains, and the schwebebahn – a suspension railway), we conceded defeat – no vacancies and so very expensive.  After many days of this we caught a train into the Netherlands and decided that the first town we hit, we would live there, close to the Dutch/German border and Marco would commute to work.  We quickly found a home and Marco began what would be a 5-year long daily commute of 3 1/2 hours to a job he was very unhappy with.  While the first two years were hard for me, for Marco every year was difficult except when he would get on the train at the end of day to come home to Venlo and his little family.  A few months after we arrived in Venlo, I discovered I was pregnant and on February 5 (23 years ago) I gave birth to a lovely baby girl, Marieke.  I have so many happy memories of my time in Venlo. While I didn’t have full time work there, I taught English to seniors at both the Volksuniversiteit and in my home.  I took more art classes – life drawing and sculpture.  In fact, I met a good friend Mariette, at a sculpture workshop in a monastery and her family became very close to us.  I would go to their studio with my two babies – Casimir would play with clay, Marieke would sleep in her little car seat while I created wonderful raku pottery pieces.  That was my sanity through those sleep-deprived early years.

While we really loved the Netherlands, I did miss Canada and Marco needed to find a better place to work.  After 5 years of making wonderful friends, becoming close to Marco’s parents and sisters, he was offered a job in Winnipeg at the National Research Council.  We were ecstatic, but torn – no more bike rides through the forest, visits to the markets, cosy dinners with Oma and Opa. I made many friends with whom I’m still close today and it was hard to say goodbye. There was a lot we were leaving behind.  I love the Netherlands in a way that is so deep I can’t explain.  But I also love Canada.

After being back in Canada for 19 years, I can still speak Dutch – a bit rusty, but I can still do it.  Our return to Canada in 1996 did not signal  the end of our moving.  The job at NRC lasted only a year and a half, then we were off to Saskatoon for 4 years.  Each time I would find another non-profit organization to pour my heart into.  Finally, in 2001 we moved back to Winnipeg and shot some roots.  Winnipeg has been good to our family, but the loss of Marco’s job signaled another opportunity for change, which, I think we’ve determined is almost always a good thing.

And so here we are, on this new journey, knowing that we have many other journeys behind us and that each has taught us something special.  This one will too.  In less than 3 weeks, I’m off for my first visit to see Marco and I know it will be a great adventure.

As I sit here, exactly 23 years after the birth of Marieke, I remember in awe, the amazing journey we have had so far, the beautiful family that has been created through our experiences, both the good times and the not so good times, and I will be forever grateful as I look ahead towards many more journeys. Whether they are those I experience alone or with Marco, I won’t stop taking them.

“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

What if someone asked you to summarize your life in a 6-word memoir?

According to Wikipedia, Six-Word Memoirs is a project founded by online storytelling magazine Smith Magazine.  Taking a cue from novelist Ernest Hemingway, who, according to literary legend, was once challenged to write a short story in only six words, Smith Magazine set out to do the same. Hemingway’s six-word story read: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

I was reminiscing with a good friend Catherine, tonight.  I told her that I really couldn’t decide what to write my next blog about – I didn’t want to bore everyone with repeat stories about my hummingbird dreams, my wood-chopping successes or my desire to experience change.  While these thoughts are threaded through everything I write, I was finding it difficult to come up with a different way to approach them.  Catherine asked if I’d heard about the Six-Word Memoir.   I hadn’t so I checked it out. This is my attempt to express my past couple of weeks, using my version of this style.  I wasn’t able to sum up the past couple of weeks in just 6 words (let alone my entire life), but I liked the concept.  So, here is a mini-series of 6-Word Memoirs about my life without Marco.

Forgot to water plant, almost died.

Butchering Bach, maybe Beethoven is next.

Ate fish tacos, story ended badly.

Marieke, Casimir and Larissa lighten me

Snowing today, so beautiful, love you.

Had a moment, caught my breath.

In your lumberjacket, I chop stupendously.

Laughing with Marieke, we spend money.

Face-timed you with messy hair.

Thinking of fat wombats I giggled.

Started Hawk book you gave me.

Myer Bloom arrived in the mail.

Seventeen hours is a world away.

Dreams fly effortlessly across the ocean.

Missing you, had another dry martini.

Next time, I might try haiku.  But don’t panic, I’ll be back to my long-winded blogs in no time. Hope you’ll join me.

Technology – my new best friend, I love you.  First of all, I apologize deeply for complaining bitterly about you this past year, for sometimes treating you with contempt, especially publicly.  I will never dis you on social media again. I won’t threaten to chuck you out the window when I don’t understand you, I promise.  And I won’t make idle threats about ‘living off the grid’ anymore.  It’s just a generation thing, it’s not personal. 

One week ago today, we took Marco to the airport and that seems so far away already.  All the worry and preparation prior to Marco’s departure was, frankly, exhausting for all of us.  The anticipation was, as it so often is, more painful than the event itself.  This past few days, I think Marco and I have talked more than we do when we’re home together.  There was a moment at work last week when Marco and I were talking (he was situated nicely on my desk, while I drank my coffee)…it was lunchtime for me and dinnertime for him the next day (that has been the hardest thing, getting the timing right).  A colleague walked in, we discussed something, she said hi to Marco, and carried on.  It was oddly normal.  This weekend, I perched my iPad on the kitchen counter and puttered away, talking to him while I made tea and cleaned up the kitchen before heading off to bed – it was Friday night, and he had just come back from doing his grocery shopping on Saturday.  He pops up randomly throughout my day, although on Sunday, he had his first day of work (it was, of course, Monday) so this will likely become more of a weekend occurrence.

This past week I’ve tried to create a new routine – of course now it includes all the things that Marco was doing this past year and a half while in his semi-retirement mode, meaning, pretty much everything.  Laundry, house-cleaning, cooking, chopping wood, making fires, making the wine, feeding the cats, bringing me tea or coffee in bed…it’s been pretty sweet.  Surprisingly, I’ve kind of enjoyed doing some of those things again.  Keep in mind, it’s only been 6 days.  Another 200 days of this and I might get a housekeeper and maybe a butler.  A cook isn’t really necessary yet, as Marieke, who’s an excellent vegan cook, has been great about taking much of that on, at least until she gets busier again with her classes. The one thing I’ve really enjoyed is taking the axe outside and hacking away at our woodpile, making little starter pieces. I discovered it does wonders to relieve stress.  I’ve also started tai chi again, I’m going to the pool and I am starting piano lessons this week after years of not playing (this activity will likely only make me happy, not so much my teacher or family members).

My ticket is booked for my first visit to see Marco in Sydney. I’ll do this at the end of February, into March.  It’s kind of like the lead up to a really big date, except more expensive.  I plan to buy something new to wear.  Hopefully he’ll pay for dinner.