Year of the Dragon

It was J's idea, really. Their boy was turning four and Team Rioux had to celebrate in style. Should they book the skating rink? The aquarium? Go zip-lining at Adrena Line? Or should they play it old-school and plan the party at home?

J agreed that they could save money and put their creative energy to work planning a theme party, and since it is the year of the dragon (and E's favourite movie of the moment happens to be How to Train Your Dragon) that's the theme they went with. They would give the kids dragon tattoos (maybe the parents too). They'd cut up half a dozen cardboard shields and set up a craft station to decorate them. Each kid could choose their official knight name: Sir Ethan the Brave, Sir Odin the True of Heart.  

J made a gluten-free cake with sugar-free icing and it still tasted good. She even did it with a diaper-free baby in one arm. (For the record, most of these posts are typed with said bare-bottomed babe in arms.)

Not to be outdone, J rolled pinecones in glitter to make a clutch of sparkling dragon's eggs. 

He then hid them about the yard. When each kid had a shield, they were led outside by J's trusty deputy (coincidentally another J, though not of clan Rioux) and instructed to find the eggs and pile them in the sandbox; this collaborative effort would then summon the dragon.

The young knights put their hearts into the search. 

Sure enough, every egg was accounted for and deputy J handed out the cardboard swords just in time. The blue beast made his appearance at the gate and the little ones charged!  

The victorious knights returned indoors to sing, eat, and be merry. 

Perhaps for M's first birthday we'll do a wizard-themed party. 

L.

Lady Carlotta, you have always been the glamorous one. Long-legged, long-lashed, you were made to linger on the finish. At sixteen, you were hell-bent for adventure, screaming at the sea and playing Morrison in your Mustang on wild trips to nowhere the wrong way down a one-way street (or was that me?). You invented that drink we downed on our Mystic Nights, and if it ever had alcohol in it we certainly didn't need it. I remember summers in your basement bedroom, playing cards in the woods with the sun splitting through the trees, confessing my secrets to your wide eyes, your understanding ears. I remember snowy nights, creeping out of hotel rooms with sleeping boys and passed-out girls, on our way to purer things. Cats at the Queen E; posing with fishing line at the fair; our mugshot profiles; dancing in the air. Always dancing. 

This is no grad write-up. We were sweet creatures then, still innocent but longing to lose that label. Now, we are grown women on opposite sides of the world and I so badly want you to come over and play. I want to read your palm and tell you about the curve of your heart line, how it points home no matter where in the world you are. I want to wave my magic wand, or have my wizards wave theirs, and grant you the great happiness you have been seeking all your life. You are fine and rare and worth more than all these words put together. In my heart, you are the great beauty of the universe and the friend I will never stop seeking. 

A Confession

This project is not easy. It's not finding fourteen people to celebrate and it's not finding the humble words to do so, though I have struggled with both on nights when the days have felt long. It's not finding the time, either, though every decision comes with its own sacrifice, as the unwashed floors and dishes scream to remind me.

This project has felt, at times, like a failure. I am not finished, of course, so perhaps I say this too soon, but if the point was to prove an Adlerian principle that doing good for others will pull a person out from a damaging tailspin then I'm not so sure that it has.

Hold the phones, I'm not typing from the ledge. It's been a fairly challenging week, that's all. Just like the one before it.

I have this little theory, and it has to do with that bit about sacrifice I mentioned. Perhaps honouring the people I love who are far from me has come at the cost of the people nearest by. Perhaps I've been spreading myself a little too thin, not saving enough for the ones who need my love the most, myself included. So, on that note, I'm going to spend the afternoon away from the screen and bask in my family for a while. The sun is sure to split through these clouds eventually.

Red and Green

This post is for a girl who's as green as she is red, though truth be told I don't really know the colour of her hair. She is Rainbow-Bright and Pippi-Longstocking with just a dash of the Lost Boys of Never-Never Land (because I can never see her growing up, not really, and she'd be perfectly at home on an island with pirates and merfolk). She, like so many of our friends, is an artist and an activist; her goal is to live a truthful life and she is brave enough to change more than her address to discover that. She is generous of spirit and of smiles. Her energy is as infectious as it is affectionate. She's a little bit cuckoo and she makes you feel it's okay to be so too, and so we do. Turns out we make great music together. I hope we get to do so soon, 'cause I miss her company like I miss Cafe Fantastico, miss the Prior Street posse like the dry sand misses the tide, like all children miss their mothers when they're gone.

New to the Family

When I started this project, I made a promise to myself that I would honour those in my life who are not physically in my life, at least not near enough for me to reach out and hold onto, or collapse into, or cuddle up next to as regularly as I would like. It is this promise that prevents me from acknowledging the many marvelous people who save my life, or rather make it worth living, on a regular basis. People like M, who sleeps through the night in the crook of my arm and smiles at me upon waking. People like Aunty L, who welcomes me with a cup of Red Zinger when I drop by  and builds a nest for the baby crab I brought with me. People like Ginger and Blondie, who volunteer to babysit so that J and I can take a night to be better parents. The list is long and the gratitude grows even as it goes unspoken. I love you all.

But this post is not for you. This post is for another newcomer to the family, though as the years brush by that newness is wearing away. Still, he is new to me if only because we've never met; regardless, he is among the fourteen and very much worthy of these words of love.

He is a poet-scholar, a wordsmith and a player. He is a lover of the stage and of staging love. I admit I have fallen in love with his words and the worlds they create. He knows a good wine and a good woman, makes inappropriate jokes at appropriate times and listens with the sort of rare and genuine interest that makes a person feel she could talk to him, for real, for a long, long time. He makes you feel like family, and in this case I feel lucky to believe that's so.

The Greats

This post is the for the young at heart. E and M are lucky to have many young hearts in their life, but there are three in particular whose years have earned them a special distinction. 

Grandpa Ian gets minor elective surgery on his birthday. 

Grandparents are good, but great-grandparents are truly great. J remembers having tea parties with her great-grandmother. That woman got herself down to the level of the tiny table J had set (and presumably got herself up again) and made-believe she was sipping tea and enjoying chocolate biscuits that were clearly wooden beads and blocks. There was at least 90 years between them (J admits she hasn't done the math) and yet in that moment they were peers. 

E and M's great-grandparents must have had great parents themselves, or perhaps they come by their greatness magically.

Harry Potter, eat your heart out

These great-grandparents never forget a birthday or a holiday. They send valentines and enclose letters and sometimes even slide a little green into E's palm so he can choose something special off his wish-list. They don't do any of those annoying things that older people do to the very young, like pinch their cheeks or tell stories of the blizzards they faced when they "were your age" and had to climb hills both ways to wherever it was they were going. They have beautiful handwriting and gentle hands. They are mentors to their own grandchildren and very much loved, beyond what is written here, beyond what is heard on the phone. These faces are for you. These smiles, these moments, these memories. All yours, with love and gratitude.

Monsieur M

I saved this one for your birthday, Monsieur M. 

Every year I have known you has deepened my love for you. You are the quiet one, the soulful one. You are a poet-photographer, a lover of words but a man of few; you make living look easy but I know you do it with intention and great care. You deserve every kindness that has ever been paid to you and will no doubt pay each forward with no thought of earning or keeping score.  You make the world look more beautiful than I'd ever dared believe it to be. 

Why is your sea so far from mine? 

One day, on a birthday far from now but close enough to dream about, we will walk along the same patch of sand, follow one another's shadows, lean against the same good strong wood and call it home. I will meet you there. 

Uncle Cayman

You may not know it, but you have created an army of one, a fellow lizard-child who snaps, screeches and scuttles in your footsteps. He too can pronounce the names of prehistoric beasts known only to dinophiles and PhD candidates. His favourites, like yours, are the ones that rip open the throats of their prey. He's not afraid to get his hands messy. 

Why do you get the credit? Maybe it's the stories we've told of your adventures, your precociousness, your unbound imagination, your wild-child beauty. Maybe it's the dozens after dozens of times he's watched your creature-feature, loving the moments when animals pee on you, or your uncanny ability to mimic the reptiles you catch. Maybe it's myth-making, maybe it's genetics; either way it's something to be proud of. 

When we watch him, we are astonished and impressed by the way he loses himself in play. An empty egg-carton is a "neilodophilous" (yes, he made that name up) with an armored underbelly that lives at the bottom of the ordovician sea. Part of him wishes he was a time-travelling zoologist that could swim with such beasts; another part longs to be the beast. Sound familiar?

We know that every boy grows up to be his own man, but if E is lucky he'll share more than just your love of creatures. He'll be kind in the way that you are, brave enough to touch a wild thing gently, to show it a gentleness the real world rarely offers. He'll be a good son, a good brother, just like you. He'll know what it is to be loved and will love fiercely, without fear. 

Thelma and Louise

Chère Louise, my partner in crime. 

We bonded over peach juice and pinecones, oh so many days at the bluffs and our lists of wrongs to right. You brought the hammer and I brought the music and we bashed and bashed and it was all we could do not to hurl ourselves off the cliffs as we purged. You saved me from myself. At fifteen I was all short skirts and garish make-up, wishing someone would find me beautiful in a way I could never see but longed to feel. You lusted after David Duchovny and I after Brad Pitt, or was it the other way around? We drank watered-down vodka and wore lampshades on our heads. We wrote each other hundred-and-fifty paged notes decorated with gum wrappers and clippings from YM magazine. We swore we'd drive across the country together and one day we will in our sexy minivans (yes, minivans are sexy). I would drive to the ends of the earth for you.  Do you remember when I gave you that candycane and you gave me one that was even sweeter? All my memories of you are sweet, even the ones that hurt like cold shoulders in the hallways and bitter, biting words scratched on looseleaf in purple pen. I knew you were always on my side. I love you like that first crush, that bff bracelet I never outgrew. You are the wild beauty in my life. 

Like Father, Like Son

This post is for the guy who is both father and friend to J (aka Daddyman). He gave us the gift of his name and we tucked it snugly between E's names like a Gordie-sandwich. E wears it with pride. It's a good, strong name and his grandpa is a good, strong guy. He remembers birthdays and Christmas, every single one; but better still, he remembers what it's like to be a kid and so he knows what will make his boy's eyes widen. The train table that arrived in time for E's fourth birthday is a perfect example. He's also a mentor to J, the kind of gentle, mellow spirit with an easy laugh and an open heart that makes you feel comfortable in his company. His generosity is something to strive for, something we Riouxs appreciate more than we probably say. We wish we could say so in person. We keep our fingers crossed that we'll be able to soon. 

Haiku Crumbs

How many summers
have we gone without your tent
in our gravelled yard?

You were the giant
with the ever gentle voice,
who spoke of tea leaves

shared with us secrets
of how to make the perfect
cup to drink with friends

let a little boy
climb into your bed, made him
welcome in your dreams.

Modest Mog

You came into our life like the surprise of finding a copy of that rare but beloved book in our favourite used bookstore. It was nothing short of fate that brought us together. You fit into our lives in the way few people can, as though you'd known us long before, dreamed us in some childhood dream, or written us into your poetry. You were brave enough to share yourself with us and we are all the more grateful that you did. Your generosity of spirit -- offering your time, your ear, your recipes, your criticism, your ideas, your arms, your laughter, your whimsy -- always buoyed us when we needed it most. You are the sister we never had, the mother we wish we could be, the friend we know we can't do without. Your wisdom is second only to your strength and both will grow more beautiful, as you do, in everything you do. 

Donburi Boy

Yeah, this blog's for you. And your girl.

Because you're a damn good writer.
Because your dry wit never fails to make me laugh.
Because your heart is as big as your stomach. That's saying a lot.
Because you know what a zoo life is and you still have a good sense of humour.
Because you know how good this family is and never fail to make the new ones feel welcome.
Because when I see you both together it makes me want to throw my head up to the sky and laugh at how perfect the world is.

How completely, freaking perfect you both are.

Special note: This is not a Giganotosaurus.

For Beryl

That's not her real name, of course. It's the name of the character she played when we last shared the stage. I knew so little of her then, only that I loved her smile and how easily she shared it. I remember thinking that I hoped we'd become friends. That friendship grew over a mutual fondness for wine and tea; for reading tarot and making cards by hand; for movies with girls in pink dresses and surfing under a grey-blue sky; for being honest even when you're afraid and always feeling welcome to drop by unannounced.

She's the kind of girl you'd trust with your children because there's so much you can learn from the way she gets them. She never talks down to anyone, especially not kids. She is playful, but never careless. She is fiercely independent, but family means the world to her. She remembers to thank you for kindnesses you've long since forgotten. If I started a commune, and I'm not saying I won't one day, I'd want her under the same roof. I'd want her as a sister. She makes me want to be a better person, a better mom, a better friend.  

She's the young-hip fairy-godmother I always dreamed I had.

The Fine Heart of Listening

This one's for T.

Four years ago, almost to the day, we sat in the Solstice cafe sharing our stories. There was a kindred connection between us, one that had grown from our training on the crisis lines, but one that went beyond the relatively little time we'd known each other. I knew her in a way that told me we'd be fast friends, the kind distance can't tarnish.

T is gentle and wise beyond her years. She is not yet a mother, but she has a mother's touch, a mother's knowing. She is nurturing, honest, and braver than she knows. I love the way she nods after she laughs, like she's agreeing that the world is indeed a funny place and glad that it is so. I love the way I feel understood when I open up to her. Her company is a safe place for me, for anyone who sits with her and lets her listen. She will listen and she will hear you. She will be present with you, all the while humbly holding your experience in her hands, grateful that you have shared it.

I wish she were closer. I would see her every day if I could.

The Fourteen

It's now February, the month of love. Several people we love were born this month (and at least one of our loves was conceived). February is a warm, fuzzy month, despite the cold winds blowing outside. It's a good month for a feel-good project we're going to call "The Fourteen". This is not an original project, let us confess. Its roots are in the therapeutic theories of Alfred Adler, who once claimed he could cure anyone of depression in fourteen days. All that person had to do was one good deed for another every day for two straight weeks. Doing things for others, service before self...call it what you will. We're going to see if it works. Starting tomorrow, on E's big day, we'll be posting our love to those we don't get to see every day in the hopes that celebrating our loved ones will ease the pains of being so far apart.