I am pretty much an empty nester. I thought this would be sad, but woohoo! My front hall is neater. The coats are hung up instead of over the rail, or on the floor with the knapsacks, purses, water bottles, and sweaters, socks, gym bags, that are never going to make it up to the bedroom or down to the laundry any time soon.  Towel service is at a minimum, I don’t cook much, and the house is never too hot or too cold. I text, talk and e-mail with my girls everyday. I have degrees of separation. We go for brunch, lunch, coffee, and they come for dinner every Friday night, which I love, love, love.

It’s way easier to let them be and let it go when there is some distance. My eldest has been living away from home since she secured her first job after graduation. She was determined for her independence.  My middle just moved out this past December. That was a big transition. My youngest, who will graduate this year, will likely not be home for long, although truthfully I will look forward to whatever time she would like to spend with me.

I am a mother. I feel the joys and heartaches of my daughters, poignantly.  I know them in my bones. Even things they don’t want to share with me, I intuit. Mothers are like that. My restless nights are usually spent tossing and turning over a decision they have made, or have to make, an unrest they may feel, or the men in their lives. Mothers are like that.  The parenting myth is that we have control over the lives of our children. We certainly have upbringing and influence on our side, but their life decisions are theirs to own. Let it be and let it go.

My happiness is intrinsically woven into the fabric of their lives. I completely understand, advocate that we are responsible for our own happiness, and that we can’t rely on others to make us happy. But, there is a certain peace in the kind of happiness we feel when our children are content. It’s just the way it is. Mother’s are like that. I think it has something to do with ducks. Remember that childhood rhyme about the five little ducks that went out one day, a widdle, waddle, widdle, waddle all the way, and one by one the ducks went their own way, then with mother duck’s quack, quack, quack they all came back. Well, it’s like that, ducks in a row.

Last night was one of those tossing nights. So I am up at five in the morning writing, listening to music and watching the light wash over the street. Stray cat, lone runner, three planes going somewhere. I am so blessed to have my girls, these amazing grown women in my life, to share my life with and to go to concerts, travel, have fun.

Bringing my ducks together brings me such pleasure. When they step in to their light and live their incredible, beautiful lives, I am full. And, I feel washed in my own light as well. I like this time in my life. I like the space to create, experience and discover in my own way, for me.  My nest feels full. Let it go, let it be, let there be light.

One day. Twenty-four hours. One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes. Eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds. A day can be a cliché: Live each day as if it’s your last.

A day can seem endless or slip by in a blink. A great accomplishment, time you wish you could re-claim, and everything in between. One day can change a life.

Is there a moment when we say, yes, this is it; this is what we are supposed to be doing with our lives, that ‘aha’ moment of tiny proportion, and yet all of a sudden it’s as if the kaleidoscope comes in to focus? It seems that over these past few weeks I have been playing with patterns of perspective, passion and possibility through my personal viewfinder, and, much has come in to focus.

My resounding conclusion is to love ‘me’ with a steadfast, unconditional love. If we wait for someone else to tell us that our work is good, that our decisions are correct or our ideas are valid, or if we are dependent on others for our happiness and fulfillment, well, we will likely be waiting a long time. I am guilty of this kind of thinking. I’m making a shift to perusing, creating and grasping the possibilities that are right in front of me now. Living in this precious moment and grabbing on to life, and falling in love with everything in my path.

I’m taking my lessons from the beach and purposefully weaving them in to my city life. I keep a white shell with me to remind me that beauty, and peace and love reside within me, anywhere. Rather than seeing all the obstacles in my path, I am finding the possibilities, and choosing love. One day at a time.

It was fifty years ago that The Beatles rocked our world on the Ed Sullivan Show. Where were you? I was eight; sitting around the television as usual with the family on Sunday night waiting for the ‘shew’, but there was nothing usual about February 9th 1964. The moment is magnified. The Beatles, well they were the big bang of music.

Their songs became the anthem to all the snapshots of our life, and the soundtrack to a world that went from the four-piece boy band to the dimensions of Sgt. Pepper in a blink. There was a lot going on in ’64; the Vietnam War, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and Martin Luther King received the Noble Peace Prize. We were in a world that was interpreting itself.

I grew up with the influence of the Beatles, first a teenybopper, collecting 45’s, and Beatle cards. We used to play ‘Beatles’ in the schoolyard at recess; groups of four strumming air guitars and beating drums, singing the melodies with mock British accents. I listened to the same songs over and over again on my record player, lifting the needle and placing it on my favourite tunes. I saw them in concert at Maple Leaf gardens. I can remember what I wore, a turquoise pop-top with little white balls that pranced against my midriff, and matching copped pants. I held my brother’s hand tight. I can still feel the pulse of the crowd in my chest. Later, I searched album covers for clues, and interpreted the lyrics, opened my mind to new orchestrations, instruments, sounds, and ideas.

Then, the Let it Be rooftop concert in 1969. Beatlemania ended, but their reach grew deeper and remains, still.  Their songs of love, rallied to calls for peace. Singing along with Strawberry Fields, Hey Jude and Let it Be, Blackbird, All you Need is Love, Norwegian Wood, A Little Help from my Friends, we owned the songs, they flowed through us. They marked precious and precarious episodes in our lives.

We changed right along with them. Grew up. Found ourselves. Created different lives. Experimented with ideologies. Embraced, protested, and loved. We went from the innocence of catchy little tunes like I want to Hold your Hand, to Lucy in the Sky, in a psychedelic explosion of all things possible.

There are places I remember, all my life, though some have changed, some forever, not for better, some are dead, and some remain….

Strawberry fields forever….
Peace and love
Jacqui

We go to retreats, ashrams, and on pilgrimages to find the parts of ourselves that we feel we have lost along the way, and to find meaning and joy in our lives. It makes me wonder, do we have to go away to find ourselves?

I always feel like getting away! I’m not so interested in plopping down on a chair with an umbrella and a margarita, rather, having adventures, exploring the landscape, and discovering what lies within. Is it soul searching? Absolutely. Am I running away from my life? For sure, and why not! Do I think contemplations and conundrums will be different if I go somewhere else? No, as it’s said, ‘it’s just geography’. We follow ourselves wherever we go.

I asked Vivian Saffer, an integrative coach what her thoughts were on this. She says, “That’s the illusion. That the ‘thinking mind’ believes we will find ourselves somewhere else! Well, it’s true that being in a new environment, we do turn off some of the mental noise that’s triggered in our usual space, and yes we may become conscious of some our unconscious patterns. But, the truth is, we take ourselves, and our mind patterns wherever we go! So, we can never escape. The practice is finding the peace that exists right here, right now. Our true essence is always within us; it takes awareness to connect with it.”

Self discovery does not have times and places, it is ongoing, and takes detours, maneuvers in surprising ways, hits obstacles and sails smoothly into the sunset; all at any given moment. These days I am taking the time to explore my beliefs and attitudes, to take risks, make different decisions, and empower myself to create.

I think there are many stages, degrees and ways of unearthing what lies beneath our surface, and that this expedition is ongoing, and ever changing. Being ready to answer the big questions comes with time. Our early forays are more like treasure hunts, later they become part of our journey, and find their succinct ways of expression. Are the things that I counted on as tangible still the ideals and lifestyle I cling to? No doubt, a sojourn can put us in touch with our thoughts in a way that we find hard to access at home, at our desk, or with our family, but it is true, we still have to come home to ourselves. But, in any case a walk along the beach collecting shells sounds exquisite.

My mother used to say she had “many lives”. Now I understand that it wasn’t just geography. It wasn’t only about immigrating to Canada from England, starting over, raising four children with roots in one life and buds in another; or about health, money, grief, or finding happiness. It was also about who she was at these intervals, how she had to change or adjust her thinking to accommodate and navigate all these passages of her many lives.

As women, we intuit the diversities, challenges, blessings and joys of our family and find paths of compassion and adaptation. We have to figure out who we are in the light of the many facets of our relationships. We come to crossroads more often, and there are decisions to make, directions to turn. And, we have to peel off the layers of our complacency and release our core, be true to ourselves, and travel in our hearts, souls and on planes to territories yet discovered.

I was rummaging through plastic storage containers where I keep an assortment of memorabilia. The kids first artistic scrawls, report cards, letters to the tooth fairy, photographs that never made it to an album, letters, Beatle fan club trading cards, remnants and nick knacks and such. I sat on the floor surrounded by these bits and pieces and details of the past for at least three hours early on Sunday morning. I was enthralled.

One box in particular was a treasure trove of things past. It was an arbitrary assortment of keepsakes. There were drawings and paintings from the children, and when I looked at them I noticed that although they were done when they were quite young, their personal style is there. In each of their creative pursuits as adults I can see the roots of their childhood expressions.

As for myself, the treasure hunt was very telling. I found a book of poems I had written in high school. I was absolutely blown away by the ideas and style of language, both of which mark the cornerstones of my creative writing now. Certainly then it was a stream of consciousness. Now, I rein the ramblings, and attempt to convey the emotions with intention. Sometimes, I succeed.

The other night I went to see the film “From nothing, something; A documentary on the creative process.” Interestingly all the creators interviewed; writer, architect, artist, scientist, political cartoonist, musician, fashion designer all understood what it was that made them tick at an early age. This passion drove them to their personal careers and success. What struck me the most was the belief they had to have in themselves to make it through. Keep going, against the odds, against the critics, and against that little rascal that perches on the creative shoulder shaking his head in disapproval.

I have had varied careers and expressed my creativity in numerous ways. It seems though, at the core of all of these expressions, is writing. It makes me wonder. Do we read the signs? Did I spend thirty years chasing my tail and coming back to the part of me that was intrinsically my essence in the first place? Just like there is said to be one great love in our lives, is there one overriding idea that nurtures us, that we are meant to spend our lives exploring or interpreting?

The answer is probably yes and no. I’m not at all sorry that I have explored art, film, photography, dance and writing. I think that we all crisscross, and it makes us interesting. The creators in the documentary were all multi-faceted, and it nourished their work. But they did have a single focus. And, isn’t it wonderful to imagine or experience  the ideas and opportunities  that we encounter along the way.

Certainly, the pieces of my past have influenced my creativity. If, at the end of the day, the written word is my culminate expression, I believe it will be richer because I have dipped my toes in many waters. Maybe I have come full circle, but maybe I couldn’t have gotten here without the detours.