My little angels

This is one of my most favorite pictures in the whole wide world. Alexandre with the angel eyes.


Those were the days, when we could wrap them up tight and they were as content as could be.


This is Alexandre in Cuba this past summer. You can already catch a glimpse of the boy he will become, the one that threw a forty-five minute tantrum today because he didn't get what he wanted.You could hardly believe it from this picture if I told you that he's the same little boy that choke-holds his brother on a regular basis.

Winter wonderland

Almost two feet of snow have fallen this week and they're only 50% finished cleaning the streets in the city. C told me that it costs the city $60 million dollars for each snowstorm. That's a lot of money. And when you add on all the layers of winter clothes and winter boots and electricity and gas to run all the heaters, winter can get really expensive here.

I've been trying to get the boys used to the snow. Their day care lady says they don't want to stay outside at all. I say it's the Texan in them. I can completely understand.

Baie St. Paul

Coming into Petite Rivière St. François.

Full moon on Petite Rivière St.-François, at the edge of the St. Lawrence River. This is taken just outside the condo, a walk across the street.

On our way to Baie St. Paul, a 15 minute drive back up the mountain and into the Bay. It's slightly above freezing and perfectly comfortable. My two co-pilots, Alexandre and Jacob.

Pumpkin carving

Be nice to yourself

It's been almost a week since I've written here. I've been spending more time on my memoir of Morocco, revisiting old journals and memories. Even now, I've just spent thirty minutes here writing more, which I just deleted, because this is not a journal of my past, this is a journal of my now.

Alexandre has his third ear infection, this one in both ears like the others. He's on his third antibiotic in seven weeks. Jacob's okay, but snotty-nosed constantly. Seems most of my time is spent flushing noses with saline and chasing after them with Kleenex. Blow harder is their new vocabulary.

I'm forgetting things, which is normally not like me. I miss two of my English classes during these last two weeks, just spaced out and forgot. I also miss an acupuncture appointment last week. And yesterday I take the boys to get their 18 months vaccinations only to find that I already did that a few months ago. I shake my head in disbelief that I did such a thing. How can a few months ago seem like so long ago? I even had this appointment for over three weeks, which means that only a couple of months had really passed. Am I dreaming?

I feel like such a dumb-ass walking out of there with my friend Angela, who came along to help me. She came for nothing. I woke them up early from their nap at daycare for nothing. Nicole at the daycare had to get them ready for nothing. I go on to think about how many other people I've hurt or disappointed in my life like this and stop myself quick with, You may not beat yourself up anymore.

Be nice to yourself.

This is my new mantra.

The other day C is filling out insurance payments to get reimbursed for my psychologist visits and the boys' prescriptions. After writing the word DEPRESSION under the reason, he sighs and says, "I just don't like writing that word. I don't like anything about that word." As I feel the blood rush to my chest and up to my face, I quickly stand up and push my chair in. I turn around and walk straight down the stairs to the basement without answering his calls, "Why are you freaking out? I just said I didn't like that word."

Sitting in the office chair downstairs, staring at a blank desktop screen, I observe myself. What were my first thoughts that made that blood flow like that? Depressed? Why did he have to say that? I was beginning to forget I was depressed. Look at you, how pathetic you are. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't have to write that word. Why are you depressed? You've got nothing to be depressed about. Are you faking it just because you don't want to be happy. Why don't you want to be happy, that's ridiculous. Who doesn't want to be happy? There must be something really wrong with you.

You may not beat yourself up anymore.

Be nice to yourself. I sit as the passive observer and watch how my thoughts flow from one abuse to another. This is how I talk to myself. Not just now, this is how I've been talking to myself. All it takes is a tiny spark of misunderstanding, and then there I go like a shooting firecracker, another perfect opportunity for another beating. It's like some sick pleasure in it somewhere, the helpless victim, cowering for another blow while at the same time the abuser, stabbing myself or others to the ground.

I sit in the basement as the passive observer and watch all my thoughts race by. This time I walked away from the situation to watch my thoughts, nonreactive. I went back upstairs, took a long bath while contemplating. What usually happens when I feel misunderstood or criticized or judged? Usually I react immediately. He then reacts and we're on a spiraling escalation to nowhere, forgetting the initial incident because so much extra past and crap has been brought into the picture to cloud it all up. Words fall like boulders. With a foggy haze to wade through afterwards, I'm not able to see that all that happened was something like he didn't like the word depression and didn't like writing it. Period.

Without the haze and some 20 minutes of time, keeping the storm to myself where it belongs instead of spewed all over someone, two things happen. One, I see now that all that happened was he didn't like the word depression. And two, it's okay that I am like I am.

I come out of the bathroom and over to him on the couch watching t.v. "Come here my little de pressy," he says, and kisses me on the forehead.

Nothing like a crisp autumn day to pick up leaves. By the end, my hands were frozen.

500 apples

Earlier this autumn my family and I went out to the Lassonde orchard. Lassonde is one of the largest producers of juices in Quebec. Our tenant that lives upstairs is the director of public affairs and each year he invites us to this annual festival of apple picking. Lassonde opens a part of their orchard for family and friends of all its employees for apple picking, apple juice drinking, candied apple eating, everything apples. It finished at 4:30 which is exactly the time the last car drove out and exactly the time that we drove in.Mario hands us four huge heavy duty bags, points out to the hundreds of apple trees lining the land, and set us free.

I came home with so many apples that I didn't know what to do with. Surely there was no way to put them all into the refrigerator. I looked up every apple recipe I could find. I got to peeling and coring and peeling and coring and on and on, over an hour I spent just peeling and coring. I made a huge pot of homemade apple sauce to can, made several apple pies, an apple crisp, and I still had apples left.

I was so proud of myself for being all Betty Crocker, so when my Texan friend that moved to Detroit sent a mass email out asking if anyone knew what to do with 500 apples, I was happy to share my recipes.

It backfired. I should have known. This friend was, after all, Kristina. I should've expected it when I got this response in return:

"Ahem...I'm not the one baking fucking apple pies and CANNING applesauce. Methinks Dorian has seen the movie "Baby Boom" too many times!"

Well, of course, I was a little bit embarrassed after that. My friend Susan, who's sensitive like me, must've felt it. She wrote:

"Dorian, your feelings better not be hurt. If it makes you feel better I’ll admit to the fact I have a crab apple tree in my yard.
I just let mine rot."

After that, I kind of forgot about it. I never responded to anyone about it. Life moved on. I even talked to Kristina last week and we never brought it up.

But yesterday evening I got another message from Susan. She wrote...

"Since the Martha Stewart apple comments, you disappeared.
I’m worried."

To which Kristina promptly responded back...

"Have no fear. I talked to her the other day. She's fine, but she WAS laid up in the hospital, after an unfortunate apple orchard incident. Seems some punk ass bitch beat Dorian to the tree with the Macintosh apples, and they got into it. Punches were thrown, harsh words were said, and as they were rolling around, fighting over apples, they got hit by a tractor. Dorian was lucky - just a few scrapes and bruises. Punk ass bitch girl was not so lucky. The tractor severed her pickin' hand."

Yeah, Kristina knows I can be a tough ass. She tried to beat me up once in high school, but it didn't work. We got in a fight one night while I was driving, so I pulled to the side of road, got out and went around to her side. By that time, she was out of the passenger side and coming my way with her prancy little ass. She punched me in the face and I grabbed her hands and wouldn't let go. Bitch was handcuffed by my force. I wonder if she'll tell the same story. Knowing her, I doubt it. She probably thinks she won.

Susan will kill me but I have to say it. No one I know has been invited to view my blog yet, so I'm safe for now.

Susan responded with this...

"What the FUCK?!?!?
Dorian, are you OK?????? I really was/am worried.
I knew it wasn’t like you to put your tail between your legs and hide when bitches like me and Kristina come after you and this story proves you’ll fight till the bitter end.
That will teach her to fight a TX HO, stupid ass Canadian.
On a serious, note I’m glad you are ok.
Let’s talk."

Sounds like she gets it, doesn't it? I talked to her earlier today and she told me that she and her husband were laughing while reading it. Then an hour later she went up to him and said, "I hope she's okay. I just can't believe she'd fight like that in front of her boys."

He said, "Honey, your blond is really coming out now."

First snow

Though the weather channel doesn't show it, I see it for myself out the window. Snow. Snow is gently falling. Oops. And now it's stopped. Guess it's not quite time yet, thank goodness. I've still got the entire front yard full of leaves, waiting patiently for the last of the bright yellow maple leaves to fall.

The lovely time of year is approaching, when a Texan really misses Texas. While my friends back home are still poolside, I'm raking leaves to fill ten huge plastic bags. While they're sipping margaritas on patios, I'm putting the winter tires on and lugging all the patio furniture to the storage shed.

Here's what last year's first snowfall looked like, which wasn't until December.

Mr. B.

Mr. B. was our janitor at the elementary school I taught at for seven years. He was an old skinny black man with a soft, almost whispering voice, that had been at my school for over 30 years. He was most often seen scuffling along the hallways in his slow trot, barely lifting his feet off the ground, hurrying in his own way to go save someone's emergency, whether it be vomit on the floor or pee in the pants or an entire class locked in their room.

He saved my class once, though I wasn't the only one that it's happened to. It was time for gym and when I went to open the door, it wouldn't budge. It was locked and wouldn't unlock, no matter how hard I or any of my little second graders tried. We banged and banged for someone to hear us and Mr. Buard inched his way down the hall to our room with a jimmy, the kind of jimmy you break into cars with. That didn't work, so he tried something else.

At the bottom of the door was a grill, about two feet long and 18 inches high, screwed into the door. He undid the grill and each of us escaped, the little ones much easier than myself, but we got free thanks to Mr. B.

Two things I will always remember. Each year on Mr. B.'s birthday, he would put a sign on his office door. An 8x10 piece of white paper with one piece of scotch tape holding it to the door, all corners eventually curling out, that read: Today is Mr. B's birthday. He left another note in the teacher's lounge, every year the same, next to two dozen glazed donuts. The note read, "Donuts for Mr. B's birthday.

The other thing I will always remember is the day that I walked outside to go hide behind the principal's SUV like I normally did, to smoke a cigarette during my break. I walked outside and heard the bang bang of the flags on the flagpole. I looked up and saw Mr. B.'s best.

Prosperity

I have most of my belongings in storage in Gun Barrel City, yes Gun Barrel City, small redneck town on Cedar Creek lake, not a mile from my father's lake house. My father loved that lake house and my step mom didn't, so when he died, she saw it as another huge burden he left behind for her. She rarely ever goes out there. Too many reminders of my father. She let me use one of the bedrooms and I filled it high with boxes and furniture. After selling half of my things through several garage sales and two truckloads donated to Goodwill, I was able to fit everything I owned into half of a small bedroom of our lake house.

Then one of the water pipes busted and since my family rarely goes out there, no one knew. Water kept spewing and the heat of a humid Texas summer with the windows closed caused mold to grow into and up the walls and all over everything. I went out there once after it happened and found my bookshelves and dresser coated with a green moldy dust. I was going to pack up an empty suitcase to bring back but I got all overwhelmed by the state of things. The fact that I was trying narrow down a lifetime of stuff into the black duffel bag with a boyfriend and two twin boys hanging over my shoulder, was too much. I circled it all like a headless chicken and ended up leaving upset and empty handed.

It's been two and a half years now without my things. All my books and journals and art supplies and old photos are boxed up. All of my handmade dishes from my ceramics class are wrapped up tight hopefully not broken. I tell myself that it's not even about the stuff anymore, it's about the fact that my life is not all in one place. I still have a big piece of me in redneck Gun Barrel City and I'm ready to be all in one piece. I want to be all in one piece.

All in one piece. That's why I've started therapy again and acupuncture and soon with osteopath appointments and an annual physical and my first dental cleaning in almost three years. That's why I'm looking up painting classes and yoga classes and art studios to rent.
I'm trying to get all the pieces of myself back in one place so that I can build upon this blank canvas that is me, me in one piece.

So why haven't I just had it moved up here? At first it was because I wasn't a permanent resident yet. I couldn't bring it through the border. After I became a permanent resident, it was because I couldn't get away long enough to take care of it, having two young twin boys that needed me. I couldn't bring them with me because there was no way I was driving from Dallas to Montreal with two twin babies, and anyway, they don't allow me to fly with two kids under two alone. Now they're older and could handle my absence, and it's about money. I don't have any. So to send it up here would cost a lot and I don't have the money to pay for it. I don't have money yet. It's coming though, I'm sure of it.

How do I know it's coming? Because I've been wearing my prosperity necklace every minute that I'm not in the shower (which is most since I hardly ever shower). My mother sent me this necklace last week to bring prosperity into my life, because my life is obviously lacking in prosperity. And do I feel guilty that I say this with everything I have? Yes, which helps me stay comfy cozy in this depression. The necklace is a coin, money, wrapped around a ring of jade, in the shape of money that brings money. I want money. Will money make me happy? I think it will surely help.

I'm in a search for what makes me happy because what I've got doesn't seem to satisfy it. I've got a great man, beautiful healthy children. I don't have to work right now because my partner can take care of us. The boys go to daycare full-time and I've got my days for the most part free. And since that doesn't seem to be enough for me, I'm back to my stuff. Maybe if I just had my stuff....then I'd be happy. Maybe if I finally had all that belongs to me in one place, I'll be happy. Maybe then I'll feel like this is my home and I'm not just visiting.

Half the Sky

After my parents divorced when I was six, and my mother's lover wouldn't divorce his wife, my mother took to hating men. She walked into a women's bookstore down the street called Half the Sky and found where she belonged, surrounded by the strongest women she'd ever known: intellectuals, writers, artists, sculptors, musicians, all with radical feminist views for the 1980s. My mother became the token hetero in this group and my brother and I became their children. I remember later in life telling people that I wasn't just raised by my mother, I was raised by a pack of lesbians.

Who's got it easy?

You don't know how easy you've got it, he says. Damn right, I don't. How easy I've got it? Who's with the boys during the meditation and breathing exercises each morning? Who's fixing their breakfast five mornings a week and getting them dressed while he's shaving and taking his shower and getting ready for his day? And more? Who's spending his day actively in an adult world, doing what he loves, with no pressure to make it to daycare in time to pick them up, get their dinner ready, do the same fucking routine over and over and over again. It's not me that's got it easy enough to be able to say, "Gotta work late tonight. Be home after they're in bed." Not me that's got it easy enough to be able to say, "Going to Petite Riviere this weekend to work on the condos. I've got a lot of stuff to take care of." A lot of stuff to take care of does not translate the same to me. It's not me that's got it easy enough to breathe in the peace and quiet and a break from the every every day the same, the same, the same. Sure maybe it's busy, but it's not the busy of the daily diaper, the daily tantrum, the daily on my fucking hands and knees getting kicked in the head under the high chair, picking up yet one more overturned on purpose bowl of whatever they didn't want anymore of. Yes, I've got it so easy. One week in my world and he'd never say that again. I'd give him that week if I could only figure out how not to feel the mother guilt.

Mario's Dog

Just going over some things from my past that I saved on a disk before moving to Quebec. I taught for seven years at an 85% hispanic elementary school in inner-city Dallas, teaching in the worst crime zip code of the city, 75217. At the time Mario drew this, he was in the second grade, in 1999. God only knows where he is now.

Fall in Quebec

If there's one thing that Texans don't get, it's a real Fall. The leaves are green one day, brown and off the trees the next.

Right now I resist the urge to pick up everyone's leaves and send them back to Texas. I want to say, Look at what this part of the world calls autumn. This is the real deal! A rainbow of reds, oranges, and yellows, the most brilliant I've ever seen!

I understand why all these Japanese tourists file out of their tour buses with cameras glued to their noses. It's spectacular! Ahhhh, to be in country with four seasons. I know...I'll be cursing the fourth season in a few months and begging for a trip to Mexico.

Teaching English

I started teaching English to adults last month while the boys are at daycare, a perfect job for me right now. I'm able to teach from home, over the phone. No dressing up, no traffic, no gas, no make up, no shower. Perfect for a mother of twins. For the ten minute break between classes, I'm able to do all the menial tasks that I hate...the daily emptying of the dishwasher, the daily washing and drying and folding of little clothes, the daily preparation of making sure a meal is ready for 5 and then another ready for 8. My students get an hour a week, spread out into 20 or 30 minute classes 2/3 times a week.

You get to learn a lot about people when you teach another language because you're always using the other person's life experience to build the vocabulary and conversation. Like Isabelle, that never fulfilled her life-long dream of being an architect because she dropped out of school to take care of her dying mother. And Sylvie, a member of the International Lego Association, with her 40,000 legos, that sleeps next to her end tables made of legos. There's also Luc, my philosophical contractor, talking each day on his cell phone in between job sites. He's just finished the Secret, recently translated into French, and now he's on a mission to have me using it as well. I'm the teacher and he's giving me the homework. My life sentence declaring what I want for myself is due Tuesday.

Four Leaf Clovers

I found another four-leaf clover this morning, the second one in the last month. As you can see, the one this morning is experiencing Fall, a little rough around the edges, a meal for a little bug. Both times I was sitting in my yard, staring down deep in thought, and focused right in on them, not searching or even thinking about finding one.

I read that the chances of finding a four-leaf clover are 1 in 10,000, which makes me feel better this morning. I spent last night in emotional turmoil, wondering how it is that I follow my personal dreams of being a writer and an artist while being a mother to young children, a good partner to my partner, and able to contribute financially to this family in the mean-time, before I start making money doing what I love and am passionate about. I don't know how women juggle it all and keep a balance. I do know that something must change within me and that change is starting now. Luck is here and there's more to come.

Though they are now 20 months old, they had their 18 month checkup yesterday. A little late, I know, but what can you expect with a healthcare system short of doctors? The offices are maxed out. The only reason we didn't have to wait until January was because one of the doctors came out of retirement to give the office a hand. He was an older man in his seventies probably, the doctor that originally started this pediatric clinic. He handled the boys like a pro, through their fear and panic, as his cracked hands moved them this way and that, checking their reflexes, belly, balls, throats, eyes, ears. And the ears...

Alexandre and Jacob both have ear infections and I once again have felt like the bad mother, having waited too long to go to the doctor. I waited so long that Alexandre has the worst kind he can have, I'm told, since I couldn't quite understand the French word he used. Sounded like oozing, so that's what I imagine. This explains his wake ups in the middle of the night and his horrible mood over the last week. He screamed bloody murder all the way home from daycare on Monday, throwing his grapes into the front seat and kicking his arms and legs violently while strapped into his car seat. I took it to mean that he was just letting off steam like he so often does when he sees his mommy. They are prone to usual fits when I pick them up. Eruptions of frustration. It's like they've been holding everything in at daycare and use me as the release.

For the record, Jacob is now taller, heavier, and has a bigger head than Alexandre. For starting out in the world at just over 4 lbs, that's quite an accomplishment. He weighed in at 28.83 lbs and 32.87 in tall.

The lost Texan is finding her way in the cold French land. With two babies under my belt and enough language to move myself around, I've finally, after over two years, started to work again. I want this first entry to be the beginning of the next phase in life, where my life in a new land will be written, where the lives of my beautiful twin boys will be documented, and my struggles and successes will be recorded.