I look for you every Spring,
to witness your inspiring beauty,
as you awaken my
senses with your seductive
fragrance,
filling me with renewal and
promise,
as I leave the comfort
and
solitude of winter,
and embrace your
gracious wings,
teaching me to live
for today,
because tomorrow your wings,
will shrivel
under the ungracious and
unpredictable Spring.
johanne fraser
an exterior like armour
hard as a rock
protecting the delicate shell
that lies within
closed to the ones
who
can’t see beyond the shadows
of doubt
and the lies of the masses
leaving the armour
to
stop the shell from cracking
only to surface
to
the enlightened ones.
johanne fraser
After a busy work week I tend to spend Saturday mornings lazing. I get up early and grab a coffee, a book and try to relax before anyone else in the house is up. It’s usually just me and the Kaos dog cuddled on the couch in my living room or if the weather’s nice, Kaos and I cuddle up on the couch outside on the front porch. The problem is that I really get into relaxing and cuddling with the Kaos man and before I know it a few hours will go by only to realize I have a whole house to clean, laundry to do, blah, blah…grrr.. you know the score. My constant dilemma – relaxing or housework, relaxing or housework. I pick relaxing then my housework piles up and I get frustrated.
Every Spring I look at all the windows and siding and at some point I’ll mention to my husband that we have to get out and do the big wash. Miraculously just when I’m thinking about pulling out the ladder and doing the chore, some guy will show up at my door offering to wash my windows and clean my siding. It’s weird how it’s usually when my husband is out and it’s just me and the guy haggling over a price. I usually get the guy down to a good price and last spring I got the man to take $50.00 off by promising to make him a fantastic lunch. By the time I was getting the man lunch, my husband came home and he sees a guy with a long brush washing the house. Drew makes me laugh because he never says “how much did you pay him?” or “who is this guy?” he just wants to make sure he’s not power washing the house because power washing ruins the siding.
So back to my Saturday; it was a beautiful morning and I spent the morning sipping coffee outside on the front porch with the Kaos man. Drew had worked a brutal midnight shift and was unconscious in bed and I’m sure a bomb wouldn’t have woken him up. I decided to get off my ass and start working and as I walked into the house I made a mental note to talk to Drew about cleaning the windows and siding. I’m not in the house five minutes and Kaos goes crazy, barking like a madman to the front door. I didn’t hear the doorbell ring and I opened the door to find this kid, no more than sixteen, standing at the front door. He had long dirty blonde wavy hair past his collar and beautiful blue eyes. I noticed the boy’s blue eyes because his eyes were wide as saucers as he was staring at the Kaos man on his hind legs barking and showing the boy just how big his teeth were all the while I was holding Kaos back by his collar. I told the boy to give me a minute and I closed the door to calm Kaos down. I opened the door and the Kaos man and I joined the boy on the front deck. Immediately Kaos is jumping all over the boy and sniffing his entire body. I apologized to the boy and tried to pull Kaos off but Kaos kept at it. The boy introduced himself as Scott and laughed and said his pockets were full of beef jerky that’s why my dog was trying to get into his pants.
Scott sat down on one of my chairs and just stared at me for a good couple of seconds. It was a different exchange of energy. I didn’t feel threatened or nervous in any way, I could tell it was this boys’ way. He was a complete free spirit, so free I don’t think I’ve ever encountered someone with such a free spirit before. Just looking into his eyes for those few seconds was a very comfortable and strange sensation. I sat down in the chair beside him and I introduced myself and it was then I noticed his shirt and the company logo. I had seen the company van in the neighbourhood before and I realized that he was going door to door selling window washing and siding services. I laughed and I said “well Scott how much are you going to charge me for washing my windows, siding and cleaning my gutters?” His eyes went wide as saucers again and said “how did you know that” with the look of amazement like I was some kind of psychic lady. “The company logo on your shirt Scott, dead giveaway.” “Oh ok”, he says, “here is the deal” and he hands me a contract. “You fill this out and give me the cash and then we’ll come back in June and complete the work.” “mmmm, I said, here’s the deal, you and I agree on the price, you do the work, I check the work to make sure it’s to my satisfaction and then I give you the cash.” Again those beautiful blue eyes, wide as saucers and he says “wow lady, you drive a hard bargain, but that is not how my boss works.” “Well then Scott, you tell your boss that it’s either my way or the highway.” “He’s not going to go for it miss, how come you won’t pay now for the work later?” “Because Scott, that is how scam artists work, I’ll pay you now and you won’t be back.” “He then leans over and says to me “I like the way you think, my boss doesn’t think that way, there is no way he’s going to go for it but I’ll give it a try.”
He then abruptly jumps up off the chair, takes one step and jumps in the air over the gate that I have on the front porch to stop Kaos from roaming the neighbourhood. Scott’s boss is waiting across the street in a van and it takes Scott a few minutes before he comes back. When Scott returns he sits down on the chair beside me and stares at me in silence for a few seconds pops some beef jerky in his mouth and then says “nope, he won’t go for it, says he’ll take some money off if you pay him now to come back later.” “You know scott, I like you but your boss needs his head read, you will have to tell him that I don’t do business that way.” Scott stared at me for a few more seconds then flipped his head back and dives his hands into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. “I like you, you seem like a nice lady and you like dogs, I thought you might want to see pictures of my dog.” We then looked at pictures of his dog for a few minutes and his boss lays on the horn obviously frustrated as Scott was not making a deal, he was enjoying a casual nothing conversation. Scott takes his time talking about his dog and sharing all his pictures when he suddently leans into me, looks me straight in the eyes and says, “I’ll be honest, the way my boss is approaching this is really stupid, but I get a few bucks at the end of the day.” Then with a quick step and a jump over the gate he was gone without a “have a nice day or see ya later,” leaving me with a smile for the day every time I thought of his big saucer blue eyes and popping beef jerky in his mouth while he was tryint to get me to sign a bogus contract. I just know with his free spirit he will float into some kind of path in life, but it won’t be the path of a salesman.
My oldest son, Brendan, and I share many of the same traits, unfortunately, a bad temper is one of our shared traits. Brendan turned 16 this past October, old enough to get his “L” to learn to drive. We didn’t get around to him writing his test for the “L” until this past month. I’m not sure whose idea it was for me to teach Brendan to drive, but we added extra insurance to my vehicle and I was given the job to teach Brendan the rules of the road.
Our first day driving together, I get in the truck give him the tour of the gadgets on the dashboard and off we go. From the moment he steps on the gas and down our street to the stop sign, my heart is in my mouth. He was driving too fast and stopped too late at the stop sign. I’m all over it, telling him to slow down, be more cautious, focus and yelling at him to stop. Not a good start and when I get home after teaching him that day, the first thing I said to my husband when I walked through the front door was “I can’t do this.” “You can’t do what?” “Drew I can’t teach Brendan to drive.” “Why not?” “Because I fear for my life.” At this, Drew gives me a big belly laugh and he says, “Don’t be ridiculous, you can do this, you can teach him to drive.” “No I can’t, I can’t teach him to drive, it was a stupid idea for me to teach him, you need to teach him.” Since I drive the boys to school every day, they are with me in the car all the time, it is logical that I teach him, but from the beginning my perspective has been that this situation is not working.
Negative I know and coming from the person who wrote “The Power of Positive”, I really needed to go back and read my own advice. Digging deep I had to admit I was very nervous and reacting to my son’s emotions. Brendan is 16 going on 40 and he thinks he knows everything, like he knows how to drive yet he’s never driven before. Since I am an empath, I tend to take on other’s emotions and dealing with his cocky, know-it-all attitude in the car was completely draining me and if I am to be honest, I was all over him for things that hadn’t even happened yet because I knew how he would react. This was not working in my, nor Brendan’s favour, and we were fighting non-stop. Everyday I would say “this is going to work” and at the end of every day I would be saying “this is not going to work.”
After school one day, Brendan was driving and we had to stop at the drugstore to pick up a few things. Brendan pulls into the drugstore parking lot too fast and pulls one of his cocky manoeuvres. Finishing off a very busy day at work and feeling tired and irritable, his driving set me off and I was all over him. When we finally parked, I kicked him out of the truck and told him he wasn’t driving home and for that matter I wasn’t teaching him. He reacted to my outburst, and the two of us got out of the truck and we were yelling at the top of our lungs at each other across the top of the truck about the driving situation. Brendan and I are alike in that when we lose our cool we lose all perspective and neither one of us care about who is around, who is listening and what their thoughts are. Needless to say, we put on quite the show for everyone going to the drugstore that day. I was so mad I went around to the driver’s side and decided to abandon shopping and jumped in the truck. I was about to drive off without Brendan when he jumped into the passenger seat. Brendan being Brendan, decided he was going to give me a lesson by imitating how I sound from the passenger seat while he’s driving. All the way home he imitated me giving him instructions. I have to admit he did a pretty good job and I did find myself very annoying.
We arrive home and Brendan is furious, jumps out of the truck, slams the door and walks into the house. My youngest son, Matt, was in the back seat that day and the whole time he was observing the situation and never uttered a word. I sat in the car trying to calm my temper and Matt just sat in silence with me. Matt is my quiet one and he is a self-assured boy who has a good sense of himself and sees all but doesn’t say too much. However, if you ask Matt his opinion he doesn’t pull any punches. I rely on Matt’s perspective because he always comes from “a matter of fact” place. After a few minutes I turned to face Matt in the backseat and I said, “am I that bad Matt?” He looked at me for a second and then stared straight into my eyes and said “you want the truth mom.” “yeah Matt I want the truth, give it to me.” “Worse, I think Brendan played you down a bit mom, you are bloody annoying.” I stared at him for a few seconds, “that bad Matt,” “yep, that bad mom.”
I didn’t talk to Brendan about it that night but the next morning as we left the house to go to school, I gave him the keys and he seemed shocked, went to say something and then thought better of it. He drove to school and I barely said two-words to him, I let him make the decisions and he drove really well that morning. Once he parked the car and before we went about our business for the day, I apologized to Brendan for being so over the top with his driving. He graciously accepted my apology and I did bring up how cocky he could be while driving and that he had to respect that I was nervous and for him to be respectful of my feelings. I also reminded him that he still has a lot to learn about driving. He admitted to the attitude and we both agreed to start over again and be more respectful of one another in the car.
Brendan is on his way to his “N”(new driver) and he will get there and by the time he does, I am sure he will be a good driver. I still brake the imaginary brake while sitting in the passenger seat, but I’ve learned to keep out of the driver’s seat while riding as the passenger.
MOMWHEARINGLOSS 