life on planetm

the advantages of extra parents ;)

Long before my friend Sarah actually had children of her own, she explained to me the concept of children being raised by the village, rather than individual nuclear parents.  She used to work for WHO so spent a lot of time in villages in Africa, rural Asia, places most of us never set foot in.

It’s a concept that doesn’t necessarily sit so well with many North American parents, the most insular people on the planet.  But there are a lot of virtues to the concept.  It takes a lot of pressure off the actual birth parents.  It exposes children to lots of different viewpoints and ideas, which will come in helpful in life as your tiny North American nuclear family is highly unlikely to provide all the material you are going to need to successfully navigate our increasingly global, pluralistic world.

While there is much that can be said about this concept in theory, this post is an homage to the two people in my life who played a gigantic role in my youth and supplemented the skills of my parents in a way that was so masterful it took me years to fully appreciate it.

They are about a decade older than my parents and Elaine is currently in hospital.  I am going to write a personal note to her as well but I decided it would be cooler – and more grandiose – to celebrate our relationship on a public scale via the world wide web.  There is no doubt she deserves to be famous – and maybe this can be part of her legacy.

It all began when my mother re-enrolled me in figure skating at age 11.  She had decided the teacher wasn’t good enough so it had been a few years and catching up was a bit awkward.  But awkward things can be worthwhile 🙂  Elaine had a daughter a year younger and she and my mom struck up a friendship sitting in the ice rink waiting for us.

I am not sure how it all evolved.  Her husband, Glen, was a very successful farmer and my dad had just ditched his real career to go farming (one of his dreams) at age 30 and there were lots of people predicting his demise (they obviously didn’t know my dad :)) so Glen was a marvelous mentor.

I didn’t really care about the specifics.  I had spent most of my life being a gypsy child (my first six birthdays all happened in different places with different people).  Here was a Scottish clan.  They had roots and family reunions.

Glen and Elaine had been to university and listened to me in a way I had never experienced before with an adult.  And they had so much knowledge to share.  And they gave me confidence in my opinions.  They were so interested in me!

It took me a couple of decades to really understand and appreciate the tremendous impact they had had on my life.  They were so much more than my parents’ best friends in my teens.  They were part of my extended family.

Everyone should have an Elaine in their life.  She is so gracious and affectionate you almost think she is acting.  Who could be that truly wonderful?  But it’s just who she is.  And she never disappoints you.  When you arrive at her house, she will greet you with a hug.  She will pull frozen goodies out of her giant freezer and put on the coffee pot.  She will ask what you have been up to and really listen and ask questions.  If you get lucky, she might even play the piano and sing show tunes.  I think about her a lot more than she probably realizes.  And the guidance she provided when I was an impressionable teenager has served me well all over the world and definitely contributed to my success and general happiness.

It’s already obvious if you’ve been reading my blog the tremendous affection I have for my proper birth family 🙂  but I have weaseled my way into a few other wonderful families over the years – and it has provided so many amazing memories I can’t imagine not being part of each one.  Not too many people split with their husband – and still get his mother’s mind-blowing German Christmas cookies – a dozen different variations all carefully protected in bubble wrap and shipped air mail by my ex – every December.  I still love them all – and they know…

And, just in case Glen and Elaine aren’t sure – I have now loved you both for 38 years and counting… thanks for all the incredible memories – and so much more…

remember to be part of your own species…

I am one of those Type A people far too willing to work who takes way too much pride in being organized, efficient and getting stuff accomplished.  We are very useful to the planet 🙂  But we are a sub-species and can go astray and forget the rules of our tribe.

I am trying to learn to slow down sometimes and make sure I smell a few flowers…  and, more importantly, that I don’t turn into one of those crazy people who has regrets on their deathbed.  A long time ago I heard a phrase that is likely a clique, “no one ever complained on his deathbed that he hadn’t worked enough!”

At the time, I was working almost every moment so it gave me pause for thought.  I was still pretty young and my deathbed was likely a long way off but just in case I got hit by a bus, I started to try and remember to make my life about more than just work.

It’s still a struggle at periods like the present when my clients are gunning for regulatory deadlines and I am trying to think how I can feed myself (including groceries and clean up) in less than half an hour without resorting to TV dinners.

But next week is the drop-dead date so closure is starting to happen and I can potentially chill for a couple of hours each day.  I seized that opportunity yesterday.  It was one of those moments of serendipity.  I had mentioned working from anywhere in the world, including while watching the hippos play in the Grumeti River in Tanzania while I ate lunch and beat off the monkeys trying to steal my bread.  I have photos from that trip as the background on my laptop so on my way out I asked the executive assistant if she wanted to see the hippos…

I had no idea she had had dreams of being a zoologist, was involved with rescue animals and had always wanted to go on safari…  Not only did I once again experience the extra spark from connecting to another human being, we had this fantastic conversation about animal behaviours and how so many of them are not so different to human animal behaviours.

I was going to work a night shift and it was already close to dinner hour so I decided to stop by one of my favourite restaurants to get fed before the night shift started.  One of the owners, Erik, came over to say “hi” and I told him I had been there with friends on my birthday but it was a Monday so neither of the owners had been there – but I had told my friends about them.

And he told me he hadn’t been there because he had had a kid!  Unfortunately the kid didn’t know it should hang on until Mar 12^th to have the best possible birth date – but, as I told Erik, Mar 11^th is still pretty good 🙂

And the encounter with Erik completed the day’s experience.  As he pointed out, his is a “relationship business”.  I need to keep reminding myself to make contact with my own species.  To be part of its social norms.  To not just run past in a hurry but instead to connect and share.  To hear people’s stories.  To learn about their secret dreams.  To find out they had a first child.

Being involved in the world and paying attention is what kept my grandmother young and vibrant I think.  It’s how you get to be the 90 year old talking about taking care of the old people – who are all younger than you.  But haven’t spent their life keeping track of details for 200 different people – and being annoyed if you get anything wrong…  We are supposed to be the zenith of the animals –she was just using that brain we have all been given 😉