8/8/15 - 4 days til 12 years

I've written almost every year in a public forum, around the anniversary of my mother's death.

It's a strange thing.... every year that creeps by, there this date is. Her birthday, and her death day. a space of a month where every year memories trickle out of the wood work. Like she's trying to remind me of us.

This year her birthday rocked me. Like from the inner part of my being... I was sad. Vicerally sad.

It's  a weird thing.... making peace with my mother's death... and I suppose subsequently... making peace with her life as well.

I have spent so much time wondering why... why me? and how? how me? how her? how us?

I have spent the past 12 years delving deep into my very core to find myself.... what my mother believed ultimately killed her. Her never making peace with her past... and so, completely unconsciously at first... I unpeeled the layers of my own sorrow.

I found that my true sadness lay in my feelings of abandonment and feeling unloved. It was a drape I wrapped myself in and made myself at home. So much of the life I ended up with after my mother died felt so lonely... there I was in all the evidence I needed. Everyone I had ever loved had abandoned me at one point. Why could I not keep friends? Why could I not find someone to just love me unconditionally?

My journey led me to see that my life was a dichotomy of such deep love and such deep sorrow.... and that I too have been a culprit of letting others down.... in my depression, I wouldn't answer calls, wouldn't visit anyone, I just couldn't love. I needed to be loved..... but being loved hurt....

unbeknownst to me... love reminded me of the love I lost in my mother... too painful to feel... I surrounded myself with surface love.

Through the special touch friends and family... I slowly started coming out of that desperate place.... believing I was unloved... and searching for unlove... letting the love I already had in... loving the people that loved me back... and not always finding unrequited love.

The years have brought me to a place where I can finally see how each step pushed me further into the person I am today.... and further into my dreams coming true.

I suppose I am not conventional... I never had lofty dreams of being anything..... I just wanted to meet my biological father.... I wanted to change the world... and feel happy and free.

I had no idea how any would ever be possible. But those were always my dreams.

*********
My mother died on a full moon. I remember watching her take her last breath.. holding her hand...

as soon as the wait ended.. and we knew she was really gone.... a bunch of things happened.... people arrived in the midst of it all... and I was overrun with grief, trying to manage all of our emotions... I ran out to our back deck.. and there was the moon. golden orange on the horizon and I cried.... That deep grief cry.. where the silence of the spaces between the sound dig deep... where the entire forest gets quiet... and you are just left with that space in your soul that feels empty.

left with my own breath.... I felt like I was suffocating.... like a weight had just landed on my chest... a deep distance... that I would never be rid of.

*****
the past week I have had random memories of the funeral. How many people came.. how loved my mother truly was.... and yet I see how isolated she made herself. How she in my later years of life lost something of herself.... she wasn't the woman I grew up with anymore....

and I am thus reminded of my childhood. It was simple, but full of love and colour... art and dance.... face painting... My mother took such pride in me that I always wanted to make her proud.... we fought all the time... and there were things that she couldn't handle about me.

But she loved me... in a way that I only wish all people were loved.

I could be anyone.. and I never would have been a disappointment. I could have done anything... and she never would have made me feel a failure.

It was one of the things I complained about most.... that she told me I could be ANYTHING... a musician, an actor, a lawyer, a doctor, a politician, a dancer, an artist.

Well, I became a server. I guess.

*****


*****

My mother's death catapulted me into questions that I could not answer unless she had died. Her death allowed me to discover my own path.. and helped me make conclusions on my own, without her input.

I am still growing....

But I am starting to feel more like her... I am starting to feel like the woman I grew up with... and through my own experience.. I am starting to see who she was when I met her.. and who she became over my life.

I suppose in a way, its my unconscience trying to cheat death by taking on a hypothesis, that you have to find yourself in your life... and it's worth your life to do so.

I have always felt a failure.

Being a server continuously.. losing jobs after the summers.... trying to find new paths... but always coming back to serving... I have felt a failure...

But it is where I have ended up that gives me all the evidence I need to see that this life... serving, has saved me so many times..... and that if it weren't for losing everything.. time and again.... and ending up here, in Bobcaygeon, serving.... this journey to meet Patrick would never have been what it was.


When I go to work and serve people on the river in bobcaygeon... I always feel a sense of peace... that my day consists of talking to people, feeding them, helping them enjoy their time together... while watching blue herons fly in, the ducklings grow up... every new person catching a glympse of the Bobcaygeon Dolphin, our local carp... watching kids and families jump off the dock.... it brings me such joy... such simple pleasure.

My life has become like a story in my head I was trying to write... but didn't know. I never wanted to be a server for ever... but I wanted to feel free. And serving has always caught me. I have sacrificed direction... for waking up every morning and feeling calm .. hearing roosters... and hanging out with the dogs and cats. I live a very simple life. 

I never knew this is what I needed. I thought I was meant for bigger things... you know with changing the world and all.... but alas... it was to here. Where I can sleep and be quiet with myself...and make just enough money to get by.


********

It is the start of the Perseides Meteor shower... every year on the anniversary of my mother's death.. the sky opens up to reveal the most amazing light show of your life. Every year is different... and sometimes the clouds hide the magnificence..... but when you are lucky... the universe' fireworks put on a show to make you feel small again.. and mesmerized by the beauty of the natural world.

They calm me, when inside I feel so empty with out her.

A dichotomy always. That I miss her.... and I am ok that she is gone.

******

My abandonment and loneliness issues starting dissipating when I started to teach myself to be WITH myself.. and enjoy my time alone. To spend time just with nature.... and learn to trust the universe.

When I left my ex boyfriend.. or I should say, when I gave in and stopped fighting... and watched him drive away with no car, no job, no way to pay the rent.. in nursing school.

With a little help from my family...and friends.. I survived. I found peace with myself those days on the farm alone.

and it deepened my belief that even when I feel utterly lost and alone.. the universe is always conspiring in my favor.

2 years ago, this anniversary brought my fall. I had met someone that I really connected with and he went back to his own country... My car died, my computer died, I couldn;t pay my phone.... so my phone died... I couldn't focus... my anxiety built to an all time high and I became so calm.... I gave permission to give in.. and like my mom would say... let go and let god.

I watched slowly how I thought quitting nursing school would help me back on my feet... but I kept falling.. until finally I felt I had to leave. I couldn't pay rent and it was my only option. Find someone to take care of my cats and records and pile everything else I had into my car.... and go where the wind wants to take me.... direction. WEST.

I made it to Bobcaygeon. And in my surrender... I found James.

I found someone who just loves me. We may not understand each other completely.... but he took me in, he took care of my heart, and my soul, my body when I needed him the most. He helped me find myself... and my heart again. He gave me permission to be.

He makes me laugh... and he dances with me in the kitchen.

He exposes me to new knowledge and challenges me to look deeper. He gives me the space I need to be myself and he makes me feel safe.

It is because of him, and this house, and this family, Bobcaygeon and my job, the car that my family helped get me when I broke up with my ex....

It was the love I found for myself and ultimately attracted into my life... that allowed me to pursue my ultimate dream of meeting my dad.

********

My journey really has been about making peace with feeling abandoned. My first experience was my biological father abandoning me. My whole life I fought with that feeling of not being loved by him.. of not being good enough to keep him around.... of something I can't articulate....

To lose my mother.... the world became an unwelcoming, unloving place... where I couldn't even let myself enjoy the good.. all I saw was my heart being broken.

Every man I feel in love with would break my heart.... it was a never ending cycle.... and the only thing that fixed it was learning to love myself... above all else...

It's still a journey and I still fight with my own demons... my confusions... my loving myself....

I still smoke. Which pretty much sums it up in my head.

Learning to love myself is learning to forgive myself for the person I have become... the person I have been... to make peace with the fact that sometimes I have had to abandon people.. not because I don't love them... but because they don't fit with who I want to be... or who I am.

I had to make peace with the abandonment.... and the feeling unloved and tell myself that we are all on our own path.. and sometimes it is ok to go your own way and not know why... and when you follow your own heart... how it leaves other people is their business..... and when other people follow their hearts.. and it leaves me broken.. that's my business.

Its a precarious balance... loving and letting go of getting HURT. grieving yes... but not holding on to the pain of it all.

Forgiveness.

Giving and loving unconditionally.

One of the reasons... I believe... that this journey to meet Patrick has been so important.. is it arises from my forgiveness.... from my healing my own abandonment.. and wanting nothing in return.. but to give love.

To receive it is more than I could ever have asked for.

Mum used to say.. God is love. and when you are in the hands of god you are love.

It's a difficult thing to love.... unconditionally. To let someone else be entirely themselves.....

It is just as difficult to love myself unconditionally... to let me be entirely myself..... and to not feel guilty for not being the person I thought I would be by now.

I only hope that the few steps I make in continually stretching myself... by following my heart I will become her... and in the mean time to keep making peace with my life.

*******
25 years ago this weekend I was in Manitoulin Island for the pow wow. It is one of my favorite memories from being a  kid. It was the weekend I met who would become my step dad... and climbed dreamers rock. It was a magical place.... and I have my favorite picture of my mom and I there. I remember thinking... one day I will make the journey back here. One day my vision quest will have me end up here.... like the tales I had been told about why dreamer;s rock was so powerful.

I have always wanted to scatter some of mom's ashes there.

*******

I miss her...my mom. it's been a long 12 years.

but it seems fitting that she died on the 12th. and 12 years after she died... I found my father.

And we get to write our new tale.

Reflection. Day 1. Mothers day.

It is a strange feeling going home. Sad to say goodbye to the travels... but excited to come home with new eyes.

I am changed. I am not sure how yet. But i feel different. Calmer. More sure of myself. More full of love.

I am day dreaming again. Thinking of all the places we went..... where i would like to live next..  or at least sometime along my journey of life.

It has become quite apparent to me that i want to keep moving. Trying on spaces. Changing faces.... building and deepening relationships.

Deepening myself.

I want to finish nursing school and learn to practice in the rural setting. I want to be able to go anywhere and get a job.

I don't need much to be happy. But adventure and nature... and people close to me that understand my true nature and want to show me theirs.

How blessed i truly am to have all these beautiful souls in my life. I only wish it weren't such a long way to see them.

I lost my marbles on this trip. I gave them away to almost everyone that effected me on this trip. A few passed me by before i remembered..... but it was to signify the frienSHIP. And to remind everyone of the child inside them that dreams bigger.... for more for our souls.

This was and continues to be an epic journey...  one i am only beginning to process. Its difficult to reflect on something so personal.... especially publicly... but alas i believe that if i have any thing to share its my experience and the lens through which i observe it.

So..... i bow to the great and all mighty universe. For being so kind to my broken heart. My whole life i felt like if i just hold on... to forgiveness.. to kindness. .. to manners.... to learning... to adventure...to learning to feel and trust my intuition...to following my heart.... someday my pain will dissipate... someday i will be able to look back and see why the pain had to happen. I suppose its the consolation prize.... but really.. deep within my soul... it helps make me feel whole... like i am part of the light and dark. That my pain... feeling so abandoned and unloved...forgotten...betrayed..degraded...bullied...hurt...depressed...lonely...and unwanted...alone.... the pain and the loneliness gave way to something far greater than that. It forced me to make peace with myself.

I had to make peace with the choices i made. I had to make peace with the men i had chosen to give my time to. I had to make peace with my loneliness.... the quiet that all the hurt brought me forced me into reflecting... filling my time with only the things i enjoy. Forgiving myself for eventually wanting to just be alone.

I had to and ultimately have to ...forgive my mother... which on this... mothers day seems fitting.

I struggle constantly between feelings of betrayal... love.. understanding... forgiveness... but that my voice is tied. That the conversation cannot happen is the hardest thing to both figure out and to let go of.

All i know is the all pervasive thought through out this trip was that she had to die for this all to happen. And yet i believe i dont have to follow her road for my children to learn the same.

For others to learn the same. I have to just stay true to my heart. True to my dreams. True to what i still want to learn and where to go. Always being open to new experiences.

That my mother had to die. Yes. And yet i hate her for that. I hate her for leaving me with all this shit to figure out on my own.... and yet had she been there i feel i would have struggled so much with our relationship i would have pushed away so many of the thoughts i have had to have over the years.

In the end without her i start a new chapter in my life knowing patrick. There is no residual relationship. Its new.

The way every relationship should be.... that with every new person we can paint ourselves anew... over time discovering what parts of us make ourselves feel the best and holding on to those.... so when we get to the person that matters most... we are truly the people we had hoped to become.

I am proud of myself in a way i cant even express... i am humbled that my heart has taken me exactly where i needed to be for this to happen.

That i am... in a perfect pocket...and had been all along... that i am the light and the dark... the colours of the rainbow...of the sunrise and sunset....of a tapestry of moments..... like a 3D painting with texture and depth... with movement...i write my story... i take what i am given and know that it has always happened for a reason...

So that when sadness and darkness creep in again... i will always have this feeling to hold on to. Always a reference of reward for growth... that life is a cycle..a wave... and that as we grow things change... plans change.... desires change... to be willing to go with it... to find the positive and keep on moving.

And then i got to come home....

★******************

As i wrote the title to this post and went to publish it.. i realized i didn't really finish reflecting on it being mothers day.

Lets just say i basically ignored this fact until it was over. I am triggered still by my mother not being alive. I suppose i just miss her. And love her epically. I don't believe everything she did...but she gave me the best foundation to grow out of her. She gave me all the tools i needed to survive.

She breathed life into me and gave me the questions to ask. She gave me unconditional love ... open...honest and vulnerable. Even if i didn't agree all the time with her methods... i couldn't have survived life without her being so transparent to me as a child.

We lost that transparency somewhere along the way... and maybe it was my highschool years that did it..forcing a wedge between us that we mended but never got to taste the fruits of.

I'm sad we didn't have the time to become friends... to become transparent again... to know about her as a person.

All i know is that she loved deeply... and so how sad it is that she didn't consider me in the will. How difficult it has been to forgive her for the lot of secrets she didn't share and the distance we left with.... for the time we could have had with knowing each other wholly and imperfectly.

I suppose that is what it ultimately is. To forgive her for not being here to share my life with... and believing that somehow we are. That our bond can never be erased that we are still together and that she has been sharing in it all with me.

If somehow there is part of her that can still sense me. I hope she knows how much i love her and how grateful i am that she chose the man she did to make me. How thankful i am to have my tale.

I once heard someone say my mother once joked that she had a tryst with an irish sailor and i was the product of that. Whatever i know. I was born out of love... a moment of time. Between two people that followed their hearts... And that has been where i have stayed...even if i didn't know it for all those years.

I miss her. My mother.

Mum....i miss you and wish i could share.... cry on your shoulder...be held in your arms. Hold you. I miss holding you. I miss loving you. I miss being amanda and dana. You are always in my heart.

Happy mothers day mum.

Angels on your pillow.
Xo

Amanda noelle camellia jones

May 8th - sault ste marie. Last day.

This is a weird feeling. It has been so hard to write. I do this. Procrastinating writing. Waiting for the right time to sit down with myself and my emotions.

It has been difficult to give myself that time..... i just want to be present to the experience.... the conversation... i want to wait to reflect.

But alas i am at my final day and i have to make myself reflect.

May 3rd full moon rising over the prairies.

Stayed an extra lazy day in tete jaune... beautiful day back down the Rockies yesterday. Happy to see my old stomping grounds. Reminded me of the last family trip my mom and step dad took.... how he regaled me with stories of doing his masters research.... i learned about mountain formations and alluvial fans that day... as we visited my friend matt at the Athabasca ice fields and frank painted the picture of what he imagined it would be like on Everest.

Went back to numtijah lodge at bow lake. It feels like eons ago. In Banff i couldn't even recognize the building where i lived and worked.

Funny to think all the lifetimes i have lived since....and that that would be the last trip we were a family.

Calgary with an old friend from high school.

Driving across the prairies into Regina.. staying with britt's cousin who lived up in Churchill in the 60s and ended up working for cbc. Lovely couple.

Watched the sun set and turned around to watch the full moon rise. What a perfect spot i found.... been a few days since sunsets :)

May the 4th be with you tomorrow :) as we venture to winnipeg to see jess' grandmas display at the manitoba hall of fame. Miss you grams :)

May 1 - cache tete jaune- hidden yellowhead :)

Out in cache tete jaune.... out in the sticks of bc along the fraser river just west of mount robson. Drove through snow to get here....low clouds..drizzly .... we went for a tour along the back roads near the Fraser.

Saw my very first moose and called to a great horned owl as we watched it cut across the gap in the trees above our heads...calling and crossing the road 3 or 4 times :)

Chilled out night in the boonies...made me remember why i love our. little home in the country so much :)

2 weeks :)

Back to banff tomorrow :)

Britt's friend we are staying with has the coolest jobs  ...driving the tundra buggy up in churchill with the polar bears and documenting the belugas :)

Turns out he knows a few people both my bf jamie knows and..he lived in panorama for a year and knows people neil and julie know..... small world :)

April 30 - Day 38

Leaving inveremere today...headed to jasper. 

So sad to go. Went on an amazing tour of the golf course with the kids.... dreaming out loud....and hanging at the skate park...it has been lovely to be around kids again. Lovely to be around old friends.... dreaming of the day i get to actually live here.

Invermere to jasper.....
memories long past. The last trip i took with my mom and step dad. The last time we were still a family.

Special place that highway :) cant wait!

April 28- invermere

Well we have arrived and they are just as great as i have remembered. Married now with two kids they live in a beautiful house on the ski hill. Ive always wanted to live here... even for just a year.

I saw a wolf today.... 20 minutes after asking the universe to see one.

We made eye contact. Gratitude.

Serendipity rained on us as soon as we got into town...met 2 women from ontario.  and the only person we asked for directions for the liquor store happened to work for my friends :)

Funny this journey...making peace with the past.

I am exactly where i am supposed to be.

God's country.