Just Because it was Unconscionably Rude To Just Leave Like That…

I mean, really.  I was raised better than that, truly I was.

 

Somehow, somewhere, I lost the desire to write here.  No explanations, no excuses…and who really cares, after all…but there it is.

 

Life at Gelati Farms is rolling along as it always does.  Everybody is a bit different now…taller, tanner, itchier (it is mosquito and black fly season here…which is the season that comes between winter and, well, winter…) and busier.  My schedule at work is like Fort Knox and Hotel California in reverse…there is just no getting in.  Even my Friday morning appointments which are usually the last to fill are filled until August some time.  This is nice for the pocketbook, of course, and makes me feel pretty good about myself professionally, but it is hell on the camping plans.  And the garden plans, and the sitting and sweating in the backyard plans, and the iced tea on the patio plans, but there it is.  One must be a grown-up sometime, I suppose.

 

The girls are so excited to be together all day, every day…minute by minute, second by second, millisecond by millisecond…Oh My God…when does school start again?!  Yesterday, while I was setting up the bike trailer to take a ride to the park, Soph and Calla were having a knock-down-kicking-screeching-scratching-spitting fight about something.  At first I was too absorbed in my own version of the same type of fight with my bike trailer and missed what all the noise was about.  Once Soph grabbed on to Calla’s hair and swung like a chimp for all she was worth…well, there was no ignoring that racket.  When I poked my nose in to the fight, finally, I discovered that it was over imaginary lipstick.  Imaginary lipstick that Calla was hoarding in her imaginary purse that was tucked away in her Princess bicycle basket.  Calla was not sharing her imaginary lipstick and…even more heinous…was keeping Soph’s imaginary lipstick from Soph. 

 

Generally speaking, I have a fuse that goes from decently-long (good days) to so-short-as -to-be-inconsequential (most days) and today, my fuse had been reduced to cinders during my struggles with the bike trailer.  Had you been anywhere near our block, you would have heard me screeching right along with the girls…"Soph, for the love of GOD…can’t you just imagine yourself some of your own lipstick?  Imagine yourself 15 tubes of imaginary lipstick…IT’S JUST PRETEND LIPSTICK!!  And Calla…stealing all the pretend lipstick for yourself is not really a very kind thing to do.  How would you like it if Soph did that to you?!"

 

It was a moment.

 

Right now, at this very moment, Soph is talking to her wall (have taken away all her Webkinz so that she has nothing to keep her awake when she should be sleeping…but we just don’t know what to do about the fact that her wall is just as much fun as her toys…) instead of sleeping and I have a sink full of dishes that need doing.  As I live in a one hundred year old house, any insulation is negligible and I refuse to install air-conditioning.  This means that I am hot and sweaty and not anxious to spend 25 minutes with my hands in hot soapy water.  Calla is snoozing away and Dean has taken  a 45 minute drive (one way) to pick up Calla’s bike that I forgot at a friend’s house today.  Anybody who still comes by to read will recognize this as situation normal for Gelati Farms.  Should this be my last post here (indecisive as usual), just trust that life will be rolling along in just this way here…as it always has.

 

Should I decide to continue writing, here or elsewhere, I will post that here.  Anybody who is interested is welcome to come and visit.

 

In the meantime, much joy and laughter and the odd bit of challenge is wished your way…

 

Alison

A Bit of an Explanation for the Strange Things That May Come Up During Christian Living Class. Just in Case Calla’s Teacher Reads My Blog…

Just a note that has nothing whatsoever to do with the following blog…somehow, in my mini-Spaces vacation, I failed to notice that I was up there on what used to be "What’s Your Story" and is now something different that I can’t remember, even though I just checked three seconds ago.  Ugh.  Here I was, caught with my pants down, no new blog in WEEKS and this sitting in my drafts folder awaiting proof-reading.  Lazy lazy lazy.  How long has my Space been up there, anyways?  Holy?  You know all.  You can bet I will be sending you and e-mail with this very question.  Ugh.  Or did I just say that? 

 

 

 

Dear Mrs. T…

 

Just thought I would send along a note to explain anything odd that Calla might say over the next few days.

 

Every night we say Grace before dinner.  Sometimes it is a formal Grace, complete with a very solemn sign of the Cross and sometimes it is more of a free-for-all of giving thanks for everything from being blessed with good food and loved ones to a really fun game of What Am I Thinking? that we played just prior to dinner.  The other night, Calla gave thanks for so many things that we had to reheat our meatloaf before we could eat it.  And then we had to give thanks all over again.  We finished by being very thankful that we could finally eat.

 

Tonight Calla mentioned that she wanted each of us to send up a prayer of Intention instead of our regular Grace.  Because it has been so many years since I was Catholic I had to ask Calla to demonstrate.  She told us that in class today, her prayer of intention was for the cats that used to pee in our house and her Grandpa that died. 

 

Dean caught on really quick and his prayer of intention was for all the people in the world who weren’t as lucky as we were to have healthy food (to which Calla said "blah blah blah Daddy…you say that every night…" shouldn’t she be more respectful of other people’s prayers??)

 

Sophia said a prayer of intention for the game of I Spy (?) followed by an exclamation of "Holy Sh** the soup is hot!" (a habit I hope to break her of before she comes to you in Grade One…)

 

My prayer of intention was for all the loved ones we are missing, and I added prayer of gratitude for my family and friends and the delicious-looking sushi that Dean had made and that I could not wait to eat when we were finished praying. 

 

Finally, when everybody had picked up their spoons to tuck into the lentil soup and dumplings that I had made for dinner, I looked down at my bowl and saw that gelatinous glob of floating, soggy dough and sent up a prayer of intention for all the Diddle Diddle Dumplings that had to die so that we could have dumplings in our soup.  I then took a vow of Dumplitarianism and gave my dumpling to Calla.

 

 

For a while, we happily sipped soup, slurped sushi and crunched on our salads and then Calla piped up with this stunner…"You know, Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  He was pinned there.  Actually, why would someone pin somebody on a cross?  And really, what does it mean that he died for our sins?"  I have to tell you Mrs T, that as Dean and I sat there with our soup spoons halfway to our gaping mouths, each of us was hoping the other was going to come up with something brilliant to say in response to her.  When I heard Dean take a deep breath to speak,  I sent up a silent thank you and let my spoon finish it’s journey to my mouth.  Only to spit lentils clear across the table when I heard "Well, Calla, your Mommy, whose idea it was to send you to the Catholic school, probably has the answer to that." 

 

Mrs T, the thing is, I wanted Calla to go to the Catholic school because the system is a better system than the public system, and the teachers (especially YOU, Mrs T…) are better.  Confession time though, and I can’t imagine what my penance is going to be for this biggie…I wanted Calla to understand the structure of the Catholic Faith as part of her heritage even though she is being raised in a home that has sort of taken a different road in the faith journey.  I must say, I am a bit concerned that a six year old child would come home, having been told that Jesus was ‘pinned’ to a cross and died for our sins and then rose from the dead three days later (raising all sorts of interesting questions about whether her Grandpa is going to rise from the dead, thank you very much…) and yet have no concept of what this all means.

 

So…I told Calla the truth.  That I  really had no idea what it all meant.  That I was still trying to figure it out.  I suggested that maybe the most important thing to remember about a person is what their life was about, the wonderful things they did while they were alive.  Maybe she could focus on that instead.  She asked…"Well, what did Jesus do that was wonderful?"  I figured that the best thing about Jesus was that he loved everybody, no matter who they were or what they did.  In the world we live in now, could there even be a better message than that? 

 

Calla looked very satisfied at that.  I felt pretty good about things…a good lesson about Jesus…a wonderful message that was true and important whether we choose to be practising Catholics/Christians or not.  I exhaled and took another bite of soup.  Calla took a bite of sushi.  Dean was amazed and, unless I miss my guess, pretty jealous at my clever response.  Soph was chasing her dumpling around her soup bowl with her spoon pretending the spoon was a horse.  Life was good.

 

 

Until…

 

"What about pirates, Mommy?"

 

"Hubba-wha Calla?!?!"

 

"Did he love pirates, too?"

 

"Yup," Dean said, "Pirates were a special favourite of Jesus’"

 

"And bandits, too"

 

"Yes," I said, "both bandits and their Spanish counterparts, the banditos were equally loved by Jesus.  Pass the wasabi, please…"

 

So, Mrs. T…if Calla mentions Jesus, pins, pirates and banditos during Christian Living class next week…at least you will be prepared.

 

Yours Most Sincerely, and In All Seriousness…

 

Alison (and Dean, even though he took the coward’s way out…)

 

 

A religion that is small enough for our understanding would not be large enough for our needs. 

Arthur James Balfour 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mark of a Life…

Ten days ago, everything came together.  The weather was just cold enough and just warm enough. It was snowing, and each flake was like a fluff of feather down, so the ground looked as comforting as a feather bed. And then there was that silence…that gorgeous, cozy silence that is less absence of sound and more just the…absorption of noise. 

 

I was standing in the front field of Dean’s parent’s farm, trying to capture the three brothers on camera…but with that silence and that heavy snow, I could not find them through my lens.  Behind me I heard a commotion as my sister-in-law stood in the open doorway of the house, calling to my niece and daughter to come inside and get their winter clothes on…I guess they, too, wanted to catch a glimpse of the spectacle and in their excitement had run out of the house without boots, jackets, hats, mitts or snow pants.  Finally, the three of us and my camera caught sight of the boys…Luke was driving the tractor and Dean and Todd were riding behind …being towed on GT Racers.  Every thirty seconds or so, either Todd or Dean was tossed high in the air when Luke took a corner too fast.  Maybe Luke would stop the tractor until they caught up again, or maybe he would make his brothers run full tilt to catch up with their toboggans.  Being the baby of the family by eight years, and having been the brunt of his much older brothers’ many pranks, he mostly made them work for it.

 

I think, in the years to come, this will be my most vivid memory of the hours and days after the death of my father-in-law…watching his three boys playing together…finding creative ways to enjoy the gift of a beautiful snowy day…every once in a while catching the sound of their laughter through the snow-silence.  And later, when Bill’s much-beloved four granddaughters were finally suited up properly, their fathers and their Uncle Luke spent the rest of the afternoon finding new and wonderful ways to make them smile…taking their father’s gifts of love, gentleness and play and paying them forward.

 

I suppose that if Bill had been standing beside me that afternoon, watching his boys playing with his tractor, he would have been smiling and shaking his head, or maybe he would have had one of his Eeyore moments and just have settled for shaking his head.  I wonder if he would have recognized the bits of himself in those moments?  Because even though we were all walking through those days with a Bill shaped hole in our lives, we were all still able to find a bit of play here, a sense of adventure there and a whisper of gentleness everywhere.  That was the mark he left on our hearts.

 

 

 

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation.  For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.  ~Albert Einstein

To Everything, There is a Season…

Hey all.  Just to let you know that we have had a death in the family and are dealing with all that comes with that.

Until things settle down here, I won’t be around much.  

I have been sitting here staring at the blinking cursor for the last 10 minutes, not knowing what else to write, so I guess that means that there is nothing else to say! 

I am sure that soon I will be back to write something deep and philosophical about life and death, but until then I am going to take advantage of a few hours of quiet to deal with the wreckage that is my house.

I hope that things are sailing smoothly for you all…

Just Because…

This morning I woke up slowly.  Normally my mornings start with a bang…a shout from Sophia, a blast from the alarm clock, a request from Calla for something to eat.  This morning I woke up when I realized I was smiling. 

 

Miss Calla had come to bed with us at some point during the night…she was running a fever and feeling rotten.  At some point I must have rolled over onto my stomach and what was making me smile was a small hand rubbing back and forth over my shoulders and upper back. 

 

Both of my girls have become used to touch and massage…probably because of my profession, but also because both Dean and I are touchers.  Sophia’s favourite way to be put to bed is to have me sing ‘Dream a Little Dream’ or ‘Hush Little Baby’ while I play with her hair and stroke her forehead, cheeks, nose and chin.  Calla likes to have her legs and scalp massaged and then always asks me to finish up by rubbing my hands together (so that my palms become really warm) and then placing my cupped hands over her eyes.  The last two nights, because Calla was feeling punky, I rubbed her back so that she could relax.  She closed her eyes and smiled, told me that it felt really nice and that she loved me.

 

This morning, Calla was awake before Dean and I even considered opening our eyes and starting the day.  Calla’s fever-warm hand rubbing my back woke me before 7am and the first words I heard as I opened my eyes and ears to the day was Calla saying ‘Doesn’t that feel good Mommy?  This is just how it feels when you rub my back.  Don’t you love it?’  Then she rubbed her hands together really fast and placed them over my eyes for a few seconds before she dropped a kiss on my nose. 

 

Really.  If a Sunday morning must start before 7am, this is the way it should begin.  I have had a smile on my face almost every moment since…

It’s Forty Below, I Don’t Give a &*%#, There’s a Heater in My Truck and I’m Off to the Rodeo…

It’s Not Just a Song, It’s a Day In the Life at Gelati Farms…

 

Now, if you have never heard this song, well, I am certainly not going to play it here.  It is playing on my media player right now…on a repeat loop because it makes me laugh every time.  Actually, this song brings back clear memories of sitting in my in-law’s truck with my brother-in-law.  Luke is 12 years younger than me and for a time we shared a love for old country classics.  Devil Went Down To Georgia, The Gambler and most anything by Ian Tyson come to mind, but mostly I remember the day Luke introduced me to the Rodeo Song.  Will you all think me hopelessly vulgar if I tell you that instead of being shocked by the language in this song and setting a mature example for Luke, I sat beside him on that bench seat and giggled helplessly until tears ran down my cheeks?  There’s just something about that song…

 

It’s Forty Below…

 

Well, it is.  Mostly.  If I wanted to be completely, perfectly exact, with the windchill it is actually only -39*C (-38.2*F for those of you Imperialists…), but I believe that once it hits -39*C…who’s going to quibble about one degree?  Anyone wishing to take this up with me is welcome to.  Just, you know, bring your down coat and your Rated -100* Sorels and wear a scarf because we hit the ‘snot-and-tears-freeze-at’ temperature twenty degrees ago.  Oh…and we will be holding our debate outside because I LOVE this weather. 

 

This afternoon, I donned my full length down coat, my black fleece pants with my snow pants over, my new pink, plaid Sorels, a hat with ear flaps and my new mitts and took a walk along the water front.  I also took my new Fuji with me to see if I could capture the violently cold temperatures on digital film.  There is something so pure and brittle about colour and sound when the temperatures dip this low.  I don’t know if I can describe it…but there is a hollowness to sound and a shallowness to colour.  Walking along the  boardwalk, with each step of my boot, in a cold this deep, the wooden planks made the sound of a flinch.  Can you hear it?  And colour…in the summer it just saturates everything: the grass is dripping green, the sky is soaked with blue and the garden flowers are heavy with colour.  In weather this cold, colour is just a veneer…sharp and almost translucent…sort of like a holographic image of the object left behind when the real thing left for more friendly climes.

 

…I Don’t Give a…

 

I believe I mentioned above that, despite the vulgarity of the Rodeo Song, I just giggle my fool head off every time I hear it.  Truth be told, swearing and cursing don’t bother me that much.  (with the exception of the C-word, natch, and the Wh-word which is technically not a swear but, to me, the single most obnoxious word in the English language.  Don’t get me started, but it is because of the complete hypocrisy of a society that creates an individual and then denigrates that individual for what they have become.)  I do not enjoy listening to conversation peppered with the f-word, but when it is used, I don’t get twitchy…after all, I have been known to have a bit of a potty mouth when sufficiently riled.  

 

All bad habits come back to bite you on the ass…this was taught to me one summer when Calla gave my in-laws a tour of my garden…"These are my mom’s fricking dahlias, these are her fricking peonies, those are her fricking peas, and these are her fricking Calla Lilies.  They are named after me."  I about died.  Today, Sophia helped me make a belated New Year’s resolution.  While I was in KFC picking up some Chicken of Death, she gave Dean and Calla a language clinic.  They were quietly listening to Stuart McLean’s stories from the Vinyl Cafe when, out the clear blue, Soph pulled her thumb out of her mouth to say "Holy F***, I gotta boo-boo bum!"  Thirty seconds later, when I spilled into the car saying "Holy Fuuhhhh (I try not to finish the word, just the first two sounds are usually enough to convey my frustration…) when I dropped that bottle of Pepsi, it bounced three times!  We’ll let your mom open it, ‘kay Dean?"  Dean just looked at me while Calla was convulsed in fits of scandalized laughter and said, "Well, it’s no mystery where she gets it from…"  Note to self…stop swearing.

 

 

There’s a Heater in My Truck…

 

Well, actually, it’s a Volvo, but for the purposes of this blog…

I believe I made mention of the heated seats (which, by the way, are a blessing and a curse in this weather.  While it is nice to have seats that heat up…especially leather seats which get verrrry chilly…it makes leaving the car that much harder.  It is not unlike the chill one gets upon stepping out of a warm shower and having the chill air hit warm, wet skin…except it is a fully clothed backside that is nice and toasty and the chill chases it right to the door.) but did I mention the separate climate control for the driver and passenger?  This means that today, when Dean was cold because he had chosen to wear only a fleece and I was sweltering because I had sensibly chosen a turtleneck sweater, fleece pants, one of my two down coats, and a woolen scarf and mitt set, I just turned my thermostat down so that I didn’t arrive at our destination as a puddle.  It is important to note here that while I just made Dean sound totally irresponsible, we always have a box in the back of the car with extra winter clothes, boots and blankets.  Like good Northerners.

 

…And I’m Off to the Rodeo!

 

 

Life has been a rodeo lately!  In the last two weeks, we have seen a loved one through major surgery and sat anxiously by while he struggled to recover, a dear friend of Dean’s had a heart attack at the exact same time and Miss Calla, Queen of Timing finally got the chicken pox.  As of right now, everything is fine…both men are home and recovering (actually, the Chicken of Death was for the recent surgery patient!  He lay in bed for two weeks at the hospital and cultivated a powerful craving for KFC.  We all figured that with everything he had been through, far be it from us to begrudge him a little of the Colonel’s best.) 

 

Calla has only the memories of the Chicken Pox…the odd scab here and there, and she was so wonderful during the whole thing.  Two nights she lay in my bed, crying because she was so itchy but did not want to scratch.  For hours and hours, I gently rubbed her back while both of us wished for sleep.  One night, she had a midnight oatmeal bath and, soothed by the warm water for a few moments, she mugged for some really lovely b&w head shots. 

 

As I type this, I can hear Soph over the monitor…she is having a restless sleep due to a bit of a fever.  I would not be surprised if, in the next few days, we start to see some spots on Sophia.  As someone who had chicken pox twice…once when I was very young and a really terrible case again when I was twelve…I am hoping that Sophia has it over and done with now.  Poor babies, but it is almost a rite of passage…

 

 

So, that was a little musical tour through my life lately.  It is good.  The Rodeo Song is off repeat and now I am listening to the Firebird Suite by Stravinsky, with Shostakovich and Vivaldi on the cue.  That I can have the Rodeo Song and three of my favourite composers nestled up nice and close on my playlist is beautiful thing, and makes me so grateful for Windows Media Player.  Mostly I am glad that it was the Rodeo Song playing when I started this blog…it would have been quite the thing to apply my life to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2… 

Laryngitis of the Soul…

How much value is placed on what we choose to do with our lives? 

 

I have started this entry about six times now…each time with a completely different opening that never went beyond three sentences.  After I deleted the last group of thoughts that went nowhere, I sat for a moment and realized that I am seriously cheesed off.  I had started to write some…crap (sorry, but it was)…about feeling like I have lost my voice.  If I really think about my inability to write here lately (and let’s be liberal with the application of lately as a description of time, ok?  Because if I am honest with myself, lately means from about April on…) it has nothing to do with voice and everything to do with wondering how what I choose to write will be received by whoever stops by to read.  This is what cheesed me off.  The fact that I am in my thirties, have a fulfilling relationship with my husband, two magical little girls, a successful practice, many good friends and a mind that can bend and weave and flow on it’s way to truth and understanding; and yet still I worry about whether who I am will be valued.

 

(…it also chaps me that I have these huge gaps in my grasp of grammar.  Taking high school English while still in Grade 8 did wonders for geekifying me but it did nothing for my future as a grammatical genius.  Somehow I went through three years of school and managed to miss the two of the three high school English teachers who placed any value on grammar.  Sure…creative writing and the extra Shakespeare we did was wonderful at the time, but shrugging off grammar is like putting toe shoes on an infant who just learned to crawl and cuing the orchestra to begin the overture for Swan Lake.  All I am saying is…did that semi-colon belong after understanding up there?  And is there something really wrong with me that I really like to start sentences with And?  What about parentheses?  Do commas belong before, inside or after them?  No question on where I caught the parenthetical disease though.  This wonderful virus has a name and she is called Natalie.)

 

 

Hmmm.  You have no idea how many sentences I have just erased.  I have started this paragraph almost as many times as I started the first paragraph.  See?!  Worried.  Grrrr.  I realized that I have not made myself clear at all…I want to be able to do it without whining, so let’s see if this works.  Mommy blogs are often criticized with people saying things like "If I have to read again about Junior’s poopy diaper or Juniorette’s inability to have a tea party without dumping pretend tea all over her guests in fits of temper, I might lose my mind!" 

 

(as a side note, I cannot stop listening to Fix You by Cold Play.  Sometimes a song lodges itself in my mind and soul and I listen to it so often that even my stereo speakers start to revolt when they hear the opening bars.)

 

 

I suppose I started to feel that I needed to be writing a different sort of blog all together.  I needed to sound smarter, take on bigger issues, write poetically about the state of the world.  But then I discovered Holy Schmidt and realized that, well, schmidt, someone is already doing that.  And doing it well.  And with nary a sentence beginning with And.  Or But.  

 

What it comes down to is this:  After months of starting and stopping, of blogs that began and never completed, of thoughts considered and discarded, I have come to realize that this is my space.  I only need to please myself here and it may be one of the last places where I can do that.  Let me use bullets to illustrate what I mean by this…(I bullets)

• In real life, loved ones get ill and we stare death in the face, trying not to blink.  If I only pleased myself , I could use the Mr. Clean magic eraser to rub away cancer. 
• In real life, children have temper tantrums in the middle of the mall during your only hour away from home with the car in weeks.  If I only pleased myself, I could take my reasonably hand-drawn facsimile of a child to the book store and prop her up against the shelving while I browsed through dozens of books and admired the smile I had sketched on her face. 
• In real life, things are cyclical in a household…dishes are washed, then dirtied, then washed again, then dirtied again; beds are made, then messed, then made again; toilet bases are clean, then they have that disgusting, mysterious brownish/yellowish gunk, then they are cleaned (with much gagging), then they are gunked again.  If I only pleased myself, my very blink would be all powerful.  One blink would make beds.  One blink would wash the dishes.  One blink would…ferret out the maker of that vile yellow/brown disgust and put it to violent death.  Of course, then I would blink like somebody with an obsessive/compulsive need to exercise her lachrymal glands.  I had considered that if I only pleased myself, I could have a completely disposable house…toilet dirty, get a new one.  Beds mussed, call the Brick and get a replacement.  Even in my ‘please myself’ world, I know I would then worry about the effect on the environment.  I guess the only ‘please myself’ option is to hire a full-time, full-on housekeeper. 
• In real life, clients can be pains in my butt.  They know there is about a three-six week wait to get an appointment with me, depending on the time they want.  They always call the week of, though, and want me to squeeze them in somewhere.  Then they call ten minutes before the appointment to cancel.  If I only pleased myself, I would have a perfectly manageable client load who called and booked their appointments in advance.  And they would all show up. And…come to think of it, on days when my back is sore or my shoulder is acting up, they would be perfectly happy to pay for the privilege of just lying on my comfy table, wrapped in blankets listening to waves crashing on the shore while I napped in a chair. 
• In real life, life marches on.  If I only pleased myself, I would…find a massage table somewhere, curl up under blankets and listen to waves crash on a shore.  I would happily pay for this privilege.
• In real life, value is placed on many things, but not necessarily on the day to day joy and/or slog of raising children.  If I only pleased myself, I would take on those people who think that being focused on raising healthy and happy children is not nearly enough, not nearly as important as taking on the world.  I would graffiti my campaign slogan all over the world and everybody would understand.  My slogan would be along the lines of "Where would we be if George and Barbara had placed their value on family instead of politics and power?"

So…this is pleasing myself, writing about whatever comes to mind whether it be weighty thoughts, minor frustrations or that overwhelming feeling of love I get when I walk behind Soph in her footy jammies, with her fuzzy bedhead,  her thumb in her mouth and her blankie dragging behind her.  I could write about the difference I have made in the world by raising a child like Calla who has so much love in her heart and, even at a young age, such a strong sense of her self and consequence. 

Pah.  You would think that at my age I would learn that we are all our worst critics and that there is no value if we don’t place it there first ourselves.  We don’t lose our voices, we censor them, or train them to toe the party line and then fail to recognize them when they are speaking to us.  At this moment, my Fuji is telling my voice to just shut up.  That the girls are dressed in their party dresses and dancing to the Twelve Dancing Princesses.  It is telling my voice to stop gagging at all things Barbie and suck it up…to record this moment for posterity.  My Fuji speaks with a loud voice and carries a big stick.  I believe it is prudent to listen.