Does Your Soul Dance?

Pop, Country, Heavy Metal, Punk. If you're breathing and have a pulse, chances are there's a type of music that has you nodding your head, and tapping your toes whenever you hear it. A good beat, some fun lyrics, and the next thing you know, you’ve got your own private dance party.

Or, if your childhood was anything like mine, a dance party in the kitchen during after dinner dishes. Seriously, the best party in town, just ask my siblings!

Music plays a vital role in the human experience. It connects us and helps us express feelings and ideas in a way like no other. Yet even knowing this truth, until recently it hadn’t occurred to me how truly powerful a force music can be.

Have you ever felt your soul dance?

Just before Christmas, Mr. Man and I attended our first Mumford & Sons concert. Fans since first hearing their music on the radio, we impatiently endured the opening acts, until finally the big moment arrived.

The stadium lights went dark, and the jostling crowd was left in total darkness, excited, anticipating, breaths held.  Then, slowly out of the darkness the voices came.

If you can, click the link below before reading on. They opened with this song.

For the first two minutes, we all listened in the dark.  There were no fancy theatrics, no lasers or smoke, just the dark and the melody.  I felt the goose bumps rise, and a strange aching begin in my chest.

As the rhythm quickened, and the beat grew stronger, the stadium flooded with light. There, standing before the crowd, were four average guys, with simple instruments, and strong melodic voices. Singing of love and redemption, singing from their souls.

Love, it will not betray you,
Dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free.
Be more like the man,
You were meant to be.

The beat, the cadence, the words, as I listened the ache in my chest spread to my throat.  My heart raced and I felt close to tears. Nodding my head and tapping my feet, I was struck with a clear and brilliant certainty.  

My soul was dancing.

My background is Scottish, Irish and English, but I never lived in these cultures.   I lived in Newfoundland as a small child, but I don’t remember much.

Yet, this music.  So rooted in the places of my heritage, stirs a longing homesickness in me that I can hardly explain.  The beat of the drums and jig of the fiddle connects to a memory never realized and long forgotten.  When I hear this music, I feel the need to dance and sing and laugh.  To be surrounded by friends and family, raising a glass to health and happiness.
 
So, the next time you are mindlessly swaying to the rythm of your favorite music, take a moment and really listen.  Maybe, just maybe, if you pay close attention, you'll feel it too.

The pure joy of your soul dancing!


Enjoying the nuances of life,

Mandy:)        

As Long as I'm Living....

Tonight, like many nights of late, Miss M called out in the dark. Her tearful voice full of fear called out to Mommy and Daddy to protect her from the monsters.

Shuffling into our room, hair tousled, eyes bleary, Miss M crawled into our bed to escape the terrors lurking behind her eyelids.

Gathering her into my lap, a bundle of blankets and softly hitching breath, I held her close. I whispered the nightmares wouldn’t get her, that Mommy and Daddy would make sure they couldn’t.

Despite her cries, I carried her across the hall to her room. Hysterical in my arms, frustrated and over tired, her despair broke my heart.  Sitting on the edge of her bed I rocked her. Back and forth, back and forth, I murmured soothing sounds.  Shushing and swaying I attempted to the drive the monsters away.

As I rocked, out of the dark a trembling voice whispered, “Mama, I want to go to the rocking chair.”

With a quiet affirmation I eased off of the bed and carried my life’s love to the chair in the corner of the room. The chair I'd spied in a random thrift store while still pregnant.  The chair I’d purchased on the spot, had the saleswoman wedge into the backseat of my car, and then spent hours painting the perfect shade of apple red.

Approaching that chair, Miss M’s tiny arms around my neck, I felt my heart flutter with excitement. It’d been forever since we’d last snuggled and rocked. My nights spent cradling a sweet suckling babe, were now replaced with a bedtime routine far more busy and boisterous.

Settling into the chair my sweet one leaned against my chest, long legs dangling on either side, now gangly arms tangled in the blankie snuggly wrapped around her shoulders. With our bodies properly arranged, I slowly began to rock, back and forth, back and forth.

My hand, as if possessed of its own memory, silently fell into the well-known rhythm, up and down, up and down, feeling her strong back, and its steady rise and fall.

As we rocked, her solid weight on my lap, my thoughts began to stumble.

“So big, when did my baby get so big?”

With feet moving the chair, fingers massaging her back, I began to hum Brahms’s “Lullaby and Good Night”. I don’t recall this song from my own childhood, but from the moment I brought Miss M home from the hospital, I've been humming this song. To sooth, to calm, to cure, to relax, no matter the situation I have instinctively hummed this tune.

Rocking together, locked in embrace, my little girl who can count to 20 and sing her ABCs. Who helps me feed the cats and insists on brushing her teeth "all by herself." My beautiful daughter, so smart and so independent, nestled against my chest, eyes closed, breathing steady.

Leaning my face over her soft hair, I kissed her smooth forehead. Leaning back, still rocking, still humming, and the realization hit me. Like a stinging elastic snap in my brain, four seemingly innocent little words.

“Not a baby anymore.”

Holding back my tears, I squeezed her just a little tighter, desperate to freeze her in this moment just a little bit longer. Yet, the words repeat.

“Not a baby anymore.”

That swaddled little peanut I brought home from the hospital has grown and developed into a full-fledged little girl. With her own ideas and indestructible opinions, she’s come through the first stage of her life, and is ready and excited for the next.

Not a baby anymore, a big girl now.

The thought repeats, "a big girl now", and yet a small insistent voice inside is not satisfied.  Piping up, it calms me.

“She will always be your baby,” it whispers “always.”

Slowing the rock of the chair, I shifted my baby into my arms, and carried her over to the bed.  For now the terrors are gone, and Miss M is at rest.

My baby, my sweet one, my life’s love, asleep and dreaming dreams of color and light.

Smiling, I turn and leave.

No matter how big she gets, how much she learns, or how many new things she discovers, she’ll always be my little baby, and I’ll always be here to help her keep the monsters at bay.


As soon as I got Miss M back into her bed, I was so inspired that I wrote this post. It was partially influenced by one of my favorite children’s books by Robert Munch entitled “Love You Forever”.  Not that long ago Miss M and I would read it together, and when the mother rocked her baby “Back and Forth, Back and Forth and sang", Miss M. would rock and sing with me.


This book has always been one of my favorites, and could make me teary at the drop of a hat.  Now that I am a mother myself, it holds a new place in my heart. A place of undeniable truth.

"I'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living

My baby you'll be."

Trying not to blink,
 
Mandy:)

Paris Part II – Degas, Van Gough and Pissarro, Oh My!

Not to sound snooty, but this mini holiday was actually my third visit to the French capital.

I had my first taste of Paris when I was 17. I scrimped and saved and begged my relatives and friends to give me only money for every conceivable gift giving occasion. All this and some serious help from my parents and grandparents and I was able to go on a ten day March Break trip to Paris and Venice with my school’s travel club. It was a lot of fun and it officially kindled by devotion to all things Europe, but it was definitely a whirlwind trip. We saw all the important sights in record time and the result was I only sort of remembered the experience.

Then the summer I was 20, I was living with my family in Germany, and I met my now husband. At the end of our romantic summer courtship it was time for me to go back to complete my third year of university in Canada. Dreading the looming separation we decided to spend a long weekend in Paris. Again we saw a bunch of the important and interesting sights, while also adding a few neither of us had ever seen before. It was wonderful and romantic and full of laughter.

But at the end of it, there were still a few things I had never done, that I really wanted to do.

So when my Dad sent me an email, before Madeline and I arrived, asking if there was anywhere that I really wanted to go while I was in Europe, my mind kept coming around again and again to those missed opportunities in Paris.

So, it was thanks to my fantastic parents that I found myself in line to enter the Musee D’Orsay at 11:30 in the morning on our first full day. Here I am,



Not only did they make it possible for me to visit this temple of awesomeness, but they also took the Munchkin for some Grandparents Time so I could enjoy the work of the masters to the fullest without interruptions of “Mama? Mama? Mama?” every few minutes.

Parents of the year? I think so!!!!

So I’m waiting in line to enter the Musee. Here was the line,



Ummm, this wasn’t exactly part of the plan. In fact it was a line like this that had kept me from my artistic Mecca in the past. Remember my comment in “Paris Part I” about getting lost?

So, the plan was to get up and get to the museum when it opened at 9:30 am. I’d spend the morning soaking up the colour and brilliance. We’d meet for lunch and then head on to our next fun filled destination.

We started by waking up at 9:00 a.m. By the time we were washed, dressed and had some food in our bellies it was about 10:00 a.m. We were already behind the eight ball, but hey we were in Paris, so whatever, right?

Heading into Gare du Nord, I asked my parents if they knew which subway line we were going to take. “Yup!” my Dad replied, “Got it all mapped out!”

Sure.

An hour and a half later… after carrying Madeline up and down various stairways… second guessing and stumbling along… consulting and re-consulting maps and signs… ending up on the right train, but going the wrong direction… then find ourselves sitting on the wrong platform, waiting to go the right direction… finally running to the right platform and missing our train by seconds… cursing quietly under our breath while trying to keep our smiles firmly fastened…. we made it to the Musee D’Orsay.

Leaving me in line with a time set to meet, my parents took Madeline off for some Parisian fun of their own.

Luckily for me the line moved really quickly and I was inside the museum in about 20 minutes. Photography and videography are strictly prohibited inside, so unfortunately I can not share the full beauty that is the Musee D’Orsay, but suffice to say that for as amazing as I imagined it would be… it was… and more.

On each of my previous visits to Paris, I’d been on a mission to see the works of my favorite artists. Van Gough, Degas, Monet. Also I was eager to experience the works of artists I had only heard in passing, Pissarro, Cezanne, Toulouse-Letrac. I have a serious love for impressionistic art. The colours, the imagination, the techniques, the genius! It was my assumption that such fabulous works would be housed in the Louvre, but after two visits without ever seeing the masters I was looking for, I figured out that I was looking in the wrong place. Although the Louvre is stuffed to overflowing with many phenomenal works, the pieces I was lusting after were housed elsewhere.

As I entered the museum I was struck by the beauty of the building itself. Housed in an old train station the Musee D’Orsay is GOURGEOUS! The domed ceiling is BREATHTAKING! After taking a few moments to appreciate the architecture, I made a beeline for the impressionist wing.

Not to sound like a teenager but… O.M.G.!!!

Standing inches from pure genius I was utterly giddy. I seriously could not wipe the smile from my face. So much of the brilliance and subtlety of these works just does not translate when you view photos and prints. The work done by Degas has not in the past been my favorite, but in person… I can not even describe the brilliance adequately. The majority of the pieces I saw were done with pastels. I had no idea that that kind of vivid richness could even be achieved using pastels. And the techniques he used?!?! The slightest of scribbles here, a bit of shading there, a combination of colours I would not even dream of to achieve a realism… in the end you have…. well… a masterpiece!

There was just so much to take in!

My three hours spent roaming through the great works was time I will always remember. Discovering new artists I was not previously familiar with. Sitting in front of a marble statue so perfectly carved that the folds of fabric look REAL. Soaking up the quiet beauty and culture, all I can say is that ultimately my long awaited trip to this Paris hotspot was good for my soul. I left feeling inspired, humbled and honestly wanting to take some art classes!

And how was Miss M fairing on her own “Adventures Francais” you might ask? Well…

A visit to a beautiful park in order to enjoy the great weather and pose with Grandpapa for a picture.



Then on to the Louvre for a little education in the classics,



with a quick stopover at the fountain for a little fun with Grandmaman.



Quickly followed by a light lunch, which she kindly shared with the local wildlife.



With a final stop at another beautiful, historic, and fun fountain.



The result, one serious wore out little girl.



The fact that she is sleeping in her stroller is a first and I'm told resulted in an exultant Grandparents high five once achieved.

Our first morning in Paris may have been a bit frustrating and chaotic, bit it was quickly overshadowed, and the evening to come replaced any memory of it completely!

I’ll tell you all about that bit of unbelievable next time, but suffice to say it pretty much ROCKED MY SOCKS!!!

Still dreaming dreams full of colour and beauty,

Mandy:)

I want Fashion! Function can kiss my...

19 more sleeps til our big adventure across the pond and prep has already begun.

In my youth I was a card carrying member of the Procrastinators Club. I was always the student up all night before a project was due. I could be found busily knocking it out, often with unhealthy sugar infused food fueling my efforts. One time I ate an entire bag of Oreos while finishing an assignment. Just before dawn the assignment was complete, and I was experiencing a sugar rush that could easily rival any drug induced high on the market.

Any questions concerning how I gained my “Freshman 15+” are now answered, I’m sure!

Now, lists are my world. There is honestly nothing more satisfying then crossing something off of a list. I have lists for EVERYTHING! Needs, wants, to dos, don’t forgets… I’ll write a list and then re-write it. Condensing and expanding. Expanding and condensing.

I can see you nodding in ecstatic agreement Michelle, I know you would give me a high-five if you were here. Save it. I’ll be collecting soon enough!

So the lists for Germany have begun, and at the top for me was to find a great carry on bag. I wanted something big enough to carry all the paraphernalia I’d need to keep the Munchkin occupied, uber functional so I could grab and go whenever I needed and, perhaps the hardest part of all, SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT!

I know when you are a mom about to travel an enormous distance with a soon-to-be-two-year-old, fashion should not be your #1 priority, but I just can’t help it. It physically hurts me when I have to settle for something that is functional, but ugly as sin. Is it too much to ask to have fashion and function without having to slap down a mortgage payment to get it?

The first stop in my search was Etsy.com, a fantastic marketplace for crafters, collectors and those searching for something just a little bit different. I figured maybe I’d get lucky and find a bag handmade to perfection, or maybe something vintage. As with my crafting, in fashion I love to be unique. My favorite haunt as a teen was my local Salvation Army Thrift Store. I’d spend hours combing the racks, looking for something different, vintage and one-of-a-kind.

After hours of searching I hit pay dirt. I found it in a shop called BrightWall. OMG! It was just too beautiful for words! I could instantly picture myself, chic and sophisticated travelling momma, with this vintage bag hanging over my shoulder.



Be still my beating heart! I showed it to my hubby, bubbling over with glee from my find, expecting a husbandly, “Whatever you want.” Instead I got a great big rainstorm drowning out my parade.

His questions of practicality and functionality made me want to scream! Couldn’t he just read my mind and see my vision. Me, posh and pulled together, serenely pushing our precious daughter through the airport, carrying THAT bag! Ultimately, the endless questions finished with a compromise. He said we would look at the mall that weekend, and if I couldn’t find anything else I liked, then I could get the DREAM bag.

Determined to prove him wrong, the next day I hit the mall with my partner in crime and soul mate in all things esthetically pleasing, Jessica. I knew surely she would commiserate with my plight, help me stage a search of the mall, thereby allowing me to skip home and order the bag I was meant to have!

Except… my fashion guru, my style icon, my lover of all things artistic and beautiful, is NOT about beautiful handbags where function is concerned. As our search began she confessed that although a big part of her world revolves around fashion, she is unabashedly about function when it comes to bags for hauling her kiddo’s stuff. Her diaper bag is a simple black Eddie Bauer model, and although it has zero going for it esthetically (except maybe being black) she loves it because it makes her life easier.

As we walked into Macys, she advanced on a display of luggage on sale for 50% off. I wish I could describe the bags on display in beautiful flowery terms, but the only thing I can say about them is that they were definitely functional. Pictured below is not the exact bag presented to me by my dear friend, but really, they all look the same to me, so it will do.



UGH!! It’s just so plain and uninspired! On our search we must have found a million just like it. “Dude, it will be so functional. It will make your crazy long trip so much easier. You won’t be tearing your hair out. Dude, I don’t want a bald friend…” Jessica reiterated all the reasons Colby had given me (and then some). I knew they were both right. But, MY bag. My beautiful, vintage, Kelly green duffel, perfect in its uniqueness and character, was calling to me. Pleading with me not to cave. Not to give in to the modern and mind numbing. Urging me to be inspired and impulsive for once. Screw function and practicality, just buy the gorgeous bag!

But in the end I caved. I listened to my friend, and my husband and did the practical and responsible thing. I bought the ugly bag.

Being a responsible adult really sucks sometimes!!

In a mope I spent the evening staring at the offending bag. The bag I KNEW I would never use again after my trip. Colby said he really liked it. It was perfect. I’d be able to fit everything I needed in it.

“FINE!” I snapped “When I get back it’s yours!”

I know, all this over a bag, grow up, right? What can I say, I’m a SAHM, and I can’t help but leap at any opportunity to feel stylish. Mac and Cheese, snot and diapers just aren’t sexy!

So, I bought the ugly practical bag and that’s the end right? Nope. My goddess of the shopping find came through for me!

The next day Jessica called me, so excited she could hardly contain herself.

“DUDE I FOUND YOUR BAG!!! IT’S BIG ENOUGH, AND HAS A TON OF POCKETS AND A SHOULDER STRAP AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL! I’M EMAILING YOU A PICTURE NOW!”

So sometimes you can have your cake AND eat it too.

One beautiful Sojourn Style Croco Weekend Duffle Bag in Merlot red, courtesy of Target for $39.99.



Now the search is on to find an umbrella stroller to match.

Wish me luck,

Mandy:)