Category Archives: Finding Home

Making Circles and Plans and Circles and Plans

Posted in Canada, Fertility, Finding Home, Life, Love by

It’s hard to be caught between two long-distance families. It’s hard not only for us, but also for the people we leave behind with each plane ride back to that slippery concept of “home.”

Yesterday evening Zsolt, his mother and I were at the kitchen table looking at some stitching she had done. Anna is very creative, and she’s been working on a beautiful pillow case of red flowers. It’s taken her several months to stitch, on and off as she watches television in the evening.

Anna Stitching Hungarian

Anyhow, there we were yesterday evening. The dinner had been put away, and we were sitting at the table just talking, which is a bit of a rarity since normally it’s a choice between playing cards, watching a movie, or me escaping to our upstairs bedroom where I can watch some English webseries and chill out.  Frankly, I’m not a fan of the movies, and while the games are fun I get tired of them easily,but talking . . . talking is very, very interesting. Even if it’s all in Hungarian.

Anna was telling us about all kinds of things. One was that she had wanted to be an architect, but ended up in banking instead because her parents thought she was too skinny to do the co-op necessary for architecture that took place on a construction site. (She says she could have done it, but her parents worried she could not.) And so she studied accounting instead and ended up working at a bank.

Interesting no? I’m accustom to seeing my mother-in-law as a mother. Cooking, caring, and fussing all the time – that’s what I see. I’ve never met the young woman who had aspired to design buildings and dared to get married in a miniskirt. But I bet we would have gotten along, had we been able to understand one another.

And then she said what somewhat struck an even deeper chord within me. Anna related that back when she had children, (back when she was working 12 hour days at the bank, coming home late at night and only seeing her kids on the weekend – it was communism in Hungary back then, very work-focused rather than family-centric. . . had she been given the choice, I suspect she would have stayed at home more often) – back when she had children, she had wished they’d hurry along and grow up already. And now that she is older with far more time, she kinda wishes the reverse, that they could go back to being kids again.

I guess it’s empty nest and missed opportunities. And it made me feel a little bit frustrated with our own lack of children. We never talk about the baby stuff with Zsolt’s parents. They understand we need to wait before trying. But part of me would love to scoop up all those grandmotherly vibes and pour them over my own kids. I feel as though there’s a circle of life here, and we’re missing an essential loop.

Because really, Zsolt is never going to be four years old again. And, I reckon, instead of wishing him back to childhood, it should be wished that he become one heck of an amazing man, which he is – supportive, loving, caring, and growing; I think that her loneliness is more a result of family being far away, then her children no longer being children. At least, that is my guess.

Of course, I’ve known for a very long time that Anna sees Zsolt as her little boy. It makes all the sense in the world. She’s so full of love, and it’s the sort of thing that needs to be passed forward. But at the same time, I shouldn’t worry about her empty nesting, should I? That’s her journey to navigate. Though it is still a little heartbreaking.

Children grow up, parents step back, and families continue in a way that spreads outward rather than closing back inwards. It’s a theme I’ve written about in this blog, and loads in my fiction – and to be honest, since leaving Canada those many, many years ago for England and therefore taking my first steps ‘outward’, I have been just a little bit heart-broken. Once you step ‘out’ you can’t step back ‘in’.

Kids won’t solve long distance. But that’s not why I want to have children. I simply feel like we’re ready. It’s time. Let’s continue the circle. And not for the grandparents, though they are in my heart too, but because it’s right, and Zsolt & I want it. And frankly, we’ve got a whole lot of love to pass forward as well.

So, I’m counting down. April in Hungary. Then May in Canada. Scans at the hospital in June. If all goes well, then I need to wait three more months before trying. And then we try. And then we see.

And I have no idea what will happen next.

Sick at the Same Time – Adventures in Hungary

Posted in Finding Home, Food, Life, Love by

Well, we’re in Hungary!

After 10 hours of flying, 12 hours of train-riding and a few days spent in Budapest, Zsolt and I have finally arrived in the beautiful Pecs. So be prepared, because the next little while on Bumpyboobs is basically guaranteed to be adventures in Hungary-land (i.e. Magyorszag if you want to say that in Hungarian).

Our first adventure in this country of fruit, paprika, barking dogs, salami, red roofs and a language that continues to baffles me:

Catherine and Zsolt’s totally awesome adventures of getting SICK!!

soupWe’ve never been sick at the same time before, and I have to admit, we handled it rather differently. Zsolt was cheery as anything. I was full of WTF!! anger, at least on the first day when I felt like a heavily congested achy grumpy zombie lady.

I ought not to go into specifics. . . but I will just a little. Ever since chemotherapy (I don’t like how often that line reappears in my stories), I’ve been avoiding getting sick. My mantra is “Happy, Healthy and Cancer-Free.” Though lately I try and remove cancer from the equation entirely, and just say, “Healthy & Happy.” Therefore, this means keeping a minimum two or three meter distance from sick people – and running away as soon as possible, not touching anyone who is sick, not using the same cutlery or food, and just NOT getting sick. Because sick reminds me of being sick. And I never want to be that sick again.

So I was rather pissed when I caught this cold. But it’s only a cold, and I was being stupid. However, no matter how logical my brain was in saying that, my emotions were throwing me all over the place and were desperate to lay blame, and simply not-feel-this-way-anymore.

Zsolt, meanwhile, was sipping his tea and wearing his comfortable clothes, and enjoying this little reprieve from the business of life. He says to me, “We’re sick at the same time!” like it’s cause for celebration.

So I decided to try and lighten up. These stupid colds are going to happen in life. And when I’m a mother, I reckon it may become inevitable. Holding so much deep rooted anger toward illness isn’t going to do me or my body any favours.  It’s my personal take-away: I need to address this source of anger.

But in the meanwhile, we’ve been eating meat soup, which is really chicken soup. Oh my God it is delicious. Zsolt’s mom puts all kinds of vegetables into the broth (e.g. carrots, radishes, broccoli, potato, brussels sprouts, turnips, garlic, onions, etc.) along with the chicken, and then she strains everything out so what’s left is this golden tasty broth that might of well have descended from heaven.

This has been our medicine for the past three days, and it’s basically all I’ve eaten (chicken and veg bits thrown in).

I’ll tell you what, when the body is feeling down, there’s nothing better than chicken soup. Actually, yes there is! Chicken soup that I didn’t need to make for myself. Add some paprika potato chips to that arrangement and you’ve achieved perfection.

Anyhow, this is really just the first adventure. And while it might not be a typical travel-log experience, it was actually quite revealing for me. I still have no interest in voluntarily getting sick, or ever getting sick, but it would be good not to get so angry about life’s small & inconsequential bumps.

Interesting Magyar (Hungarian) Fact:

It is chive season in Hungary at the moment. People are allowed to pick the chives (cut the chives?) from the forest since it grows there all over. However, each citizen is restricted to 2kg of chives.

Now, isn’t that interesting?

One of my favourite things about Hungary (yeah, I might be saying that often), is that the year revolves around a calendar of food and/or occasions that honour that food. Some day I’d like to make a calendar of all these lovely seasons, just for my own pleasure. Forget the months and the days – live by the seasons. 🙂

And that’s all I got for today! See you later 🙂

 

Five Little Thoughts on Random Life

Posted in Finding Home, Food, Life, Travel by

Here is what I’m thinking about today:

I am thinking about Jasper, Alberta and a small bit of pathway that winds behind some of the homes of the tiny town. We’re walk along this black path at night after the bars closed, (we as in me and my friends, we were Tram Kids – working for the summer at the Jasper Tramway) on the way back to the giant house where many of us lived. It was completely unlit, and I’d have to trust my memory of having walked that path a hundred times before during the day as we took the shortcut to our home.

Jasper, just so you know, is a town inside of a National Park. That means animals cannot be hunted here, and it’s perfectly normal for elk to roam around the streets and chew on people’s lawns. It’s also not unheard of for other wild animals to find their way into the suburban streets, parks and pathways. A small part of me always wondered if there was a bear in the shadows as I walked back home, though a larger part of me just wanted to go to bed.

Anyhow one night as we were coming home, we stopped in this black pathway area and lay on the ground. All of us were tired, sweaty from dancing and high on being young. But, knowing there were meant to be shooting stars, we lay on the grass beside the path and looked up into space – big, black, never-ending space. One after another we spotted shooting stars, clusters of shooting stars, herds of shooting stars. If there was ever a night to make a wish, that had to be it. I cannot remember what I might have wanted, but I think on that evening with my friends on the damp grass along the path,  I had pretty much everything I could ever wish for.

. . .

Except for Zsolt, but I didn’t know to wish for him back then. And that’s another story.

*

I am thinking about how difficult it must be for small businesses, particularly restaurants that can’t afford to set up in the trendier parts of town. There are some really nice, cheap and cheerful venues around Vanier – unexpected compositions of flavour at reasonable prices. And yet the seats are empty. This afternoon I attempted to go to Golden India for their lunch buffed having heard their food is excellent but the restaurant is struggling, and somehow instead ended up at a place called El Tucan, which was also rather nice. The food was comforting, and the atmosphere had  South American flare thanks to the 70s South American film playing over the speakers and on the television by the bar, and a lovely lady . . . possibly from El Salvador (just a guess since the restaurant had Salvadorian food), helping us with our meal choices. It wasn’t as cheap as the Snack Shack, but she was most certainly cheerful.

These little places have so much heart poured into them. It must take heaps of courage to start a restaurant and say: “I don’t care about the failure rate for restaurants, I’m starting up (insert restaurant name here) and it’s going to be incredible!”

A highlight of this particular restaurant, apart from their really yummy spicy jalapeno sauce, were the drinks. I had a cashew nut fruit drink, which started off nutty and then switched to floral sweetness. Zsolt had a sweet and sour drink, which (can you guess?) started off sweet and then moved to sour. We were impressed.

After the meal we walked just a little bit along Montreal road and looked through the windows of all the small restaurants. So many small restaurants, so much competition, and so many empty seats. . .

*

I am thinking that grammar is one tricky b*ch. There are so many rules, and it changes depending upon location and organization . . . Zsolt and I keep getting into confusing disagreements whenever he asks me the random English language question. Like why are ‘pants’ considered plural? How do you shorten a quote? Is it that or which? And you know what – I hardly ever know the correct answer.

Forget the MLA handbook or Harvard guide to whatever. Lately I go to TheOatmeal.com or the Grammarist, or just plain GOOGLE the phrase to see the debate of its usage. And there’s always debate. I know of only one woman in this entire world who may have a handle on all these rules, but she’s particularly brilliant with this stuff and far above normal human capacity regarding theory around language. She’s like the Super Woman of Grammar.

*

I am thinking we don’t have enough candles. The lights just flickered here in Ottawa; we have a total of one Glade scented candle, and I’m guessing its little light wouldn’t be enough to sustain us for an evening. Hmm. Isn’t that doom day soon approaching? But then, what good would a few candles do if the whole world went kaput?

*

I am thinking that I need to make dinner, and yet have no clue what to serve. This is a daily occurrence. 😉

P.S. TONIGHT is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE at the NAC. Awesomeness wrapped in petticoats!