Project Runaway

Project Runaway is officially complete. On time and pretty much on budget. And as project manager I am on the quest for my next project.

I started this blog on May 7, 2009. I have wrote my blogs while on buses, boats, airplanes, and trains. I have shared our adventures, our triumphs and our tribulations. Through my words, I have been able to show people parts of the world that they may never travel to and I have hopefully entertained and inspired along the way.

I loved every minute of working on my blog. I enjoy writing and want to continue, but how does that look now that I am back home? I realize that I truly love writing about travel adventures. As I am back at work, and a fabulous travel adventure is not directly looming on my horizon, I have decided to take some time away from blogging to make some decisions on what options for writing projects I can pursue.

Yes, I know that I have now piqued your interest in what ‘writing projects’. Basically I am going to research other options for travel writing. This may mean a new website with a new image that is about travel, or it may mean writing for other travel sites or magazines. I will be a guest writer on one of my favorite sites, www.One-Giant-Step.com coming up in March. I have received a lot of feedback that our story is unique and that it needs to get out there so I will be exploring ways to do this and may be trying my hand at writing a book.

I look forward to continuing to share my writing with you. Whatever form my new project takes, you can be assured this is not the last you have heard from me. My site will remain up and you can watch here for word of my next great adventure!

I said goodbye last week to my last grandparent, my grandmother Ellen. As I helped my mother and her siblings make arrangements, it made me reflect on funeral customs of some of the countries we were blessed to travel in.

Funeral rites are as old as civilization itself. The customs are as varied as the cultures and religions that created them. In Italy, there are funeral posters put up for the recently departed. There is a full mass and wakes are a subdued affair. Cremation is still not as prevalent as in other countries but the Catholic Church no longer frowns quite so much on it.

A hodja in the smaller cities and towns of Turkey will call the people for the funeral. The deceased is washed and shrouded and the funeral occurs as soon as possible after death.

The Hindus of Bali cremate their dead on elaborate pyres where the body is in the belly of a bull. We learned that this is expensive and that sometimes the family will bury the family member until they can afford the cremation ceremony. Often 40 or 50 families will get together and pool their rupiah and have a large ceremony that can last up to 2 weeks.

It was very common for us to see cremation ceremonies around Bali during our time there and I admired the respect and care with which they took with their departed.

Made, our hostess in Ubud, told us of a massive cremation where her uncle was finally cremated after his death a few years earlier. The entire village takes place in the ceremonies honoring the deceased villagers. After the cremation the ashes are scattered in the ocean. I found this interesting as I learned last week that it is illegal in Canada and considered littering. As Canada is a melting pot of cultures I wonder if this way of thinking will eventually change here.

No matter how each country we visited dealt with death, grief is the same everywhere. Everyone must pass from this life and will have someone who grieves for them. There is beauty in the traditions of death just as there is in the traditions of birth. At the end it is all the cycle of life.

As I reflect on my grandmother and her life I count my blessings that I had her as long as I had. Life is not about how many possessions you have at the end of it but how much love you had. And in that measure, Ellen Lyle Smith had a rich life. I shall miss you Nana.

Ellen Lyle Smith 1924-2011

It is around this time of the year that people send the dreaded Christmas letters. I understand that these letters are written with the best of intentions. That people sincerely believe we all want to  hear what their family has been up to for the past year. And I think if our lives had not been in such a sh*t storm at the time, I may have received them in a better frame of mind. But I hate to say it, but it just seems that often they come off sounding very sanctimonious. If there is anything I have learned in the last few years is that no family is truly how they appear. So I found it hard to believe that some people’s lives could be so perky and perfect.

I recall one letter where the writer tells us how the family went on a mission to Africa and saved a child by adopting him and how perfect and Super-cali-fragil-istically smart her children are, and then listed all the over-achievements. It was so over the top nauseating that I was stunned. Do people just make this stuff up? Could this possibly be true? Where is the honesty in here. If I am your friend, do not be afraid to tell me the truth. Let me know that you are human and that life is not perfect for everyone. Those letters made me feel more small and ashamed of my life than I already was.

I actually received my first Christmas letter of the season the other day from some friends. I had not received one from them before. I know and love these people and I know their life is not perfect and that 2010 has not been entirely without its trials. Yet they wrote a lovely letter, and they did not come off sanctimonious. Was it how the letter was written, or was it the fact I know these people and I know the truth of their lovely imperfect life. Or is it that I am at a place where I can accept these letters and not feel defeated and depressed after reading them? I think it is a combination of all 3.

So with that revelation, here is the Belleau Christmas letter of 2010. I solemnly swear to not be to horribly perky, to tell the truth, to not sugarcoat, and to not induce a gagging reflex.

The Belleau Christmas Letter 2010

I am afraid to fly.

It wasn’t always that way with me. I think it started when the kids were small and we had a bad flight home once. I couldn’t spend the year we traveled, terrified, gripping my seat on every flight, not eating, not sleeping, not ever getting out of my seat. I had heard that Ativan, or Valium, worked. I am not a fan of pills, I have a hard time even taking vitamins, but Ativan is small, melts under your tongue, and more importantly it will get me on the plane.

I had to work out a system. Timing was everything when it came to taking them. I realized that the terror began as soon as I got to the airport and ended once we had landed on the other end and I could kiss the ground. This meant I had to take the pill in the airport as it needed about 30 minutes to kick in. This way I could get through the takeoff. But if the flight was long, then I realized that I would need another and that meant getting out of my seat (not happening), and sometimes I realized that oh crap the pills were in my backpack in the belly of the plane.

I needed to be more prepared, the system had to be tweaked. We were taking our next long flight and I had come up with what I thought was a very clever plan. I had worked out that I would need 2 pills, one that I would take in the airport and one mid-flight. I had the second one safely in my pocket and I took the first one in the waiting area. Once afloat, er in the air, I decided to have a gin&tonic to celebrate that we were on our way to another fabulous country. I felt great, calm, cool as a cucumber I was.

At the appointed hour I took the 2nd pill. Then I guess I decided to drink more gin&tonic. This is where things get a little foggy to me. The kids look over at me and then turn to their father and ask, ‘What is wrong with Mom?’ Dwayne looks over at his wife to see her glazed and practically drooling, like a toothless terrier on, well, Valium. I could not form a sentence apparently. Dwayne was not impressed. We are about to land in another foreign country and go through customs and security and he had the village idiot with him.

How we got through, I have no idea. No really, I don’t, but we made it through and my recollection begins again with me waking up in our friend’s guestroom feeling wonderful.

I am still to this day subjected to the ‘you never mix pills and booze’ lecture, one I know I should have known. But you know what? It was the best flight ever. I am just sayin’.

Prince Valium

There is a jaw bone in the ground, the rains have washed the mud away and exposed it. Farther along a piece of red fabric sticks out of the ground. I stop scrutinizing the ground, horrified.

Nicole clings to me. None of us have spoken a word since we arrived. The stupa towers above us. It is filled from top to bottom with skulls, many smashed in. The only sound in the air is the hum of insects and the crunch of our shoes on the path. It is blistering hot. The sun beating down on a site that from a distance seems so unassuming.

We come along a tree. There is a sign and a drawing describing what the tree was used for. Children and infants were bashed to death against this tree.  We are all shaking when we leave, we still can not speak. I am afraid if I speak that I will just weep uncontrollably. We are shocked out of our Western comfort zone into the realities of history like a bullet out of a gun.

Later we sit solemnly at a bar having a drink. I find myself staring at every face wondering what secrets lie behind it. That night my dreams are filled with bloody trees.

Between 1975-1979, it is estimated that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered approximately 1.7 million people. The population of Montreal is approx. 1.7 million people.

At first it seemed like a good idea. But sometimes when you are hungry every restaurant suggested seems like a good idea.

We were told that Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown was the place to be to shop, people watch, and eat. I don’t remember what it was we had done that day to make the four of us so ravenous, but here we were in the middle of Chinatown ready to chew off our own arms. Dwayne’s style of finding a place to eat always consisted of lots of research and checking out at least 50 places before deciding to go back to the first one. I chalked it up to a strong hunter instinct. The kids chalked it up to’ Dad’s nuts’.

But at this point the kids and I were done. We stopped and dug in our heels only like a true Belleau can.’ We are eating right here’, we insist and sit at a table. The menu looks good, and there are people all around us eating delicious food. Turns out that wherever that food came from would not be the kitchen our food came from. We knew with the first dish that the food was mediocre. The second dish was not great, and the last dish was downright bad. Bad enough that for the first time on our trip we sent it back and refused to pay for it.

Dwayne made it quite clear to the owner that the food did not just taste poorly but that we could taste that it was bad. Bad as in rotten. Now we were all freaked out that we were going to get food poisoning. Dwayne took charge, and we went to the nearest 7-11. Dwayne comes back out with a mickey of vodka. And there on the street, this little Canadian family passed the bottle around and drank the vodka until it is gone, the irony of what we were doing not lost on us.

“This drink has a magical power. It strengthens the weak, and revives those who have fainted. Those tired after work and physical activity can return their life forces by this drink much sooner than by nourishment. … It works as a diuretic, an appetizer, an antitoxin.” – Carolus Linnaeus (18th-century physician documenting the effects of the vodka)

It was a rainy day in Hue. Dwayne and I head out with our umbrellas in the downpour. Inside the first set of walls we stop to check our guidebook and get our bearings. A man with a cyclo (rickshaw) approaches and asks where we are going. We tell him we want to see the Forbidden palace. He shakes his head and says that we are too late, it will be closed by the time we get there. I am not sure I believe him. He says that he can take us on a nice tour within the walls for one hour. He names his price and I think that he is trying to rip us off. I say no and start walking again (in the wrong direction) in the pouring rain. Dwayne calmly points out that I have misunderstood that the price is for both of us, that we each get our own cozy rickshaw and it is for an hour. And it converts to about $5 USD.

We go back to the cyclo fellow and his friend with the other cyclo. I am a bit ashamed of myself for jumping to the wrong conclusion. We head out in our respective cyclos. I get the original negotiator as my driver. He points out things and talks about the city and its history. I see that he must be very poor and pedaling in the rain in flip flops with a plastic bag for a jacket on a rickety cyclo is very hard work. We are taken to a temple with Buddhist nuns, the first I have ever seen. The driver than shares that he was a monk for many years. But his mentor and teacher released him because he was the only male left alive in his family to carry on the family line and care for his mother and ancestors.

We go to his former temple and he points out the orphanage nearby. The building  is 400 years old and looks like it is about to fall over. There are no children to be I heard and I wonder where they all are. He says that he was training to read palms and asks to see our hands. He says that he has a gift for being able to look into a persons face and seeing things. We have not shared our story with him, he does not know who we are or why we are traveling. He looks at Dwayne first and says that Dwayne always does his work with great detail, that he is diligent and that there are those who envy him. He says that I am a tiger when it comes to family that I am very loyal and that I would do anything for my family. He says I am worried about money. He tells me not to worry, that the money will come back. He says to tell my son that the road he has been on was very difficult but that it is going to get easier.

This unexpected day in the rain with the unexpected monk becomes an unexpected gift. When we finally return to where we met, I pay him double the fee he originally asked.

There were times in the last couple of years that I wondered if I would ever feel normal. I wondered if I would know normal even if it looked me in the face. Then normal became that thing I did to ground myself while on our nomadic journey. It would be simple things like shopping in the local markets and cooking for ourselves. Then there was the Halloween in Brighton (Hove).

When my kids were small they loved Halloween. I loved creating the costumes and decorating the house. Picking out the pumpkins and spending a day carving them. The crisp fall evening, the smell of leaves and the pumpkins lit on the porches. The sound of kids laughing and squealing, shouting ‘Trick or Treat!’ And here we were in Brighton, going out with 2 beautiful excited little girls. We sat contentedly in the Bell’s lounge as we watched Amelia create the little bat and the little vampire. We were completely charmed by the little pumpkin, still too young to go out.

As we wandered the streets of Hove, looking for pumpkins in windows, the sign in England that there are goodies behind the door, I felt, well.., normal, and watching Dwayne taking pictures of all the ghosts and ghouls I could tell he felt the same.  To be part of those beautiful little girls excitement actually healed yet another part of us. There is no such thing as normal really, I think it is more about the pieces fitting together and working to create a healthy atmosphere, and the pieces are as unique as the person. Halloween with Marcus, Amelia, Milly, Poppy, and Lila last year, retrieved another normal piece of us, dusted it off, and put it back into the  jigsaw puzzle where it had gone missing. The picture of normal getting all that more clear.

Inspired by the book ‘the secret lives of litterbugs: and other (true) stories’ by m.a.c. farrant; I have decided to do a twist on my stories, by doing a collection of personal ‘blog shorts’. I am going to post 1 a week on Mondays for the next few weeks.

On a train to Firenze, reading the guide book which is warning me against gypsies. Would I even know one if I saw one? Some scent hits me. It is probably the worst body odor I have ever smelled in my life or else there is a dead carcass in someones bag. Then a young women is standing in the aisle beside me. She is wearing a bizarre outfit of many layers and bold garish colors, with a glazed baby on her hip. Her hair is so greasy and matted and in a bizarre rolled pigtail hairdo. I swear I see something crawling on her head. Her hand is out and she is insisting in Italian, I think, for money. It doesn’t matter if you shake your head no or look away (while not breathing and trying not to retch) she is persistent. I struggle with my conscience as to whether I should give her some money. After several long minutes, she gives up and moves on. Her smell lingers unpleasantly on for many more minutes. I have seen my first gypsy.

It is Thanksgiving and I have a lot to be thankful for this year. This time last year we were in Spain trying to fit two chickens in a teeny oven in an even teenier kitchen. The last year has seen burdens turned into blessings, and I count the many I have and hold them close to my heart.

Many people know the reason behind our decision to sell our home and travel the world for a year. For those who do not, I am at a place now where I feel I can tell you about it. Writing this will not be easy as it is not easy to tell people that a person made mistakes as a parent, that I thought that I had it all covered and then looked up and saw that the wheels had fallen off the cart.

A few years ago my son started doing drugs. I didn’t see it coming. You never see it coming. Dwayne had been in an accident and was suffering post traumatic stress, and as we worked at healing the father we never noticed the son falling apart. He was spiraling out of control and my husband and I were terrified we had lost him. In our darkest and most despondent moment, in an emergency ward where our son lay after an overdose not knowing who we were or where he was, an idea was born. As Oprah would say, we had an ‘Aha moment’. We have to leave. We have to take him and leave for a long time. Away from the negative influences, the school system that failed him, the therapy community that labeled him, the cycle he couldn’t break free from.

When we got to Italy, it was the first time Dwayne and I could sleep through the night in a year. It was the first time I went days without feeling sick to my stomach or frantic with worry. My son was safe. We had pulled it off.

Rome - The Early Daze

We started by rebuilding the bonds and becoming a family again. Italy healed our souls and its sunshine and food and history nurtured our minds and bodies. Within a month  Luc was not taking any prescription drugs. He started having a normal sleeping cycle. We ate together every day. He gained weight. He shot up 6 inches. By the end of the summer his anxiety was well under the way to being in control. By September he could focus and was reading novels. As Luc progressed so did we. It was not easy and we had ugly moments and ugly fights but at the end of the day we knew we all wanted this to work and no one wanted to go home. Once Nicole joined us we realized that she also needed this time to heal and grow and that it was important as a family to let her stay even though she had inadvertently shook up the tenuous balance we had just created.

Giving Thanks in Cambodia

What the world showed us was that family matters. We went to 12 countries, and nearly all of those countries revolved around family. My favorite memory is of doing La Passeggiata. Every evening, strolling in a pretty sundress with all the Italian families while we ate gelato and people watched. I could live out my days doing that.

La Passeggiata

We have been told now that what we did was courageous. That we were brave. At the time I didn’t feel courageous, I felt desperate and in that moment a life altering decision happened. Merriam Webster states Courage is “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”. I think courage comes in many forms, some may know that what they are about to do is courageous and it is a conscious decision, like scaling Mt Everest or leading your battalion in a war. Then there is the courage that is born from desperation, the courage born from the fight or flight instinct within us. A mother’s instinct to protect her children.

I think William Wordsworth said it best: “a frank courageous heart…triumphed over pain”.

My Courage