Long Overdue – Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

This post is long overdue. I owe Jasmine Shei of Journey in the Woods a sincere apology. I’m sorry for not posting this acceptance of your very kind nomination sooner. Please see Jasmine’s original post accepting her nomination for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award and nominating me for the same award.

Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award recognizes the unique voices of women bloggers around the world. As Jasmine pointed out, it is also an opportunity to cheer for all the women bloggers who bravely share their life lessons and offer support to each other. To accept the Award, a nominee must:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated her, linking back to the nominee’s site. (Please see above.)
2. Put the award logo on your blog. (Ditto.)
3. Answer the ten questions they have set out for you. (Please see below.)
4. Make up ten new questions for your nominees to answer and nominate ten women bloggers. (For partial compliance, please see below.)

Here are Jasmine’s 10 questions together with my responses:

1. What inspired you to start a blog? Has writing helped you?

Recurrent pregnancy loss was the impetus behind my blog. What inspired it in particular was my desire to believe that there is a spirit baby or babies to whom I am deeply connected and my desire to record my journey to crystallize that connection, hopefully, in this lifetime. I do not know if that is how my journey here will end but I truly, deeply, passionately hope so.

If not, I hope that at least this blog will become a memorial to all of the love, heart, soul, energy and other resources I poured into my pursuit of this dream. I hope to share this blog one day with the Miracle Toddler if our journey ends unsuccessfully so he knows how hard I tried to grow our family and give him a sibling (or two).

2. Do you like your job and why?

Some days, yes. Others, not so much. On the yes days I like it because I feel intellectually challenged and for the most part I respect, admire and appreciate my colleagues and the staff where I work right now. On the no days I wish I could spend more time with the Miracle Toddler while he is still small and I wish I could have taken time away when I have gone through miscarriage after miscarriage and suffered largely in silence at work through each and every one, both before the Miracle Toddler’s arrival and since then.

3. What cheerful things have you done for yourself lately?

I am going to go get my toes painted this afternoon with blue and green for my little embryos in the hope that this brings good luck for this Saturday’s first ultrasound (she says, trying not to throw up from the anxiety that the words “first ultrasound” just invoked).

I bought the Miracle Toddler three Halloween costumes and let him wear two of them non-stop for weeks because he was in love with them. Not once did I care if people thought I was one of “those parents”.

4. What is your favorite quote?

“Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better.” It comes from a children’s book I wish I had and the title of which I cannot recall (it belongs to a former colleague and good friend of mine). A little mouse had gotten in trouble at school and this was the advice she received at the end of a very bad day. I used to have that quote written out and posted on the edge of my computer screen at work while I endured a very difficult period at my old job before I finally quit.

5. Who have been influential in your life?

My Mom has been a huge influence. I hope she knows that. There are others but I’m missing my Mom a lot lately so I’m going to stick with her for today.

6. Name your favorite actress.

Damn, that’s a tough question. I am going with Parker Posey but I could have given a long list (I’m saving that for question 8).

7. What is the funniest thing have you done in your life?

I don’t think of myself as particularly funny so this is also a challenging question. I don’t even know how to answer it. Funny ha ha or funny quirky? Meaning I made others laugh or a I made a fool of myself? Lord knows there are plenty instances of the latter and probably a handful of the former. I am stumped here. Moving on…

8. Which book has made a difference in your life?

You want me to pick one? I cannot comply.

As a child, I would say Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh because it freed my imagination and because the coverless copy I was given by the local librarian because she couldn’t bear to throw it away (and in those days they had to tear off the cover if they were removing it from library circulation – a rather blasphemous ritual I never understood) felt somehow illicit. I also loved Harriet because she was addicted to tomato sandwiches and ritual, as was I. I’ve never seen the movie because I loved that book so much.

Also as a child, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein because it instilled a lifelong love of poetry, free association and fun. I wish I could be Shel Silverstein some days. Nothing could be further from reality.

As a teenager, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I still get shivers down my spine thinking about that book. When I read it I was a rather vocal activist and alive to issues of race and discrimination on a first-hand basis as I had Black family who married into ours with whom I was very close and lived with for a period of time. But I loved the book for far more than its exploration of that issue. I don’t quite know how to explain why that book impacted me as much as it did, but it did. It still does.

As an adult, I have re-read When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron many times. That book (and some of her other writings and speaking engagements) have taught me much about compassion, human suffering and loving kindness. It has also taught me how much I have yet to learn. (I note that I involuntarily bowed my head in humility as I typed that last sentence.)

In the last few years, I would have to include The Mind-Body Fertility Connection: The True Pathway to Conception by James Schwartz and Spirit Babies: How to Communicate with the Child You Were Meant to Have by Walter Makichen. These books have profoundly shaped the way I have approached recurrent pregnancy loss, grieving, healing and developing compassion for myself and others on this journey.

9. Are you afraid to say “NO” to others?

Only if they are holding weapons. Or my paycheque.

10. Are you a right handed person or left?

Funny you should ask. I started out mostly left but being a child of the 70’s the first school I went to pushed me to use my right and so I am right handed although I still play certain sports with my left.

Nominations

I have decided to break the rules here. I am not going to list ten of you because I cannot choose only ten of you to be my sisters and I also do not want to obligate anyone to accept if you are not up for it right now (as I was not when I was first nominated – there was a great deal on the go for me at the time. Still is but now I needed this distraction and also wanted to honour Jasmine’s generosity and kindness since she has been on my mind of late). For these reasons, I nominate any of you lovely readers who wishes to accept and if you do I ask that you please follow the rules (if you wish) and answer the following questions:

1. How many pets, if any, and who are they?
2. Favourite colour (favorite and color for you Americans ;-)) and why?
3. What brought you to the world of blogging?
4. What is your favourite aspect of being part of a blogging community (if you don’t see it as a community, tell us why, please)?
5. What is your relationship with spirituality and faith, if any?
6. What is your favourite recipe and why? (If you don’t cook, name your favourite dish, by whom, and why.)
7. First kiss? Tell us all about it. Don’t be shy, we’re sisters, remember?
8. Biggest fear?
9. Biggest accomplishment?
10. Where you would travel if you could go anywhere in the world, who you would go with and what you would do?