Drum Beats

I am not a rebel by choice. It may come as a surprise to those who know me that if it were possible, I would conform. I would try to fit into what is considered "normal", because I am essentially lazy. I'm really not interested in the extra effort involved in acting on choices that do not fit the norm. I've longed to "go with the flow" on so many occasions in my life. Often I would try to conform to the norm as I saw it, and when I really tried to do so, invariably my efforts would back-fire.

Over the years I've learned that if my convictions are prompting me to do something unusual, I'd better follow them, regardless of short-term awkwardness, or even pain. When I live in accordance with these convictions, everything just goes better overall. To do otherwise makes me feel like an impostor, and I'm not one of those people who can live a lie for very long. In the long run, when I live by my convictions, everything falls into place: there is harmony within and without. I feel in sync with the universe. When I'm not feeling in sync, my relationships are not in sync. I've learned that it is not selfish to "dance to the beat of my own drummer".

The propensity to investigate the truth for myself has always been with me. It may be partly "nature", but certainly I know that "nurture" has played its part. Both my parents were inquisitive about all manner of subjects. In the rural community where I grew up, such an approach to the world was rare, and certainly not encouraged. People did not question, as a rule. In rural New Brunswick, we were governed by deeply-ingrained assumptions, and there were prescribed ways of doing things. If you did things differently, or if you questioned long-held traditions, the penalty was harsh: you were bound to be the subject of gossip and you might even be seen ostracized. My parents seemed to be able to live in relative conformity to the norms of this rural community while quietly stretching their minds through reading and occasional travel.

When I was 6, I experienced Expo 67 with my family. That one event left a lasting impression on me. At a tender age I saw that there was an exciting, dynamic, emerging world out there to explore. I accompanied my parents to Mexico, when I was 13, where I reveled in learning about cultures and civilizations, past and present. What else might there be in the world to explore? Such influences at an early age planted the seeds for my questioning attitude towards life and the world, seeds which came to fruition at adolescence.

If there was any aspect of my being that tested Mom, it was my questioning, inquisitive character. As I reached physical maturity, I could no longer accept things at face value. The explanation "because that's just the way things are" just didn't work for me any more. I didn't understand why, but it was an irresistible aspect of my make-up and an annoying thorn in my mother's side. Everything was now being held up to a magnifying glass, and in that process, some things held dear to her did not fare well under my scrutiny. When I stopped going with her and Dad to church, at the time I probably broke her heart.

That I could make a decision that could have such an effect says a great deal about the strength of this aspect of my basic make-up. I had no desire to break her heart. I did not wish to ruffle anyone's feathers, but increasingly that is what I seemed to be doing, with teachers, with friends, with other family members.

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher comes. It was during my later teen years that I met the Reed family. The choices they had made, the lifestyle they had adopted, left me examining my own assumptions, and made me realize that as questioning a nature as I knew I had, I could probe still more deeply and find entrenched attitudes and assumptions in myself that could also be questioned. Questioning one's own assumptions takes the gig to a whole new level. Even this questioning I could not resist, as uncomfortable as it was and is.

The Reeds were a family of 6, living happily in the smallest and humblest of dwellings, with only occasional use of electricity (whenever they decided to fire up their gas generator to watch a PBS documentary). Donn and Jean had birthed all of their children at home, and now they were educating them at home. They lived simply on Donn's sporadic income from seasonal work in a nearby lumber yard and his publication of an occasional written piece, as well as through their subsistence farm. Their house was furnished with very basic home-made furniture: the chairs were essentially sections of a tree-trunk. It always surprised me how comfortable I could be, sitting for hours on such furniture as we conversed over hot chocolate and home-made cookies. Their walls were bookshelves containing material on every conceivable subject. At the end of most visits, I'd leave with an armload of reading material, generally of the kind one would never be able to find at the local library.

I was awed by their courage. I've kept up a friendship with Donn and Jean since then. (Sadly, Donn was taken by Hodgkin's lymphoma some 12 or 13 years ago, but he continues to inspire me.) When I remember them, I am reminded that when we act from our convictions, we give others permission to do the same. Their courage has given me courage.

A few months before my mother's passing, while sitting with her during one visit, I was momentarily overcome with emotion. Had I been a disappointment to her? Had I hurt her too much? My voice started to quiver and a couple of tears formed. I couldn't hide this from Mom (you really couldn't hide much from her!). I was recalling times when she would remark in exasperation that I was such an "odd duck", that she and other family members never knew what I was going to do next. As the last to be born in my family, and figuring out pretty early on that I had been a "surprise", I'd always wanted to find my place in my family. I certainly did not wish to stand out as an odd duck. Time and time again when I felt compelled to take "the road less traveled", it was clear to me that it was not stubbornness or rebellion urging me on. I wanted to fit in, and by making unconventional choices I was only causing myself to appear like a renegade, or worse, to the rest of my family.

"I hope I have not been too much of a disappointment to you," I said. I was remembering the time when I found the courage to tell Mom that I wouldn't be accompanying her and Dad to church any more. I was calling to mind her reaction when we announced our plans to home-birth our first child. Then there was the time when I was tired from breastfeeding a half-dozen times the previous night, and Mom suggested that if I gave Heather formula, she would sleep better. When I tactfully turned down this suggestion, she was clearly hurt - her motherly advice had been rejected.

No, I had not been a disappointment to her, she quietly and sweetly responded. To the contrary, she had always very much admired the fact that I did what was right for me. I think I needed to hear this from Mom, and I think she needed to tell me this.

Despite the embarrassment, bewilderment and even pain that my actions might have caused Mom at times, it seems I may have always had her blessing, after all. I hope, in turn, I'll be able to give my blessing to my daughters when I watch them dance to the beats of their own drummers.