by Connie Brisson
I don’t sing.
I rarely listen to music, I don’t have many CD’s and I thought all that was perfectly okay, until last weekend when I sang a song that changed me…
When I was young I was part of a 4H Sewing Club. At the end of each year, we put on a performance of skits and songs. During one rehearsal, a 4H leader said one of us was ruining the song. Although there were about 40 of us there, she singled out three of us in one corner and told us to sing solo. I was one of them. After I sang, she told me not to sing anymore and to only ‘mouth the words’ from then on.
I was such a vulnerable kid that her comment easily shamed me. I looked at everyone looking at me and I remember thinking that I didn’t want to ever let anyone hear me sing again. And I kept my word to myself for a long, long time. I did sing sometimes but mostly when I was alone and to very loud music.
Then, over 25 years later, when Gabrielle was three days old, Marcel bought her the movie Dumbo. I had never seen Dumbo before and I cried when I watched the love that mother elephant had for her baby. She sang a song to her baby that was so sweet and meaningful to me, that I rewound the movie a thousand times until I wrote down all the words. Then I began to sing it to my little Gabi every day.
With Gabi, I decided that I would break my rule of never singing without loud music to hide behind. I wanted her to hear my love for her and I wanted her to never be ashamed of her voice. When she was two, she loved Scooby Doo. So I sat there, every episode, writing down the words to the theme song. Then we would sing it together. I knew I couldn’t sing but I thought that it didn’t matter how I sounded because I was singing FOR HER.
Last weekend I went to a workshop called ‘The Mastery of Self Expression.’ We were asked to perform a ‘monologue’ about something meaningful to us, where we gave 100% of ourselves. I had to decide whether I wanted to just get through this experience or if I wanted to do it with all my heart.
An old song came to my mind and it instantly brought tears to my eyes. I had found my monologue. I went on stage, took a deep breath and then belted out one verse of that song that means so much to me…
Whispering pines, whispering pines,
Tell me, is it so?
Whispering pines, whispering pines,
You’re the one who knows,
My darling’s gone, oh, he’s gone,
And I need your sympathy,
Whispering pines, bring my baby back to me.
I croaked at one point and cried through much of it but I sang it from the very depths of my heart and soul.
This was my song for my brother Gene. He and I use to sing it at parties when we were younger and when death was something that was just so far away. And now I sang it FOR HIM.
It has been eight year since Gene is gone and I still miss him so much. And it was only my deep love for him that could make me go up on that stage and sing solo in front of so many people. My love for him was greater than my shame over my imperfect voice.
And you know what happened when it was over? I wasn’t ashamed of my voice anymore. I was SO pleased with myself. Something changed in me when I sang that song for him in front of all of those people. I came face to face with my insecurity and I reconciled within myself that it was more important for me to be real and express my love/feelings than it was for me to be perfect and acceptable. And it was so liberating! I felt like a huge burden had been lifted from me.
The other thing I noticed is that my voice sounded different afterwards. It seemed to be richer and have more resonance, especially when I laughed.
A day after this workshop, I went for a walk down our walking trail in Morinville. I was remembering the power of that moment when I sang Whispering Pines to Gene, and I wondered if he heard me. Then, I looked down and I saw a beautiful raven’s feather. I picked it up and cried. I’ve been walking down this trail for almost a year now and I’ve NEVER seen one feather. For me, feathers are a sign from the spirit world. It is a sign that they’ve heard what I just said/thought and that this moment is a very significant one.
Sing your own song, your own way. Be true to yourself. The Universe is listening.
Connie
by Connie Brisson
Chicks… When I hear the word chicks I think of two things.
The first thing I think of is young women who are trendy, impressionable and live for the moment. The second thing I think of is young, fluffy, soft, yellow, itty-bitty, baby chickens… the kind you see at Easter.
I grew up on a farm and what I remember about sweet, little baby chicks is not so nice or cute. I can remember watching a group of new born chicks huddling together in camaraderie until they noticed another baby chick that was weak and struggling in the corner. To my utter horror, they ganged up on it and began to peck it to near death. I’ve never forgotten that. My Mom had to separate it so it could survive.
I’ll be honest. What really scared me was my affinity to that weak chick. I’ve been that weak chick at school and got picked on. I’ve been that weak chick in my family and in the world. So what I decided quite early on was that if I wanted to survive, it was better to hide all my weaknesses and never be noticed as a weak chick.
This belief (that I could not show any weakness, vulnerability or imperfection to anyone except my closest friends and sister) ran my life for years. And I saw many things that reinforced that belief along the way because sometimes people’s primitive response is to attack or ostracize vulnerable people.
A few weekend ago I attended a workshop that focused on building female/male relationships. One of the exercises for the women was to dance for each other, to celebrate each other through dance and movement. Well you might as well have asked me to dance the Cha Cha naked for the Pope. It was that foreign to me. I mean, I can dance in a nightclub after drinking a couple glasses of wine and think I’m Madonna. But to show another woman know how wonderful they are through dance (and to also accept it back) was so uncomfortable for me.
I felt like an idiot. I wanted to run away and I said this at the end of one of the dances when we were asked to share how we were feeling. I said that I felt very uneasy, that this was foreign to me and that I just didn’t know how to do it. Of course, I was the only ‘chick’ that said that out loud! After the words came out of my mouth and I had 50 women staring at me, I instantly felt vulnerable and sorry that I had said it out loud.
Yet when the next dance came on, the most wonderful thing happened. A bunch of amazing women took turns dancing with me, showing me how to dance and enjoy moving freely to the music. When the first woman grabbed my hand, I was pleased by her kindness. But as it continued, a chain of wise women supporting and teaching me, it touched me deeply…to the point of tears.
This was not something I was use to experiencing. I have not had many experiences of being so openly supported after sharing a weakness. And I thought to myself, so quickly in that moment: “I could be safe anywhere in the world if I knew I could be supported like this from people I do not even know.”
I know my sister Shelley or my close friends would do anything for me. But to believe that there are people in the world that would help me, protect me and nurture me, without knowing me for more than a moment – that knowledge healed a part of me that has not believed that the world is a safe place.
I wanted to write this column because I think that as women, as chicks, we need to support one another and not look at each other as competition or a threat. We all have so many wise gifts to share with one another. We are all mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, wives… We are all SO MUCH. Yet there is this primitive part of us that thinks that if we give to another woman, we are taking something away from ourselves.
When you really think about it, how can that possibly be? When we give, we always get back. That is a law of the universe.
Once upon a time a high school friend of mine, Brenda Duchesne, told me: “If I compliment you, it doesn’t take anything away from me. It only adds to you.” It was an ‘aha’ moment for me because I instantly knew she was right!
Let’s consciously make a choice to add to each other. Let’s grow and evolve from being ‘chicks’ to being wise women who support one another. How wonderful would that be for all of us?
by Connie Brisson
On the night I was born, there was a very bright star in the sky.
Well that’s the story I’ve been told. My Dad and Mom drove 40 miles from our farm in Iron River to Elk Point on old gravel roads. In the early 1960’s, that took a little time. And the whole time they were driving, my Dad kept talking to my Mom about an extraordinarily bright star in the sky. Finally after an hour, my Mom, heavy in labor, told him to ‘shut up’ about the bright star. And the rest is history.
I’ve always felt that star was a sign. But the truth is that most of my life, I haven’t felt like a star or even a bright light. The first 30 years of my life felt more like a black hole. I felt alone. I felt I didn’t belong. There were times I even questioned why I was alive.
Then at 30 I married the most wonderful guy ever, Marcel, and my life became much brighter. Yet it wasn’t until seven years later (with the combination of the birth of my daughter, Gabrielle, and the death of my brother, Gene, in a month and a half time) that my life really changed. It was one of the most difficult times of my life and as I emerged from the ashes, my star light dimly began to shine.
Then in 2004 when Mosaic Magazine came to me, I immediately felt it was part of my ‘purpose.’ It was a dream come true to write and publish a magazine that could help people change their lives with great and honest articles. My star light and my desire to make a difference was growing stronger. And each issue ‘this little light of mine’ continues to grow.
But the other night I had an old black hole moment. As I was driving my eight year old daughter, Gabi, to her swimming class, she said something that triggered me. She said: “Mommy, I don’t think you should talk about when you were a kid in Mosaic anymore.” Confused by the statement, I quickly asked: “Why?” She replied: “Because people might laugh at you.” Still a little ignorant of where this conversation was going, I said: “Now, who would laugh at me?” Then she solemnly replied that her school friend’s mother had made a brief comment and laughed (about what I wrote in my last Mosaic article about Gabi and myself) to her friend while Gabi was standing there.
Well, a thousand things went through my mind at that moment. I quickly tried to explain to Gabi (in the best way that I could in a ‘black hole moment’) about how all people are different and that they judge and value things in different ways.
Then when she went into the swimming pool, I parked my vehicle and, if I’m honest, I cried. This incident brought up all my old pain about not belonging and not being accepted. And, as I cried, I asked myself questions like: “Am I doing the right thing with Mosaic? Have I helped anyone with the information in it? Is it worth it to be different and to want to make a difference?” Then some inner guidance told me I needed to clear my head with some fresh air and take a walk.
As I was walking I felt angry, I felt ashamed and I felt defeated. I asked God: “What is the good of this? If all things are for my good and growth, then what is the good of this?”
And do you know what I heard in my mind?
“If you could change who you are or your work with Mosaic -for anyone or anything- would you?”
Instantly tears of gratitude came to my eyes because the answer is “NO!” I don’t ever want to go back to the empty and lost person I was before – not for anyone. I never found happiness before when I followed what other people thought was right. It wasn’t until I began to follow my own heart and what I thought was right, that my life began to have meaning and depth.
In this issue Crystal Driedger, feature artist, says that showing her art is like wearing a bikini. I understand because being honest and writing from my heart is like being naked.☺
And is it worth it? Yes! Within a day of that incident, out of the blue, I had two people unexpectedly tell me that they loved my last article about my daughter and I. For me that was both an answer and a sign.
When I told Gabi about what the two people said, she grinned from ear to ear. Then she hugged me and I hugged her back with all my might. In that moment, I felt like the ‘little girls’ in both of us were being healed. And whenever we heal ourselves, our lights shine brighter.
Connie
I didn’t like my grade one teacher.
Because I didn’t understand that a cheque was money, I threw away my school fees payment in the garbage on my first day of school. After the whole misunderstanding was resolved between the school and my mother, my dad wrote another cheque and said: “Tell your teacher not to lose this one.”
Well, I was pretty much a parrot in those days. Next day I went to school, handed her the cheque and told her not to lose it. She didn’t have any ‘ha ha’ in her. She sent me to the corner and made me stand facing the wall all day long.
Needless to say that experience pretty much ostracized me from the other kids. No one wanted to be my friend after that. Then she put me in the back of the class and said I was ‘slow.’ After all that negative attention, I was so vulnerable that I believed her.
It wasn’t until grade five, when a smart girl in my class was unable to answer a question that was so simple to me, when I had this epiphany that I was as smart as anyone else. It was a true ‘aha’ moment for me.
Then in grade six I met the first teacher that would change my life. Faye Pokeda Wakulchyk was just so wonderful! I loved her and better than that, she liked me. She was the first teacher who ever saw any potential in me. She was our Language Arts teacher and it was from her that I learned to love words and writing. I truly can’t tell you what an impact she had on a little four eyed girl that was so used to being ‘unseen’ and unnoticed.
In high school I had an impressive psychology teacher, Kent Donlevy, who had a big impact on me and then in college I found the greatest friend in one of my writing professors, Leah Fowler. She believed in my writing abilities more than I did and always encouraged me to believe in myself. She was both a mentor and a friend.
Then as life changed again in the way that it does, I found another wonderful teacher - this time in all things mystical and spiritual - Skye MacLachlan. For me, Skye was like Grandmother Willow in Disney’s Pocahontas. She was like tapping into this incredible wealth of wisdom and knowledge about all things that are unseen but yet so real.
Amusingly, I was still yet to meet the most important teacher of my life at 36. She came to me (in quite a ruckus really) in a Misericordia Hospital delivery room. I never thought when that little baby came out of me that she would be my greatest teacher. Yet that little darling Gabi has taught me more about love and life than anyone.
When she was born, it was one of the most stressful times of my life. My mother was very sick after having one of her kidneys removed due to cancer. Then my brother Gene died of cancer a month and a half later. Gabi wouldn’t eat, cried all the time and I just wanted to run away. I thought that surely God had made a huge mistake and dropped off my baby at the Royal Alex while I was drugged at the Misericordia.
But there are no mistakes. I know that now. Yet, at that time, I couldn’t have comprehended or even prepared myself for the things I was about to learn from her.
By about day 10 of her life I knew that something extraordinary was happening. I was beginning to remember myself as a baby. I remembered things that happened. I remembered what I thought. It was as though she was a mirror or portal for me to enter and heal my past. And she hasn’t stopped teaching me about myself since.
Now she is seven and I am still continually amazed with the depth of my love for her. Some days I’m a great Mom and teacher. Yet on other days I fail miserably and she becomes ‘Guri Gabi’ with her comforting words: “It’s okay, Mom.”
We share this dance of love, forgiveness and growth. I always tell her that I’m so lucky that God gave her to me as a daughter and that she’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
She’s a part of my soul. And when I look at her, I know there is a divine plan. Who else would sign up for the tough job of being my greatest teacher? Only someone who loved me long before this time …
Thank you to every teacher I’ve ever had … you were all good for my soul.
Connie
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