Friday...

Thanks for the good wishes/prayers people...

Outcome of today's court hearing is:

I'm restrained (for now) from taking the boy to Australia to live...

His dad and I go to trial in a couple of months to fight it out...

In the meantime, we will probably have to undergo a parenting evaluation, with the boy being questioned...

And on January 13 I have to go defend myself against contempt of court charges because I won't physically force the boy to go visit with his dad, I have to argue why his dad ought not succeed in his motion to pay less towards the boy's care and I have to convince the judge there's still a need for the Protection Order...

I had hoped this part of the journey was over...

Still things to discover and expand into, obviously...

Interesting times...

It has occurred to me that I am being asked to find a different way of relating to boy's father...

Perhaps that's why I chose not to go on the attack in the hearing...

Though it did feel like I was fighting with one hand tied behind my back, not feeling I was free/it would do any good to articulate some of the understandings I have about our situation/that have driven my choices at each crossroad on this journey...

Not sure a judge, constrained by rules and regulations and legislation that is so uni-dimensional, firstly would understand, and secondly be able to issue Orders that would honour the realities of this situation as I see them...

Boy's father's attorney was making a meal of the "fact" of our "homelessness" and 'instability"...

In all of this, we have never been without a warm roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, a vehicle to get around in and access to health care etc...

Not sure a judge would be sympathetic to my view that we are on an 'adventure' and that the gift of this "homelessness" is the connection and insights we are gathering from being able to live in community with other people, all doing life differently... 

Weirdly, on some level, I am OK with all of this...

I know it's about stuff happening on multiple levels, inner, interpersonal, and on a community/societal level... 

and it needs to play out to the end...

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. 

Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it."

~Quaker quote