LANDMARKS

Last weekend, in an effort to amuse the grandsons, Grandpa was convinced (by a six year old who shows great promise as a car salesman) to take them on a treasure hunt up in the attic. 

Now, just to clarify, the word "attic" means different things to different people.  To little people it is a place of endless discovery (if they are brave enough to climb that ladder).  To Grandpa it is a fun experience to show these kids all kinds of stuff (and get them off his case to go outside at minus 25 degrees).  For Grandma it is a place where you put stuff that you don't want to deal with.  You know, the stuff that is too good to throw away (you think at the time), so you hoist it up out of sight and promptly forget it even exists.  Except for the Christmas decorations, anything that goes up there STAYS up there. 

Therefore, when Grandpa and the little boys got all dressed up (it was still 15 degrees below zero up there) and prepared for their climbing expedition, Grandma was super unimpressed.  Her rule of "what goes up to the attic stays up in the attic!" was surely about to be broken.

And it was.  Boy #1 retrieved his uncle's favourite shirt (circa 1992) and a pair of mint condition runners (2 sizes too big) and boy #2 claimed a bunch of hot wheels cars, and Grandpa found a full face Halloween mask which the dog disapproved of even more than Grandma did.  The adventurers didn't leave Grandma out though - they also presented me with a little wooden box full of letters.

I can offer no rational explanation why anyone would keep such things but the box is from my childhood and the letters are so old that they are addressed to my maiden name.  You know how, if you move a lot there are some boxes you just keep moving because they are your stuff, not because you actually remember what's in them anymore?  Well, that's where this treasure has been hiding for almost 50 years.

My first reaction was disbelief.  How could they still exist?  Next I shuffled through the pile - who were they from?  My cousin in Calgary: check.  A girl from Regina I had met through her cousin: I had forgotten we ever corresponded.  But the ones that really blew me away were the stack from my BFF ... man, have times changed!

We were fifteen year old girls:  self absorbed, juvenile and (apparently) talked incessantly of boys and parties and boys and dates and boys and flirting and yet more about boys.  Oh yeah, we weren't fans of younger siblings either, and wondered how our mothers always seemed to be on to our devious plans.  But it's not what's in the letters that stands out to me in 2018, it's that they were ever written in the first place.  You see, we went to the same school and we only lived 22 miles apart.  When summer holidays came along, though, 22 miles was too far.  It was long distance.  Our parents ruled out letting us talk on the phone - there were charges.  A postage stamp only cost 6 cents and that was our only option to stay in touch through July and August.  Today's fifteen year olds with their personal smart phones and unlimited data will have a hard time computing this.

Maybe it's just how my brain works, but that little time capsule has shone a light on other things to think about.

The route we take to go to town has been altered this winter.  The road is the same, but the scenery is different - an old yard site and the trees around it have been cleared away.  All that's left are bush piles, a bare hill, and a SaskTel pedestal to show that the lane ever led to anything but a field.  This is progress, of course: an acre or two more to farm, less turning for the farm equipment, and nice straight lines to make the GPS happy.  Maybe it's only me who sees that something has been lost.

It's not a physical trail marker I need to show the way to town, but more a historical kind of talisman that used to remind me of where we've come from.  In today's world of electronics and machinery and every convenience under the sun, the hard work and trail blazing of previous generations fades from memory.  The little house with outdoor plumbing.  Carrying water from the well.  Milking cows, gathering eggs, preserving garden vegetables, chopping firewood, sewing your own cloths, fixing your own tractor, stacking square bales by hand.  It's not that I think that progress should stop, it's more that I wonder how will we appreciate what we have now if there's nothing to compare it to? 

Maybe it's not important, I don't know.  When I think of how so much has changed in my lifetime alone - the snail mail to e-mail thing is such a perfect example - I suspect that there are a lot of folks who will say I'm just being nostalgic, but I don't feel like nostalgia is the right word.

Barren.  Open.  Vacant.  Bare.  This newly cleared field on my way to town pushes me to find the right word. 

Eventually I will get used to the new view.  I hope I will always miss the landmark.

                                                            READY ... SO READY

Well, Mother Nature, we're all good now.  We're over this winter thing.  It's been nice, but let's move on, okay?  I want to go outside without worrying about body parts going brittle and breaking off.

I apologise to all the people who didn't get to spend a month in a tropical setting.  I don't expect even a moment of sympathy from you, and I'm not asking for it.  But, I tell you what: that sort of trip is not a cure for the winter-is-too-long blues.  I don't think it even rates as an inoculation against this condition's worst symptoms.  Having recently taken part in a study on whether spending the month of January in Australia helps, my conclusion is it only makes a person wimpier. 

Having said that, should anyone want to study the matter further, I respectfully submit my name to participate in subsequent studies.  Even with the danger of developing enhanced wimpiness tendencies, I will take one for the team.

But meanwhile, back in Saskatchewan, I'm totally over this winter thing.

It happens every year about the beginning of February.  This feeling of being trapped inside because it's too cold, and worse yet - there's nothing to do even if you do go outside.  I want to garden!  I want to plant flowers!  I want to weed!  I want to hill potatoes!  I want to pick berries!  I want to mow grass!  The only job that winter offers me is shovelling off the deck and we have had so little snow this winter than my six year old grandson did this job in ten minutes on Saturday.  A walk with a 40 below wind chill factor is not in the cards - sorry Turbo.

Just as house plants begin to detect the lengthening of daylight hours, I'm pretty sure something stirs in a gardener's brain at the same time.  Plants start to put out new shoots, seeds itch to germinate, gardeners page through nursery catalogues and envision where they will put all the new things they want to buy.

While scrolling through Facebook the other day I noticed a new group - Gardenering in Saskatchewan - and decided that maybe hanging out with like-minded people would be a positive move.  You know: strength in numbers, and all that ...

Talk about being overwhelmed.  Instantly there was no room on my news feed for anything else.  the membership of this group was beyond anything I had imagined.  They wanted to talk about indoor plants and outdoor plants and when to start them indoors so they could move them outdoors.  Trees and flowers and herbs and bulbs and onion seeds and lavender and birds getting drunk on fermented fruit.  Don't get me wrong - these are the very things one would expect to find on a gardening site - it's just that there was so much of it.  I'm no longer sure that talking about gardening is a cure for gardening, but as of this week I think it's a cure that a person can overdose on.  I hit the "snooze for a month" button.

So I'm trying to keep myself busy with other things.  Yesterday I decided to tear the bed apart and wash it all.  Not only did this give me something to do but the challenge of getting the duvet back into it's cover gave me some exercise for the day.  My longings for spring didn't go away though.  As I finished up the job and was fluffing the pillows back into place I sighed knowing that this job was only half done.  No bed is totally fresh unless everything has been hung out on the clothes line to dry ... and that won't be for another month, at least.

I'm so done, Mother Nature.  So done.

                            BUT IT'S A DRY COLD!

"It's a dry cold!' 

And it surely is.  Dry.  Very very dry.

Take it from someone who just spent five weeks at the ocean's edge where the humidity never went lower that 50% even though it only rained twice in that whole time.  The mornings tended to be shrouded in mist, anything left outside overnight would be wet with dew.  The sun is brutal, but the air is sweet.

So.  Here we are back in Canada, where as promised, it is cold.  And as an added bonus (they say) it's a dry cold.  Breathing this cold, dry air is killing me.

I first noticed how unpleasant the air was on the never-ending return flight across the Pacific Ocean.  Having done this trip three times now, I am well educated in the unpleasant aspects of 15 hour flights: the discomfort of an economy sized seat, the lack of opportunity to move or stretch, the total distortion of day and night as you fly across multiple time zones.  Add to this list the "conditioned" air and you have a perfect picture of human suffering.  Well, that and the food they serve you; that's a story in itself.

By the time we landed in Vancouver my happy, healthy, moist nasal passage ways were beginning to protest their harsh treatment.  I felt all stuffed up and when I tried to inhale it sounded like someone had stuck a whistle up my nose.  Kinda felt like it too ... pretty darned sore and scratched up.

I didn't have much time to think about it though as there was just barely enough time to make it through customs and check in for our next flight.  We traded our huge 777 for a little puddle jumper and British Columbia's rain for Regina's frozen wasteland.  Upon arrival we put on our winter gear and were chauffeured home in the zombie-like state of been-awake-and-travelling/waiting/travelling-for-35-hours.  We managed some conversation - not sure if I remember much of what was said.

There was soup on for supper.  The dog showed mixed emotions to see us - were really home to stay?  The person who had made to soup had also turned up the furnace and vacuumed up a month's worth of dead winter flies - all were very much appreciated.  It left me with only one very important thing to do: fill the humidifier and set the controls to FULL BLAST.

Even though the water is going down in the reservoir I am unconvinced that there is any more moisture in the air than there was 24 hours ago.  My nasal passages have yet to detect any relief.  In Australia the grandkids had this sweet little spray bottle/fan, a kind of portable cooling device.  I sure could use one or two of them blowing continually in my face at the moment.  I could live with the cool if I could only have the moist.

We are currently in day two of jetlag recovery.  Step one was to stay up until at least it was dark outside so our bodies (which were exhausted) and our brains (that play a part in trying to keep days and nights going in the correct order) had something they could agree on.  Night #1 was pretty successful; except for an hour about midnight we slept around the clock making Day#1 seem like it was normal too.  I foolishly congratulated myself on how well that went, thinking the pain was all over.  Then came Night #2.

Bed time was normal - on the CST clock.  We went to sleep as usual.  And then we woke up ... at midnight.  This time there was no going back to sleep for about four hours, which is totally reasonable considering in Sydney, NSW it was only 5:00 in the afternoon.  After finally getting about 3.5 hours of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed to show our bodies it was, indeed, morning.  We will try to readjust our internal clocks again tonight.  I think I purposely blot out how long this takes every time just out of self preservation.

But meanwhile those sleepless midnight hours give me lots of time to think.  About what to write in this blog.  About how I want to make a photo album with all the pictures we took.  About getting back into the swing of things ... meetings, appointments, commitments. 

And about how when they reassure you that "It's a dry cold!" they make it sound like it's the cold part that's most difficult to deal with.  With every breath I could feel the delicate skin inside my nose cracking open, the tiny hairs clogged with brittle, scratchy nose debris.  I know that my hard-won suntan will flake off and be gone almost instantly.

It's cold alright, but nothing we can't handle.  It's annoying to have to put on so many layers of clothing after wearing nothing but shorts and sun dresses for a whole month, but I can take annoying.  It's the 'dry' part I`m finding painful.