MIRACLES

“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

So says a man named Albert Einstein.

On the face of it, especially with the use of the word “miracle”, one immediately connects this statement with the debate that pits people who believe in God against people who don’t.  This in turn gels the argument into a science vs. religion battle, and soon Mr. Einstein’s humble observation is lost in the clutter of 21^st Century conventional wisdom sound bites that either tell us there is a God or strives to prove there isn’t.

While everyone is wrangling with this totally irrelevant matter, miracles continue to happen.

Take for instance, snowflakes.  On the one hand there is nothing special about them.  This is Canada; we get snow.  The Weather Network is forecasting another storm coming our way today to refresh our dazzling white landscape for the holidays.  The thing is, even though the snowflakes that fall will number in the billions of trillions, no two of them will be exactly the same.  How can it be that water can crystalize in so many shapes and sizes?  For those with no sense of wonder, snow is just a nuisance to endure.  For those who are open to wonder and awe, the uniqueness of each individual flake transforms the mundane into the miraculous.    

We can use words like “wondrous” to describe the beauty that surrounds us, or we can mutter and curse as we shovel our sidewalks and driveways.

It matters not if you attribute miracles to God, a super being who allegedly put the universe together in seven days just a few thousand years ago, or if you subscribe to the scientific theory that this inconceivably vast universe evolved one tiny increment at a time over billions of years arranging for us to arrive at this time and place we enjoy today by pure happenstance.  Both of these scenarios seem preposterous to me, but make no mistake, they would both require miracles to have happened, either way.

It isn’t just Einstein’s words that are important in this case; it’s the fact that they come from him, a man famous for the scientific work he accomplished to discover, define, and then describe the laws of physics that tie our universe together.  His is one of the most celebrated of all scientific minds in modern times telling us that religion had no exclusivity in the field of miracles for him.  He understood that science merely gave him a language with which to explain how things like the miracle of gravity worked.

More than once in my life I’ve had to ponder the special miracle that is life.  From the first breath we draw when we find ourselves cold and separate from our mother for the first time, to the last wisp of air to leave our used-up body; what drives that whole engine?  Or, more to the point, what turns the engine on?  And what happens to make it shut off? 

Again, there are pat answers given by the Church and argued against by the science community and I don’t disagree with either of them.  What I am talking about is maybe best described by saying that the sense of wonder I have over these two breaths (and everything that happens between them) is separate from both religion and science.  It’s something personal I feel between myself and this Universe/time/place that I inhabit.  There is no where that I don’t see miracles. 

There are only two ways to live your life: 

One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as if everything is.

I choose the latter.

 

TO DO …

If merely starting a list of things that need done got me anywhere, boy would I be ahead of the game.

If recording my intentions on paper accomplished anything, this place would be dazzling in its cleanliness.

If itemizing tasks to be done could inspire the magic Christmas elves to get busy, I could sit back, munch on poppycock, and just enjoy the show. 

Unfortunately, none of these things are happening.  Well, except for the munching on poppycock. 

I have several lists on the go.  I think the first one hit the paper it’s written on a month ago.  It’s still kicking around here somewhere.  It was kind of a long-range, non-specific thing.  More of a vague acknowledgement of long-term goals.  Things like create-extra-bedroom-in-office and de-scale shower stall, because we have guests coming for the holidays.  Mixed in with these big jobs, though, were little doable things like order some things from Amazon, figure out what’s up with the Coop bill, and make poppycock, to name a few.  It always feels good to be able to cross some things off your list so a few of the jobs have to be easy.

This first list was not very productive.  Sure enough, I took care of the easy-peasy ones, got the dopamine high from crossing them off (coupled with the sugar high from poppycock, it was a good day), and then stalled out in the real work department.

A week or so later, on a day warm enough to get my outdoor decorations up, I came in feeling quite accomplished, grabbed a pen to inscribe “get outdoor decorations up!” and briefly basked in the joy of crossing it off. 

This wasn’t added to the old list, though, I started a new one.  It was time to get serious.  This one also had “bake tarts”, “wash walls and clean light fixtures”, and obviously the office/bedroom thing and the shower stall thing had to be moved over to list #2 – those Christmas elves were holding out on me. 

List #3 came into being because I was heading to the city for an eye appointment and I planned to multi-task while I was there.  I don’t know who decided to cut off the world supply of mincemeat, but I’m not amused!  Yes there are tiny jars of quasi mincemeat at exorbitant prices, but it’s not the same! Forgive me my rant, I digress …

By this time the strike was on and my Amazon purchases were being held hostage by CUPW somewhere in the netherworld so #4 was a list of ideas on what to do about that.  Except for a few small things I have declared that Christmas 2024 shall be doled out in random spurts as things show up.  It will add an element of surprise to the season.

Meanwhile, I have managed to bake tarts (2/3rds already eaten), make 3 batches of cookies (3/4^ths eaten or given away), make a huge batch of nuts and bolts (just last night so they are mostly still here), and of course, two batches of poppycock (halfway through the second).  The office/bedroom and shower situation remain unresolved; darn those elves!

The list I penned this morning (on fresh paper with my favorite pen in my best handwriting, just like the first day of school!) has ‘write CtC column’ on it.  Isn’t that exciting?  Something I will be able to cross off right away!  But, as we are now in December and time is getting tight, it also has ‘decorate the tree’, ‘write Christmas letter’, ‘clean porch’ and ‘wash floors’ along with the ever-present office/bedroom and shower cleanse assignments.  Those not-so-magic Christmas elves are really starting to annoy me.

I must have a To Do list in every room by now.  The one I had on my desk must have been thrown out yesterday when I decided that I couldn’t concentrate on writing surrounded with so much clutter.  One of the items on it was ‘pay Sasktel bill’, which I went to do and had to search through the last three screens of emails to find the amount and account # which were also on that paper.  Not only did the task take me way more time than it should have, but I also have nowhere to cross it off.  The effort seems wasted somehow.

This column is done, though – check.  And my desk is 7/8ths clear – check.  And my new list (#6, I believe) starts out with ‘write Christmas email’.  Gotta get that done.

I’m truly disappointed with those elves …

 

STORMS AND THE PRAIRIE PSYCHE

The Weather Channel has been toying with us again.  Getting us all excited about SNOWFALL WARNINGS and STORM WATCHES.  Sending us into a dither of ‘better get that done before the snow flies” activities, like any self-respecting prairie person knows to do.

I think our brains are wired a little differently.  Most humans are quite happy with mundane weather.  They like gentle rains, moderate sunshine, warm, starry nights, mild breezes, soft snowfalls. 

And winters that only last six weeks, or so.

There’s no denying that we prairie people like these things as well, but only 90% of the time.  The other 10% of our weather better have some pizzazz to it.

We like challenge.  We rise to adversity.  We like to prove that we’ve got what it takes to survive.  We want to shake our fists at Mother Nature and yell “Is that all you’ve got?” 

Okay, I retract that last bit.  Mother Nature is not to be messed with.  She’s always got more.  Forget I said that, please.

What we really want is bragging rights.  We want to prove to ourselves that we can survive tornadoes or blizzards or floods because we were prepared for what was to come and met the challenge with ingenuity and resources set aside for just such an occasion, like trees blowing over on power lines or roads being closed for a week.  I’ve often wondered which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Did the wilds of the Canadian Prairies attract the kind of people who embraced this kind of challenge?  Or did the wild nature of this place form us into who we are today?

But enough with the philosophy, and back to what was going through my head yesterday while I waited for the BIG STORM to hit.  The snow was not materializing as predicted and to ward off my disappointment at the wimpy fizzle that seemed to be replacing a true storm, I got to thinking about what it is that I like about blizzards, anyway.

Ironically, I realized the best thing about blizzards is the feeling of being safe and warm inside.  I love to hear the power of a raging wind … from inside my comfy house.  I love the way snow will stick to and build up on the windows making the scene so much prettier … from the inside.  I love to head out into the storm to try to capture the storm’s power in photographs … and then return to my cozy house to thaw out my phone and see if any of the pictures turned out.  Turns out I don’t actually want to experience the storm so much as I want observe it from a safe and warm distance.

There have been a couple significant storms I’ve been storm-stayed here on my own over the past 40 years.  Some people might get pretty uptight about being alone but I don’t mind solitude in reasonable doses.  I even began playing with the idea of if it happened again how I would be free to laze through the stormy days, living on snacks and soup, reading and napping at my leisure – a woman’s idea of the perfect ‘stay-cation’.  I was totally buying into this storm-induced holiday until I remembered that there are pigs to feed these days. 

Chores at 10 below zero and a driving wind; no thank you.

The possibility of the power going out and the water freezing up; no thank you.

The generator over in the shop where it’s not going to do me any good; no thank you.

Prairie people are also known for being practical, and this is me embracing my practical side.  Yes, I still love the majesty of a prairie storm, but from the inside.  I’ll do my part cooking for the guy who does the chores and who keeps my phone charged.

There’s supposed to be another storm coming at us this weekend.  We’ll see if the Weather Network gets it right this time. 

Part of me is saying “Bring it on!” 

The other part is planning on being more of a spectator than a participant.

 

CONFESSIONS OF A GREEN(ISH) THUMB

“Wow!  Those are beautiful flowers!  You have such a green thumb!”

I have heard this compliment a time or two in my life and I tend to smile and say thank you, but if you’re watching you will also see me shaking my head a little too.  Yes, they are pretty flowers, and yes, they are growing in my garden, but believe me, it’s Mother Nature who knows what she’s doing.  I just add water from time to time and hope for the best.

I do come from a long line of certifiable green thumbs.  My grand mother knew not only the Latin names for the domesticated species of flowers in her garden, but for the native plants we would see during a walk across the pasture as well.  Hers was a busy life, a farm wife, a writer, a caretaker of her invalid mother-in-law, and someone who cooked and canned everything on a wood burning cookstove.  I don’t recall her having big flower beds when I was little but she kept up extensive correspondence with friends who developed new varieties of roses and lillies.  During the few short healthy years of her retirement her home was surrounded with color and fragrance.  The most glorious Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis) I’ve seen was just outside her door.

My mother took her own interest in plants and ran with it.  I think every spring she had Dad prepare a new space for yet another garden, and then he built her a small A-frame greenhouse which soon wasn’t big enough so a larger, commercial building was constructed, and then added on to.  To this day when I walk into the moist, earthy atmosphere of a greenhouse I get a whiff of my childhood.  I can also recognize most of the plants mom grew and sold and know that too much water is more likely to kill them than not enough.  This hardly rates me the title of Greenthumb.

Now I’m the one with the large yard and gardens and a handy husband who provides me with the appropriate machinery needed to till and mow to my heart’s content.  He has even gone the extra mile to haul gigantic rocks into the yard and landscape them into a hillside garden for me.  This loving act of generosity is evenly balanced with his insistence of tucking our well (in the middle of another flower bed) in for the winter with a covering of straw (and a billion weed seeds) every fall.

He's also built me my own little greenhouse to play in, but this does not qualify me as a green thumb either.  Mostly it’s a handy place to keep the mess out of my house.  Someplace to keep the baby plants alive until I can get them outside and Mother Nature can take over.

It’s late October now and I’ve been putting summer things away.  The annuals have been pulled, the tulips and daffodils have been planted, and the deck planters have been emptied and stored.  I feel like I’m a little ahead of the game because I actually thought to draw a map of where I’ve planted things and listed which flowers I want to plant again next year.  I put these maps and notes in the greenhouse so maybe I’ll be able to find them.  Again, this is me ahead of the game.

The final job was to dig up the dahlia tubers and store them so we can enjoy them again next year.  In 50 some years of gardening I’ve only ever successfully overwintered these roots in one place, the crawl space in our basement.  It’s a nuisance of a job so I was quite pleased with myself and feeling very accomplished down there until I spotted a brown paper bag with the words “remember you have an amaryllis, Jocelyn!” printed on it.

 

Of course I had forgotten that I had an amaryllis, and the poor thing had done its best to strive toward the sunlight and bloom.  A ghostly white scrawny stem had emerged from the stapled-shut bag, God knows when, and produced some kind of pathetic flower.  Major fail on my part but Mother Nature is unstoppable – when I opened the bag I found that the bulb was going to give it one more try!  Another ghostly white shoot was already two inches tall.

Who knows if this is for the plant or my guilty conscious, but today’s project is to give it a bigger pot, fresh soil, access to daily sunshine, and adequate water.  If it makes it I will place it with the orchid and four Christmas Cacti that are also blooming despite being in my care.  Mother Nature is amazing!

Me, not so much.  Feel free to remind me that I have plant notes in the greenhouse about February 1^st.

 

 

TWO STORIES, ONE ENDING

Story One:

Many many years ago Glen and the girls went off to Brandon on a daddy/daughter tattoo adventure.  I’ve been told that this is a bit unusual; t’s normally the mom who shares a tattoo experience, but that’s not what happened in our family.

If memory serves me their plans had been in the works for a while.  I think they decided what they wanted and made the appointment during the girls’ Christmas break from University.  Their big adventure was scheduled for when they would be home again on their reading break.  I know it was still winter because the weather and the roads were not good that day but that wasn’t going to stop them.  They were on a mission to permanently alter their bodies.

I remember feeling a little sad and excluded.  It wasn’t the tattoo part I was interested in, but the fact that they went off to the city, ate out at a restaurant, and probably did a little shopping too, and leaving me out of it seemed like a heartless thing to do to dear old mom.  I guess a person only rated an invite if they were signing up for the whole deal and all I wanted was the fun part. 

They returned triumphant, full of stories about how much it did or didn’t hurt, how long it took, what it cost, and showing off their body art.  Mitchell must have been present for this celebratory home-coming too because he immediately piped up that if tattoos could be a daddy/daughter thing, then they most certainly could also be mother/son.  I guess both of us felt a little left out and his invitation was his way of balancing the scales.  I agreed to a tattoo date sometime in the future when we both had come up with something we wanted.

There is a lot to consider where tattoos are concerned.  Are you just going for art?  Are you wanting the name of someone you love this week?  Month?  Year?  Do you want color, or just black or dark blue?  Do you want it to be big, or tiny?  Do you want it where everyone can see it?  Or is it a private thing that you want the option to hide it with clothing or a hairstyle sometimes?  Do you want to be able to see it yourself, or put it on your back where you will never see it?  Do you want it to have special significance to you, or is your choice to just copy something you’ve admired on someone else?  Some people go for a two-halves-of-one-whole design where they each get half of a heart.  Done right a tattoo is a work of art, the possibilities are endless.

Being mindful of all these things I set out to pick the perfect thing for me.  I favored something smaller, a single image of something that held special significance to me.  I’m a writer so maybe a feather quill?  Feathers are also a symbol of a gift, I kind of liked that, but I could never find the right feather image.

I also like blue dragonflies.  Or, how about something patriotic like a maple leaf?

Eventually Mitchell gave up on me and started on his own.  He was going for a sleeve that would be a work-in-progress for a while.  I could join him anytime I wanted.  The thing was I just couldn’t find something I felt strongly enough about to want it permanently etched into my skin. 

Which brings me to …

Story Two:

Many many years ago, maybe even in the same time period as Story One, I decided to rearrange our bedroom furniture.  This never goes over well because Glen dislikes when I alter ‘his nest’ (his words).  The decision is never taken lightly and obviously I have to do it on my own.  Bedroom furniture is heavy and carpet does not make the job easier so to make it more manageable I remove all the drawers to lighten the load.  I have gone hunting a favorite pair of socks down the back of a chest of drawers, I know stuff falls behind there, and this time when I pulled out the last drawer I found a construction paper Mother’s Day card from Mitchell – I’m guessing circa grade 2.  Most of the paper is taken up by an origami paper flower but down in the right-hand corner, diligently printed in little boy letters and poignantly mis-spelled is the verse “Roses are red,  vilits are blue,  I wrote this pome,  just for you.”

I admit I keep silly things, but I had kept it once and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away this time either.  It got filed away in my silly treasure stash.

This spring, as we adjusted to living with Mitchell gone, the topic of tattoos came up.  Jesse wanted one to keep his memory close and I added to my list of regrets the fact that we had never done our mother/son tattoo date.  I’m sure you can see where this is going.

It’s funny how all of my tattoo insecurities about what and where and when evaporated.  I knew I wanted his poem, in his own writing, on my fore arm where I could see it every day.  I wasn’t doing it to show it off to anyone else, I was doing it totally for me.  I was positive that this was what I wanted.  A very talented artist enhanced it with a colorful stem of johnny jump-up violets and added his signature to the bottom.  It’s a week old now, and I love it.

A person always wonders “What would he think?”  There is no telling, but it’s so easy to picture him standing in the doorway of our kitchen, leaning against the door jamb, his powerful arms crossed over that barrel chest of his, and him shaking his head as if to say “And that’s what you finally picked?”

I also believe that he would be touched by my choice.

 

THEME MUSIC

If anyone ever makes a movie about my life (and I say this in total jest – why on Earth would anyone do such a thing?), but if they did, there should always be music in the background. The first button I push in the morning is the coffee maker, the second is the radio.

I was probably 11 years old when I got my first radio and I remember how carefully the dial had to be turned to bring in the scratchy sound of the AM signal.  It’s no wonder my age group got so many of the lyrics wrong in those days, we could barely make out the melody, let alone the words.  I do remember that my very first favourite song was ‘Cherish’ by The Association.  Out of curiosity I just Googled it, I had some of the words wrong.

My introduction to music started well before 1967 though.  My older sisters had a record collection of The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, and Roy Orbison to name a few.  My mom loved Herb Alpert and Frank Sinatra and the big Band sound of the ‘40s.

Truth to be told we could go farther back – Hymns I would have heard throughout my childhood are still some of my favourite pieces of music.  I do know the words to those – it really helps to see them written out in hymnals and practise them on a weekly basis.

In the short span of my lifetime the delivery of music has transitioned through LP vinyl records to 8 Track tapes to cassettes to MP3s to God knows what, I lost track.  Over the airwaves (is that even a word anymore?) we’ve had AM, FM, and satellite.  The crazy array of file sharing services available leaves me overwhelmed and intimidated although my son-in-law did me set up with one because he thought he should help an old lady out.

My personal choice is SiriusXM.  I absolutely love how I can pick a genre of music, or a specific decade, or even a single artist, and their playlists will give me the songs I love in random order so that each of them feels like a happy surprise when I hear the opening notes.  From the day I bought my first car with complimentary months of SiriusXM I have been hooked.  I have since added to my contract so that I get it in the house as well.  It provides me with my life’s soundtrack.  It’s never not playing.

This is not how my significant other feels about music.  Or at least that’s how he started out, it appears I may have improved him slightly over the years. 

In the beginning his opinion was that the radio was ‘just noise’, and that an operator of a machine should always be aware of the sound of his vehicle.  Although it can’t be argued that this is a good thing it made for some pretty long boring drives, so I would turn the radio on, tune the volume down and play ‘70s and ‘80s era country music until I had him converted to a car music listener.

Last year he bought his first brand new truck complete with its own complementary SiriusXM offer, something he really enjoyed until they wanted him to pay for it.  Just like that, he was back to listening to his motor.  I have to drive his big blue Dodge occasionally so I revived the son-in-law’s gift of Spotify and introduced my phone to his truck through Bluetooth (old dogs can learn new tricks if need be) and once again there is music wherever I go.  I’ve noticed I get invited along on quite a few parts runs and I’m suspicious that it’s because the music comes with me.  I wonder: is it my company he wants?  Or my phone’s?

Either way, it was the path Fate took to gift me with a song I hadn’t heard in decades – probably not since the days of my scratchy AM radio. 

You see, the way I have my playlist set up in Spotify is sorted by artist.  I was alone in the truck so I picked someone different – John Denver, one of my favourites.  They played several selections that I knew very well and then came the hauntingly beautiful ‘Today’.  On the one hand it seemed brand new, but on the other hand somehow I knew the words: 

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine

I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine

A million tomorrows shall all pass away

‘Ere I forget all the joy that is mine today.

It’s my new old favourite.  I’m working on the joy part.  They better play it in my movie.

 

HERE I GO AGAIN

It’s not like I don’t have lots to do already. 

I hope that doesn’t sound like complaining, because that’s not how it was meant.  It is true that I do have lots to do, but they are jobs of my choice – after all, I am retired and have the privilege of deciding what I’m going to do on any given day.  And deciding is what I’m doing these days.  Deciding whether I will process tomatoes into pasta sauce or make beet pickles or tackle a batch of creamed corn or dig potatoes or take the cucumbers that we can’t possibly eat all of over to the pigs and make their day. 

There is also the decision of when I’m going to turn some of those carrots into cake.  The fact that there will be carrot cake in the near future is inevitable, it’s just a decision of the timing.  What the heck I’ll do with the other 1,000 or so carrots out there remains to be seen.

I could go out and sit quietly on my deck on this September Sunday afternoon but that view presents me with a whole other job list.  This late in the summer (or is that early in the fall?) all of the flower beds are looking tired and depleted.  They need to be cleaned up, trimmed back, or yanked out, but I prefer to do that job after a frost has finished them off.  I don’t know if it’s a Global Warming thing or not, but there are still no frost predictions on the horizon.  I am totally ready for Jack Frost to force my hand into autumn clean up.

Well, I say that now, but this yard is huge and clean up is a big job.  Maybe waiting isn’t such a bad thing.

There is just so much to do.  And really, this isn’t meant to sound like complaining. 

I know what the problem is.  Or rather, who the problem is.  I am the problem.  It’s me.

You see, this yard doesn’t have to be this big.  I’m the one on the mower.  It’s me who decides that it would look nicer if a person cut the grass between the garden and the bins, and both the west and south ditches, and the swamp as soon as I can get in there without getting stuck … and sometimes a little before that.

I’m the one who, even though I made a solemn oath to myself the previous harvest season (all of them, throughout my entire life) to be more sensible in the amount of seeds to put in the ground come spring, I foolishly put all of the seeds in the ground anyway – because, you know, I have lots of seeds and lots of ground.  Unfailingly this gets me way too many carrots, beets, corn, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers, just to name a few.

I’m also the one who didn’t feel that one smaller flower bed was enough so we built a large rock garden into the side of a hill.  Which I then encircled with a flat rock path … and then decided it needed a companion garden (also with a rock rim to it) to provide balance in the yard.  And also more room to put flowers that I keep accumulating.  There are also flowers along the front of the house, at the gate, and along the east wall of the garage.  I don’t know if the ferns behind the house count as an actual garden, but I planted them there, so maybe.

And then there are the two dozen planters I tend on my deck.  I’m not saying that I single-handedly keep the local greenhouse industry afloat, but they’d notice if I quit.

But, back to my opening statement:

Last week I found myself off to the city on an impromptu ‘girl day’.  I was just along for the ride, no shopping plans, nothing that I needed.  Of course, we went to some stores anyway and because I was left alone and unsupervised I found myself in front of the display of bulbs you plant in the fall to have tulips and crocuses and daffodils first thing in the spring.  I have tried this before but I picked the wrong place and they didn’t survive.  But I know better now.  Standing there, mesmerized with the thought of early flowers I plotted where they would go, how pretty they would be, how many I would need.

You have to understand how helpless and vulnerable a person is at a time like this.  A drug addict ain’t got nothin’ on a gardener in a next-spring-it-will-be-so-pretty frenzy.  I bought two bags of each kind.  I now have 112 bulbs to plant.

As I said: as if I didn’t have enough to do already.  But, I also said I’m retired, remember?  I and that meant I could make my own choices?

I therefore choose to expand the flowerbed along the east wall of the garage and plant my springtime vision on the next day that isn’t too hot to work outside.

See?  It sounds easy when you say it fast enough.

 

SIGHTS AND SMELLS

Back in the day, many days ago, we had 12 quarter sections to our name.  I was new to this corner of the RM but my husband had lived and breathed this land all his life.  I wanted to be a part of the operation too so there was a lot to learn – beginning with all the land locations.  It’s pretty important to know where you’re going when you are assigned to go harrow NW34-08-31-W1, or whatever other mystical set of numbers he would rattle off.  It was a game to him so as soon as I had gotten the RM map figured out, he switched to ‘the old Belva place’ (the pioneer method), and then ‘just across from Jamieson’s gravel pit’ (the landmark method). 

For your information, these are all exactly the same place and there were 12 pieces of land at play.  Eventually there came a time when he couldn’t confuse me anymore, though.  I felt like I had graduated and it was now my farm too.

He's always said that he could take land identification one step farther.  He says that if someone dropped him in the middle of one of his fields in complete darkness all he would have to do was reach down, scoop up a handful of soil, taste it, and he would know precisely where he was.  This method has never been tested that I know of, but I know how he loves his land so it might be true.  Our little place on the Saskatchewan prairie is pretty special to us.

Sometimes, though, the opportunity for adventure comes up.  This past week the place to be was Vancouver to visit, and sight see, and hike up mountains.  We explored beaches at low tide taking in the salty air, hunting for sea shells, and tipping rocks over to discover tiny crabs scurrying away to new hiding places.   We took a ferry to the island to visit more family there too.  We stayed at an Air B&B, ate different foods, saw wonderful scenery, showed the grandchildren the aquarium and Stanley Park.  There was a bit of that ‘liquid sunshine’ BC is famous for but lots of the regular kind too.  We took one umbrella which broke so we bought another one.  We did the Skytrain/subway, the SeaBus, and numerous other buses.  One teenager lost his phone on a bus, but we got it back, and the other teenager left his backpack in a restaurant and managed to run the 3K necessary to retrieve it and get back in time to catch the ferry.  I know he’s an athlete and all, but that was impressive! 

The walking trails we explored took us through the tallest trees we’ve ever seen, the forest air was refreshing and smelled like moss and mushrooms.  We looked for our souvenir rocks and clambered over boulders to check out the babbling brooks beneath them.  Our walks around the neighbourhood took us past so many lovely front yards and gardens that it hardly mattered that we didn’t get to visit the world famous Butchart Gardens.  Grandma stayed home with the kids while the middle generation took on a grueling hike called The Grouse Grind in the rain.  They returned very pleased with themselves – a day full of making memories together, and they were still alive!

The last day dawned though, and it was time to go home.  One more bus to catch.  And then the train.  And then the plane.

The take off takes you out over the water before the plane turns back inland for its flight east.  I could see the waves, and possibly whales although I’m not too sure about that.  In no time at all we were over land again, first the city and then more rural terraine.  Being so high you can see how the roads and rivers wriggle around.  Common sense tells you this is because obstacles like rocks and mountains get in the way but from 15,000 feet up you can see no texture.  The scene that fades away into the clouds as we climbed even higher looked curiously random and haphazard.

Less than two hours later we descended back down through the clouds to find the order that prairie people feel comfortable with.  The scene below is as if someone had laid out an heirloom patchwork quilt, horizon to horizon; half mile squares of greens and golds for as far as the eye can see.   Saskatchewan’s way of saying “Welcome Back!”

It was after dark before I got home but the moment I opened my car door I knew my return was complete.  The late August scent of ripe harvest enveloped me; I took in a deep breath of home.  This patch of prairie is part of me and I am part of it.

I think maybe it’s my version of tasting the dirt.

 

 

LONG TIME, NO SEE

My very first thought this morning was “I wonder where they are now?”

The answer was – and still is – somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, headed north and east.  The Pacific Ocean is one heck of a large body of water to fly over.  I know in 2024 the flight is measured in mere hours and weirdly, even though they have been in transit for almost 24 hours, (including a stopover in New Zealand) they will arrive in Canada before they left Sydney, according to the International Date Line.

But, back to me, and how it feels to know how soon we will be seeing them. It gives me butterflies-in-my-tummy anticipation every time I think about how close they are.  This next week is going to be time precious beyond measure.

A couple of the guys in my class ended up in Australia and made their lives there.  I remember thinking at the time how far away that was, and felt a little sad for their parents for the missed family contact, never dreaming that it would be our family story too.  But I have to say sadness at being separated is only part of the experience, it has also been a reason to travel and explore, learn more about their lives and chosen country, and read up on poisonous spiders and snakes.  We have been there three times and they have come home once for a family wedding and once for a white Christmas in the 17 years they’ve been gone.

Covid came along though, messing with the rhythm and making an already expensive trip much worse.  It’s been seven years since we’ve actually seen each other.  Thank goodness for Messenger video chats.

As I was putting supper on the table last night, we received a message saying they were on their way through security at the Sydney airport.  Although the plans for this trip have been building for more than a year suddenly it was real.  Shae was coming to Canada on a volleyball scholarship, Wayne was accompanying him to get him set up.  Jesse, her kids, and I are going to spend a week with them in Vancouver.  We have booked an Air B&B and looked into a bunch of touristy things to do.  Even though the charges for these things have all showed on my credit card it didn’t seemed true until that message said they were on their way. 

Since then I’ve been doing the countdown in my head.  By bedtime they were in New Zealand.

By 6:00, when I woke up, they were approaching Hawaii.

I just checked their flight’s status: at this very moment they have begun their descent into Vancouver.

We Saskatchwanites won’t arrive until Tuesday around noon.  Hopefully that will give them enough time to recover from jetlag and reset their body clocks for Canadian summer.

I’ve also been thinking about Jacqui, the mom who has already kissed her boy farewell as he set out on his big adventure.  I know that feeling.  The pride in his success, the worry for his safety and happiness, the struggle between smiles and tears as you wave goodbye.  The well-founded possibility that he will fall in love on the other side of the world and build his life there.  We both know this is a thing that can and might occur. 

We also know it’s not the worst thing that can happen.

So as I finish this, their plane might be touching down on Canadian soil.  Only one time zone away, which is quite refreshing in this family. 

Because I also have two grandsons fast asleep in South Africa where they and their parents have just settled into their house and started school and work.  They will be 8 time zones away for at least two years.  Going to visit them will take even longer that the Australia trip, but I’m not going to worry about that right now.  I’m waiting for the “We’re here!” message that should be coming in at any moment.

 

PUBLIC PRIVATE SECRET

A while ago I read an excerpt from a book on Jackie Kennedy Onasis where she was quoted saying that she had three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.  I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but don’t we all?

Not that my life in any way compares to that of a world-famous woman such as herself – and I wouldn’t trade places with her for any price – but what she said perfectly fits how I see myself. 

There is the public Jocelyn who you will see out and about in stores, at the post office, at public functions.  I’ve also written a newspaper column for a local audience for years, candidly telling stories of life in our house to the point where people who read them think they are being told the whole story.  Because my writing style is relaxed and open there is an illusion of full disclosure.  Believe me, the line may be blurred at times, but there is always a line I don’t cross.  Public is public, private is private.

Occasionally I do venture into writing about what I think – my private side.  These are the more thoughtful pieces.  I guess it could be said that my public side strives to entertain while my private side wants to make the reader think, and I’m willing to let enough of my inside voice speak to accomplish that goal.  Mostly though, I am the same as everyone else.  We tend to keep our private selves at home and share our idiosyncrasies with only our family and close friends.

Then there’s our secret self that only we know.

Think of it this way:  the public you sings a song out loud for all to hear, the private you has told a few friends that it’s your favourite song, but only the secret you knows why the song holds so much special meaning.  Everyone sees the public you, a few people know the private you, the secret you is invisible.

Or maybe not.

Last week I was in Regina doing some shopping.  Just wandering around a Walmart Supercenter with a list that took me to what seemed like every corner of the store.  Eventually I had crossed off all the items I was looking for and it was time to find the checkout and exit, but this wasn’t my regular Walmart and I was lost.

I was in unfamiliar territory, disoriented, dealing with too many foreign landmarks, and trying to make sense of the various signs along the walls.  I just wanted out of the maze.

If I would have thought about it, I’m sure I would have believed it was the public me standing there with my shopping cart.  Or maybe a combination of the public/private me.  But it seems that the secret me must have shown through.

“You look like you could use some help.”

A lady with kind eyes, a caring smile, and her own shopping cart pulled me back into my day with her suggestion.

Of course, I immediately said I was fine. 

That’s what a person does, right?  No matter whether we are, or not?  Besides, I had finally spotted the checkout sign.

But as she walked away I remembered the warmth she had spoken with, and how she had worded her offer.  Somehow she had seen all of me.

In hindsight I wish I had thanked her and invited her for a cup of coffee.  I have a feeling that her secret self and mine might have a lot in common.

 

ONE MORE BUCKET LIST CHECK OFF

When you get to be my age you find that you have assembled a bit of a Bucket List.  You know: things that you would like to do before you ‘kick the bucket’.

Some people are organized enough to write a formal list on paper while others might read about an adventure and just say to themselves “I always wanted to do that someday.”  Either way, it amounts to the same thing … time is marching on.  If you’re going to do it, you best get on it.

For instance, throughout all of my working years I envied the people who could spend their days working in their yard and gardens.  I worked fulltime and squeezed in raising and feeding kids and tried to help out as a farm wife in my ‘spare’ time.  I was lucky if the grass got mowed and the peas got picked.  I don’t know that retirement should be counted as a bucket list item but it is what has allowed me to realize the pretty yard we live in now.  This earns it a big Bucket List check mark from me.

If it were up to me, we would travel a lot more than we do.  In that way, in our marriage we do not have compatible bucket lists.  On the other hand, because our kids feel the need to live on other continents and hold our grandchildren hostage, he will leave the farm for them.  We have visited the Forbidden Palace in Beijing and climbed the Great Wall in China.  We have also collected sea shells along amazing beaches and camped at the edge of the Outback in Australia.  I’ve dreamed of seeing Greece too but my trip to Croatia last fall was pretty close so I’ll call that one crossed off.

Not everything has to be that big of a deal though.  There are also much more reasonable requests.

Back when Craven became a thing I wanted to go so badly.  I think it was a residual regret from being too young to experience Woodstock.  There was an (underdeveloped) piece of my brain that romanticized extremely loud music, crowds of intoxicated people wallowing around in mud, and no way to escape the hordes until you could finally make it to the road out.  The news reels of the intoxicated/loud/mud/crowds have helped me get over this little bit of insanity – mostly.

Anymore it has been scaled back to a much tamer version and much closer to home.  There was still mild curiosity to see what a music festival would be like.  You know, just so that I could say “Been there.  Done that.”

It came to pass last Christmas, when my husband was desperate to find a gift for me our daughter convinced him to buy tickets to the Bengough Gateway Festival.  She would take their camper and we would all go together.  You have to understand what a special gift this was … he’s not much of a camper, he detests loud music, and he doesn’t like leaving home.  On the up side, his sister and nephew live in Bengough to visit, and he would be able to hang out with his grandkids.  The part about leaving hay laying on the ground to go holiday for three days didn’t rear its ugly head till the week we had to go.  He went anyway, amazingly enough (grandkids are like a trump card in the game of life.)

How was it, you ask? 

The weather was stinking hot and the skies were smoky.  The genre of music was all over the place so there was something for everyone.  There were food trucks and face painters and balloon animal artists and vendors and a car show which all pulled together to give it a carnival feel.  We were camping with some of my favourite people, got to spend time with the Bengough relatives, and I even ran into someone from my Canada Post past.  We took the kids out to explore Castle Butte and I was also gifted with a small rock for my collection from this iconic place – a family tradition.  It was a good weekend.

I’m not sure what the next item on my Bucket List will be.  It’s funny, as much as it’s fun to get away for a bit, the best part of any trip is returning home.  Besides, he has hay to bale and I have peas and beans to pick. 

              In closing I just have to say Kudos to the community of Bengough.  I have been part of planning much smaller events and could see the staggering amount of work that goes into this festival.  Everything from turning a field into a campground right down to surveying out lots and flagging off the fire lanes to run through it, all the way to the gal who would be cleaning the campers that local folks donate for the musicians to use while they were there.  Some jobs are visible but a lot of them aren’t.  I am in awe of the whole spectrum of volunteers, from the top organizer right through to the folks up at 5:00 a.m. wiping down the beer garden tables to get ready for the pancake breakfast.                                               

              You people are amazing!

 

 

TO THE WIND

There is a painting hanging in our porch.  It’s not a scenic landscape or a family portrait or even a still life.  If you need a label I guess it would be best described as a ‘thought provoker’.

I’ve had more than one criticism of the subject matter.  Not everyone would hang a painting of a few dandelions gone to seed in their house, but I did.  You see, these dandelions don’t stand alone.  There is also the message “Some see a weed, some see a wish” under where the tiny parachute-like seeds are letting go to drift on the wind.  As much as I don’t appreciate that my lawn is yellow with them in June every year, there’s still the whimsical little girl in me who likes to believe in magic and wishes, and being reminded of this as we leave and enter our house seems to be the right frame of mind.

This time of year, with the school year ending and graduations being celebrated, the concept of seeds scattering to the wind seems especially poignant.  They were born here, grew here, bloomed here, and over the last few years have matured (we hope) to the point where further growth requires that they take on new challenges.  They don’t all move in the physical sense to new addresses but their lives expand to involve jobs, relationships, travel.  Some find their new ground to put down roots right away, some drift on the wind for much longer.  Some stay close to home, some circle the globe.

The opposite of ‘scattering to the wind’ is happening in our community this weekend – the multiples of generations who have scattered to the winds have been invited back to their roots to share stories, renew friendships, and revisit memories – some of the most wonderful human experiences.  Everyone will return to their daily lives afterwards but for a few days they will touch base with their roots.  Sometimes seeing life through the lens of your personal history promotes new growth too, I wish a most wonderful weekend to everyone.

This summer is a time of some serious comings and goings for our family.  In less than a month we will say goodbye for a couple years to a daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons as they move to South Africa for work.  In the intervening time before they go they will spend as much cousin time as possible at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm and we will all try not to think about how much they will have grown by the time they can do it again.  There are big adventures awaiting and we plan to go share some with them in their new home.  We are counting on these seeds circling back in due time, although with this kind of experience so early in their lives it is quite possible that Africa will only whet the boys’ appetite for more.  Their seeds, once they are ripe, may travel even farther yet.

This is also the summer when one of our seeds returns from Australia – almost.  We have a grandson enrolling in a college in B.C. on a volleyball scholarship.  We have an Air B&B booked for a week in August to spend some precious family time with him and his father as he gets in touch with his Canadian side.  Vancouver is still a long way from Saskatchewan but at least getting there doesn’t require a passport and 24 hours travel time.

My ‘weed or wish’ painting has a few other symbols to fulfill its promise of good fortune.  The artist (a talented friend) also added the silhouette of two hummingbirds as she knows how I love them, followed by a trail of tiny loose feathers which symbolize gifts.  All of this on a humble background of rough barn board and painted in low-key colours.  It is not meant to excite the senses or dazzle with flamboyant colour.  Rather, it highlights the idea of a ‘cup half full’ and an attitude of ‘what might come next’.  Originally it was commissioned to hang in another room in my house but both the painting and its concept were too large for anywhere else than where people enter into, or take their leave of, our home.

Some see weeds.

I see wishes.

 

YET

I remember, about a million years ago, when I brought my first baby home from the hospital, how I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising a new human being.  The weight of getting it right, of feeding her the right diet, of making sure she got the right balance of exercise and education, of tending to her emotional needs, of teaching her the concepts of right and wrong, and most importantly – not biting poor little Robbie Fitzpatrick every time she saw him. 

Well, I doubted I was up to the task of child rearing.

I’ve often thought that it is lucky that babies tend to happen with very little planning.  If we parents knew what we were letting ourselves in for and gave creating a baby even an hour’s worth of forethought the human race would have died out back when we still lived in caves.

But, being new to the game and wanting to do my best I got my hands on the parenting book everyone was talking about; Doctor Benjiman Spock’s Baby and Child Care.  I know I read it from cover to cover, and I’m sure little Robbie’s mom and I discussed it over coffee many times but all I really remember about it now is that I stopped hanging on his every word when a story circulated that his son had ended up in jail.  So much for advice from the experts.  (I just looked it up, the story was not true, but my trust in him had been tarnished so his book got shelved.) 

My toddler eventually quit biting Robbie.  If I remember right the cure was for him to bite her back.

Over my child-rearing years I did read other advice books and columns but mostly I relaxed into the job with the philosophy of ‘trust your gut’, which is quite ironic considering that in my research on Doctor Spock I discovered that his main advice to new parents was to ‘trust your instincts’.  I guess his book had a lasting effect on me after all. 

There is only one other article that stands out in my memory.  I must have been raising teenagers by this time and the writer was talking about how difficult and also important it is to have rules.  And how the more rigid the rules are the greater the likelihood of failure.  She used the example of a game of tiddlywinks where you use one small plastic disc to move another one by pressing down on its edge.  If you press lightly it only flips a little distance, but if you apply a lot of force you might not ever find that disc again.  So it is with kids – apply too much force and you drive them away.  I don’t know why but that one always stuck with me.  You can take what you want from this … one of my kids lives in Australia and another is headed to Africa for a couple years.  I don’t think it’s related to tiddlywinks.

Regardless, I have moved on to grandparenting now.  It is absolutely no easier on the nerves to watch my kids raise their kids.  The challenges are the same, the stimuli of phones and computers and the Internet are everywhere, and the stakes are every bit as high.  All you want to do is raise a caring, confident, responsible, kind human being.  It’s so much hard work!

But, every-once-in a-while a true parenting nugget of wisdom comes along and you just have to appreciate its simplicity.

While I was visiting with my daughter and her kids on the weekend we went to a playground and she and her son were playing catch.  She was trying to teach him how to improve his throw but he told her “That’s as far as I can throw it.”

“Yet.” she said.  “That’s as far as you can throw it, yet.”

See the difference? 

By adding that simple, tiny, three letter word on at the end you have taken a statement of self-limiting acceptance and opened the door to possibility.  From a statement that sounds like defeat, into plan to do better.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen three letters – y-e-t - work so much magic before.  Who knew that synonyms for yet were hope, confidence, courage, inspiration, optimism, promise, and potential? 

Whatever we can’t do becomes a goal to work towards when you add ‘yet’.

This is not only my new go-to for parenting advice … but for life in general.

 

BITTER SWEET

I think I’ve told you this before: my favourite word is ‘serendipity’.

I’ve been writing all my life, beginning with letters my cousin and I used to exchange, and then other pen pals I had during my school years.  I’ve written journals too, it just feels good for me to put my thoughts down on paper. 

I suppose some people would call me a nerd and others might think I’m a bit obsessed but words and language and punctuation and syntax; they call to me, fascinate me, intrigue me. 

My dad once told me that they thought I was deaf as a toddler because I didn’t talk (hard to imagine now, I know).  They even had my hearing tested but I was fine.  Eventually they realized that as I played I would practise words quietly to myself – I wasn’t deaf, I was shy and didn’t want to say something the wrong way. 

I still hate being wrong, just ask my husband.  Luckily it hardly ever happens.

I also remember my grandmother (a woman of words herself) looking me in the eye when I was probably 7 or 8 and telling me that she could see I had a book in me because of the way I loved to use language.

I tell you this to show that my love of words is life-long, and as I said, ‘serendipity’ is a favourite.

‘Poignant’ is another.

Back in the innocent happiness of last fall, while I was waiting in an airport for a flight to a wonderful holiday, I went looking for a book to read on the plane.  There happened to be a buy two for $40.00 deal so that’s what I did.  One was a book I had been meaning to read since it had come out and the other looked okay-ish.  At the time I thought it was a love story.

Fast forward to the reality that is the of spring 2024.  I finally finished the first book and decided to pick up the second one.  It’s called Bitter-Sweet. It’s not a love story, after all.

Not only that, it’s not my kind of book at all.  If I had paid more attention in that airport book store I never would have bought it, but here’s the thing … Serendipity must have whispered to me “This one is for you” and I listened.

In this book the author, Susan Cain, explores personality types, citing many studies, interviewing many experts, and backs her theories up with anecdotes – definitely not my choice in reading material.  And yet, by page 5 I knew I would read the whole thing; she was talking to me.  Or rather, she was talking about me.

This is over simplifying the book but Bitter-Sweet tries to describe the personality type that sees/feels/embodies happy and sad simultaneously, or maybe better put, people who experience sad but use that experience to grow it into something good, or even joyful.  Her examples often cite great works of art or music like the work of Leonard Cohen and Beethoven.

Obviously I am not in that league, but I immediately recognised my life-long thoughts and philosophies in how she was describing others.  In her intro she lists several things bitter-sweet people have in common but the one that claimed me with the most power was when she asked if the work ‘poignant’ ‘resonated’ with me.  This is the perfect way to explain how that word affects me.   

I recognise that this is the perfect book for me to be reading at this time in my life.  I also understand that serendipity saw to it that I would have it when I needed it.

The next chapter is “What is sadness good for?”

I hope I can turn it into something good.

 

SOME DAYS

There was a friendly reminder on Facebook this morning that the deadline for submitting to Covering the Corner was coming up.  My first reaction was “Oh no.  Not this time.  Not this month.”  My style is to write what I think, and what I’m thinking these days is much too personal.  I would sit this one out.

But a seed had been planted.  My mind began organizing an outline, picking and choosing what needed to be said, sorting through the words that would say it best. 

This mind exercise was a breath of fresh air, actually.  Writing is therapy for me and putting my thoughts down on paper might promote healing.  I don’t know.  It’s worth a try. 

I will see how it goes.  If you are reading this I have decided it is worthy of sharing. 

We are almost a month into our family trauma.  We have worked our way through the ritual of planning Mitchell’s funeral, comforted and strengthened to share this burden with family, friends and others.  We are honoured and thankful that so many people care. 

It has been reassuring to make contact with his online friends.  He’d told me lots of times how close their friendships were, talking and coaching each other as they played.  As these people from far and wide posted their memories and impressions of him on a page they created for that very purpose, it was obvious they knew the same Mitchell we knew and would miss him as we do.  It seems alien to my old-fashioned brain that your can form powerful relationships over the Internet, but our hometown son travelled to Texas for one friend’s Grandpa’s funeral, to North Carolina with a bunch of buddies and ended up helping with hurricane clean-up while they were there, and he even drove to Edmonton to be groomsman for another friend a few years ago.  He seems to have coloured outside the regular lines with his life, and he would be proud to hear me say that. 

Counting the number of one’s days is a poor method of measurement.  You can live 9 decades and have nothing to show for it, or just 9 years and be loved by all who knew you.  We are not the only ones who are missing him: his co-workers, his customers, his close-knit group of D&D friends.  His absence leaves a gaping hole in our days.  

We don’t get to pick how long we are here, and we foolishly behave like we have endless tomorrows.

I don’t know if I’m just overly sensitive to such stories, but in the past few days I’ve heard of two more un-fore-see-able deaths of people much younger than I am.  People just scooped up out of their lives while supper was cooking.  Leaving those who love them reeling with shock and sorrow.  It’s not that I would wish this upon anyone else but it does help put the trauma in perspective.  These things happen every day.  Certainly we mourn our dead but there are also new babies to rejoice over born every day.

Time moves forward.  The world rolls on.

How are we doing? 

Well, some days are not so good.  Some days, not so bad. 

Humanity is a blessed thing.  Beginning with our close circle of friends and family, then widening outwards to include the immediate community of Redvers with all the food and gifts and thoughtfulness they have offered, and then stretching even further to encompass those we don’t really know but who have reached out to us because they have suffered similar losses and therefore extend to us priceless empathy and understanding – all of you are helping to steady us in this storm. 

We thank you.

 

FOR THE GIRLS

‘A woman’s biological clock’ is a term we’ve cooked up in this day and age when women are trying to cram two lifetimes (career and having a family) into one lifespan.  Whether they are sitting in their fancy CEO corner office or at home rocking a newborn to sleep they can hear that darned clock ticking away time whizzing by on the other end of their dreams.  There are only some many ‘hours’ on any given clock.

Let’s go all retro here and imagine one of those old-fashioned wall clocks with the numbers from 1 to 12 arranged around the outside edge.  Let’s say that we come into existence at 12:01- our first ‘time stamp’.  That’s the moment when our biological clock actually begins ticking.  We are brand-spanking new and our time has just begun. 

We while away our childhoods doing kid stuff until about 4:15 when puberty kicks in whether we like it or not.  Suddenly the ‘storks bring babies’ story gets updated to a much more preposterous account of where babies come from, and life gets real.  Talk about the truth being stranger than fiction.

So, from 4:15 to about 7:30 we can produce babies.  That’s nice.  Most of us choose to do that.  Some of us don’t.  For some there is no choice.  But the clock goes on ticking regardless.

On about 7:15 the government takes a sudden interest in us.  Since we’ve wrapped up that baby making business we aren’t checking in with our health care providers on a regular basis anymore and studies have shown that it’s more successful (and therefore cheaper) to correct what can go wrong with our ‘clock parts’ if you catch the malfunction at the very start.  We get letters inviting us to various checkups. 

We look at our clocks and think to ourselves “Well, I kinda want to be around to hold grandbabies and great grandbabies.  If I want to make it all the way to 11:59 I better keep up on my maintenance.”  And obediently we make that call.

Now, as much as the stories of childbirth filled us with apprehension before we actually participated in the sport, the stories about mammograms run a close second.  Unless you enjoy having a total stranger (probably with cold hands) occupy your personal space, manipulate certain sensitive body parts into weird positions and then flatten them like pancakes, don’t expect this to be a pleasant experience.  On the other hand, if you and the technician both have a healthy sense of humour, it’s not so bad.

Whether you like it or hate it though, expect another invitation in two years.  That’s the way this thing rolls.

For the first few times I did exactly what the letter said to do … I called for the appointment and diligently showed up for it.  All by myself out a sense of duty.  Then a bunch of us got smart.  We now make it a girl’s day for ‘the girls’, if you get what I mean.

Life is too short not to have fun.  Our clocks are ticking, after all! 

We call ourselves Breast Friends (or Boob Buddies) and we book the whole day off to do some shopping, treat ourselves to a meal out, and with laughter and conversation turn a necessary but uncomfortable clinical procedure into a much anticipated fun day.  In fact, we double the fun by getting together to make our appointments as they all have to be made on the same phone call so that we are scheduled back-to-back.

On our way home from 2024’s adventure it was decided that two years was too long, that we could plan a Girl Day without including the gal on the mammogram bus.  By the time we got home we had adjusted our plans to twice a year instead of every second year.

No one knows how close we are to midnight.  For all I know my hour hand might be almost perpendicular.  My Breast Friends and I have decided to pay more attention to the minute hand seeping past all those shorter intervals between the numbers. 

 

LIFE ON THE ROCKS

It’s finally happened.  The winter has gotten to me, I’m bored out of my tree, and I don’t want to start my usual seed-starting mess in the living room until after Easter.  Hosting a bunch of company with lively grandkids makes shelves of moist dirt and baby seedlings in the big front window just seem unwise.

So, I’ve been looking to amuse myself with something else. 

I stare out the window a lot; at first the snow was going down, and then there was more of it than we’ve had all winter.  I’ll provide updates as is necessary.

I’ve taken note that some of my walls could use washing but I’m not that desperate yet. 

I did some baking, but that’s a bad idea unless I can think of something to make that I don’t like.  (On an unrelated note, did you know that a puffed wheat cake can disappear in under two days?)

And I spend way too much time on my iPad … doing puzzles or crosswords or other shape-matching games.  I dream of working outside, planting my garden, enjoying neighborly conversations on my deck, and hanging clothes out on the line, but meanwhile all I do is sit inside and scroll through Facebook.

So it was, with my boredom at its peak, that Facebook introduced the idea of a new way to monopolize my time – both official advertisements for the Brier and constant comments by my friends who are already curling junkies started to wear me down.  I decided “What the heck?  What could a game or two hurt?”

And now here I am, so far down the curling rabbit hole I can’t see the light anymore.

I can’t say it was an unpleasant experience though, perched on the edge of my chair, holding my breath as yet another shot from Magic Mike rumbled down the ice to amaze us all.  On the one hand that kind of trepidation makes a person feel fully alive, on the other hand I think the doctor and I may have chosen the wrong week to keep track of my blood pressure.  I had a lot of sympathy for Mike’s wife though, her anxiety level was through the roof.

It wasn’t just the fantastic shots or the missed-by-a-hair mistakes, or the hard-fought wins or the disheartening losses that kept me watching though, it was the long and winding road down my personal Memory Lane that I enjoyed the most.

As the games went on the commentators added behind-the-scenes tid-bits and colour commentary.  There was a lot of background of who has won or lost before, who used to play on other rinks, and who is married to a star in women’s curling.  Being as I am such a novice in this sphere of high-fallutin’ curling fandom I didn’t pay much attention to these comments, but when they talked about the idiosyncrasies of ice perfection it caused me much amusement.  My first curling experience was a 4-H bonspiel in Wauchope circa 1966 on a sheet of ice that had more humps and hollows in it than you could count. Now playing on that kind of obstacle course required a certain kind of genius.  The commentators chuckled about how it was the lesser known teams who didn’t get to practice on perfect ice all the time who just ‘figured out’ each new sheet of ice.  That’s real curling if you ask me: what the top tier teams do on their perfect ice has the feel of automation to it.  Precision is fascinating, but the ‘figuring it out’ has an element of adventure.

 

The other little nugget of nostalgia that surfaced for me was during Quebec’s televised game.  Naturally, they did all their team talk in French.  Man, did that ever take me back.  It had never occurred to me that French was my first language of curling, if there is such a thing, but besides a few school or 4-H bonspiels while I was growing up I didn’t actually curl much until I was married – to someone whose first language was French, and we lived in predominantly French-speaking towns.  The strategy discussions on ice, or draw vs. take-out, or speed were always in French.  It’s funny how the weirdest things can trigger the happiest memories.  I think that was my favourite game of all even though I couldn’t tell you now who they were playing or which team won.

I will have to watch the brier next year to see if it happens again. 

Meanwhile, I’m told that it’s the World Women’s Championship next weekend.  If I keep following this rabbit hole I will eventually find my way out, right?  If I keep staring at my TV I won’t see how dirty my walls are, right? 

It’s worth a try.