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!