WHOLE CLOTH

A church is a good place for meditation, even a former church.  In fact, I don’t know that you can actually take the ‘church’ out of a building.  I was at the decommissioning of Knox United, I know that the formalities of ‘unchurching’ were done, but between the architecture and my memories it will always be a place of sunny meditation, favourite hymns, and the warmth of sharing that space with others in an aura of fellowship.

And so, I found myself meditating on Saturday afternoon in the sunshine of those south-facing windows, under that vaulted roof, and singing songs that I love.  We were there to honour and bid farewell to a well-loved lady, and the diverse crowd assembled showed just how far-ranging Dosy’s inspiration had been over her 90 years.  In her homily Michelle spoke of how we are to use our talents throughout our lives and then went on to list the many ways everyone present had benefited from Dosy’s life.  I know I did; she was my co-worker, then my boss, but most of all she was my friend.

My meditation didn’t stop with Dosy though, it opened the door to thinking about the many others in our little hometown who have also shared their time and talents to expand and enhance the community we enjoy.  There are many.

I’m a hometown girl.  I’ve lived all but six years of my life here.  In a world where most young people leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere my choice was to stay.  I don’t know if it’s just the way my brain works, or because I am here to witness it, but sometimes, when I’m talking to classmates or other friends who did move away, I feel like a local historian.  Not the specific, detailed historian who would remember dates, but the type who wants credit to go to the unsung heroes who have earned it.

The terms ‘warp’ and ‘woof’ come to mind.  For those unfamiliar, these words pertain to weaving cloth.  In order to form a piece of cloth you have to set up a loom with threads going up and down (warp) so that the horizontal threads (woof) can be woven in.  They are the foundation, they hold it together, they give strength and endurance – take them away and all you have is a tangled pile of fluff.  Our community is a stretch of whole cloth, we are the warp and woof.

If you look at a piece of cloth you see the whole thing, not the individual threads that hold it together, even though they are the most important part.  What about the people, almost invisible, in the background giving their time and talents?  Things that are unlikely to ever be documented?   

I was going to try to name them – or at least the ones I could think of – but the list is too long, and I would feel terrible if I missed someone.  Besides, my list would be from my life perspective.  We are all unique so your list would be different than mine, but every bit as valid.

So I’m challenging you, no matter where you’re from, to form your own list.  Every community has their own heroes: the guy who refills little kid’s sandboxes every spring for free, the lady who spearheaded publishing your local history book, the folks tending flower gardens and watering trees in your public green spaces, teachers who made a difference in your life, 4-H and scout leaders, ‘Santa’s Helpers’ (even though they can’t be named due to the nature of their work).  The list goes on and on. 

Think of them, and thank them.  Let them know their threads are appreciated. 

I’m back to meditating, or at least thinking about, the metaphor of us all being a part of the whole cloth of our communities.  It’s easy to associate different textures and colours of thread to the individuals – past/present/future – whose time and talents have gone/are going/will go into making our fabric unique, and I catch myself wondering if Dosy’s thread would be silver like her hair?

 

IT’S ALL COMING BACK TO ME

It’s all coming back to me now.  I’ve been here before. 

The no energy days, the scratchy throat, the runny nose: yep – this is what an every day, everybody gets them, run of the mill head cold feels like.  Funny how those two years of masks and isolation kept them out of our house too.  I didn’t miss them one bit.

This is not me comparing a head cold to the other options out there - there are much, much worse things to have – it’s just how soon we forget what a head filled with mucus feels like.  Two days ago my sinuses were so full and enflamed that my teeth actually hurt.  That’s something I forgot could happen.   I didn’t miss it one bit.

I had also forgotten how colds can sneak up on you.  Tuesday you’re feeling fine but seem to be sneezing a lot.  Wednesday morning you have a tickle in your throat but it goes away after breakfast.  Thursday is a lazy day because that big job you had planned seems like way too much work now, and you don’t have the energy … besides, you’re retired and it can wait.

And then, voila! Friday your head hurts and the Kleenex box becomes your best friend.

Maybe, if I had been paying attention and not so out of practise at recognizing the symptoms I could have thrown a bunch of vitamin C at it.  I could have gotten more sleep.  I could have made a big pot of chicken soup.  But no, I paid no attention to the warning signs and now, here I am in full-blown head cold mode. 

I can only breathe through one nostril at a time.  If I’m lucky.

I know where the throat lozenges are but I’m not so desperate that I’ve had to use them.  Yet.  (I hate them almost as much as Buckley’s)

I discovered that during the Covid years they have made print much smaller on medication packages.  I literally cannot read them in the middle of the night without my glasses on.  Imagine my surprise the next morning when I realized that the package should have been thrown out BEFORE Covid because it was that far past its expiration date.  The print size could not be blamed on newer packaging, but possibly on older eyes.

A couple of questions here:  Is it possible for the entire package to shrink due to old age?  You know, like a block of cheese if you let it dry out?  I’m sure I was able to read those words when I bought it.

Also, does past due sinus medication get stronger as it ages?  Or lose its potency?  I did live to see another day so it’s not deadly.  And I found a newer package for the next time – with my glasses on and in broad daylight.

I am now at my husband’s favourite part of any cold I’ve ever had.  I have lost my voice.  He likely has two days of peace and quiet to look forward to

So, I am preparing for the next step on this well-travelled path: we live in the same house, we share the same space … almost certainly he will take my regular cold germs and morph them into a raging case of Man Cold.

I’ve got the vitamin C out, a pot of soup on the go, and have restocked the Kleenex boxes in every room. 

Like I said, it’s all coming back to me now.

 

 

 

THE NEXT FEW MONTHS

And so it has begun.  Winter 2022-23 roared in on the back of a blizzard on Sunday afternoon and every online site from Facebook to Twitter exploded with “OMG”s as people realized they were somewhere that the didn’t want to be and immediately hit the road to get somewhere else.

Almost immediately hitting the ditch, or getting stuck in zero visibility behind a semi where they stayed until all traffic ground to a halt.

Being totally predictable they then dug out their phones (because, of course, they weren’t texting while driving) and began to demand where the snow plows were, and ask when did they close the highways down, and how bad is it the other side of Swift Current (like they still plan to get there). 

I wonder how many appointments to get their winter tires on were made from vehicles situated on #1 Highway in the last 24 hours?  It’s not like they had anything else on their agenda besides staying warm.

Although I have played the-roads-can’t-be-that-bad game a time or two, this time I am at home and feeling quite smug about getting my fall garden work done – all of one row of carrots and three dozen garlic heads.  The remainder of the garden of 2022 was a disaster and was tilled under at the end of July. The rest of the summer was very laid-back affair and something I think I could get used to, but with all that extra time to till and fertilize and remediate the soil … let’s just say my farmer has big plans.  I did enjoy the slow pace and other’s garden charity while I had it.

I had a pot of home-made soup brewing as the storm blew in, and Wednesday, the last nice day I washed all the bedding and hung it outside for that glorious, fresh, outdoor scent.  We also spent some money last week and had the furnace duct cleaners in to do their thing.  I don’t know if it counts as an accomplishment or not, but I like the idea that any dust circulating in this house this winter is brand new stuff. 

The next thing on the annual odyssey is Hallowe’en.  We are right on target for having purchased our first box of treats at the beginning of the month, eating them all, and buying two more packages to keep us going.  There’s only one more week to go so we should be okay … especially since we live way out in the country and haven’t had trick-or-treaters in almost a decade.   

I will probably buy one more box, just in case.

Then it will be on to Christmas.  Not too sure how much time, effort, or money I plan to sink into the decorating endeavor this year.  About half of my lights died and were placed directly into the dumpster when I undecorated last spring.  The outdoor tree just keeps getting bigger and bigger – and I just keep getting older and older.  I think there needs to be a new design.  I also think I should have thought of it before this storm.  Decorating is way easier on dry ground that isn’t frozen yet.  This epiphany has me feeling a lot less smug at the moment: finished gardening smugness being cancelled out by undone Christmas decorating.  I should have known better … isn’t smugness one of the seven deadly sins?

And Christmas prep doesn’t stop there.  There is baking to do, and of course, there are gifts to buy.  I’m already behind the eight ball because almost half of the grandchildren live in Australia.  I only need gift ideas for things tiny and weightless that will thrill a 20 year old young woman, 17 year old twins and their 14 year old brother.  Let me know what you come up with.  The sooner the better.

Assuming that another plague doesn’t take us down and Putin doesn’t manage to blow us up we will land safely in 2023, probably a few more blizzards under our belts and scanning the horizon for signs of spring.  The days will lengthen out, we will plant seeds, and the snow birds will return home.

We’ll know we made it when the Easter chocolates hit the market.  There will probably be only a couple blizzards left to go by then.

 

MY ADVICE

Just when a person thinks they are on top of things something comes along to knock them off their safety perch.  That was me two weeks ago. 

It’s all good now.  Besides my nerves being rankled and the huge chunk of Humble Pie I’ve had to digest there was no harm done.  But I feel like I can’t lay it completely to rest without telling my story.  Hopefully it will save others a similar experience.

I was hacked.

Not the almost every day occurrence of a Facebook friend request from someone I’m already friends with.  I know how to respond to that one – delete the bogus request and private message them (I can do that because we are already friends) to give them a heads-up to change their password.

Neither was it one of the countless emails from “Costco” wanting to give me a big, juicy coupon, or “Sasktel” or “Sask Power” saying my bill isn’t paid, or “Canada Post” saying they are unable to deliver my parcel until I pay a fee.  I know about all of those scams and I delete them immediately.  Knowledge is power - to click on any of those links invites thieves into your computer and your life.  I have fantasised about there being software that allows the target (me) to send code back to the originating computer and have it blow up in the hacker’s face, but as to yet I don’t think it’s been invented.

The one that got me was more sophisticated than that, although hardly uncommon.  When you sit down with your banking representative and say the words ‘microsoft scam’ and she leafs through a stack of papers until she comes up with one entitled Microsoft Scam, you know you’re not the first one to come to her in a panic.  Knowing that you are not alone eases some of your embarrassment at being duped.  Seeing them take charge with what has to be done next is also very reassuring.

It all began with me clicking on what I thought was a news story.  Something about palaeontology, fossilized bones, scientific research – I’m interested in that kind of stuff.  The news story was the bait, and I bit.

SUDDENLY there were a stack of pop up screens in front of me with the top one expanding and contracting rapidly while a woman’s voice LOUDLY warned me that my computer had been compromised.  This was the one and only time they were honest – the pop up warning was indeed compromising my computer.  Everything after that was a lie, starting with the warning “If you shut down your computer you will lose everything on it.”

But with the never-ending loud warning, the spazzing pop up that I couldn’t click away, and the threat of losing everything on my computer, panic set in.  My only hope seemed to be the offered toll free phone number for the trusted name “Microsoft”.  A rational brain would have taken time to think about this but they had me at an emotional level … I called the number.

From there a very professional-sounding guy asked me questions, assured me he could help, and instructed me to check my online banking to see if anything was amiss.  It wasn’t, of course, there was nothing the thieves could do until I revealed my information to them … which I did because I trusted that I was the only one who could see what I was looking at.  He had me do some Windows diagnostic tests to make it look legit.  He told me not to talk about it to anyone until he called back and a whole bunch of other crap I should have known better than to believe.  On the call back he escalated the panic by saying the only way to protect my money was to change it over to a digital wallet (which he was going to be very helpful to set up for me – only I suspect that it wouldn’t have been in my name). 

Long story short, I decided to talk to somebody I trusted and they reaffirmed all the warning bells that were going on in the back of my mind.  Even though the “Microsoft” guy and his associate “CIBC” guy he had forwarded my case file on to had both warned me not to talk to my personal banker that’s exactly what I did … and as soon as she heard the word “Microsoft” she said “identity theft” and we began the clean up.  It wasn’t her first rodeo.  I sure as heck hope it’s my last.

So now, what have I learned from this?  That it’s just another hack to be aware of and that being fore-warned is to be fore-armed.

Since this happened I have taken the time to ask Google about the “Microsoft Scam” and was shown a video on how to shut the pop up down.  I would advise everyone to check it out now so there is no hesitation when confronted with the nasty lady shouting at you when the pop up appears (and you can shut her up by just turning down the volume on your computer – it will help you think clearly).  I’ve also been told that you don’t have to shut your computer down, just unplug your Internet.  What you need is time to think things through.

DO talk about it with others.

DO keep your computer virus scans up to date (although I thought mine was)

DO go immediately to your bank if you get sucked into this evil vortex – they are ready to help you.

And, if you get the chance, create the software needed to trace evil back to the hacker who started it – and have the whole thing blow up in his face.

 

LOUIS

Sad news this morning: Louis is gone.

It’s not that we weren’t expecting it, he was very ill.  It is good to think that his suffering is over, but those of us who loved him must now shift into a new, unwelcome reality.  Mourning his loss with be felt in different degrees – from Robert’s acute pain in the loss of his life partner, the love of his life, to the long-distance sad absence of a friend and brother-in-law for me, plus the multitude of people in between – friends, colleagues, neighbours, parishioners – he touched so many people in his 67 years.

I spent the waning hours of Louis’ life reflecting on how he has enriched mine.  If he were to hear me say that he would no doubt down-play my words, but I also hope that he would take the praise to heart.  The honesty he lived in his life forced me to grow as a person too.  I owe him.

We met when we were just kids, classmates in grade six I think, growing up in rural Saskatchewan in the ‘60s and ‘70s.  You’d be hard pressed to find a more mundane, ordinary existence … school work, family life, daydreaming about future plans.  We lived in the insulated bubble of ‘normal’ our parents provided us by keeping awkward topics out of daily discourse, creating a rose-coloured-glasses type of world which neatly sorted people into ‘natural’ and ‘taboo’.  I can’t imagine what it felt like to grow up ‘taboo’.

Almost certainly though, it caused Louis’ growth as a human being to far outstrip mine.  He grew to be an intelligent, caring, sensitive, giving adult.  Conversations with him challenged me to think much deeper than I normally would.  Meals he hosted were delicious and fun.  I loved his sharp sense of humor.  Long before he told us he was gay he had established who he really was – a warm and wonderful human being.  I was so comfortable with these truths that his coming out left me to reconcile what society said about ‘taboo’ people and what I could see with my own eyes.  I had some growing of my own to do.

Not that it was easy.  Societal inuendo, self-proclaimed comfort zones, and outright public fear-mongering left me bouncing between shame, anger and self-righteousness, but I always seemed to end up asking myself “If it’s this bad for me, an observer, what was it like for him to live it?”  With this question in mind it was impossible not to grow.  He was a person of kindness and integrity, of intelligence and education, someone whose voice and laughter sounded just like his mother’s.  This latest piece of information about him didn’t alter any of these well-established qualities.  In the end I realized it was much more beneficial to accept and learn from others than to stand back and judge them.  I have Louis to thank for that.

He lived a full, happy life.  He travelled in his career as an air steward, seeing much of the world.  He even arranged to be in Beijing when we were so that he could buy us supper.  His first career choice was the priesthood and he fulfilled that dream too, serving his God and his parish in his community in Nova Scotia.  But, the happiest, most precious thing in his life was to find Robert and have the solid, loving, mutual support relationship that all human beings long for – and deserve.

All day long I’ve been reading and rereading the tributes sent to Robert and the rest of the family.  One of them came close to what I’ve been trying to say here – that Louis and Robert’s relationship had forced the writer out of her pre-conceived notions and into growth and an awareness she had lacked before.  It’s strange to use the word ‘force’ when speaking of Louis, he was a gentle soul and led by simple example.  In another way, though, his quiet resolve was indeed a force to be reckoned with.

R.I.P. Louis.  We are better people for having known you.

 

SEPTEMBER BLUE

As the kids get ready to go back to school and the combines roar to life the natural world slips quietly into another gear too.  Plants, having fulfilled their destiny to grow, flower, and bear fruit are now letting themselves dry up and wither away (except for cucumbers which are into some crazy kind of overdrive).  Birds gather for massive conventions to discuss their route south and departure date.  There is the scent of completeness in the air – everything is mature, ripe, and well seasoned.  The sky goes from the dazzling bright blue of summer to the soft, powdery, cornflower blue of September.  It’s my favorite.

I don’t know how it happens so fast, but the sun’s bedtime is now earlier than mine again.  How does it take so long for the days to lengthen out between December and June, but the reverse happens in the blink of an eye.

It has been a wonky, crazy busy summer for me - caring for an elderly family member and having grandchildren stay with us while their family was moving.  Thankfully in both cases I wasn’t the only one on the job but it was a real eye opener into being in the middle of the ‘sandwich generation’.  The kids are back with their parents now and we are nearing the end of moving Grandma out of her home and into Long Term Care.  Life is bound to slow down pretty soon.  I hope.

I apologize to my fellow volunteers at Tourism for my absence throughout August.  I know I have been Missing in Action.  It’s not that the place can’t run without me - in fact the things I do can be done by anyone – but I wasn’t there to pitch in as much as I usually am.  By the looks of things everything is running smoothly, proving that I am dispensable.  We are close to the end of the season now and I will be there for the close-up jobs unless something drastic happens.

This might sound crazy but the best thing that happened this summer is that my vegetable garden was a complete failure.  The spring was so late and wet that I didn’t get it planted till the middle of June.  And, even though it had been worked several times the soil was the consistency of muddy bricks.  The potatoes struggled to get through the surface.  I got the other seeds in but then we had another deluge.  It stayed so cold that germination was dismal … until the heat turned up and every seed out there exploded with life.  92% of them were weed seeds. 

By the third week of July the corn was only a foot tall, stunted peas weren’t even in bloom yet and only a few yellow beans had made an appearance, the green beans hadn’t bothered to germinate at all.  I found enough beets and carrots to keep, but instructed the guy with the tractor and tiller to “make the rest just go away!”  I also put in an order for a substantial soil remediation project with straw and manure to be worked in and weed control tillage to be performed on a regular basis.  If it’s successful I may regret my request.  My 2023 garden might end up being a bumper crop and I’ve kind of liked the ease and luxury of just getting garden charity this year.  Oh well, I will worry about that when the time comes.

I’ve checked the long-range forecast – if it’s true there are no frost warnings in the foreseeable future.  There are a lot of farmers out there breathing a sigh of relief for their late crops, but my interest was to see if it was worth fertilizing my deck planters one more time.  They got one more dose.  Hopefully I will have blooms to enjoy for a few more weeks.  There is no better place to sit in the cool of the evening and watch the hummingbirds fight over sugar water.  They will be gone before the flowers are – we have gone from 10 to 7 to 3 this past week.  One morning in the near future there will be none and summer will be officially over.

But, while it lasts, I am going to try to soak in the softer September sun, listen to the crickets while I hang out the laundry a few more times, and enjoy that the grass is still green and soft enough to walk in bare feet.

 

LIFE. AND DEATH. AND SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

I’ve had a lot of time lately to sit quietly and think.  That’s what you do when visiting a very elderly lady in the hospital.  Sometimes she is awake and up to visiting, but a lot of the time she drifts off to sleep, and I stay a bit longer and think about things.  Like life.  And death.  And where she is … somewhere in between.  Well, in reality we are all somewhere in between, but at almost 102 she is much closer to the end than most of us.

Over the past year or so, as her health and strength went into decline, we have had many conversations.  The ones I liked best were the rare occasions she would tell me stories I hadn’t heard before.  She was born in 1920 and came to this area to teach in the early ‘40’s, marrying my husband’s father in 1945.  I would have loved to hear more about this period of her history but conversations never seemed to go that way, as if that time was so long ago it wasn’t important any more.

Instead, I would get snippets like “I enjoyed raising my family.” Or “Larry was a happy baby.”  Sometimes I could steer her into a few more minutes on the subject, but not often.  Her comments were just little windows into the fleeting memories going through her mind.

One beautiful warm day this spring I offered to take her for a wheel chair ride around the block and for once she actually said ‘yes’.  Her hearing is very poor but her eyesight is phenomenal.  She spotted some lilacs so I took her over and we picked some.  She wondered what on earth all those pink birds were doing in someone’s yard so I explained about the “You’ve been flocked” fundraiser going on in town.  I wasn’t sure, between her poor hearing and the out-of-the-ordinary concept of the fundraiser, whether she understood what I told her but when she spotted another flamingo covered lawn on the next block, she pointed to it and said “There’s some more of those pink birds.  They must be making lots of money!”  She could be sharp as a tack one minute and quite lost the next, though.  We were on the street where she had lived for 30 years yet she didn’t recognize it. Going around that one block was all she was up to even though she was in a wheel chair.

The high point of that adventure was stopping for a few minutes to watch the school kids at their track and field day.  “I used to really like that day.” the former school teacher said, her voice wistful.  Times gone by; another brief window into her soul.

She has been strong and fiercely independent but it’s obvious with this hospitalization the days of living on her own are over, she will be going into respite until a permanent placement is available.  This was not in her plan.  Her most fervent wish is to ‘fall asleep and not wake up’.  She is angry and disappointed that this is not happening for her.

I am reminded, as I sit and watch her sleep, of a time when I railed at the unfairness of Death’s timing.  My first husband died in a car accident on the same day that an elderly gentleman with dementia wandered out into the winter cold in only his pyjamas.  There was no rhyme or reason, no justice, and no sense to a young husband and father dying while a sick old man was found and brought to safety. It wasn’t fair! 

She is experiencing the same frustration from the other side.  She doesn’t want to be here any more.  Why is she stuck in this failing body and now being sent off to unfamiliar surroundings?  This is just as unfair.

Many years ago I read a story that compared our lives to a tapestry … the colors, the textures, the flaws, and the worn bits all signifying the joys and sorrows, the struggles and triumphs, the bad choices and subsequent recoveries - all merging to portray our individual life spans as works of art.  I think of this from time to time and hope that my scene is full of bright colours and worthy texture, and that many of my threads are tied into other’s tapestries connecting me to the people I love.

Today I visited with my mother-in-law and thought about her tapestry.  Our conversation this afternoon was me encouraging her, trying to help her see that her life may just become more interesting because she won’t be isolated in her own home any more.  There will be people around her, she will have her own space for privacy but meals will be a time of community.  That we will come to see her.

 I may have gotten through to her because she gave me a smile as I left.

At almost 102 we all know that her tapestry is almost finished. She can’t have too many threads left to tie off.  I sincerely hope that the ones she has remaining are the color of love and as light as gossamer.