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.

 

WE ARE HISTORY

It all started with a request from a grandson in Grade 4 asking if his ancestors were homesteaders.  My automatic answer was “Yes they were.” I even went farther and told him that he was a fifth generation Canadian, but after the phone call ended I did some more calculating and realized that his generation was in fact the sixth.  This prompted me to go get the local history books and do a little more research where I discovered that, strictly speaking, I was incorrect about the homesteader thing too.

On a quick run through of the names on homesteader titles in two of the local history books I found no mention of either of my grandparents.  The claims for the land that they farmed were made a few years before either the Purvis or Nixon families arrived in the neighbourhood.  They were pioneers for sure, but actual homesteaders they were not.  My Great Grandfather Purvis bought his home quarter from a Mr. Heasman and it was someone named Mr. Randall who shows up on the claim for Great-grandpa Nixon’s farm.  In both cases my ancestors arrived looking for land about five to seven years after the homesteading rush.

In researching these names though, it struck me that except for a very few the names that I’ve always considered the foundation stones of our district, they aren’t there at the very beginning.  The names of the brave men and women who got here before the railroad, lived in sod houses, and broke ground – both figuratively and literally – are not the dominant names of the busy and booming years of my parents’ generation.

Since I had those history books out anyway, and wanted to be prepared for any other Grade 4 questions, I did some more reading.  A person should really travel back in time more often, partly because the stories are awe-inspiring, and partly in homage of the work that went into assembling all that information and organizing it into book form.  I played a very small part in the process and remember the feeling of urgency to record those stories before the people who knew them were no longer able to tell them.

From my perspective as a child of the 1950s, I had been enthralled with this ‘ancient history’ but the reality was that even my grandparents were second generation.  I had to reset my perception of where my family fit in my community timeline.

Those history book pages are full of the stories I grew up hearing: the prairie fires, the blizzards, the closest supply of firewood being the Moose Mountains, the walking to school (uphill, both ways) and the importance of the railway for everything from building materials to mail.  Some of the settler’s names remain but many more you are only going to find recorded in the history book or written in stone in local cemeteries.  The families who persevered automatically get recognition for their hard work and tenacity but after thinking about it, I decided whether they managed five years or five generations, they were all a part of our collective history.  And, whether their contribution was of the dreamer/big picture/builder variety, or the backbone/physical labour/builder variety, both are necessary and equally valuable.

The most constant thing about history is that it is constant motion.  It is past, present, and future.  We are our own history every bit as much as our ancestors were before us and our descendants will be after us.  And it’s important to remember that what we consider ‘our’ history is merely a miniscule blink in time in an expanse so wide we can neither see the beginning or the end.  Others came before us and we will not be the last.

On the other hand, this is our blink in time, and it is something to celebrate.  It just so happens that our Grade 4 grandson and his siblings will be spending July1st weekend with us.  His name will not be found in the pages of our local history book, but his lineage is there.  No matter how many generations there are in between, he has homesteader blood running through his veins.

 

 

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

Well, here we are again stuck in the middle of winter.  This is my least favourite time of the year.  Ever since I learned the meaning of the Doldrums I have used the term to describe the month of February.  Originally ‘the doldrums’ was what sailors called ocean spaces near the equator where there’s little to no wind for sailing vessels thereby leaving ships and their crews stuck motionless for long periods of time, but it also describes perfectly the vast, listless, light-deprived months of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.  The only sign of forward motion I can find these days is that sunrise is definitely later now than it was right after Christmas.  It’s a little thing, but very important for my seasonally susceptible sanity.

Now, before you all jump on me for complaining about my 2024 so far, I admit this particular year has been better than most.  There’s no way that spending time on a beach in Mexico wasn’t the best use of a week in January.  Add to that we took the grandkids (and their parents) with us and met even more extended family down there to celebrate a wedding. I am willing to admit this was one of my best Januarys ever. 

There was also that crazy frigid week before we left, but I was busy washing and packing beach clothes so I mostly ignored it, and the weather since we returned home has been something for the record books at the other end of the temperature scale.  Open water on the pond in front of our house and road bans because of mud in February are not signs of ‘boring’ or ‘usual’.

But these things are:

·         Thinking of an inspiring menu choice for the 18,797.5 suppers expected of me since signing on for this job.  It’s not fun anytime but winter is the worst.

·         Staring out the windows at a blah landscape of snow and bare trees and imagining how good it would be to smell fresh-mowed lawn and feel the sunshine on my shoulders.

·         Being so bored that I actually wish I could go out and clean said windows because the gal who did this job last fall was terrible at it.  She was probably trying to think of something to make for supper at the time.

·         Trying to squelch the urge to plant some seeds just to see green … BECAUSE IT’S WAY TOO EARLY! Anything planted now will get spindly and weak and die.  I don’t need to set myself up for that kind of depression and loss in February.

So to keep busy and encourage a sense of accomplishment, I pulled out that big stack of receipts and started income tax preparation.  After all, everyone needs a hobby, right?

I am told (by a daughter who does this kind of stuff as paid work) that my paper-and-pencil approach is from the dark ages.  I need Excell.  It will do all the math for me.  It’s neat and clean and files can be emailed with ease.  I’m not going to argue with her (it’s never worked anyway) but will carry on with a method I am comfortable with.  The job, now that we are in a kind of twilight zone of active farming, is barely a shadow of what it used to be.  The manual work reminds me of my early days at Canada Post where we used a daily ledger and balanced to the penny every night; a kind of trip down Memory Lane for me.  Also, I like that I can just flip open a book to look something up because I know where I wrote it down.  Learning Excell at this stage of the game might put my dwindling supply of brain cells at risk; a risk I’m not willing to take.

Besides, without this job, how am I going to keep myself from planting seeds way too early?

March is still 18 days away.  I know because I’ve been counting.  Not even three weeks and the spring winds will fill out my summer sails and push me out of the 2024 Doldrums.  I estimate it will be approximately 136 days before I’m complaining about heat and mousquitoes.

 

HOME AGAIN!

Six years ago as we took one more stroll down the beach on our last trip to Mexico Glen said “You know, what I would really like to do is bring the grandkids down here for a holiday.  That would be so much fun.”  I agreed wholeheartedly and a plan was born. 

A lot of things had to fall into place for this to happen, the main one being an invitation to a destination wedding (Thanks so much Brandi and Santino!) but it did all come together for the last week of January 2024. The icing on the cake would have been if ALL the grandchildren could have been there but Australia is a bit of a commute, and really, they already live on a tropical beach.

What made it really lovely was that quite a few other family members were there to celebrate the marriage and spend time together.  The week was full of ocean surf mornings and pool afternoons, rousing card games in the evenings with Grandpa, iguana hunting, moments of exotic butterfly appreciation, and episodes of recognition where vegetation we struggle to keep as pampered house plants here amazingly grow to be tree-sized weeds in the wild there.  There was something for everyone.

Expectations varied wildly.  No way were our prairie kids going to swim in the ocean because the sharks would get them!  We explained that the invisible rip tides were much more prevalent than sharks but that didn’t seem to sink in at all.  One kid was going to search for and pet lizards of all kinds all week long.  Maybe even name them and bring them home.  There was also trash talk about the food being ‘free’ so they could eat all day long.  Come to think of it, maybe that one did come true.  Who knew they could consume that many desserts and ice cream?

And real food – well, pizza anyway - when their parents stepped in and policed menu choices.

One of Grandpa’s goals was to go on morning runs with his daughter who is training for a marathon.  She’s been at this for over a year, he has decided to jump in this winter and ‘catch up’ to her level.  On morning #1 we all went for a stroll but most of us were too slow and whiny so the ‘runners’ struck out on their own on morning #2.  They both returned but one of them was worse for the wear.  There have been many stories to explain the mashed face, double black eyes, and blood-soaked shirt but the one about how Mexican butterflies are really mean is his favorite.  He finally bought some Macho Man sunglasses to cover the worst of it.  Strangely he wasn’t the only local guy down in Mexico who lost a fight.  The other guy tried to take on the Pacific Ocean with only a boogie board for a weapon.  Ocean 1, Sask farmer 0.

The were some hic ups to deal with over the week.  The family flying out of Winnipeg had their flight backed up all day long and only arrived at the hotel at 5:00 in the morning.  They were troopers though and managed to catch up to the rest of us relatively smoothly. 

I got way too much heat and sun on Monday and had to time out by 8:00 pm on day 2.  Apparently I will never learn.  The transition from -40 to +28 must be managed with hydration, sun screen, and a lot of shade.

As the week went on several other people suffered the same symptoms, some taking it as far as nausea.  Just ask one of the grandsons whose shopping trip with us ended badly.  Another grandson was invited along on a deep-sea fishing adventure.  He fared every bit as good as I did six years ago.  Two things: 1) Thank God for Gravol, and 2) that’s one item completely off our bucket lists.

We also booked an excursion that was promised as a bus ride up into the mountains for a hike, tour through a botanical garden and a stop at a riverside to cool off.  We were told to be there at 7:00 but the excursion didn’t leave till closer to 10:00.  Then, much to our surprise, the boat turned into one of those large inflatable pontoon speed boats.  Yes, it was faster to get us where we were going, but life jackets that actually fit kids would have been nice.  Let’s just say that Mexican safety rules and Canadian safety rules are not equal.  The bonus of that day was that when we spotted whales breaching the captain slowed down and moved us closer to see better.  It was a very neat experience..

The wedding was lovely.  The family visiting was great.  Watching while the kids played in the pool for hours was relaxing.  The not having to cook a single meal for a week was fantastic.  And, even though it was sad to say goodbye yesterday it is always good to come home.

The reality adjustment began with a full day’s worth of laundry, grocery shopping, and now it’s time to tackle the income tax books.  I’m not even minding the cooking and cleaning.  Yet.