But You Did Not Come Back

This small memoir - almost a booklet - stood on my shelf for a few weeks after I received it. The first day, I had scanned the opening page, but then I closed it and set it down.

It was too important to rush through, and I had a busy couple of weeks ahead of me, so this morning I picked it up again.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens hadn't "self-identified" as a Jew, but that didn't matter: she was deported with her father to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a young girl. All the familiar unspeakable horrors unfolded there, and from the first line, my eyes were hesitant to move down the page. I always have the feeling, when reading books like this or when watching movies about the Holocaust, that I'd rather not hear it all again but that I owe it to Germany's victims. And Russia's, and China's, and Uganda's, and Yugoslavia's. Syria's. The world's. My discomfort, my revulsion and my tears, are the very least of the tributes I can offer.

Marceline's father on the men's side managed, somehow, to pass a letter to her on the women's side. The letter contained, Marceline knows (she is sure), his urgent message of hope for their future life, and an exhortation to her, to survive.

But she has no memory of the words. She has no memory of where she lost the letter, or anything that it said.

Seventy years have passed since Marceline left Auschwitz, then left Bergen-Belsen, and marched through Czechoslovakia to a repatriation camp. She rejoined what remained of her family, and has carried Auschwitz-Birkenau with her, through all the mess and tragedy, up until 2016.

She lives in Paris. She sees the hatred that still burns against the Jews throughout the world. After decades of work as a documentary film-maker, she sees the failure of any system, of any nation, to establish either unity or peace.

Nearing the end of her life, she has written this memoir as if it's an ultimatum to us, to humans. All the terrifying events of her time in the camp, her time afterward - if there can be an afterward - and what she sees happening now...all these things unfold in bare, stark prose over only 99 pages.

I didn't cry a single tear during those 99 pages. It was all just too horrible, too full of despair, too unthinkable.

On page 100, there is a single sentence. That sentence, written so recently the ink is barely dry, caved me on myself and made me weep. I won't tell you why.

Read "But You Did Not Come Back".

A Cup of Kindness

In September 2010 my best friend Sandy died. It was a hard year, watching cancer progress and my friend suffer, and her family suffer.

Christmas didn't feel much like Christmas that year. At least -- it didn't feel like I was used to it feeling. The magic seemed to have lost its power. I worried about it but told myself, 'Never mind, it will be back. Next year it'll be just the way it was before.'

New Year's, the last night of 2010, was unnerving. I wasn't prepared for the grief I felt. In my heart I stood before the doorway draped with holly, mistletoe, rosemary and snowdrop, and realized it was time to step through and leave Sandy behind.

I saw the last page of the chapter and the blankness on the other side, inviting me to turn the page and begin the next part of the story, and thought I'm not ready; I want a re-read.



New Year's Eve 2014. Here is the close of a chapter of painful loss and painful growth. Our lives have changed this year -- my daughter was forced to face the reality that a part of her life that she loved, the world of horses, in which she excelled and in which we all took a lot of pride, was actually a destructive force for her spirit. She brought it to a nearly complete end.

My other daughter has spent this year grieving as her older sister grew up and away -- suddenly the 30-month gap mattered in a way it never had before. It's rare now to hear them playing together: more common for the older one to be texting her friends trying to find someone else to hang out with. So the younger sister has been struggling with that feeling of being not enough for the most important person in her life.

And, of course, as the year turns over tonight, we will be leaving my father-in-law David in the past.

There are awful things about being immersed in the moment of grief; the days and months surrounding it are full of hurt and painful introspection. For a while we're in that Between state, out of the main current of the world turning over our private sorrow, reliving all the past happy times, and all the more recent suffering and uncertainty. It can be terrible.

But it can also be satisfying -- meeting our own deep need to come to terms with sadness and loss. As much as it hurts, it feels right. And the memory of the loved one we have lost is keen and fresh, and still very much part of the present.

At first Dad is right in front of you, wherever you look. The last email you got from him was just a few weeks ago. There he is, in the photos you've been meaning to edit from the family reunion. I remember finding books Sandy had lent me, in a pile waiting to be returned to her. It's almost as if your loved one has become a cloud that you move through wherever you go -- a cloud both of presence and absence.

The time goes by until one day, in order to see them properly, you find you have to turn your head.

Now that Dad's last year is ending completely, we'll have to turn all the way around, our backs to the future, and look behind us.

Tonight I'll light candles and think of Dad, and my children's waning childhood, and all my many private sadnesses. I'll write a list or two and dwell for a little while on what I hope will happen in 2015. I'll pray for all the people I love.

As you carry both your happy things and sad things through the doorway into 2015, I hope that you'll be able to put down what you need to. Set some extra weight on the ground and leave it here where it belongs, in the old year. I hope that you've had laughter and tears in 2014 and that both have served you well.

We've wandered many a weary foot. So here's a hand, my trusted friend, for the sake of times gone by.


Be well, and Happy New Year.

Heartbroken

Our beautiful hummingbird time is over. While we were out for an hour this morning, something brought the nest down and took the babies. Mummy came back shortly after we did, hovered for a few moments, then flew away.

We are all grieving terribly - shocked to find how much we loved our little friends, who didn't even know we were there.

Goodbye, little sweeties.

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.
-Pablo Neruda

I guess where I'm going, is On.

If you've been reading for a while, you'll know how I am with anniversaries. I'm a big believer in observing days of importance, but not as something artificial or obligated. Actually it's better to say I believe that days of importance ARE observed, whether that's intended or not -- on a deeper level, sometimes unconscious, something in us remembers what happened a year ago, or five or ten years ago, and marks the day.

Avery was diagnosed on April 29 last year. Yesterday was a bit tough for us. Fittingly, I was up at 2 AM doing a cartridge change to try to bring her blood sugar down with fresh insulin. She had been crabby for days, sick with a virus, reacting to a booster shot, with her blood glucose perpetually over 12.5. It was wearing on her, and wearing on me...the constant weighing of variables, the hourly troubleshooting, the second-guessing. Is it a bad site? Is it that extra 6-carb Cadbury Mini Egg she had that we didn't bolus? Is it the lack of exercise from being sick? Is it just the virus coming back? Could that insulin be bad?

So D-Day carried a lot of feelings with it. Avery was a little down. She made two remarks about it: [grouchily] "I don't feel like going for a bike ride, I'm too high," and [gloomily] "I wish I didn't have to squeeze blood out of my finger and take insulin every single time I eat anything."

For my part, I spent the day moping around the house, crying at odd moments, for not much immediate reason. On most anniversaries, even of something bad, one is marking an event that ended -- time has passed since the occurrence, and one is in the process of moving on.

In this case, what we were marking was an event that started a new way of life: one that is different than before, and in a handful of ways better (improved diet, more activity) but for now, overall it's worse. Say what you want, be as positive as you like, but it would be better if we didn't have this disease.

Let me repeat that.

AVERY HAVING TYPE 1 IS WORSE THAN AVERY NOT HAVING TYPE 1.

And she's going to have it forever, unless some genius cures it, and within her lifetime the cure can be administered.

Otherwise, this is the way it is forever.

So we were sad, and we were tired, and we just didn't feel good.

The story of life is that in order to survive all the shit that comes your way, you have to find happiness, hope, humour or joy in the small things. They don't actually outweigh the bigger, bad things, but at least you can have a laugh, or feel the tiny thrill of a tiny victory.

The insulin WAS bad. After the 2 AM cartridge change (which she didn't wake up for -- victory), she woke in the morning at a nice, calm, reasonable 7.5. Victory. Two hours after breakfast, she was 11, and then before lunch she was 8.2 with a little insulin still on board. Victory. She threw a fit about going to Pony Club last night, but once she was at the barn she had a great time running around finding chickens and checking on all her cucumber seeds. 45 minutes of exercise -- victory. Before bed, she was 9.0. So it worked. Relief.

Today I read a bit of chatter on Facebook about first-world problems; how funny we all are, debating our lipstick colours while children are starving on the other side of the world. Sometimes I feel inconsequent for lying in bed at night, thinking about whether or not to continue dyeing my hair -- grey is the current reality, after all. And how annoying it is that I have to buy 50 paper cups for giving my homemade ice cream to my friends, when I really only need 10.

Am I lucky? Sure. Am I blessed to be here in safe old Canada with an earning husband, a dental plan, more yarn than I can use and a pharmacy stuffed with insulin? Of course.

But we live the life that's in front of us: not the one that could be if only we were poorer. It's impossible and unrealistic for me to live in a constant state of weak-kneed gratitude that I have food in the fridge. I can be grateful -- and I am -- but I won't be racked with anguished guilt.

Because the fact is that, full of technology as it is, full of privilege and wealth, safety and comfort as it is, life is hard. Life is also sad. Full of loss. Full of disappointment. It's grueling. It's one foot in front of the other. It's wake-up-tired, make-do-all-day, never-make-progress, go-to-bed-too-late, lie-awake-worrying hard.

I'm not sure how to end this post. The writer in me wants to wrap it up with an inspiring paragraph about beauty in small moments. Stirring my tea. Watching the hummingbird tending her nest.  Or I could close with a list of little, quaint domestic actions that make me feel better. Hanging laundry out to dry. Braiding my daughter's hair. Either would be fitting, slightly positive (the break-in-the-clouds effect) and allow the reader to leave with a sigh of completion. It might inspire you to put a comment about how well we're handling the whole thing.

Instead, I'll carry on the way I started. She was 9.1 at 1 AM, but she woke up at 15 today -- last night's slice of pizza came on board in the early morning. She's gone to play with a friend, who always feeds her crackers no matter how many times I protest. She'll come home high and hungry. I'm tired, and as usual I'm way behind. Still haven't unloaded the dishwasher. I need to buy more test strips. Anna is due at the barn in two hours. The kitchen floor is desperate, and, bizarrely, I can't find the broom.

Merry Christmas All

Having remained uncharacteristically silent during Advent, I come to you from a house where, despite chaos and a lack of both order and readiness, Christmas is nearly arrived. I love the inevitability of it...the point at which (24 hours from now, to be exact) nothing more can be done. The messy laundry room will stay as it is until the New Year. At which time, I'm sure, my seasonal deacquisition mania will hit hard: local thrift shops will stagger under the onslaught.

I suspect I might spend half Christmas week in tears. Though I'm not a gloomy person in general, my retrospective on 2013 will inevitably be a little sad.

My friends, may yours be happy.

Good Yule!

532 1/2

I turned forty on Wednesday. Usually International Day of Shan is heralded by a certain amount of fanfare (by me) so it's impossible to miss. This time, I never got a chance to write a post.

My sister Gwen paid me the enormous compliment, and gave me the beautiful gift, of coming to see me for my birthday week. Between them, she and Mr HalfSoled Boots sorted out child-minding details, budgets, and travel plans, and she was able to whisk me away to Victoria overnight on my birthday, just the two of us. We left on the morning of the 16th, and checked into a downtown hotel. We walked around the city for a few hours, had a pint, then walked back and got dressed up for dinner at 8. (What a civilized hour for dinner! Family life dictates an earlier mealtime, and in the past 12 years I have missed the elegance of evening dining.)

Dinner was revelatory. Brasserie l'Ecole was everything Yelp told us it would be, and more. We spent three eternal hours there, and talked and drank and ate amazing food, and hugged a complete stranger (sitting behind me; Gwen spotted the candle on her dessert and I introduced myself as another birthday girl - she is exactly one year older than I). We unabashedly told the server our wine budget and asked her to give us something amazing, and she did. We had brandy, coffee, and crème brûlée. (The best we've ever had. And that's saying something.)

Victoria was my home for a little over a decade. Between the ages of 17 and 29 I lived in it, loved it, inhabited it in the best sense of the word. I never took it for granted, always let it amaze me. I kept myself close to the centre of it, 15 minutes' walk from the Inner Harbour downtown, so that I could feel its pulse and avoid falling prey to the negativity that comes from commuting and parking struggles. I knew a lot of people in Victoria who never went downtown just because they didn't like driving among the buses, noise, and crowds of pedestrians. But in a city, when you don't drive, you are like a little bee among a herd of elephants. You just rise gently above, and go your way at your own speed, while they jostle and bump up against each other and sit annoyed, waiting.

I used to spend a lot of time downtown on my own. I would set out from my apartment, and walk all over the place, with no destination and no schedule. I had nowhere I had to go, hardly any money, no watch, and (it was the early 1990s) no cell phone. On one particular afternoon, when I was about 19 or 20 years old, I found a wrought iron gate in the middle of a brick building in Chinatown. Wrought iron gates (full-height, as a regular door) are not unusual in historic districts, but they are generally closed and locked. This one was standing open, affording an alluring glimpse of a narrow, dark alley, at most a meter wide, leading into a sunlit courtyard.

There was no signage, no indication of whether or not this alley was open to the public. But an open door, I reasoned, was an open door, and so I walked through it.

The confined, cool dark of the brick alley was like an otherworldly transition from the noisy street. Just a few steps inside it, the damp age of the bricks muted the traffic noise and the airless, car-exhaust smells. It might have been about 50 feet through the little tunnel, and then I found myself blinking into sunlight in the silence of a court. There were corners and lamp posts, and small iron gates behind which bikes were chained up in little green gardens. Doors, and stairs, and more bricks, and yellow walls and black lamps, and sun filtering through leaves of tall bamboo and red maple. There were no offices, no shops, just these beautiful doors and gates and the wrapping quiet that ran over and around and between everything, and made my solitary moment go on and on.

I stood and watched it all, watched the nothing that was happening over and over, listened to the birds and the rush of distant cars - impossibly distant for how close they really were. I turned around and around, and took the whole place as far into my memory as I could, in those days before everyone had a camera with them at any moment. I stayed as long as I felt like I could stay. The faint sound of a radio, and the quiet clink of spoon in cup, told me that these were private homes, and I didn't want to intrude too long on the perfect, beautiful, zen-like paradise owned by someone else.

Returning to the street, I felt the refreshed, peaceful feeling of having been away from the world. I walked onwards up the street, my back to the harbour gulls, against the tide of tourists clutching pamphlets: their walking shoes tightly laced, their cameras full of film, their heads full of notable landmarks and bus timetables.

I don't know why, but I never found it again. Once or twice I thought I had, but the gate was locked, or the street didn't look quite the same. I had the beautiful memory of the place, but never had the sight of it.

On Wednesday, my birthday, Gwen and I walked and walked. We fell into the kind of quiet, pensive state in which things come to you: realizations, memories, epiphanies. Of course, because we were not looking, and I was not even remembering, we came upon a wrought iron door, standing open to a narrow, brick-lined alley.

I didn't even realize, until we emerged in the courtyard, exactly where we were. Firstly, we had come through the north side -- the court has two alleys, one leading north and one leading south. Twenty years ago I had both come and gone through the south alley, as the north gate was locked. And then, over the years I had subconsciously come to believe that this place was a chimera - my own private Narnia. I had walked hundreds of kilometers on Victoria streets since the day I found it, and no matter how far into the city I went, the wardrobe was always just a wardrobe.

The years have changed this place, as everywhere else, and now there are several businesses installed in the ground floors of the courtyard. The internet, in its mania for information and its boorish, insistent removal of mystery, has given us directories, city plans, maps and even street-views. A few seconds after I tell you the name of this place, you could be standing on the sidewalk outside, peering into the brick alleyway, and moving, virtually, meter by meter along the narrow way. You could view some posh photos, and real estate listings, check the property taxes, and order something from the Victoria Seed Bank.

But walking there again, 20 years or so after the last time, I was given a moment of emotional beauty that Google can't provide. It connected me with my former self. Those few brick-lined steps pushed back the veil that has gradually dropped over the long, free, walking days. That veil is made of family, marriage, children, distance, and money - the getting of it and the giving away - and it obscures everything until all I can see is layer on layer of obligation.

On my birthday, I stood there with my sister, my long life-companion, and remembered myself.

People make jokes about turning forty. For me, turning forty is not funny at all. It's not sad, and it's not comic; although it may turn out to be profound. My sister and I shared a tiny little journey in the midst of the longer, more complicated, joyous and painful one we've been on for 38 years together. It was momentous. It was a watershed week - full of realizations about time and love: the nature of love of all kinds.

It made me see that in many respects, I have some growing up to do. And it's been coming for a while. Parts of my life should be past and aren't - I should release them into the past. Some parts of my life that have been past, deserve to be brought forward again and dusted off. Some habits are not worthy of me and they can cease. Some things, which I know full well I should, I do not. And some I know I should not and yet I do.

Last time I turned over a new decade was significant, but it was subsumed in the newness of family...I had a 2 year old and was expecting a baby. It was hardly time to think of myself. This time, I have another ten years of hard-earned and painful experience which, if I allow it, can guide and inform my direction from this point on.

So I'm drawing myself up to my full height, and facing a new decade with a good set of tools. I'm looking forward to my forties, if not with the crazy self-centered happiness I had planned, at least with the confidence that the changes I need to make on myself, I am well able to make.

Whenever I'm in the garden, looking around at the hundreds of things that need attention, I often say to myself, "What needs money will have to wait, but what can be done with work, will be done." It took me a surprising amount of time to see that this philosophy doesn't only apply to the garden.

Gwen, thank you for the amazing gift. You gave me your time, your attention, and your care, and showed me love in tangible ways I'll never forget. Our birthday present visit ended up being a turning point for me, and I can't think of anyone who could have more perfectly shared the day.

I'd rather be half-done with you, than just starting out with anyone else.

My stomach hurts. It HURTS.

You know what I hate? When you've got a friend who is making a huge, colossal, enormous, life-changing mistake. You put it off for two years, but eventually the day comes when you've got to talk to her about it, in love not judgment, but you know she is going to hate every second of it, and you will hate every second of it, and in all likelihood you'll have one less friend by the end of the conversation, but you've STILL GOT TO GO AND SAY IT.


Here is some of my chocolate covered ginger for you to look at while you think about how grateful you are that you are not me right now.

yonks ago

Haven't posted in ages.

1-got a job. Handful of hours a week, used bookstore, small wage, HUGE fun. Owner was an old acquaintance of mine (now a friend) who understood I was homeschooling and said "Bring your kids when you need to."
2-had a great two months doing something new, loving the literary environment.
3-the kids even got to come and help out.
4-my boss emailed me last night to say she's packing it in....going out of business. Sudden? yep. Totally unexpected given this economic climate? nope. Crushing disappointment and sudden loss of purpose? yep.

5-The bit of money needs to be made despite the loss of this job.
6-I am going to open an Etsy shop.
7-Will keep you posted!

Rest in peace, our little Cinnamon.

Our guinea pig died last night. I can't believe how sad I am. I really loved this little sweetheart. She was only two years old, and she only got sick last night at around 10:00...she died a little after 3:00 AM.

I'm going to miss her so much.

You're a Mean One.

We went to the city yesterday. We had some gift cards to spend, and since Chapters online can be hard to navigate, we took the kids to the brick and mortar store.

Woodgrove Center Mall a week ago was a happy and bustling place, filled with (mostly) pleasant, excited people who smiled at you when you made eye contact. "Merry Christmas!" was a euphonic chorus on my ears.

And now, Baby Jesus is looking around going "Hey! Where'd everybody go?" Fast forward a few days, to December 27.  ALMIGHTY. Those people are cranky!! I mean, they are MAD cranky! This one guy went past me in the food court (which was like the eighth circle of hell), and he practically flipped me the bird when I happened to glance at him, made eye contact, and gave a half-smile. He nearly snarled. His brow descended and I swear his lip curled. I looked away, kind of scared, and accidentally made eye contact with someone else. Oops! sorry. I'll keep my eyes on the floor from now on.

You should have seen the sad, pitiful tables at Winners, full of 50% off last-ticketed-price "Christmas Decor" items. Packs of six ornaments, one in smithereens, propping up listless, haphazardly-coiled wreaths of red-painted styrofoam balls, with their paint flaking. Every Santa's hat was crooked, every cheerful elf missing the toe of one resin shoe. Drifts of glitter sifted down to the peeling tile, to be kicked around by wet and muddy boots. The last week of December, they should change their name to "Losers".

By the time I got home, I just wanted to throw everything away. Like, everything I own. Take everything (except my new slippers), shove it into a bag, and bin it. Take that tree, ornaments and all, and throw it on the compost. Take all the tins of baking, full, and chuck them in a dumpster. I bought a "Boxing Day Door Crasher" $4.99 Blu Ray of "The English Patient" today -- screw it. Kick it to the curb.

And it's all because of that unholy mall. It's all because of those stupid people, pushing and shoving and frowning and glowering, because they didn't get the iPhone they were hoping for, or their kid threw up on them after too much eggnog or the turkey was dry or the turkey was raw or they forgot the potatoes. Or because they ate too much or drank too much, or because they didn't drink enough. Because three days ago they spent too much money panicking about little Johnny's stocking not being as full as little Janey's, and now they are out at the mall to find some 'deals' and throw good money after bad.

I solemnly swear, by all that is holy and by all that I hold dear...I raise my hand to the heavens, fall on my bended knees and pledge a vow here and now, that I will NOT LEAVE MY HOUSE next year from Boxing Day right through to New Year's Day.

I will keep my Christmas spirit to the last! Right, straight through to Epiphany.

I could still get it back, I think. If I medicate myself carefully with carols, coffee, and rum balls, I think I can recapture that elusive Spirit.

It can't be gone for good, right?

Time for King's College Cambridge, and Captain Morgan. Stat!

The long night of the soul.

Life is a strange thing, isn't it? You step onto the path and you can see it winding away among the trees, picturesque and inviting. Then at some point you round a corner and find a tree down over the trail, and it takes some scrambling to get over it. Later, the path takes you pretty close to a steep drop, and you sort of hug the wall on your way past. Later still, you come face to face with a stream, swollen by rain, that has crumbled away most of the path you're following. Getting past is going to take some ingenuity and some perseverance, and not a little courage.

After a while, you start to wonder nervously what else is in store for you. What else will you have overcome by the time you get to journey's end? It's not surprising that we feel a little fearful every time we can't see around the next corner.

My friend has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She is a little younger than me, with children around the same age. I have just spoken to her on the phone - I checked in because tomorrow is her surgery. She's going to have her thyroid removed, along with the tumour that has grown in her throat.

If this were happening to me, I think to myself, I wouldn't sleep all night. I would wander the house like a restless spirit. She says "I won't have trouble sleeping...I'm a good sleeper. I'm already tired."

I hope so.

I remember that Sandy emailed me the night before her surgery. She said

I tried to read. Can't. Tried to watch TV. Can't. Long hours of night stretch before me, and I don't know how I'll reach the end. I think I'll start that blog - how do I get going?  

It makes me think that we are so frail and lovely, we humans. So fragile and frightened. It's terrifying when things happen to our bodies. When we're facing it, our souls reach out. We start conversations. We start blogs. We write letters which we may never send. We crave communion.

C.S. Lewis famously said: You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. 

It's true. And how does this change me? How does this change the way we live, and the way we face our fragility: our mortality?

* * *

Christmas is ten days away. I have gingerbread dough chilling in the fridge.

My tree is up.

I'm happy.

And I'm praying for my friend, whose Christmas has already gotten lost. Next Christmas, may she be up to her elbows in flour, hiding her children's presents, talking on the phone to her sister, and looking back on tonight, thinking 'How long ago it all seems!'

I hope.

Drear

I gave up happiness for Lent.




.

Thrice for luck.

Today I begin a journey. A literal journey, this time, to manifest the metaphorical one I've been on this year.

The Celts believed that a traveller wishing for safety and luck should cross three waters at the start of her sojourn. I will be crossing a river, then an ocean, and then a river again. The ocean crossing will take an entire day...once round the sun to accomplish 272 nautical miles.

Travel is always significant. This time, I hope to be restored for the next fifteen days as I stay, with my children, in my sister's house. I hope to come back - again by ship - with more peace, more optimism, fewer tears. The smaller salt swallowed up in the larger.

See you on the other side.

One's sorrow two's mirth

Three odd things have lately happened to me.

1
I was standing by the open slider door to the back yard, when a finch flew directly at me, hovered in the air right in front of my chest for a moment, then darted past me into the house. It perched on the top cuff of my (unoccupied) boot, pooped inside it, and flew back out again.

2
I was washing dishes. A bird flew in through the open window, alighted on the rim of the dining room chandelier, then flew back out again.

3
I was sitting in the living room five minutes ago, drinking cabernet and thinking about life, when two finches flew toward the back window. One bonked against the glass and fluttered dizzily away, while the other hit the open half, came straight inside, landed on the floor, hopped about for a second, and flew back out again.

So if a bird in the house means a death is coming, and trouble comes in threes, I am in big kaka right now.

My Wicked, Wicked Ways

Quite likely, Errol Flynn had something else in mind when he used that title for his memoirs, but it is apt enough to describe me, and my sad, slatternly habits.

It's been a good while since I had a Messy Tuesday post, but that doesn't mean it's been a good while since I had a Messy Tuesday. This is my laundry room. It's meant to be a "Before" picture, but the "After" hasn't arrived yet.

Mañana, I say.

I was in my old beloved city on the weekend, to bear witness to this:

...the wedding of a young man who was once like a brother to me, to a young woman who seems very promising indeed.

Weddings always make me cry, and not because they're happy occasions. They make me cry because those two are standing at the foot of Everest, squinting optimistically up at the summit. The happy couple is thinking about standing astride the peak, in a heroic pose, with endless sky behind them. When in fact, if they ever DO get there, they will be bruised, bleeding, suffocating and suffering. Marriage is bloody hard work.

This shouldn't be taken in any way as a slight to my husband, by the way.

And anyhow I'm sure the last 13 years have been just as gruelling for him as they have been for me. We love each other like sandwiches, but I think every married person would agree with me that, to make it work, each partner needs a level of perseverance and dedication that few newlyweds are prepared for.

But hey - marriage is the ultimate 'learn as you go' activity...second only to parenting, I'd say. We're all works in progress. Which brings me to my closing photo - a progress shot. It's not really After, it's more During, but improvement is noticeable.

See? anyone can change.

Speaking of noses...

How much do I want this? Much much. I've been scoping it for the better part of two years, since Lizbon linked me to the one she wanted.

I have gotten two emails from the owner of Body Matters Gold, both with coupon codes for percentages off. The first code was for 10% off: "TXT10". The second was for 15: "TXT15". So what I'm wondering is, if I go through the checkout and put in "TXT50" will I get it for half price?

Embarking on a new sweater today. This one is a knockoff for my niece, who showed it to her Mum on the Gap website, calling it her 'dream sweater'. Sadly the sizing was all wrong for her, so her Mum couldn't buy it, but I've decided to come to her rescue.



I need some simple knitting because things have taken a decided turn for the worse. Sandy is so very, very sick. This week I'll be with her on Wednesday and Friday, just spending the day sitting with her while her husband is at work and the kids are at school. She can't be alone in the house.

Knitting figures largely in our history. I want to knit while I'm there because it comforts her. I can be in her room for hours and she doesn't feel like she has to talk to me, because I have something to do.

So, the yarn will be Loyal superwash wool, with the colourwork done in (probably) Lanett. I'll use Ann Budd's handy book for the basic sweater, and add the colourwork bands when the body is completed. I haven't decided whether to knit the bands first and seam them, or pick up and knit them from the body stitches. I'll do as the spirit moves.

And as much as this distraction will also comfort me, as well as Sandy, I'm afraid it can only help me so much. When push comes to shove...I'm lost. I don't know how to lose a friend. I think the handbook for that might turn out to be short: muddle through as best you can.

FWIW

I was doing a bit of tidying up tonight, and while deleting old draft blog posts I came across this one. I wrote it two years ago, on April 22, 2008, but never posted it. I don't recall why - it seemed finished enough. Whatever my reason, come April 23, I didn't want to share it anymore.

The story is of something that happened to me when I was 34, and 6. It still amazes me, the clarity and sharpness of the vision I got that day: reading this post brought it all back.

I hope you like it.

Charlotte started Girl Guides in September. The meetings are held at a local elementary school - the oldest in the city. It's the school I went to for Grade One and the first half of Grade Two, before we transferred a few catchments over.

The first week I took Charlotte to her meeting, I spent the hour roaming around the halls, trying to remember exactly which classroom was Mrs. Flynn's (Grade One) and which was Ms. Decourbe's (Grade Two). It was fun to see the gym again, with the national anthem posted in French and English, above the ancient stage where we put on plays in which we starred as rainclouds, and animals, and maybe shrubbery. My memories of this school were vague, mostly pleasant, and involved things like the smell of the hallways and the height of the water fountains (pretty short).

In the following months I mostly spent the Guide hours sitting on a chair in the hallway, knitting. A month or so ago, I decided to use that time to run, taking advantage of the once-weekly guaranteed free hour to get some exercise in. One night I finished my run at the school, and walked around the outside for the remaining ten minutes, doing some stretching.

I wandered around the outside wall of the gymnasium. I turned a random corner, stepped up into "the covered area" and found myself face to face with one of my most powerful memories.

I was six years old. It was the first day of Grade One at a new school. I didn't know anyone there, except my brother who was a year ahead of me. In Kindergarten, they had had only one recess, during which you you ate your snack and played outside. So when the bell rang at my first recess in Grade One, I took my red nylon packsack outside to the covered area and looked for somewhere to sit. I spotted a door across from me, with an unoccupied concrete step underneath it. Clutching my bag, I made my way over to it through knots of playing students, almost all of them older than me. I opened my packsack, took out my lunch and ate it, trying not to catch anyone's eye, or stand out in any way.

I was finishing the last thing and putting all the waxed paper back in, when my brother ran over, breathless, holding a ball of some description. Several big boys trailed behind him. He said, "Shannon, it's only recess - you don't eat your lunch until next break."

He ran off again and I sat there frozen, hot embarrassment flushing my cheeks, almost immobilised with anxiety. What would I do at lunch? I had nothing left to eat. I looked around furtively and realised I was, in fact, the only kid who had brought her packsack outside. I tried to wad it up so no one would see it and realise my mistake, and carried it back inside when the bell rang.

I don't have any other memories from that day. I don't in fact know what happened at lunch, when I had no more food left.

When I came around the corner of that school a few weeks ago and my eyes fell on that step, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I felt the anxiety again just the way I did twenty-eight years ago, even as my 34 year old self marvelled that it could be so - that a little doorway with a little concrete step could make me feel this way - bring it all back.

I stood there on the faded hopscotch, getting the memories back one by one.

Then, just around the corner must be the place where....yes, that's where I stepped on a nail and hopped all the way back to the office with it protruding out of both top and bottom of my foot.

And around that other way must be those big doors and the ramp where we played 'prison'. Yes, there they are...and the window - that's Ms Decourbe's classroom, it must be. I remember standing there looking down at them outside when I was kept in at noon to finish work.

I walked slowly around to all these places, surrounded by little children in bell-bottoms and bowl cuts, some whose names I could remember and some whose names I couldn't. I went back to the covered area and leaned against a railing, looked at the concrete step. There I was, little blonde child with a firm grip on her packsack, nervous, feeling more lonely than I ever had before.

All that fear made me cry. I don't remember whether I cried at six, but I cried at thirty four. It made me remember everything that has gone in between then and now. It made me think of all the things I never dreamed would happen...things I never thought to fear while I was worrying about having already eaten all my lunch. And I wanted to say to her how sorry I was for the way I made her life turn out.

I went back there last night. While Charlotte was in the gym with 17 other little Guides singing "Day is Done", I was in the covered area, photographing this place which is almost unchanged from the way it was in 1979. I know it looks empty to you, but to me it's a busy scene, full of kids I was having to constantly step around while shooting - kids who bumped me, ruined my focus, and ran off calling a careless, carefree Sorry, breathlessly.

Hm.

Now that I've been nearly three weeks without posting, I'm getting this awkward-silence vibe from the blog.


To break the ice: here's my new haircut.




Apparently, it's been too long since I had one, since I've emailed this picture to probably three people already. Inordinately pleased with this minor change in my appearance. (Same, but a little shorter.) And next time I put a picture of myself on the blog, it'll be one where I'm wearing makeup and therefore actually have features. And maybe I won't use the bathroom mirror and a flash.

* * *

Okay, here's the news.

January 3rd my parents came over and my Dad told me he has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. It seemed to be stage 4: a biopsy found 9 of 10 possible sites affected. My Dad is 73, and has no real health problems - Type 2 diabetes, which he manages by walking about 6 hours a day to stabilize his blood sugar.

Heart disease runs in his family, so if you asked me what I feared for my Dad, it would have been that. Cancer wasn't even on my radar.

On January 5th my friend Sandy came over and told me she has been diagnosed with lymphoma, thought to have been caused by the radiation therapy she received for her colorectal cancer of two years ago. The cancer is too diffuse to radiate, so she was waiting on a biopsy to determine a course of treatment.

Hearing about Sandy was bad, but so much of my mental energy was taken up with worrying about Dad, I coped with Sandy's news pretty well. In fact, I told a family member in an email, "if YOU have cancer, now is a great time to tell me. I'm on a roll."

I spent the next two weeks feeling like all my life force had drained away. I stood around, looking out through rain-slicked windows and crying.

We were waiting for a CT scan and a bone scan, scheduled for the 11th and 14th, to tell us how far the cancer had spread. Last Tuesday the results came back in - no metastases. (Excellent.) They offered Dad a choice between radiation and removal: he opted for removal.

Dad's surgery is scheduled for February 1, next Monday. Once the cancer is out, a pathologist will be able to tell what they should do next - whether chemotherapy would be beneficial.

Sandy had a needle biopsy yesterday - through her back to take cells from lymph nodes located behind her sternum. (Ouch...) Now we just wait for a few days until those results are in, and her year will take shape - whether it will be a chemo year, or something else.

* * *

I don't want to bring too much of this onto the blog. Not because I feel private about it (obviously I don't) but because I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing Cancer for nearly three weeks: I want to talk about something else. I won't be posting long cancer updates, though I will put a line or two in a post, if something major happens.

So thank you for all your good wishes on my last post - it was really great to hear from everybody. It was a comfort to know that you care.

* * *

Coming soon: more fun, less cancer. Can I get a "HELL yeah"?

Verklempt

I’ve just been on Facebook checking on my best friend. I lose track of her because she’s awesome and has better things to do than stay in her house wiping counters and noses and butts and obsessing about wool all day long.

My friend is a wilderness adventure kayak guide. If you’ve been to Antarctica to spend $10,000 on a weekend of camping on a polar ice cap and getting close to Emperor penguins and minke whales, you might have met her. She’d have been the tall blonde amazon who knows everything and can save your life any number of ways.

I’m sure a lot of people have friends like her (well, nobody’s LIKE her), who they met and had adventures with, back in the day. I guess you could say that much of my connection with her is a subconscious desire to be what I was, when we first met.

We were on the UVic women’s rowing team together…though she rowed in a different eight than I did. We used to eat huge amounts of food, laugh until my neighbours complained, and fall asleep while watching movies late at night. We had to get up at 4.45 to get to the boathouse by 5.30, but it didn’t matter because we were amazingly strong and hot and invincible.

Now, I’m tired and harried, stretch marked, and I have quite a bit of grey in my hair.

Whereas my friend, may she live forever (and if anyone could, she would), is this woman.

And also this one

Conquering Greenland, if you’re wondering.

Jealous – sure. Self-pitying – yeah, okay. Overwhelmed with gratitude and love, just that she’s still in my life – absolutely.

Exercise in futility? Check.

Well, yeah, we did Earth Hour. Not sure that it made much difference, as we were the only ones on the stinking street with our lights off.

Jeepers, people, get on the freaking bandwagon already.

There should be one of those big levers like Madeline Kahn pulls in the movie Clue. Then I could shut off the whole neighbourhood at once, will they or nill they.

Sewing update, as if you cared.

The fabric I was going to use for Em's dress is a no-go. Too heavy for a child. I took her to the fabric store and let her choose her own. HUGE tactical error. More on that later.

Knitting update.

Fern was going smashingly until I started bringing it to Wednesday knit nights, where I made mistake after mistake, resulting in me ripping the second sleeve back to the wrist and reknitting it. It's the stripes - I blame it all on the bloody stripes. My feeble brain has trouble remembering which is Colour B, which is Colour C, which is Colour D, and which Colour E.

Colours A and F are easy.

So basically things are going pretty damn crappy here at HSB. I meant to publish a review tomorrow but if I write it now I have a feeling Blogger will lose the entire thing and I'll have to start over. Not to mention I am in such a foul mood that I'll probably pillory the poor author, making my Blackstrap Hawco review sound like an epic hymn in praise of the purest, highest art.

I'm outta here. See you tomorrow if I can muster the will, with a review (hopefully) or more bitching (probably).