ADDing it Up

If you frequent TikTok, Instagram or Facebook you can't help but notice that a lot of adults are talking about being recently diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Social media apps have been instrumental in helping people to recognize both common and uncommon traits of these neurodivergences. Medical doctors like brain expert Dr. Amen, celebrities such as Trevor Noah, Diary of a CEO's Steven Bartlett, and Mel Robbins, as well as regular folk are making videos to share on the subject, and a whole new wave of self-knowledge (and sometimes self-diagnosis) is sweeping the world. I have members of my own family who have been officially diagnosed, some quite a bit after such a diagnosis could have helped them in school. Other members of my family, including my sister, Clare*, are simply aware they possess some or many of the traits of someone with ADHD and have decided they have lived this long without medication or professional support, so they are simply carrying on being the successful people  they are - just with more self-awareness. When I listen to Mel Robbins talk about her own ADHD, it's like I'm listening to Clare talk about herself. 

A couple of months ago, I was having coffee with two girlfriends. One of them was telling us she was sure she had ADHD. She pointedly asked me if I noticed traits in myself. What came out of my mouth at that moment surprised me. I had only just realized it. I said I had difficulty concentrating unless I was really interested, and when I forced myself to concentrate for extended periods of time I became really tired. My brain wanted to fly off in disparate directions whenever I had to listen to something that wasn't grabbing my attention, and that it had always been that way since junior high school. My friend with ADHD said she thought I swung the opposite way to her. She tended to hyperactivity. I tended towards lethargy, especially after periods of intense concentration. I said I couldn't remember being hyper a day in my life, in fact, and that I envied people like her and my sister. "You women get shit done!" We laughed.

In elementary school, I developed good study habits and became used to good marks, so I expected these to continue as I entered my teens. Honestly, I was surprised when my grade six math award did not translate into a good grasp of algebra when Math no longer related to the physical. They lost me with abstract concepts. Try as I might, I spaced out in class and my math marks continued their descent. I still did well in school, especially in English, French, and the Humanities, but the Sciences apart from Biology eluded me. While many of my friends were methodical in their approach to school work, I was a binge student - procrastinating like crazy and then cramming for tests and spending an entire weekend writing a paper due Monday. I had to feel pressure in order for my brain to focus intently. I started to feel like something might be wrong with me. 

College was fantastic. I had only to take courses I was genuinely interested in. I genuinely loved the whole experience, but my habits had not changed. I was still a binge student when it came to tests and papers. Fortunately, I loved to read, so I was always prepared for class in that way. I carried on to university, but after my first year there, which I enjoyed, I began to find my classes tedious. I remember the last paper I wrote was for Classics. It was excruciating to force myself to complete my paper. I typed while the tears rained down my face. I called my mom. I didn't know what was happening to me. I had always loved being a student. I had loved everything from the smell of a new HB pencil to that first crack when I opened a brand new textbook, but that enthusiasm had completely left my body. My mom didn't know what to say except, "Come home for a week. We'll sort it out." We did not. 

I don't want to diagnose myself with anything. I would rather trust a professional if I ever choose to go down that road. I did take part of an ADHD test a doctor gave to my niece, but very little of it applied to me. If I do have some traits of neurodivergence, they are manageable now. What are they besides the above I have described? I am messy. I am really sensitive to the energies of others. I am either incredibly creative and productive or I am paralyzed into inactivity. I run and practice yoga, not to expel excess energy, but to create it in my mind and body and to increase my ability to focus. I have learned many coping mechanisms to deal with my shortcomings, like making lists and setting reminders on my phone, but I will be the first to admit my traits have been hard on my self-confidence over the years. I wish I had had someone to guide me through the difficulties I encountered in university. I felt so alone. Someone close to me once asked me how I felt about the fact that all my friends had successful careers and I did not. I know I was hurt when they asked it, and I have asked myself the same question many times. Now, however, I have decided to give myself a break. I have honestly done my best so far, and that's all I have. I have loved being a mom. I provide a good balance for my husband, whose frontal cortex is firing on all cylinders most of the time. I like my humble job(s). I like being helpful. I care about the world. People say I'm funny. I guess I'm okay even if my brain likes to take regular vacations. 

'til next time!

Rebecca

*My beautiful sister Clare wanted me to use her name.

 

 

An Ode to my Eldest Sister, on her Birthday

Happy birthday to my bookend sister, Monica

Whose very existence for me is a tonic - ahhhh

I am the youngest, she is the oldest

I am the most hesitant, while she is the boldest

She's a good listener and also a talker

With friends and dogs she's a very fast walker

She makes a great meal, really loves to share it

She buys a nice wine with which to pair it

She has six children, all grown, most flown

A generous mom who would give her last bone

Three girls, three boys, a dog and a cat

A home always welcoming, no doubt about that

A grandma to two girls, she loves them to pieces

I love them, too though they're only my nieces

She calls her long hair colour 'Arctic Fox'

Her energy belies her age, she totally rocks!

When I was a kid and nine years her junior

She was the planet, I semi-lunar

She paid me five dollars to tidy her sock drawer

Always nice to me, never giving me what-for

As we grew older we became such good friends

She talked me through motherhood, the job never ends

Our husbands are friends, too, talking shop for, like, hours

While Monica and I sip coffee among their flowers

A journalist by trade she writes for the papers

An editor, too, now, no time for 'the vapors'

Her writing strives to always uphold the truth

She'll research and write 'til she's long in the tooth

(I believe she also has a colleague named Ruth?)

Mon's a great mother, sister and friend

To help you with issues over backwards she'll bend

She's super good fun and tells a great story

And if she goes before me, I'll be ever so sorry

Happy birthday, big sis! I love you so much.

Holiday Preparations

I've had a busy month. I left my job at the cafe and started another at a bakery much closer to home. My brother-in-law accepted a position at the resort where my husband is employed and he's been staying with us on his days off. My sister and their younger daughter will be moving here this week, so I've been assisting with advice and house-finding and moral support and everything I can do from here, three provinces away. I knew, somewhere in the periphery, Christmas was beginning to creep into view in shop windows and in people's windows as well, the ones who put their tree up in mid-November, but I had yet to allow my consciousness any tangible participation in the gradual and intentional takeover of the city scenery. The only Christmas-related things I had been doing were paying attention to the price of Brazil nuts for my Christmas cakes which have to be baked by the end of November each year, and hoping the price would go down (It did not), and practicing carols with the choir I am a member of for our upcoming concerts

For many of us, the Holidays mean family coming home, decorating, baking, cooking, cleaning, list making, shopping for and/or making gifts, in other words, a fair amount of work. Add to the list the fact I must have everything ready to transport up to the resort where we will spend Christmas again this year. I enjoy hosting my family at Christmas and feeding them and all that, but I honestly had not even begun to think about it. Last Saturday, while we were having our usual Saturday afternoon beer together, my brother-in-law, Brent and I chatted as I began to prepare supper. Having him around a couple of days per week has been fun. As my daughter says, 'he is so mellow and easy to talk to'. I lived with him and my sister many years ago when I was in university, and we had always been good friends. Brent was impressed I still had the mixed tape he made me for my birthday in 1988. He sent a photo of the cover with all the songs listed to his older daughter who is away at college, and she made a Spotify playlist of all the songs for herself. Some of those old songs wear well - I still listen to my tape from time to time. Anyway, we were chatting, which can make it hard for me to concentrate on cooking, when he said, out of the blue, "Do you like Dylan Thomas?" I said, of course, A Child's Christmas in Wales is my favourite Christmas story. He clicked a key on his laptop and Dylan Thomas' deep, whiskey-soaked voice filled the room. I smiled as I spoke along with the words,

I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve 
or if it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

I let the author tell the rest of his story alone as I made supper. It was at the moment when Dylan Thomas sang Good King Wenceslas in the hesitant voice of himself as a small boy when I felt the magic and the possibilities of the coming season. I rather suddenly began to look forward to making the Christmas cakes, despite the price of Brazil nuts. As Brent, my daughter and I sat down to eat we talked about our favourite Christmas music and I put Charlie Brown's Christmas on the stereo and said it was the only Christmas album my kids could all agree on. Brent told us about a jazz album his family had bought at their local variety store in the small town in Manitoba they are leaving behind and how it had become their family's trademark Christmas album. We had a festive evening listening to music and chatting away happily about traditions and families and such.

The next day, after Brent had left to go back up to the resort, I gathered up the necessary energy to drive in the pouring November rain to the local Christmas craft market where I started my shopping in earnest. I bought some handcrafted gifts and talked to vendors, some of whom I knew from other annual markets I attend. I entered the door prizes, voted on my favourite Holiday themed flower arrangement and tasted all the free samples I was offered. I missed my husband, who usually shops there with me and helps me navigate the maze of stalls with his keen sense of direction (I am admittedly geographically challenged) but somehow I found my way out of the massive building without him after circling it a few times.

The next evening I took out some Seasonal piano music and played carols and songs for half an hour missing the resonance of our old upright piano we had to give away, but grateful for the digital one our son decided to leave with us. My husband, home for his days off, came over and put his hands on my shoulders. The twenty-five Christmases we had celebrated as a family fell like cascading notes from my memory onto the piano keys. I played those Christmases with the halting style of a musician who rarely practices but enjoys it all the same.


For anyone who would like to be told a wonderful story, here it is, A Child's Christmas in Wales

Things I Wrote as a Kid, Part 2

Our local Arts Festival just ended on Sunday night with a wonderful concert with Ricardo Tesi and Banditaliano from Italy. Our festival is a bit of an endurance test. Ten days of music and art bookended by jam-packed weekends of the same makes for an exhilirated yet exausted family and a messy, neglected house. Never mind, after a day of recovery I spent this morning cleaning and doing laundry, while this evening I will enjoy attending my regular yoga class. Ahhhh...it almost makes me appreciate returning to regular life.

As I said in my previous post, Things I Wrote as a Kid, I have been reading my teenage diaries. One day last week it occured to me to share my entries regarding the Winnipeg Folk Festival which I attended the summer of 1987 with my sisters, Monica and Clare and Clare's husband, Brent, along with some of their many friends. I had taken the train to Winnipeg after graduating from high school (I was seventeen) and was staying with Monica and her husband Matthew and their little daughter Anna. When rereading my diary entries I felt so blessed to have such close relationships with my sisters and brothers who were so generous and kind to me, their youngest sister. We had so much fun! I will include some highlights of my trip and time spent eating and cycling my way around Winnipeg. I hope my readers enjoy them.


Travelling to Revelstoke
I'm a little tired from the goodbye party Toni and the girls gave me last night. (They made posters of sheep for me; they made popcorn balls with Nibs as feet and eyes (sheep, a theme due to their nickname for me, 'Baa') and raspberry punch and pretzels. They made me a hilarious collage and an Ann Taylor portfolio with all my favourite pictures from magazines. Val gave me some fake Lauren perfume - cheap but a pretty fair copy. It was a really nice night). 
We started the morning with cantaloupe and me crying on Stephen's shoulder. I will miss him and Pauline (my brother and sister closest in age to me) Pauline and Steve gave me a bit more money for the trip, too. Then we packed up the Beluga (our fond name for the car). We had to use bungee cords to keep the lid of the trunk down because of my bike box. Chaos!
We rambled through the Slocan Valley (I don't know the sequence of towns) and through Silverton. We stopped at the Silverton Lookout. It was so quiet. You turn your back on the highway and look down into the lake below and across to the mountains. Nobody lives anywhere below but if I had the choice I would live right down on the cliffs. We had coffee in Silverton too and Mom madly (well not quite madly) ran around putting up museum and arts council posters. Then we stopped and ate at Nakusp on the beach. Bagels and cream cheese and pickles, tomatoes, cukes and sprouts! We didn't swim, though. We crossed the Ferry to Blanket Creek to swim. It is a small lake off the river and is quite warm. It's almost like a large bowl in that it becomes very deep in the middle. So, I couldn't stay out of the water. We got to Revelstoke and napped until 5:30 at our motel, The Swiss Chalet (tacky but clean). We ate in the motel restaurant and I had Weiner Schnitzel, which is breaded pork. It's not too exciting but with a squeeze of lemon it becomes quite good. We also had homemade chocolate cake which was excellent. We went for a long walk in the 105 degree air! The sun went down, though, as we headed back to first pack my bike in its box and then go to bed. I fell asleep around 11:45 I think. Mom had to watch the Journal Art and Music News. 
I woke up at 3:15 and had an invigorating shower and washed my hair! I felt so much better. We drove to the station and waited one hour for the late train. Eventually its whistle was finally heard. I boarded and got ready mentally for the trip. I had to sit in the smoking section until Calgary! But! Behind and across from me were two lovely Kiwis - very quiet but sweet. Right across from me was a really great Aussie named Tom. We met quickly and from then on we talked and talked! He bought me a coffee but a little while later I bought him a tea. He told me about all the food he'd eaten in all the places he'd been. His favourite, I gather, is Asia. We discussed art and everything else (Cabbages and Kings!) It was really neat to meet someone who could talk my ear off. He even seemed to enjoy talking to me. He's a dentist and is 29 but handsome (I like the 'but') and someone I could respect highly. 
The stops have been short until now. We didn't even get to walk around Lake Louise or Banff where Tom got off. The Rockies weren't as impressive as I'd imagined. They looked so old and grey. There were, however, a few majestic mountains yet even these looked ready to crumble...(I feel differently about the Rocky Mountains now.)

Monica, Clare, Matthew and Anna met me at the station. We got back to (Monica and Matthew's) funky apartment and I had a bath. Beautiful! I felt revived and sat down and had some breky (scrambled eggs and some banana bread). Then, I went to sleep for 5 and a half hours. When I got up Clare French-braided my hair...

June 29th
Got up about 8 a.m. because Anna was making a bit of noise. Matt made me breakfast and then I played with Anna who was really cute with me. Monica went to work and so Matthew and I took a drive. We brought Mon's lunch to her work and she introduced me for about 2 seconds to everyone _ I really like Alam. He is a tall, black man from Eritria who talks like, "Oh, so thees ees Moneeca's sistah."...we went to the Provincial Museum and saw the 'Non-Such'. It was neat but there is no way I would cross the Atlantic Ocean in it! We came home and relaxed and then Monica bugged me about being spoiled at home so I rebelliously did the dishes to prove her wrong. I may not do anything at home but I am able to. Clare and Brent came and got me after supper. It was really good to see Brent. He brought me a huge bag of tacky souvenirs (and some very useful ones such as a bicycle road map, a hat, and some postcards) One thing he stapled on tied with many other things such as buttons, matches, and pins was a really ugly and heavy bottle opener. Attached to it was a note, "Also good for beating off men." It was really funny...We then drove all around the city and went to a place called Osborne Village where the trendies hang out and had ice cream. I had one scoop of pistacio and one of fudge torte. Yummy! 

June 30th (Actually July 1st 3:40 a.m.) 
I am hyped on coffee! Tonight I went to the Bluenote (a dark cafe that has good music and long-haired waiters) with Matthew, John Cook and Alan Cox. They had the best coffee I've ever had and I must have had 4 cups! Ack!!!...Clare and I went to see 'Roxanne' again and generally let everyone around us know that Nelson was our hometown and that I 'appeared' in the movie. Then we walked home with Monica and my feet got sore from my new sandals and I had to be carried across the railroad tracks because I had taken the sandals off!

July 8th
Clare, Jen and Brent came to pick me up and we headed out to Bird's Hill Park for the first installment of the four day Winnipeg Folk Festival. When we got there this gospel blues band with four rather heavy-set black women singing such favourites as 'Amazing Grace' and 'Lord lift us up where we belong'. Mmmm. Then we heard a Montreal-based band called Latin-something-or-other. We danced to them and had fun. Then! Ladysmith Black Mombazo came on! They are about a 10 piece singing group from South Africa. They sing in Zulu and English and have wonderful choreography! They were a marvel to watch - so happy and bouncy. I really enjoyed them. It rained hard, though. Then it was off to Robin's Doughnuts and then Cousin's cafe for coffee and Sleepytime Tea respectively. Mom is sending me money! Yeah!

July 12th
We went to the Folk Festival yesterday - in fact CBC is broadcasting live at the Folk Fest. It was incredible! I was very impressed. We heard real folk, rock, Celtic rock, everything! We went from workshop to workshop, food stand to food stand! The best part I think was the night concert. Maria Muldaur, a Celtic rock band (Capercaillie), and David Lindley provoked us to dance crazily and sing along to songs such as 'You-oo--oo--oo send me" and "I love freedom" (we slyly added 'maxi pads' after each 'I love freedom') We ached from all our dancing. We got cold and put on sweaters, pants, anoraks - only to take them off again when we jumped and flailed our arms and yelled and hollered. It was such a high. At one workshop - the Afro-Calypso one, we imitated everyone we knew. It was hilarious - one can only get away with such craziness at Folk Fests! At the end we decided to stand at the back - way behind the thousands so we could leave a bit early to avoid traffic. Back there the music was bouncing off every food stand and fence and coming back to us in a very strange rhythm. 

July 13th
I got up at 11 and started a bath about 12 but Monica and Clare came home for lunch so I postponed my hot, peaceful solitude to dine with my beloved siblings. We ate cream of mushroom soup after dessert, of course! (brown sugar cake with whipped cream) I was still tired so I sat down to watch TV, but I looked around and the house was a mess so I cleaned the kitchen, put out laundry, and cleaned my room. I have discovered that when I do things in the house Matthew buys me a cold pop when he goes out to get the paper. Silent and sweet - that's our Matt - well, not too silent. When he gets going about history he can tell you lots of interesting things not at all silently! I danced with Anna while Monica started a letter. I then gave Anna a bath and dressed her, shirt coordinating with socks, of course! 

July 16th
I got up at 9:00 so I wouldn't waste the day...I was going to go downtown with Cathy but Pat Pyrz dropped by. We had a huge talk session which lasted until supper, through supper, all the way (while riding our bikes) to Assiniboine Park where it ceased for 1 and 1/2 hours because we watched Shakespeare in the Park. Pat's brother Gene was in it - Two Gentlemen from Verona. It was hilarious! The talk session lasted on the bike ride to the Impressions Cafe where all the wanna-be-folkies and some actually real folkies hang out, and it sustained until 12:30 p.m. between Pat, Monica, me, and neighbour Robin. Then Pat took me to a little eatery where we talked until about 2! Ack! Every subject from travel to glue-on bikinis was covered. What a day! I'm worn out!

Little Anna and me - taken by Brent at my parents' house

And that is where the diary of my summer in Winnipeg ends. After considering many options for the fall of 1987 including attending Lakehead University with Clare and Brent I decided I was homesick for my mountains and went back home to attend my local college. And so began another series of adventures, and another diary.

Note: all of this may seem shallow and silly considering all the sad and sobering things that are happening in the world these days, but I do find that when I am feeling weighed down by sadness a good antidote is to write about something that made or makes me happy. Something innocent, something free.

The Taxi Driver

I had taken the bus from the East Vancouver basement suite that I shared with my sister Clare and her husband to Simon Fraser University where I was to meet up with my girlhood friend Tanja. The bus ride had involved a couple of transfers and a bit of waiting at bus stops. In the waning daylight the trip had been alright, but I was not anxious to repeat it in reverse, in the dark, alone. I had supper with Tanja and her boyfriend at one of the campus places and we lingered, talking for several hours. When it was time for me to return home I decided to spend some of my precious student fund on a taxi, believing it to be the safer option for me at that hour of the night.

The taxi arrived and I said goodbye to my friend. I climbed into the back and gave my direction. The taxi driver was the chatty sort and he immediately began to talk. I soon realized that what he said did not make a lot of sense. He was asking me about how school was going in St. Catherine's. I told him, no, I was in my first term at UBC, and sat back to enjoy my door to door ride home. He kept on about St. Catherine's, which was a town in Ontario, over half way across the country. After trying to correct him once more, I realized my efforts were futile. He kept asking me about people and places I did not know in the least. I began to feel uneasy, wondering if my chauffeur was quite right in the head.

My taxi driver drove a bit erratically, turning down alleyways and cutting across blocks. He told me he was going to stop at a convenience store for a Coke. Did I want one? I told him in no uncertain terms, and perhaps with just a tinge of hysteria, that he was not going to stop and get a Coke, that he was to take me straight home. I was genuinely frightened by then. I wondered if I was going to get home. I wondered if he really meant to stop at a convenience store or was it an attempt to stop the car in some out of the way place where I would be raped and chopped up into pieces, stuffed in a duffle bag and dropped in a dumpster in some sketchy back alley where I would be found by some poor person searching for discarded food, my murder reported the next day on the front page of The Province. (My gift of imagination did not serve me well just then.)

My heart in my throat, I sat forward, gripping the vinyl trim on the edge of the back seat while my driver chatted cheerfully and nonsensically. He took me on a labyrinthian journey, none of which I recognized. Just when I was thinking about opening the car door and flinging myself out onto the pavement like they do in the movies, he turned onto our block and pulled up in front of our house. The trip that had seemed endless had taken, in actual fact, a fairly short time. His route, while unrecognizable to me - I had only lived in Vancouver a couple of months and was geographically challenged at the best of times -  had been a short cut accomplished by someone who knew the city like the back of his hand. With shaking legs I got out of the car. "How much do I owe you?" I said as calmly as possible. He quoted me a fair price, less than I had anticipated in fact, and I paid him.

My sister was home when I entered the house whitefaced and completely unstrung. I felt half relief and half guilt for misjudging my driver. I am sure now that he was a decent person, although I wondered if he had been high on some substance. Or maybe his state of mind was a mixture of working a double shift on very little sleep and good memories of a youth spent in St. Catherine's. I could only speculate. In any case, I felt lucky to be alive and extremely glad to be home with my sister. Clare gave me something to drink to help bring the colour back into my face and calm my frazzled nerves. My boyfriend (now husband) drove over from Kitsilano on the west side of the city to comfort me. I am not sure I ever quite fully recovered from my fright. I refused to go anywhere at night alone for the rest of the year.

While I was having a good experience at UBC and enjoying living with Clare and her husband my adventure with the taxi driver did little to ingratiate me with the city of Vancouver as a potential home in the future. I lived there on and off for the next three years, developing a love/hate relationship with the city. The love was for its beauty and variety, although I now know that I sought out places that reminded me of home: water, lakes and mountains. The hate (perhaps a slight exaggeration) was for the fact that I never seemed to fit in there. Too sensitive and inexperienced to let the sad scenes of my neighbourhood fall off me like rainwater off a duck's back, I was haunted in particular by the mute woman who accosted me every time I walked down the street, begging me for money while she shoved the scars on her wrists and throat in my face. Her plight, so dramatically contrasted by the ease and comfort I perceived in the wealthier neighbourhoods of the city, filled me with a sense of helplessness. I knew that my coins could do little to make her life better.

My boyfriend and I got married a year and a half after the taxi driver incident. At the end of my third year in Vancouver, my husband finished his practicum and was offered a job in the East Kootenays. I was ecstatic. The only thing I seemed to miss after we moved was the Greek fish market on Commercial drive. I could buy two plump, fresh fillets of sole for a song and bake them up beautifully with a sauce of dill and yogurt.

Sisters, Sisters

I have three sisters and two brothers. I am the youngest and my sisters are all older than me by four, five and nine years, respectively. As we grew up I certainly felt like the youngest by far, especially when my sisters were teenagers and I was still a little kid with no fashion sense. I was still wearing baseball shirts and cutoff jeans when my sisters were taking disco dancing lessons and donning sequined tube tops. Until sometime after my eldest sister moved out, I shared a room with my brother, Stephen, who was two years older than I. Steve and I would lie in our beds talking about what we'd do with a million dollars and what we wanted for Christmas. He built model cars from kits at his desk and painted them with toxic smelling high gloss paint. Our room's walls were yellow and the decor was basic and boyish, but I didn't mind at the time. Our mother read to us from Little House on the Prairie while we listened from our bunks, but other than sleeping and preparing to sleep, I spent little time in that bedroom.

And then I moved into the girls' room. The girls' room had blue patterned wallpaper and clothes all over the place. Makeup and mirrors and perfume and pretty pictures on the walls. I slept on the bottom bunk and Pauline slept on the top bunk. Clare had her own twin bed across the room. When my sisters thought I was sleeping they would gossip about the boys in high school. By the time I was thirteen I saw our small-town boys in a whole new light. When I was older and met one of these notorious males I said to him, "Oh yes, I've heard all about you."

"All good I hope," he said, grinning arrogantly.

"Hmmm...not completely good, no," I replied, grinning mischeviously.

Pauline sometimes sang to me before I went to sleep. Often she sang me a few verses from Blondie's song 'Sound Asleep'.

Close your eyes and you will see micro flashing neon lights

Open your eyes and you will see it still looks like the same thing

Lie and wait for sleep and listen to your heart beat too fast for sleep

I remember her voice, quiet and sweet floating down to me from the top bunk, soothing away the 'bad thoughts' I was often plagued with in the silent darkness - terrible imaginings that my mother was going to die or I was going to be kidnapped by a vampire or a dirty pirate. Other times she made me and Clare giggle with her hilarious parodies of popular songs. We Lamb girls were famous for our late night fits of silliness.

My eldest sister, Monica, was out conquering the world, or at least Middle Canada by then. She had moved to Winnipeg with a friend and before long had met her future husband. When Monica got married, all her sisters were bridesmaids. I had begged to be included in the wedding party, although I was only thirteen, and she readily agreed, not wanting me to feel left out. Eventually, Clare moved out to Winnipeg to join Monica, and also met her future husband in the city. Pauline tried Winnipeg, too, enjoyed it and then came back to the mountains of British Columbia. I went for one wonderful summer, but then came home to attend college. Monica and her young family moved back to B.C, and within a year or two all my sisters were back living in our home province. I went away to university and lived with Clare and her husband, who was working on a Master's degree at UBC. We had a great time together, attending aquafit classes at the local swimming pool, cooking and going out on the town on weekends.(I did study a little, and Clare worked full time.) Clare and her husband moved back to Nelson when the year was out, as did I, to take up my summer job once again. I maintained the idea that when I finished my education I would move back to my home town so I could live near my family permanently. That dream was not to be. I met my future husband and after living in Vancouver for a year we moved to a town about 300 kilometers east of Nelson. I was still able to see my sisters often and I fell in love with the Rocky Mountains and the East Kootenays. My life was changing and expanding, but it was good.

The happy close proximity of my family members was not to last. Within two years my husband was transferred to Vancouver Island, Monica's family moved way up to the North Coast town of Prince Rupert, and Clare and her husband moved back to his home province of Manitoba. Pauline stayed with her daughter in Nelson where my parents and eldest brother, Francis still lived with his family. Stephen was in Vancouver and before long would relocate to Calgary with his family. In typical Canadian fashion, we all moved to follow employment in our chosen fields. Nelson would continue to be our meeting point, usually in summer, but it seemed we were destined to live much of our lives apart.

Two years ago, Monica and her family moved closer to us. We can now drive five hours north and visit for a weekend, and vice versa. I am over the moon to be living so much closer to her now. We are nine years apart in age, but the gap closes as the years go by. Facebook and email helps to keep the communication going between all of us in our large extended and ever growing family, and I am grateful for the ability to share photos and stories about our children and our activities. The sister relationship can be a complex one at times, but our shared history and our deep love for each other continues to see us through.

After I had my third child, who was a longed-for girl after two energetic little boys, I needed a bit of a break. After three years or so, however, I began to long for another child. I made a deal with God: I would have another baby if it could be a girl, a sister for Emma. I got my wish and Emma got her sister. At first, Emma, who was almost five years old at the time, was not overly impressed with this 'thing' that usurped her position in the family, but within a short period of time, the girls became very close. Sometimes I wish I had had them closer together, but I know that as they grow older the gap in their ages will cease to matter as it did with my sisters and me. And if they end up living miles apart like my sisters and me, the distance will only make them appreciate their times together all the more.

My girls

My girls like to sing this old song from the musical, White Christmas: 

The top photo is of my sister Monica (on the left) and me, taken this past weekend at her home. 

The Reluctant but Enthusiastic Gourmet

Someone once said, "Restaurants are to the 80's what theatre was to the 60's." Actually, it was a character in the Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner movie When Harry Met Sally, and judging by all the restaurant scenes in the film, his comment must have been true. The 80's were also a great decade for film, so my kids tell me, and, strange, imaginative child that I was, I think I spent half my time back then trying to emulate the scenes, characters and clothing from Hannah and her Sisters, Out of Africa, or select John Hughes movies.

When I was a teenager, a few of my friends and I would save up our spending money and go out for a fancy French meal at Justine's, an establishment no longer open in my hometown. Justine's was an airy, peach and white downtown restaurant with glass block dividers and live jazz. We would dress up in our finest 80's fashions and, I'm sure, impress and/or amuse the adult regulars with our yuppies-in-training ways. Until I found out it was raw meat, I always ordered steak tartare as my appetizer, and generally an entree with chicken or scallops. Eating out at Justine's was the epitome of elegance to we small-town kids looking for a bigger life, and the atmosphere caused us to sit up straight and use our best table manners and hushed voices.

And then there were the dinner parties. My childhood friend Molly's mother, Panny was, and I'm sure still is a phenomenal cook and she and Molly's dad had newly purchased the former Anglican manse which had a large dining room. With Panny's help Molly hosted a few dinner parties, with each of us guests supplying a dish. I remember making Greek salad. How exotic it seemed back then. Molly's mother cooked from books with names like The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and later, opened a great little restaurant, The Wild Onion, with her sister Vicky. My own family was into good eating as well, though generally of a slightly humbler variety - one of our commonly consulted cookbooks was called More-with-Less.

When I was a child I did a fair amount of baking, but I didn't start cooking until I'd pretty much left home. When in university I lived with my sister, Clare who taught me how to make soup from scratch and other budget-friendly meals. My last year I lived with a pack of roomates and we were each responsible for our own meals. I lived on veggie burgers and stirfry. And vietnamese salad rolls from the canteen in the UBC arts lounge. When I got married a year later, I could throw together a meal of sorts, but I was far from being an artist in the kitchen. For a wedding gift, Clare bought us a subscription to Canadian Living magazine, which was perfect as a teaching tool for me. My husband had become a decent 'cook for one' from his ten years as a bachelor, but when it came to cooking for a family I was more the natural in the kitchen. Plus, I was keen. I love food, and I love good food more, so I was eager to learn all I could. Still, there were never what I would call gourmet meals issuing forth from my kitchen. We had children straight away and so it was healthy family cooking, trial by fire. Over the years, I became a fairly good children's cook. To this day, other people's children tell their parents what a good cook I am, and how they like eating at our house. While I appreciate their praise very much, I am humbled by it. I know Michelin, the organization that grants restaurants the highly valued 'Michelin Stars' would never grant me so much as a a twinkle. But I don't mind that. To me, that's what restaurants like Justine's are, and were, for - to give we family cooks a break from spaghetti and home-made pizza - and give us a taste of something fresh and exciting, which in turn will enhance our own home cooking and dare us to try something new.

In this town of few restaurants of any real quality there exist a surpising number of skilled culinary artists, and many of the best meals to be had here are cooked and eaten in the home. Our friend Marilee's husband Stefan is a fine chef who happens to run the kitchen in one of the area's major prisons (one of the largest employers here), and last weekend, they gathered twelve of their friends together for a New Year's Eve meal to remember. A week beforehand an email was sent to all the guests with the information that Stefan would be making Saltimbocca with local pork scallopini (to prevent the usual outcry against veal) with prosciutto and sage, and parsnip gratin with wilted pea sprouts.  Each couple was asked to choose a side dish or dessert to prepare. At the fashionable hour of 8:30 pm the guests began to arrive and gather in the beautifully transformed dining/ living room of Marilee and Stefan's home. The menu consisted of small and beautifully plated servings of the following courses:

mini crab cakes with dill mayonnaise

mixed greens with walnuts, goat cheese and orange sections

carrot ginger soup (my contribution)

Saltimbocca and parsnip gratin

meyer lemon granitee served in frozen blood orange halves and garnished with pomegranate seeds and candied lemon zest

triple chocolate dessert: white chocolate mousse, chocolate cassis pate and a hazelnut ice cream macaroon garnished with a champagne sauce and sugared rose petals.

And of course there were endless bottles of wine passed around during the meal.

At precisely 11:58 pm pink champagne was served and we toasted the new year in high spirits, to say the least. The platter of 'Lady Jane', 'Castle Blue' and 'Cranberry Caerphilly' cheeses was then brought in with a bottle of port and most of us found a bit more room for them. It was during the dessert course when I looked up from my incredibly delectable chocolate pate and said to its creator, the local cheesemaker seated opposite, "I'm wondering how I got here!" And she said,

"Well, you must have done something good this year!"

The conversation flowed as quickly and as richly as the incredible meal deserved and soon it was time to organize rides home with sober drivers. I am not much of a drinker, so I had enjoyed my usual small amount of wine and could drive my husband and I safely home to our house across town. In fact, when we were toasting the new year, Marilee asked us to proclaim our resolutions. I don't tend to make resolutions, so I made a joke instead: "I'm not going to drink anymore!" to which there were resounding 'boos'. "I'm not going to drink any less either!" which brought forth cheers and laughter from the crowd before I admitted the joke was a favourite line from a movie.

Meryl Streep's character in Postcards from the Edge says another favourite movie line of mine: "I don't want life to imitate art, I want life to be art!" Every once in a while I will reflect on an event in my life and think it has come pretty close to being art, or at least come close to being a scene in a good film.

If my dreaming, sixteen year old self could have looked forward into New Year's Eve, 2011 she would have thought the future looked promising indeed.

Family, Revisited

At one time in our lives, four of my five siblings and I lived within a three hour drive of each other, and the fifth lived just a day's drive away from the rest of us. We were all used to frequent visits and family gatherings. Then in 1996 it was like God dropped a stick of dynamite into the center of our happy proximity and blasted us all apart. One sister, Clare moved to Manitoba, where her husband had grown up and had now landed a good job. Our eldest sister Monica moved with her family to Prince Rupert on the north coast of British Columbia, which doesn't sound far but required two solid days of driving to cover the distance, for her husband Matthew's new job with the Forest Service. My own husband was transferred from Kimberley to central Vancouver Island, accessible only by plane or ferry. Our sister Pauline and brother Francis both stayed with their families in the same town as our parents, and Pauline still lives there, while one brother lives in Calgary with his family and my other brother now lives in Vancouver.

My husband and I managed to visit Prince Rupert once with our children when my eldest daughter was a baby, travelling overnight by boat on the Inside Passage - most of us were sea-sick. I plan to make it to Manitoba in the next year or two as I have not yet been to visit Clare in her home; she has come to us once, but we mostly just meet the odd summer at our parents' house. We've been to Calgary, too and had the occasional visit from family when we lived on the Island. While it was not ideal for all of us to be flung about Canada, we have all gained from the experience as our families have grown and each formed their own identity, in part due to the various natural environments in which we have lived. For example, it rains a lot in stormy Prince Rupert, so Monica and her family became resiliant in all weather, came to love the ocean and the wildness of that part of the world. Clare and Stephen and their families live through typically long, cold and snowy winters and enjoy skating, snowshoeing, skiing and sledding and all that good snow fun which they are required to embrace if they don't want to spent the long winters entirely indoors. My husband and I and our family have lived most of our years on the coast, near water, and where the damp invades our bones in winter. What have we gained from the experience? We know that it is imperative for us to dress in layers and that we love Beautiful British Columbia enough to keep us from moving somewhere else more affordable, like Saskatchewan.

Last year, almost to prove that we are never safe from surprises, the Forestry office in Prince Rupert after a steady downsizing, was shut down entirely by the government. My brother-in-law, Matthew got a new job with the Ministry of Envronment in Williams Lake, which is in the Cariboo region of B.C. just a five hour drive north of where I sit typing this blog post, and a nine hour drive to our hometown and my parents and sister, Pauline. The newspaper Monica was reporting for in Rupert was also bought out by a large newspaper chain, but she decided to stay there for one more year with her children, work as a freelance reporter and as an archives assistant at the local museum, while Matthew got used to his new job in the Cariboo and took his time looking for a house for them. The year went by fairly quickly for them with several visits back and forth, and at the end of August, Monica and their two youngest boys, now aged 12 and 15, made the move down to Williams Lake where Matthew had found a rambling, character-full home for them within walking distance of the downtown area and with a view of the water. "When are you coming to visit?" they asked us.

Monica is the eldest in my family of siblings and nine years older than I.  Monica was always a busy, social, energetic sort of person, and I don't remember spending too much time with her when I was little, but the time I did spend was always fun. She used to pay me exhorbitant amounts of money to clean out her sock drawer or give her a neck rub. Monica was a Bee Gees fan in the Seventies and I had seen enough album covers lying around to be familiar with the look of the band. Around the same time, she had a bearded boyfriend who played the bagpipes, and years later I told her I had always thought of him as Barry Gibb in a kilt. She laughed - hard. She organized family games of poker with penny candy for betting chips, but I was too small to play. I was not too young to enjoy the baked treats she brought home every Saturday night after her shift at the bakery of some family friends, and Sunday mornings breakfasts were often composed of oven-warmed danishes and other delectible pastries. My memories of her are somewhat vague from those years, but I know she was kind, honest and generous to all of us.When I was nine she moved out of the house and by the time I was ten or eleven, she had moved with a friend half way across the country. One year, Monica brought Matthew home from Winnipeg for Christmas, and the next summer they were married in our Cathedral with myself as one of the five bridesmaids. I was thirteen and it was all terribly exciting. When I was seventeen and freshly graduated from high school, my mother suggested I travel by train with my bicycle to Winnipeg and spend the summer with Monica and Matthew and their little girl, Anna. It was that summer when our real friendship as sisters began. Our sister Clare was living in Winnipeg, too, newly married and we had a great time touring (and eating our way around) the city, attending the Winnipeg folk festival, and taking weekend trips. Monica and Matthew moved back to B.C. after that summer so Matthew could attend the Forestry program at the college near my hometown and Monica and I began to spend a lot of time together. We had plenty in common and grew very close although I was so much her junior in every way. Already an experienced mother herself, Monica was there for me when I had my first child, and my second, teaching me about feeding routines and the importance of naps, all with her trademark generosity and good humour.

Last weekend we accepted Monica and Matthew's invitation and took the kids for a three-day trip up to the Cariboo. We drove through the misty Fraser Canyon along the old Trans-Canada highway, up along the Fraser River before veering west along the Thompson River.

One of the many tunnels in the Fraser Canyon

 

A scene repeated throughout our journey through the Lytton area

We drove out of the coastal rain forest into the drier region of the Thompson Platea where the rolling hills and yellow grasses are marked by the old roadhouse numbers from the days of the Cariboo Gold Rush: 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House, 108 Mile House, 150 Mile House. Old log buildings, some refurbished and some left to the elements, dotted the landscape, and it was not hard to imagine the gold seekers seeking their uncertain fortunes and enduring all kinds of challenges along the way. By the time we reached Lac la Hache the sky was blue and the air markedly chilly compared to what we are used to.

One of the original roadhouses, now a heritage site

Just entering the Williams Lake region

We arrived at the house just after Monica and her older son had returned from his soccer match. Eager for a walk to work out the kinks from five solid hours in the car, my husband and I and a couple of the kids accepted Monica's invitation to walk and meet Matthew on his way home from work. The cousins got re-aquainted quickly. It had been just over two years since we had all been together at our family reunion.

We spent the weekend cooking together, going for long walks in the sunshine, exploring some great shops Monica had discovered, watching my nephew play ice hockey with some team-mates twice his size, my sister and I talking steadily and Matthew and my husband doing the same. We gathered around the table in the mornings, enjoying the view of the lake through the autumn foliage in their front yard, drinking coffee with cream and just, well, celebrating being together with the prospect of being able to do so much more often than we had in a very long time.

I love the elasticity of life. I had long ago accepted the fact that our families would stay connected mainly through writing and Facebook and the telephone, with the physical distances between us all being somewhat forbidding. Now, however, with my own family on the mainland, Monica's just north of us, and the others with children growing to the point of independence, visits are happening with greater regularity. Our family life is a bit like 'old times', but even richer somehow, after living far apart for so long and bringing a diversity of experience to share at the table. I'm looking forward to our next visit already.

Have a wonderful weekend!