The Best Way to Run Away without leaving Home

My homestead has been a flurry of activity for the past two weeks.  What with snow days, girls home with the flu, husband home three weekdays due to a temporarily altered work schedule, and handymen in and out fixing hot water tanks and bathroom vents there hasn't been an awful lot of brainspace for yours truly to collect herself enough to write anything from scratch.  My solace has been to climb into the bath in the late evenings with a book, lately Tony Blair's autobiography A Journey: My Political Life, for a half hour or so.  In this habit I am very much like my dear mom.  A few years ago I began a series of personal essays about wise sayings and attitudes passed down from her, and for this week's post, I include my earliest one:

When I was twelve, my dad took by elder brother Stephen and I to Whiterock, a small seaside town south of Vancouver, to visit my dad's parents whom we called Nana and Grandad.  One afternoon during the visit my Nana and I were discussing baths and showers, most likely brought on by the scolding I had received from her for taking a forty-five minute shower earlier that day (-we didn't have a shower at home). I remember telling her that my mom frequently enjoyed long, hot baths in the evening, and Nana's reaction was such that I began to worry about my mom's safety.  Nana insisted that long hot baths were very bad for the heart and if my mother insisted on taking baths they should be lukewarm at best.  She instructed me to pass on this vital information as soon as I got home, for she was sure my mom must be ignorant about the daily risk she was taking against her health.  When I was finally able to tell my mom about what Nana had said, I expected her to be first, utterly shocked, and second, exceedingly grateful to me for passing on the life-saving information.  It was my turn to be shocked, however, when for the first time ever, my mom let me in on a little secret:  she and Nana did not agree on everything, and Nana should mind her own business.  Reading in the bath was my mother's reward after a full day of doing everything she did for her family and community, and no one was going to take that away from her.  In fact, she frequently encouraged all of us to do the same.

My mom's benevolence regarding baths extended beyond the family to include overnight guests.  If someone we were hosting appeared tired, dirty, and unstrung from travel, she would offer them the bathtub.  The summer I was eighteen I met a traveling German boy, just a little older than myself.  He frequently came into the somewhat fancy outdoor adventure supply shop (which my dad liked to call 'The Yuppie Surplus') where I worked and finally asked me out to a movie.  We became good friends and I invited him home on occasion.  He had been staying with a family at their camp quite far out of town, helping them to build a log home, and frequently went without a bath or shower for several days in a row.  My mom liked him and would often invite him to eat or have tea with us, but she would always ask a few times during his visit as his 'natural' body odour filled the room, " Patrick, wouldn't you like a nice, hot bath?" I would watch her pained face as he would smilingly refuse, completely unaware of the malodorous discomfort he was creating.  When she pressed again, he would finally agree, and my relief would almost equal hers.

I have often heard women complain about mothers who think a hot bath and a cup of tea are the answer to all life's problems.  I do not think for a moment my mom in naive enough to believe that, but she firmly holds (and I agree with her) that both tea and hot baths are great restoratives to the world-weary soul.  Ours was a family of six children, who grew up in a smallish century-old house with one bathroom. Reading far into the night was the way my mom made time and space for herself.  Many times I would arrive home late at night after a dance or a night out at a club, and there would be mom reading in the old claw-foot tub, her chest covered with facecloths, her toes skillfully manipulating the taps to add more hot water.  Without looking up from War and Peace or Brideshead Revisited she would say, "Oh hello sweetie, did you have a good time?  What time is it?  Really?  That late!  I'll get out and you can get in and have a nice, hot bath..."

And I would.

We Interrupt our Regular Programming to Bring You the Following...

I started another deep and serious post yesterday when the cold wind was blowing the heck out of the freezer-burnt landscape outside and the happy post-Christmas thoughts from my brain, but was unable to complete it due to two meetings I had to attend and a large pot of chicken soup that needed making.  At ten p.m. last night, the forecasted snowfall began and did not let up until eight a.m. this morning when forty centimeters of snow blanketed everything in sight, including any thoughts I had for my intended post.  By six-thirty a.m., when my boys must be up to get to their band class on time, I had heard on the radio that the schools would be closed for the day.  Good news - I would now have plenty of help with shovelling the driveway before the rain turned the snow into west coast cement. 

Once the driveway was clear my girls surprised me by asking if they could get out some of our cross-country skis.  The plows had yet to clear the streets around our house and passing trucks had made ski-able tracks, so I said yes it might be safe to do so, and located some suitable skis and poles while they sorted through the boots to find some that fit.  It has been a few years since we have visited any formal ski trails, and unfortunately the boys outgrew their equipment long ago.  Emma gave Katie a few pointers and before long they were making their way up and down the street:

After they tired of skiing, Emma gave me the equipment and after a few runs up and down the block in front of our house:

                       


Off I went for a half-hour ski around the neighbourhood:

As I settled into a balanced position over the center of my skis and fell into my accustomed stride, I realized what a good warmup it had been to shovel the driveway. I skiid to the end of the road and crossed the untracked snow of the park.  I made my way down a block full of people clearing their driveways while their children made snow angels and snow forts, never worrying they might run out of building material.  Most of my neighbours greeted me as I floated past, although some looked at me like I might have something missing in my upper storey.  When I rounded the last corner before our block I began to feel tired and a bit shakey.  It had been a morning full of exercise and so was time to put the skis away and go inside for a hearty lunch.  After I had hung up my wet clothes - the rain had soaked my thin jacket thoroughly - I sat down on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate.  I could not stop smiling.  It was so wonderful to feel again that unique kind of fatigue born of the graceful, rhythmic, repetitive swing of arms and legs that is cross-country skiing. All the snow scented fresh air, which I have heard described as 'distilled crystal cleanliness' filling my lungs hadn't done me any harm either.

And if it stops raining we're going to go out again!

Yes!



Regular programming will resume...at some point.

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

He was her first love, the first boy to crack her well formed shell.  Her mom could tell she was in love by the change in the way she played the piano.  They did not live in the same town but they spent every day at the college together and often weekends at each others houses where her parents had a couch for him and his parents had a spare room for her.  His parents were British ex-pats and made the strongest tea she had ever drunk.
"Do you drink tea?" they'd asked. 
"Oh yes, I'm a big tea drinker,"  she'd claimed. 
They made their Yorkshire tea in a small metal pot, and it was steeped as dark as varnished mahogany. He put six, count 'em, SIX teaspoons of sugar in his tea and then stirred it in such a way she could never manage to copy - very fast and very noisily.  She put in her one teaspoon of sugar and her dose of milk and after one cup of that brew she was totally wired for sound, but her pride made her drink another cup; she was not about to look like a tea wuss in front of his mom.  His parents were lovely to her; his dad had a dry sense of humour and they liked the same type of movie, and his mom was very kind, smart, and a great cook.  She remembered staying for dinner and sitting down with the family to baked ham and potatoes, salad and a beautiful trifle for dessert.  Her boyfriend saw what was for dinner and turned his nose up at it.  He made himself an omelette with canned potatoes instead.

They were friends first. They met at their college early in the fall of her second year. He was in one of her classes and they had mutual friends.  They all used to sit together in the common room, and she would remark on the fact that every day he would buy a packet of salt and vinegar chips, put them in his ham sandwich and then squish the two halves together. He liked the way she dressed. And the way she smiled.  Before long they found themselves sitting together and talking whenever they had a break in the school day and sometimes he would rest his head on her shoulder.  Gradually, their friends began to wonder what was up with them and so they took the hint and started going out together as a couple.  Perhaps they only did what they thought was expected of them.  Their relationship, starting off very strongly and growing to the state of 'I love you' by mid-winter, was by summer waning like the phases of the moon, only much less pretty.  They, philosophically, had found they were like the proverbial two ships passing in the night, a circumstance manageable by friends who know how to argue and remain friends, but hardly by two hot-headed, opinionated beings who were each trying to change the other's personality into something they could live with.  By the following September they went their separate ways. He went off travelling and she began working at a cafe for a ski pass and taking night classes.

When they broke up she cried every night for three weeks and if Feist's song 'Let it Die' had been around back then I'm sure it would have been her soundtrack:

The saddest part of a broken heart, isn't the ending so much as the start.
The tragedy starts with the very first spark, losing your mind for the sake of your heart.


She looks back now and thinks her tears were part heartbreak and part relief. The last few months of their relationship had been so difficult, and the worst part was, it seemed they could not even be friends after what they had put each other through. That was the real heartbreak for her because she found she missed him (and his parents).  A good friendship had been ruined by love's toxic side-effects.

After he returned from his eight month tour of northern Africa he hitchhiked over to visit her.  He looked strange with a beard and she had to look into his eyes to recognize him completely.  She also saw herself differently in his presence.  She was stronger and more experienced now and even though she still did not know what she wanted in life, she knew what she didn't want.  He stayed for a bit and then she drove him home to his house where they ate spaghetti at his parent's table and he wondered if she'd noticed he ate tomatoes now - after travelling and living in a developing nation for eight months and eating what was available or go hungry, he now was proud to say he truly appreciated any and all foods. His mom asked her if she was going to stay over, but she said no, she had to go. The question that had hung in the air since he'd called from London of getting back together was answered, and the answer was no. They saw each other a small handful of times before she went off to university, in situations awkward and strained, and then never again. That was over twenty-one years ago, but she remembers it all vividly. A few years went by for her of marriage and kids, jobs and moving with jobs, and she was home for a visit. Her mom told her she ran into a mutual acquaintance of theirs, and that this person had been asked to say hello to her from him. She said to say hello back.

She had been thinking about him lately, and thought she might see if he was on Facebook - it had been amazing how many people she had reconnected with on the site, which allowed people to reach out to people from their past without giving too much away -  so she Googled his name.  What she found was a website with lots of writing and photographs. Photographs of paintings for sale that he and his wife had done, and of his two little girls.  It was a strange feeling to see his face after all these years, to read about what he had been up to; it seemed a little like spying.  She was tempted to 'fess up and e-mail the address on the site just to say she had found it and had liked what she had seen - the paintings, the family who looked very happy, the work and involvement in his community, etc. - but she was also hesitant.  An email out of the blue might not be welcome from an old girlfriend, even a well-intentioned one, and perhaps it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.  She decided to sleep on it.  The next day, she knew she would just let it be for now.  She had found what she was looking for, she had found him happy and industrious, and by the looks of it, an affectionate husband and father. She had always wondered what he would become and had hoped for the best. 

A year after they had broken up, she met the man who was now her husband.  She knew that this time the love was the marrying kind because being with him warmed that 'secret spot of loneliness'* in her, that longing for someone who would love her for exactly who she was, allowing her to love him fully and generously in return.  She was very glad to know that her old friend had found that too.


*from A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge

Good Riddance, but Thank You.

I cannot say I am sad to watch the old year wane into what will soon be, "remember that time last year?" -seeming so long ago.  In this year's edition of my annual Christmas letter that I send to about 30 friends and family members, I described the year as being like the little girl in the nursery rhyme with the curl right in the middle of her forehead:  'when she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid'. This was not an easy, gentle year, the kind where one event blends seamlessly into the next like a harmoniously patterned quilt, not the kind of year one would describe as calm and uneventful, like a good summer road trip without traffic or delay.  2010 was as full of bumps and bruises as it was full of triumphs and good times with friends and family.  It was a year to turn the most prosaic of thinkers into a philosopher, and I think all of us have grown because of it.

My older daughter and I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles the other day. That film could be a metaphor for our year. There were moments to laugh along with the characters and moments to laugh, painfully, at them. The two characters, polar opposites played by Steve Martin and John Candy (may he rest in peace), went through every delay and difficulty imaginable while they attempted to make their way home for Thanksgiving, but home they did finally arrive. Or rather, Steve Martin's character arrives home, realizing that John Candy's character is esentially homeless, and invites him in to stay for a while. Through all his trials, and his new relationship with Candy's lovable, generous, but clownish character, Martin's uptight, impatient, selfishly driven character realizes that he has been spending too little time at home and with family, and concentrating too much on work and ambition. He finally truly appreciates what he has, but it would not have happened had he not gone through the comedy of errors which made him look deeply into his heart and examine what he finds there.


Every member of my family took their turn to go through something difficult this year.  Whether it was a prolonged,  toxic social situation at school or a tough predicament at work, a decision to finally say 'no' to something expected of them or 'yes' to something unattractive but needed, a bout with the much hyped 'swine flu', or a sinus infection that went on and on, we all pushed through our troubles and came out the other side alive and kicking.  This year, one phrase passed my lips more often than any other:  'It could be worse.'  After all, all we were dealing with was what most other families deal with from time to time.  We didn't endure a Tsunami and lose loved ones, have our home shelled by enemy gunfire, lose our jobs to a giant global recession, or lose our home to fire, flood or devastating earthquake.  We are still here, carrying on together as before, which is a good place to be. 


One of the trials of 2010 happened just over a week ago.  My husband, on his day off and relaxing with our youngest while I took the others shopping, came down the stairs to help us bring up the groceries, when he felt two sharp pains in the left side of his chest and a numbing in his hand.  Like pneumonia or broken bones, chest pains are cause for concern and a visit to the doctor, so off we went at about 1:00 pm to the emergency ward of the closest hospital.  We were admitted straight away, but as soon as the nurse took my husband's blood pressure and temperature, which were normal, we were demoted to almost the bottom of a long list of waiting patients.  And wait we did.  Finally the doctor, a thin, youngish woman in high heels clicked her way over to us, examined my husband, and ordered some tests.  The tests were taken and we waited almost two hours for the results. The staff brought us a meal to share, and then I went off to phone our children and talk them through the making of their own supper.  When I returned my husband informed me the tests had come back negative but that we would have to wait until 11:30 when a second blood test  'just to make certain there was no damage to the heart' would be administered.  If it came back negative we would be able to go home.  By then it was dark outside and a few patients had been admitted to the ward for overnight observation.  As the hours went by, a little girl coughed and cried, coughed and cried, and the very ill gentleman beside us also coughed painfully and moaned for the nurse repeatedly.  I went to make another call home, and soothe my youngest daughter, who was crying over the phone.  When I returned I went up to the nurse's desk and said, did we really have to stay here another six hours if all the tests had come back negative the first time?  Yes, we did.  I began to feel like a caged animal and said so.  The nurses laughed and the doctor said they did sometimes, too.  I briefly considered making a fuss, but I knew that would be stupid.  We simply had to wait for the final test results.  I could have gone outside for a walk, but the hospital is in the middle of a dark wood and there is nowhere to go without walking a long way alone in an unfamiliar town, so I stayed with my husband who appreciated the company.  Fortunately, I had brought a book, so while he rested and slept, I read...and read, and when he was awake we talked.  We both knew by then he had not had a heart attack, but believed the chest pains were some kind of warning.  Finally, just after 1:00 am the night nurse, a tall, businesslike young woman, though not unkind, came in and gave us the 'all clear', with the promise from my husband that he would visit his own doctor as soon as possible to explore other explanations for the chest pains. We thanked her and went out into the silent darkness, where the lunar eclipse, the only one to occur on the Winter Solstice in 500 years, was ending and a thin, orange slice of moon peeked out from behind the dark circular shadow of the earth.  It occurred to me then that our eleven hours of waiting in the hospital were such a tiny speck in the vast universe.  We drove home accompanied by that lovely, unusual moon, and went, ever so gratefully, to bed.

The next morning, as soon as he was awake, our girls ran into the kitchen and hugged their dad fiercely.  He gained an extra day off out of the ordeal and went later to our own doctor, who told him it was all due to stress and that, though very healthy due to good eating and plenty of cycling, my husband would have to make some changes in his work/life balance.  This, of course, is much easier said than done for an awfully conscientious man during a record busy time at the hotel where he works, but hopefully, things will slow down a bit come the New Year as they usually do.  If they don't, well, we will have to make some decisions. 

So, we welcome the New Year, which will be "new with no mistakes in it yet" (Anne of Green Gables).  That is the gift of the seasonal, episodic nature of life.  All good things come to an end, but all bad things do, too.  What does not kill us makes us stronger, and hopefully, more sensible, more patient, and more generous toward others.  As I ended my annual Christmas letter: Bring on 2011...2010 you trained us well!

The Digital Nativity

A dear friend sent this little video to me last week.  I loved it, my teenagers thought it was great and the eldest even posted it on his Facebook page, so that proves its worth as a thoroughly modern retelling of the age old Christmas Story!  We are baking gingerbread today, for fun, and enjoying this point in the holidays when most of the work is done and all we have to do now is sit back and open our arms to Christmas.

A very Merry Christmas to all.  Peace on Earth!

I hope you enjoyed the video! 

Cheers,

Rebecca



The Walls are Closing In - In a Good Way

This is the time of year for clutter in our house.  We move the furniture closer together in the living room to accommodate the seven foot tall Christmas tree, we unearth the lights and decorations and the manger scene from the basement storage, fill the table with the Advent wreath as well as piles of odds and ends from various projects on the go, and make list after to-do list that we stick on the fridge next to the calendar and check more than twice.  My house is starting to feel very crowded and I am okay with this because I know it's temporary.  And besides, all this bright and happy clutter in the house is very cheering on a gloomy, Wet Coast day like today.

My girls were really eager to get going on the decorating last week.  My older daughter, Emma had spent hours in November making a Christmas village for the mantle, so she was eager to display it:

She placed a village tree in the middle of her display and grouped around it a merry little band of nuns I inherited from my Granny.  The paper snowflakes were made by my younger daughter.  One of the houses is a mini replica of ours.  Can you guess which one?

Emma made a wreath from cedar boughs she snipped off our hedge and decorated it with walnuts and hazelnuts from local trees.  I tried to convince her to add some red berries, but she preferred it as it was and hung it from a festive red hanger on the front door:

I used to do the decorating, with a little help from the kids when they were small.  Now it seems I have handed that torch to my willing Emma and her assistant.  My girls share a room and have a string of lights and their own little tree set up on a dresser.  When I go into their room to get them up in the morning I plug in the lights at their request so they can wake up to warm little orbs of colour. 

I am glad the girls want to take over some of the Christmas preparations.  I'm busy keeping track of when next to pour rum on the Christmas cakes, baking for all the events, and putting cards, letters, and packages together.  It's a lovely way to spread the workload and the joy, so I give them free reign to do what they like, as long as it doesn't involve a stuffed dog that woofs 'Jingle Bells' (a present we once received from a relative) or is liable to catch on fire.

And what about the boys?  They are more than happy to sit back and let the girls do their thing, with the thought that 'too many cooks spoil the broth' or something like that.  They used to be more involved in the preparations, in fact, one year, our eldest made coloured icebox cookies as gifts for everyone he knew.  They have different ways of contributing now that they are growing up.  Our younger son, the violinist recently accompanied his two sisters at a Christmas recital, and will play at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We will play carols together, I am sure, over the holidays, and he will join in the decorating of the gingerbread cookies we will make next week.  He's also very good for games. Our eldest son will enthuse over all the food, repeatedly, and offer to do extra dishes to help out.  He will also rent movies he thinks everyone will enjoy watching together and buy snacks to share with his own money. 

On Friday afternoon, my kids will be let out of school for the two week Christmas holidays.  My husband is back at work today after a week off before the busy Holiday Season at the hotel where he works, so I am revelling in the peace and quiet of these next few days.  Along with the aforementioned displays of good will between my four children will also come the usual measure of squabbles, cries of  "Who ate the last piece of chocolate cranberry almond bark?!?" and "When's is it my turn on the computer? She's been on there for AGES."  We'll have a house full of their friends some days, musical instruments, and constant mess and confusion, and as the Grinch Who Stole Christmas said:  "Oh the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!"  But, as my husband always says, we signed up for all of this when we had the kids, and we wouldn't have it any other way.  (Until January, that is.)

People look East the time is near

Of the crowning of the year.

Make yourself fair as you are able

Trim the hearth and set the table.

People look East and sing today

Love the Guest is on the way.

Eleanor Farjeon

Season's Readings: Second Edition

Last year at this time I discovered a couple of cheerful, heartwarming gems to read during the Advent and Holiday Seasons, and this year, after just recently finishing the gritty, disturbing-at-times, absolutely gripping novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I am more than ready to continue my annual tradition.

It is so easy this time of year to get caught up in the frenzy of activity, especially when you have children:  extra rehearsals for concerts, the concerts themselves, parties, baking and cooking for various events, Christmas shopping, decorating, writing the annual Christmas letter, addressing cards (yes, I still do this by snail mail), packaging up parcels for faraway friends and family, "etcetera. etcetera, etcetera", as the King of Siam is known to have said.  It is all fun and definitely worth doing, but it can be exhausting if I do not take a little time every day to just sit and relax.  Reading seems to be the perfect antidote to the wearying effects of a busy day.

 As I think I've mentioned before, I like to soak in a hot bath before I go to bed at night. I find it a challenge to keep warm in this damp climate in winter, and if I get into bed cold it can take me a long while to get sufficiently warm enough to sleep. I look forward to my evening soak and always take a book with me. I have just begun reading a book my parents gave me years ago called A New Christmas Treasury edited by Jack Newcombe. It's a fat tome filled with short stories and poems, but I have yet to read much that I would describe as 'cheerful and heartwarming' in it. So far I have read two rather chilling ghost stories that happen to take place on Christmas Eve and Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Fir Tree', which is more of a cautionary tale than anything. Fortunately, I also have read the story 'The Rescue' by Cleveland Amory, which is a sweet story about the Christmas Eve rescue of a starving and injured cat by an animal welfare agency, so there is hope for the collection yet!

The other night, my nine year old daughter asked me to read her a book.  She is a voracious reader herself, but she seems to have rediscovered the coziness of sitting on my lap under a blanket and listening to me read a favourite story.  She is participating in something called The Reading Challenge at school.  The group has to read five novels over ten weeks and then attend an event where they go up against other schools in the district answering questions that test their comprehension of what they have read.  To break up the monotony of reading books that have been prescribed by someone else, she is nightly hauling out all the Christmas picture books we have collected over the years and enjoying them greatly.  This particular night it was a little past her bedtime, but she must have known if she asked me to read her the book she held in her hand I would give in.  Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas by Russell and Lillian Hoban is a favourite story that I knew as a film before I knew it as a book; the inimitable Jim Henson made a sweet and funny Muppet-tale of it when I was a youngster.  Now we own a DVD of the film, which my girls love, and a copy of the book.  Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas is everything a Christmas story should be.  It is about some characters that have very little in the way of material goods, but everything in the way of love for each other, and its storyline is similar to The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.  In the story, the mother otter and her son risk everything to give each other a very special gift for Christmas, which does not work out very well, but results in something infinitely better for not only the two of them, but for some of their friends, too.  It is the kind of story that brings me back to my roots and to the true origins of gift giving.  It also kind of counteracts what I heard in a store the other day.  I was buying an amaryllis as a thank-you gift and the woman who works at the shop offered to take off the price sticker off the plant's container for me: "Or I could leave it on.  That's what I do when I give something expensive to my sister, so she knows how much to spend on me in return."

When one has the means to "make Christmas and keep it all year long", in a material sense, it can, I find, make life a bit intense at this time of year.  In my family, we are not big on expensive gifts, but we do put a lot of thought into choosing presents for each other.  We have traditions from both sides of the family, special foods we cook, special treats we bake, decorations buried for eleven months of the year we unearth and dust off, and the house to clean and make ready for guests.  We do all of this because we can, but there are many that cannot, or have lost the will to try.  Christmas can be incredibly hard for some.  When I read a variety of stories from a variety of writers who all keep Christmas in a different way, it opens my mind and expands my view.  It makes me incredibly grateful for the love I am so fortunate to have, the life I am so blessed to live, and gives me a deeper sense of the true nature of this magical Season.  It also gives me faith that if I were to lose everything I have, I might still be able to celebrate, if only in my heart and imagination. Which is no small thing.