No Time for Nerves

You know the way of it with something important coming up. The nerves take over a bit. Well maybe not for you. But certainly for me. Especially for public speaking. But only if given lead-time. Catch me by the seat of my pants and interview me on TV, so to speak, and off the cuff, I'm grand, just grand.

But I've been so busy over the last few weeks, there hasn't been a minute to fret and worry and construct and tear down the debut of the Seanchaí this weekend. Not to mention the thousands of "what ifs". I scheduled an hour for all that yesterday. I was in the city getting the car serviced and alloted the time between 6 and 7 pm for all that mulling while I rounded a "pond" (i.e. lake in any other corner of the world) on my daily constitutional. But it started to get mauzy, in that way of St. John's and there was a lot of business with the hood and and the zipper and keeping the socks dry and then I had to talk to the widower swan that everyone's paying attention to. He's an angry soul by the name of Oscar and attacks all who try to feed him and then there's his whining babies, the wee cygnets, swimming about. He is completely stressed out, what with the dayjob, the kids and the grief. So by the time I got back to the car, very damp, I realized I hadn't done any stressing myself. Ripped off by selfish Oscar.

And then the work, and a few calls and emails and today is just about shot as I have to be out of here by 5.45 to do some pro-bono work up the road. I say up the road, which is a laugh here. 20km is up the road. So I'm going to allocate 15 minutes in the car to stress and to worry and to fuss about Saturday night.

I'll let you know how that works out. I'm way overdue a good fretting session.

Mother Stuff

My mother and me. When I was her only.

This mother-stuff is so very complicated for some.

I've often said, and kinda half meant: I wish I wasn't so complicated. I'm fairly intense at times. And I feel. Oh, boy do I super-feel. I've heard addicts feel things seven times more intensely than non-addicts. Hurts, slights, dismissals, wounds. I've nothing to compare to, right? So how would I know? All I know is I can feel demolishing pain at any kind of betrayal, whether real or imagined. It's all the same to me. So I talk to people who are just like me and who feel the same sense of hopelessness and sadness and loneliness now and again over, well, the mysteries of life.

Some days I can be over the moon, really happy. Next day, and for no earthly reason, I will wake up in the depths of despair. Analyzing doesn't help at all. Picking up the phone often does and gentle listening and soothing and often laughing at how ridiculous life is, can comfort like nothing else.

I'm guilty of loving my daughters to death and also another "daughter" who, at times, felt more close than my birth daughters. For we do the best we can with the love we have to offer.

But maybe it's not the kind of love that they want or need. I get that. And maybe they've given us all the love they're capable of and there's no more in the bucket or they've moved beyond needing a mother and thus sever all contact.

And that's the part I don't understand at all.

Every day I think of my own mother and how valuable and wonderful she was in all her humanity. She wasn't perfect, none of us are. But I miss her with such an intensity at times it takes my breath away. Her little phrases, her wit, her creativity, her positivity, her support of me, her only daughter for many years in a household of males.

So today, Daughter and I chat for long time. She was upset. Her daughter had broken a promise to take her for Mother's Day brunch. And I felt her pain deep in my heart. But we talked it through, we managed a few laughs over pictures she had posted on Facebook and the lovely things she'd said about me there.

And I focussed on this most precious connection with her.

And then I lit a pair of candles and incense for my two other mother-beloveds locked in my heart but never out of my mind.

Happy Mother's Day to all celebrating on this side of the world.

May your mother-stuff be the size of a lunchbag and not of a trunk.

Surreality

>>>>>mein host behind the bar today in the midst of crew and mikes and lights<<<<<

So I get to the rehearsal today for the Debut of the Seanachie (she appears next Saturday night).

"What are all these film crews and cameras and lights doing?" I ask, shocked.

"Oh, didn't we tell you? Oops, sorry! The History Channel is here doing a documentary on the area. So, if you don't mind, could you sign a release form and then chat up your show next weekend. And your new play if you like as that's about the end of a way of life in an outport, so all part of the history, right?"

"Oh, OK."

Feeling oh, so glad I'd put on some non-jeansy type clothes and dabbed a spot of powder on the gleaming nose, and sorted out my hair before I arrived. Luck of the Irish as some calls it.

So we test the stage and head for the bar where the interview happens and I get such a strong feeling as I talk that a family member is present in spirit, a really strong feeling along with "He would really love this, it's like an Irish snug-in-a-pub even with all the lights and the action and crew everywhere."

And we wind it up. And it's all good.

And I drop in on a really good friend on the way home afterwards to tell her and she laughs and says, "They followed me as myself and a crew cleaned up the old graveyard earlier on today and I was able to tell them about the old gravestones -they're talking of a series in this area."

And I say "Yeah, they want to film some of our play rehearsals too."

And we're quite gobsmacked over dinner and can't stop grinning at each other (she's the executive producer of our theatre company). And sqweeing in disbelief. She had a feeling I'd show up so she threw my name into the pot of heavenly slow-cooking beef stew earlier in the day.

And I came home and swear to gawd, the brother I'd been thinking so intensely about was on the phone from Ireland and said to me: "I've had such strong thoughts about you today. Like you were here. And then I said to myself I've got this big birthday coming up in the autumn and the biggest present I can give myself is my sister here for it."

And then we talked for nearly three hours.

Come Play with my Toy

~~~~click to enbiggen~~~~

I was reading somewhere that 99.9% of adults forget how to play just for the sake of playing. Running/walking becomes a grim business of time and distance checking, cell phone manipulations and exhaustion. PBs (personal bests) join career achievements. Races and competitions become de rigeur. All the absolute fun is removed leaving the same stress levels as are on the job. I've been there with tennis, running and bridge.

I've made the decision recently that if it's not fun I'm not going to do it.

With that in mind I added a new toy to my life, see above. Yeah, I bought this second hand for a couple of bucks.

I can't stop playing with it. The lighthouse flashes, the water pours down the mountain into the sea and the gulls call and cry to each other.

It's like I vacuumed my brain.

I recommend.

Shut up Clint!

I bring you Clint Eastwood SINGING "I talk to the trees". Who'da thunk it? I came up with this version after an effortless Google for the song.

And why, pray tell, do I bring you this?

This song has never stopped irritating me since it was released in 1951 or thereabouts. it's from "Paint Your Wagon" a musical from that era. I do have a video of it kicking around in my overly vast and OCD movie collection. I think I stopped watching it when ol' Clint came on and sang his song. To add to my outrage, it became a party piece in Ireland back in the day and I'd grind my teeth at the lyrics as some oul fellah got up at a wedding or party and bawled it out. Part of me wanted to fall down and laugh myself into a coma imagining the kind of talk old Paddy would give to a tree.

I should add the melody I can tolerate in an instrumental rendition but, please, hold those words.

Why do I dislike it so much? I could never nail the reason until recently. I walk a lot. And the many areas where I walk have a lot of trees. And I don't do earbuds. I like to listen to the many sounds of nature. The sea, the birds, the many animals darting around and the trees. The trees.

Seems like Clint got it all wrong. He shouldn't have been talking to the trees.

He should have listened as the trees talked to him.

Avast

There are some that are fearful of the vast quantities of time that can open up at one's feet and suck you in to nameless dreads and freefloating anxieties when the day job is no longer there to fill the vacuum. I know a few.

As I am wrapping up my own day job I begin to see this. Part of me is excited at not being so constricted by this career that spreads its ooze more times than I care to admit into my nights. Plus there are vast swathes of time where I see clients, talk to them, soothe them, answer questions throughout the year, plan with them, etc. Da Schmooze in other words. Part of any job be it MacDonald's or Google or Bill Gates is the ability to schmooze. It takes up a lot of time. For me anyway. Usually there's an average of one business email a day througout the year, then software updates, professional associations, webinars, continuous learning as tax regulations change and permutate.

I have to be wary of this final announcement to quit the business. I gently severed some clients last year, ones that were at a major geographical distance or their businesses were expanding rapidly but then, guess what? Some of them didn't settle my final billing to them. In spite of repeated requests. Bummer, yeah? So this year I am withholding this announcement from the balance of my clients until I'm paid. There's nowt as queer as folks, even clients who were friends tell me they'll pay me once they have the funds but meanwhile could I help their new accountant in the transition. What do you think? Put further work into the dead horse or walk away with my precious time?

I admit to feeling exhilaration at the idea of my life opening up afresh without the constant rattle of accounting in the background. I haven't knitted in ages. Or read a book in a day. Or visited my Writer's Cabin. Or meandered around my village in the afternoon. Or edited novels. Or work on the new play. Or....

I am ready. Avast!

Doors and Windows Open Wide

I'm a firm believer in that if you put something out there, hang a hypothetical sign "Open for New Business", then it will come. Manifestation. Yeah, too woo-ie for some to swallow, but seriously, it has always worked for me.

Today I got a message when I was out, training for the Tely 10.

"Hey----, someone referred you to our company. We're having our annual meeting at W----- Golf and Country Club and we understand you are a story-teller and we would like you to perform after our dinner on June----, if your fee is acceptable to us, are you interested?"

Am I interested?

Can you believe this?

Talk of the speed of a bullet?

Manifestation. I bow before you.

Endings and Beginnings

This is my very last tax season. There. I've said it. Right out loud. I just need to make the announcement to clients now and not be persuaded to NOT hang up the calculator. Like last year. I truly, truly am finished with it all. I found this nearly over season (still quite a few boxes and files kicking around my office) extraordinarily taxing. And do pardon the pun. I'm not smiling. It's not funny. To me at least.

A huge negative was in the past years I would add up your 250 medical receipts, for example, and have my mind somewhere in my next book. Or play. But not this year. It required every last bit of my mental energy to add those prednisone scripts and chiropractic chits. I tried meditation to graciously accept the work, I tried gratitude exercises for Gaia's munificence. NONE of it worked. I even burned karmic incense (direct from Tibet!!) to restore my chi to balance with the universe. The smoke fled out my door, leaving me gritting my teeth.

It is over, I am done.

I sent out a song to my lovely young actress to rehearse for my new play tonight.

This brings me joy, excitement and anticipation.

Something that's been hugely lacking in my life through this past trying month 2013.

And what, pray tell, is more important than bliss?

Mr. Stan and the Brass Stick

The old man leaves his cabin twice a day and walks up to the shop, about 1/2 km away. He wields a fancy walking stick. Brass. I wonder if it belonged to his father. You don't see much brass around anymore. Sometimes the dog and I trail the punch-holes that the stick leaves on the sandy shoulders of the road and I get a sense of his rhythm.

He had a long life and four children with his dead wife. He nursed her through her lingering fatal illness. He then moved on, after a decent interval, with her best friend who had been widowed many years before. And that didn't last long, only five years, before she succumbed to her cancer and he nursed her too. And then, he couldn't believe it, he was eighty-five and felt he should leave the family home to his son who was back from Alberta and move into independent living in one of the small cabins up the road from me. He has his independence, he drives a well maintained saloon type car. But he's been very depressed and I'll tell you why.

Within a few months of his arrival I'd see Annie dropping in on him, bringing him cooked meals and baked offerings. It was extraordinarily odd as Annie, a first place winner in the World Class Hoarders' Championship, never bothered with cooking or cleaning before. But all of a sudden she's "doing" for Mr. Stan. Annie was the one I told you about a while back. When she went off to Toronto to visit one of her children, she came back here to a house cleaned out by her siblings and set finally to rights. Zen. Polished. Decluttered and sanitized. She ordered her brother's truck up to the dump and retrieved all they had cast aside so carelessly. Materials from circa 1942. Her dead husband's (1988)clothes, tools and gadgets, her vast stone and shell collections, 5 unworkable teevees and several trashed microwaves along with more dishes than the army needed in 1941 and every box she had ever been given. She restored her house to order with the overflow spilling down the deck and on to the sideyard. Where it proudly hangs out with her dead husband's 1964 rusted out truck.

Next thing, Annie is riding around in Mr. Stan's car like a missus. And having sleepovers at his place (nobody's been inside her place except for the siblings intervention since her last child left home in 1990). They are an item. Her daughter, who is forty and posts incessantly about her dead father on FB, was now calling Mr. Stan "Dad". I should add daughter is partnered with her own love for over 20 years. But had this papa-hole that is now filled. All is well. But oh noes!

There are huge ructions and yelling one night outside Mr. Stan's cabin. Mr. Stan is thundering-lord-jesusing. For such an old mild-voiced gentleman he has a powerful voice when he gets riled up. It certainly got my attention and I live quite a ways downhill. It seems like Annie had been two-timing him with Mr. Lenny, who is younger and has many bottles of rum stashed all over his cabin which is six removed from Mr. Stan's. Annie loves her rum. Rum doesn't love Annie. It sends her mouth into orbit and winds her up so she starts spewing venom. Which she did.

Annie, who is 70 if she's a day, told Mr. Stan that he couldn't satisfy a woman such as herself, but Mr. Lenny could. And if he could satisfy a lusty woman such as herself then she wouldn't have to run to Mr. Lenny's now, would she. So basically it was all his (Mr. Stan's) fault if he couldn't man up.

Needless to mention gossip of Mr. Stan's shortfall overrode the two-timing crimes of Annie. Actually Annie's two-timing incurred quite a bit of envy, including my own. I mean, at her age? I think I'd be bragging up and down Main Street if we had one. If I was that fortunate to snag two old men living six cabins apart and have the energy to bounce around from one t'other.

But my heart does go out to Mr. Stan, taken in by the bakin' and cleanin' Annie and treating her like a missus and hoping for a Hollywood ending. Like the rest of us.

And now he's alone, kind of bitter, and who's to blame him, taking his brass stick out for walks as if his life depended on it.

Surprises

A wise old shaman said to me one time:

"There's a surprise in every day, you just have to look for it."

I concur. But sometimes life itself gets in the way of spotting them when I'm cranky, irritable or have too much on my plate.

The longer I live the more I look for them though. This year I deliberately cast aside the distractions of my day and I just get out in the air and find new pathways, new byways, new trails. And surprises.

Today Ansa and I walked on an old road, long abandoned. If you look carefully, said a very old resident, you'll find the faintest trace of wagon wheels for this was a coach run back in the day. I didn't see the trace of wagon wheels but I did see what I thought were the faint imprint of long dead horse hooves. It was only afterwards I thought: moose prints, of course. It's a haunted old road alright. Daughter had explored it last year and had the eerie sensation of being watched and hurried on out. High trees on each side, that wonderful indescribable smell of forest, and creaking old tree trunks chattering along beside me into the almost tangible silence. I must bring the camera there to try and capture the other- worldliness of it.

Then I went to my mailbox and inside was a large package from a beloved Toronto friend. I literally gasped when I saw what was inside. I had told her recently of my upcoming debut as a seanchai and she had thought to send me a debut outfit. I was staggered both at its beauty and its me-ness. She sure knows me and my style. A black top and skirt with multi-coloured lace ribbons dancing all over it, even from the hem and sleeves. A French designer label. Something I could never, ever afford or even venture into the shops that would carry such luxury.

And for the first time in years I thought: you know what would look good with this? Sparkling high heels. Maybe pink, maybe red. High heels. Sheer stockings. You need to honour these gorgeous clothes.

And there will be pictures. Promise.

I just love surprises but my favourite of all is when I surprise myself.

Ignore the messenger, hear the message.

I'm truly glad I'm an old woman. Really I am. Gone is the angst of yesteryear. The worries. The see-sawing of relationships. The mindless griefs over the might have beens and why didn't I's. You know.

I caught one of those little gems on the interwebz. An insight by Phyllis Diller (yeah, I know, I know!) but even the most unlikeable people sometimes offer you little nuggets of wisdom as they sit upon their aging bony duffs and pontificate about their lives. And what she said about belief in one's self was so powerful, it snagged my attention.

We're (well some of my readers) at an age when we know ourselves really well. And hopefully, we like ourselves. But do we truly believe in ourselves? Down to the very core? She talked about this. How the only reason she kept climbing up on stage was her unshakeable belief in herself. This after losing three of her children and a couple of husbands. Once you believe in yourself, she said, you don't give a rat's arse what anyone else thinks. You are joyously you and I am joyfully me. So get out there and just believe. Only I have to believe. No one else.

As I am me, judgemental, dismissive over-analytical, etc., etc., in the past I've viewed this woman as a travesty a la Joan Rivers. 560 surgical procedures of every stripe, loud, unfunny for the most part, crude, etc., etc., but the impact of what she said had me revisiting anew that old canard of paying attention to the message and never to the messenger.

And what a powerful message. And, to my mind, from such an unlikely source.

PS - And did you know she was a classically trained concert pianist and harpsichordist? Me neither.
PPS - And also that she was an extremely talented artist with her own studio and gallery? Me neither.

Energy and Positivity.

Daughter mentioned this wondrous substance first. And she's a living example of its magical properties. She has MS and has been following a holistic, non-pharmaceutical approach to the management of her disease. And has completed binders and binders full of research. She's had a fight on her hands with her doctors for taking an unorthodox approach. The MS Society (and I went to some meetings with her) are very much pro-Pharma and have done painfully little research on the natural, strict diet approach to the management of the disease. H'm, I wonder why?

Daughter eats no gluten, no legumes and no dairy. It hasn't been easy for her but her neurologist has told her that whatever she is doing she should keep it up. He sees no further degeneration in her condition.

The Facts on Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic condition that affects the central nervous system. This system includes the brain and spinal cord. It contains the nerves that control everything your body does, such as thinking, feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting, and moving. MS affects about 1 in 1,000 people and usually appears between the ages of 20 and 40, although it may occur at any age.

People without MS have nerves that are covered by an intact protective layer known as the myelin sheath. This covering helps to speed electrical signals in the brain. With MS, researchers think that the myelin sheath somehow becomes inflamed and damaged in small patches. It is not known what chain of events starts this damage, but once the injury occurs, electrical signals in the brain are slowed down.
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It is believed that MS is an autoimmune disease (a condition in which an individual's immune system starts reacting against his or her own tissues) and cannot be spread from person to person. For unknown reasons, the immune system sees the myelin sheath as foreign and attacks it.

The numbness in her limbs doesn't alleviate but isn't worsening. She has other symptoms (strength,inflammation, sudden excruciating pain) and sometimes a complete lack of energy with a resultant depression and listlessness.

The point of my writing all of this here is that one of her studies on her disease showed that most of us Northern clime folk are vastly deficient in Vitamin D which results in many auto-immune disorders, too numerous to list here.

At her urging, I began a course of 10,000 IU of Vitamin D daily about five months ago.

I can't believe the change in me and neither can my friends. Seriously. I am full of joy, energy, eating healthily, training for The Tely 10 in July AND the biggest change of all is that I haven't had an episode of the sporadic depression to which I was prone for more years than I care to count. Depression that brought me to my knees carrying me to very dark places of despair and the feeling of what's the use.

The only change I've made to my life was in adding this massive quantity of Vitamin D on a daily basis. I could link to this all over the interwebz but a Google or a YouTube search will give you all the info you need. And please ignore the Pharma Pimps and their nay-saying. They've got a LOT to sell you and deny the benefits of mega quantities of D. I'm living proof. But I wanted to wait a while and be sure. I'm sure now.

I haven't felt this good since God was an altar boy.

A Day in the Life

Timeout at Coutts today. Click to enbiggen

It was a packed day. I went to visit the owners of the inn and they booked me for 3 sessions of the new persona, The Seanchaí. Sometimes I think I've one hell of a nerve. Seriously. Nerve. I practised a sample on them and they were delighted and said you have to do all three dinner sittings, yes, you do! and by the way it's completely sold out. Be still my heart.

And then we moved on to other stuff. You know the way of it. Life stories, local interest, life by the ocean waves (they are CFAs too),Newfoundland people and how they enfold you into their hearts and are so unconsciously generous.

And then I went off to do some monthly pro-bono work. And then I took a little timeout with Ansa and went to a place where there are only sea birds (see above) and a rutted boreen of a road that we walked for quite a while. And I remembered the camera this time. The other day there were huge grey seals sunning themselves on the beach stones, watching us upside down, really funny creatures, flapping their flippers. And no camera. And we were two miles from home. Boy, was I mad.

Then it was dinner at a friend's, she made a marvellous stew with paste* and had saved a bone for Ansa who was over the moon at this largesse.

Then after this I headed off to drop in on more friends for an hour or so and then headed home. Grateful for the starlit sky, the magnificent weather we've been having, and so very excited about The Seanchaí's debut.

*This is peculiar to rural Newfoundland it is as if pastry and a dumpling had a child.

Someday

You get to an age when the somedays are all behind you. Do it now or not at all is my new mantra.

My recent (well the last few years') desire is to be a Seanchaí. One of those old Irish story tellers at events. You know, engaging with the audience, taking on a role or two within the context of the old story. Using no notes. Au naturel, unlike my previous foray into a one woman performance thingie.

My first gig as a Seanchaí is in a month's time at a dinner theatre. I will be telling a story from my life, well my aunt's life, previously featured in Time Goes By a while back. The venue is an old convent converted to an inn so I thought it would be conducive to a story about my aunt's nunnish aspirations.

I've been commissioned to write another play, another musical drama, and that is completely over the top exciting. Auditions will take place soon and the first table reading will be at the end of May. I am hoping for it to be an inter-generational theme, depending on cast.

I was at a concert complete with afternoon tea on Saturday. It was a wonderful event, great music and the tea was deluxe, lashings of beautiful food, flowers and china. A few of my friends are in the choral group. They perform mainly jazz interspersed with folk songs from the sixties and seventies, along with Andrews Sisters' numbers. One came up to me during the intermission and put her head on my shoulder, nearly in tears.

"Oh, WWW," she said sadly,"Can you believe it? My life is nearly over! I'm getting so old. I'll be fifty next week!"

Somedays, I wanted to say as I comforted her. You still have somedays!

But she wouldn't have understood.

Mulling

Our evening walk

Mulling: Verb

1.Think about (a fact, proposal, or request) deeply and at length: "she began to mull over the various possibilities".

To write well I do believe we have to read well. I was struggling with a short story I wrote that I like very much. For one it's based on truth but for two I have a narrator that just isn't sitting right with me. The story's in the third person and he is an old, wise man with some physical deformities (oddly proportioned body, very short with a large head)that I am extremely fond of. I know, for literati - "of whom I'm extremely fond" sounds clunky and snobbish, so hey, artistic licence, y'all.

He collects stories, and people trust him with their deepest secrets. I've written many stories featuring this wonderful old man but this particular one was driving me crazy. I put it away about six months ago, still unresolved.

I was reading a story out of an anthology yesterday. It was a great story up to a point and then it all fell down as the writer couldn't extricate the narrator and the protaganist from each other. The end of it was a mess. I read it four or five times and it was still a mess. Like the writer gave up and said, I did really well for 90% of this and now I'm tired, so stop bothering me.

I was out with the dog this evening and I was transfixed by the slapping of the incoming tide on the stones. My mind soared off. I was a child again listening to my grandfather who had wonderful stories and songs. "Come here to me, a leanbh," he'd say, "an sceal eile." (child, another story). I don't know how long I stood there but it was long enough for the dog to throw herself on my feet and whimper. But, suddenly, I knew where that writer had gone wrong and QED where I'd gone wrong too by not giving my beloved storyteller, Chester, his very own voice.

It's odd that. How we can think reading and walking and playing with the dog can be pastimes, fun things, but on another level, almost subconsciously, the mind can be opened up anew and a very old ball of knotted wool can be untangled.

Just like that.

The Calling Redux

Michael Redhill aka Inger Ash Wolfe

I wrote about a wonderful book I read here and the author was kind enough to leave a comment too. He wrote "The Calling" under the pseudonym of Inger Ash Wolfe and if you want to read an unputdownable thriller featuring an elder female police chief living with her retired mayor mother, this one would be it. Michael Redhill is the man behind Inger, his alter ego, and he is now a FB friend.

Anyway, I'm absolutely thrilled for him that this great book is now being filmed and Michael posted some pics the other day of himself on set with the stars. He is modest enough to be star-struck.

And guess who's playing the role of the police chief? Susan Sarandon, that's who.

And guess who's playing the role of her mother? Ellen Burstyn, that's who.

I'll be first in line at the box office when it opens.

Crazy star-struck fan, that's me.

The Trials of Job....Part 3 of 3

See Part 1 Here
See Part 2 Here


Around ten o'clock that night Harry announced the floor show. Especially for Chairman, in pranced a woman in a very short school girl uniform who presented Chairman with first of all her breasts (on a tray) and then her behind. I looked around at everyone hooting and thigh-slapping. I glanced at Yvonne who was just as appalled as I was. Then Schoolgirl set up her music machine and proceeded to strip. Slowly. Down to her pasties and g-string. To uproarious laughter, Chairman pulled out his wallet and inserted dollar bills in any gap or orifice he found on her body.

I got up and quietly left. It was just before Christmas and I thought, I will call in sick. I will call in sick for as long as it takes. I will get a medical certificate. Maybe they'll fire me. Oh please let them fire me and give me severance. Please. And then I can get unemployment insurance while I look for a job, any other job.

Ten days later, I finally showed up at work only to have Harry call me into his office before I had taken off my coat. He regretted, etc., it wasn't working out at all, etc., I lacked the company spirit, blah-blah, they would give me severance in lieu, etc. I restrained my glee. Unseemly laughter and joy might remove the severance package. Still coated, I went into my office and prepared the papers and the cheque and had Harry sign them all but I could not contain myself in the parking lot. I danced in front of the Lincoln, I danced on the lawn and then fled the scene, jacking up the music on the car radio, screaming my release to the sky.

If there is a hell I've done my freshman, junior and senior years. Remember that, Mr. Jesus Jones. When it comes time, I mean.

The Trials of Job....Part 2 of 3

See Part 1 here.

To add to the fun, Harry was a firm believer in socializing. Golf days, bowling days, baseball days, barbeque days, picnics in public park days. This was a far, far worse nightmare than the office. And there was no choice on attendance as he was encouraging company spirit by (a) giving the day off and (b) paying us all. I remember at one baseball hoot where I wasn't chosen to go on either of the teams, sitting on a bleacher and thinking: “Sweet Mr. Jesus Jones, what effing planet have I landed on” amidst the squeals of delight and laughter all around me as the others ran around in their Briggs Blue uniforms. I got to the point where I thought I was the one at fault. Why the hell wasn't I a Stepford Munchkin like the rest of them?

I was saved from hare-kari by Yvonne who was the quality control supervisor in the plant and who also wasn't chosen for one of the fun-filled baseball game teams. She turned out to be Harry's sister-in-law (sister to his wife) and just about hated his guts as he did hers. I could see the grim set of his mouth when he saw us together. Yvonne was employed there because of her husband who was Harry's best friend and was the shipping manager.

When you're trapped like that, very much a square peg in a round hole, there's very little energy left over to seek another job. It's all about survival - there are kids and other responsibilities of the household. This one pay cheque away from disaster life does exist. I lived it. And I'm sure my ill-concealed misery and isolation did not endear me to anyone there, apart from Yvonne who was suffering equally. We were on the outside looking in on this surreal blue comraderie and non-stop jollity, Harry in the middle grinning benevolence on everyone but us, poking his staff on the shoulders from behind their office chairs to raucous laughter, telling off colour jokes involving animal sex et al to his appreciative audience who lapped it all up. I felt my face was set in a permanent lemony pruney construct. The nun amongst the rabble. I was absolutely wretched.

I stuck it out, made the best of it, sat for hours in the computer room (yeah, those were the days!) inserting those huge old floppy disks into behemoth machines, feeding room sized printers with enormous boxes of perforated paper with 4 layers of carbon, tapping those huge old keyboards, listening to the grinding and chugging of all the machinery around me, waiting for the weekly breakdowns of some essential component like the printer or the floppy drives or an outraged orange message on the tiny black screen of the (blue) monitor. Sitting with Harry in his office, reviewing all this vomitous output. Harry liked to highlight and annotate every line with a (blue) highlighter so he could revise and revise and revise his annual budgets every month (seriously!), all changes that I had to input over many hours and for a grand finale to this he would obsess about minescule government tax rebates which took me forever to complete in triplicate. On a typewriter.

It all came to a head for me at the Christmas Party held at a swanky hotel which involved dinner and dancing and a special floor show for the chairman from California who was our guest of honour. I sat with Yvonne and her husband. To this day I thank Yvonne. a very funny Yorkshire woman.

To be continued.

The Trials of Job....Part 1 of 3

I've written about some of my workplaces before but here is one from the other side of the fence, so to speak. There were a few of those too. Here's one:

In chatting with Daughter the other day, I was recalling a particularly appalling work position I took back in the day when I was in my late thirties. I was hired as controller/office manager in a small manufacturing plant I'll call “Briggs”. There were five in my department who reported to me. What struck me as odd from the beginning was that I was the tallest person in the office at 5' 8”. The president was a wee British man, and by wee I mean about 5' 3”. (Sorry, I'm of the age where metric for the most part is a challenge.) The two salesmen were equally short. And I noted I drove the smallest car. The president, Harry, drove a blue Lincoln Continental with a cushion on the driver's seat to keep his head above the steering wheel.

From my very first day there I sensed a resentment from my staff. They had adored my predecessor, Vivian, whom I had met during the transition. I had the impression that they firmly believed that Lucy, the accounts payable clerk, should have succeeded Vivian. Lucy ruled the roost now that Vivian was gone.

There were very strict rules in the office. Every pencil, note pad cover, pen, paper clip, stapler and coffee cup had to be in the colour favoured by the company, fondly called “Briggs Blue”. Even the office chairs, in-baskets, and out-baskets, teapots and water cooler. No other colour was allowed. Harry was adamant on this. Harry liked to stand behind us as we worked. He would come into my office and walk behind my chair and even when questioned as to what he wanted, he would just humph and say in his nasal cockney voice “Oh carry on, carry on, act loik I'm not 'ere.” It only took me a half a day to find this behaviour offputting - and I reported to the man!

Single mothers with a household to maintain can't be choosy when it comes to employment. I persisted in trying to turn this whole scene around. I was able to escape every day with the bank deposit for I had taken that task away from the credit manager, but not without a struggle. I added office supply shopping, purchase of bank drafts and letters of credit and mail pickups and drop-offs to my daily outing and then added my lunch hour. I could escape every day for two hours. Liberation! A brief reprieve!

I mentally prepared myself every morning when I got up for my "Blue Life with the Munchkins”. Mean-spirited, I know, but in this hostile atmosphere (and it was increasingly so) it was sometimes the only humourous thought that would get me through those workdays.

To be continued.

Connectivity

I've been thinking about connection lately, how all things are. Trite I know, new-agey. Tree huggy. Elder reflections.

The shifting of importances. I really believe small things should be writ large. How well I feel when I know where my food is coming from, who farmed or hunted it, who has the chickens where the eggs are laid, meet the farmer who delivers my meat, when and where the moose was hunted, how far out in the bay were those crab pots laid. That there were scallop beds on the bay in front of my house back in the day, until the huge draggers came in and destroyed the bay forever and the ocean mile limits were set. Far too late. We need to learn from Gaia, our planet. She has much to teach us.

Today, Leo comes in with a load of wood from the barn and is excited. See? he says, see? And he points at a few big logs. Oh, they're maple, I say, impressed. (I do know my trees and wood from refinishing furniture back in the day. I knows me pine from me oak from me maple and walnut and cherry.)

It turns out they're from Mabel the Maple, her branches now dried and still serving me. And her trunk is still standing and I'm going to get someone to take her down and see if we can make one hell of a bench from her so she can live on.

Thank you, Mabel.