Abundance

'Tis easy indeed to focus on the challenges, the negativity, the scarcity.

Today, I focus on the positive, the intangibles and tangibles.

I find it helpful to take a look at the life I'm living from the perspective of a stranger looking in.

I had a giggle in the hall yesterday with a woman who admired the fact I was driving still. She only drives in the summer. I said rain was a challenge in the short days when night descended so rapidly. She agreed. I asked where she was off to. She said she was a champion dart player and was off to claim a prize and free dinner. Dressed to the nines she was. She said: I think I'll beat their darty asses for another 10 years. She volunteered she was 84. I loved her spirit.

I'm still one of the "babies" in this building which makes me smile.

I found this delicious white fur coat (fake fur) at the SPCA thrift shop a couple of weeks ago. It had the tags still on it at $225 and I got it for $20. It was one of those mad purchases (internal dialogue: white? white? Are you insane?) but every time I wear it - for a fancy dinner with a Toronto friend, to a marvelous potluck dinner on Sunday, to my book club luncheon on Monday, I feel like a movie star. And the reactions? Everyone comments, even strangers. (OMG, the coat, that coat!). Best $20 I spent in a long time.

Daughter booked us dinner on Xmas day in one of the fancy hotels here. We had a bit of a hunt as Christmas is a sacrament in this province (aggressive Merry Christmas pronouncements, Jesus' birthday donchaknow, etc., no understanding of other faiths celebrating during the same timeframe, and oh horror, you're a pagan/atheist, Satan stay away from me, etc. Along with the most outrageous consumption of material crap I've ever witnessed and the most deadly and ugly driving to get at it.

So to find this civilized hotel was amazing. We would do this in Toronto on Christmas Day and often take a movie in too (exnay on a movie here, unfortunately). Delighted we are.

A dear friend in New York sent me an outrageously flamboyant poinsettia. Her story of how she managed to order it and have it delivered to me is a long blog post unto itself. And to top this off, in the mail today was the most beautiful hand designed silk scarf from her. I am so touched.

Grandgirl called me from Cambodia where she is stationed for a while and we chatted for 2 hours. I feel so very blessed with her in my life. She is one fascinating young woman and we have a wealth of commonality in our interests.

So conversely, on the downside, the last windstorm took down a large tree branch at my unsold outport saltbox house which snagged a wire which pulled down a corner of my roof and left a mess across the meadow. The power company is getting there today. I was so upset yesterday when I was there and felt quite powerless. Even more upset when I realized that a few were working on the Cathedral next door and hadn't bothered to report it themselves or to me. The inhumanity of these prominent churchy people who want my house for a song, continues to astonish me. Long may I be surprised as to be cynical and hating doesn't serve me well.

I am working on submitting a play to the Women's Work Festival. I'd written this play a while ago but was unable to get it produced in the outports. Maybe I'll have more luck in St. John's, the Big Small Smoke.

I must say I love living here in St. John's.

It's a rebirth of the finest kind.

The Books of 2015

GOODREADS WWW REVIEWS

Previous Book Lists. Scroll down.


(1)The Woman Who Stole My Life - Marian Keyes(gift)****

(2)Rage Against the Dying - Becky Masterson*****

(3)Fallen - Karin Slaughter not rated, dropped, could not invest myself

(4)Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

(5)Maxine - Claire Wilkshire {BC}****

(6)Boundless - Kathleen Winter*****

(7)Walt - Russell Wangersky***

(8)Lost - Joy Fielding 0

(9)August - Gerard Woodward 0

(10)The Dwelling - Susie Moloney 0

(11)Natasha - David Bezmozgis****

(12)A Place Between the Tides - Harry Thurston**

(13)Sweetland - Michael Crummey*****

(14)Open House - Elizabeth Berg****

(15)The Son of a Certain Woman - Wayne Johnston*****

(16)The Time Between - Karen White*

(17)Home Safe - Elizabeth Berg**1/2

(18)A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole*

(19)The Post Mistress - Sarah Blake 0

(20)A Man Called OVE - Fredrik Backman*****

(21)House Rules - Jodi Picoult*

(22)The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)*

(23)Lila - Marilynne Robinson****

(24)The Freedom in American Songs - Kathleen Winter****

(25)The Rules of Engagement - Anita Brookner*****

(26)The Bulgarian Connection - Fay Weldon 0

(27)Ordinary Mayhem - Victoria Brownworth*

(28)Life Before Man - Margaret Atwood*****

(29)Necessary Lies - Diane Chamberlain**{BC}

(30)The Ship of Brides - JoJo Moyes***

(31)The Devil You Know - Elisabeth de Mariaffi****

(32)So Beautiful - Ramona Dearing****

(33)Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather(re-read)****

(34)Surfacing - Margaret Attwood (re-read)****

(35)Frances & Bernard - Carlene Bauer*****

(36)Once Upon a Time There was You - Elizabeth Berg***

(37Sweetness in the Belly - Camilla Gibb***

(38)Pearl - Mary Gordon*****

(39)Life with Three Dogs - Abigail Thomas***

(40)The Divine Ryans - Wayne Johnston***

(41)The Daring Ladies of Lowell - Kate Alcott***

(42)The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs**

(43)First Frost - Sarah Addison Allen****

(44)The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt**

(45)The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins***

(46The Year of Fog - Michelle Richmond***

(47)The Invisible Wall - Harry Bernstein****

(48)The Smart One - Jennifer Close****

(49( All is Vanity - Christine Schwartz***

(50)Lost Lake - Sarah Addison Allen**

(51)Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf*****

(52)A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson*****

(53)Life after Life - Kate Atkinson*****

(54)You May Know Them - Ray Guy***

(55)Somewhere in France{BC} - Jennifer Robson*

(56)The Green Road - Anne Enright*****

(57)The Elegance of the Hedgehog{BC}***** (reread)

(58)The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy - Rachel Joyce (companion book to The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry)***

(59)The Summer We Came to Life - Deborah Cloyed 0

(60)Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders - Greg Malone*****

(61)Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson****

(62)Rise & Shine - Anna Quindlen***** (I'm biased)

(63)Nora Webster - Colm Toibin - could not get passed the first 40 pages, tossed. 0

(64)The Time of Crystal Water - Katherine Gosier

(65)The Boy in the Trees - Mary Swan****

(66)The House at Riverton - Kate Morton****

(67)A Paperboy's Story - Kevin Lewis** Oddly clinical for such an emotional memoir.

(68)The Cure for Death by Lightening - Gail Anderson Daugatz**

(69)The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zavin{BC}*****

(70)Saint Maybe - Ann Tyler**** (I think this is a re-read, familiar)

(71)Home - Marilynne Robinson - dropped could not engage

(72)An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy*

(73)Plain Song - Kent Haruf*****

(74)When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson****

The very best, for me ~ unputdownables, with brief comments.

(1)Boundless - Kathleen Winter. A wonderfully written account of her journey to the Northwest Passage and her inner journey to herself. Not to be missed.

(2)Sweetland - Michael Crummey. An amazing novel of one man remaining on a resettled island outport off the coast and refusing to leave. Incredibly constructed. It deserved all the awards and accolades.

(3)Frances and Bernard - Carlene Bauer- wonderfully surprising read. For example: P152: "I am now beginning to see why people marry. It's necessary to have a bulwark against family - to have someone who is not imprisoned in the insanity and yet is close enough to it that his or her observations on the inmate population have the ring of objectivity."

(4)Pearl - Mary Gordon. Beautiful descriptive book that takes place mainly in Dublin. P161: "the demanding grammar of the Irish language." Yes.

(5)Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf. I adore Kent Haruf so definitely prejudiced. Brilliant thoughtful writer.

(6) A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson. P 71 "Teddy wondered if everyone had done well out of the war except for those who fought in it." Brilliant description of deadly warfare in WW2 from the air.

(7)Life after Life - Kate Atkinson. Brilliant.

(8)The Green Road - Anne Enright. P300: "The next morning she wondered what it was she had wanted before she wanted a drink." Beautiful story of a distant mother.

(9)The Elegance of the Hedgehog" - Muriel Banbury. Re-read for book club. Loved it all over again.

(10)The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin. Adored.

(11)A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman. Charming, funny, emotional.

(12)Plain Song - Kent Haruf. Beautiful writing.


Biggest disappointments: "The Girl on the Train" and "Goldfinch" and "Nora Webster"

Also I tend to use books as pure and utter escapism so a non-fiction has to be really engaging before I consider it. Case in point for last year was "Boundless" and also "Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders." I read squadrons of "self-improvement" tomes for years until I came to the realization that every journey is unique and we self-improve (or not) as we toddle along. We all write our own stories.

Risk Taking

Goodbye Cara the caravan

What forms us? What forms me?

Our stories surely. All the little stories of our lives. The bursts of joy, the hell holes of sadness, the reactions to casual cruelties, the love, the hate and all emotions in between. Though some say it's all boiled down to two: Love and Fear.

I write of my own childhood events, the memories so crystal clear. These are what made me with all my flaws, my strengths, my talents. My thirst for knowledge, my passion for language and Irish culture, my obsession with writing. Even my addictions. Whether they are bred in the bone or habituated as a coping mechanism, who's to tell and why speculate as to the origin. Sometimes things just ARE. I live with them. I accept them. I make changes, often kicking and screaming, I make changes. And I chance and risk take.

Over an unexpected lunch with friends in town yesterday we discussed risk-taking. Chance taking. How do we ever know unless we attempt something new - no matter how foolish, no matter how idiotic sounding. This couple take chances. The started several businesses that failed and then struck success with the final business started twenty years ago which they sold last year. This year they head off to Florida for the winter. To try it. And see if they like it.

I take chances - I bought Cara the caravan a few years ago to gypsy my way around the enormous island of Newfoundland, one outport at a time.

The fantasy of this idea came up against cold, hard reality. I've never changed a tire in my life or charged up unliftable batteries overnight or cleaned out a portable toilet system or pumped in potable water to a tank. I was not about to start. I'm simply not that type of pioneer woman.

Cara is leaving me in a few days into the custody and care of a man who does all these things and more and will take manage her. Our lessons are learned in practice and not from lectures. But I never would have known about my own inability if I hadn't taken the chance on her.

Now I do.

No regrets.

Next.

Recipes from The Outport Woman

Easy peasy - allow about 20 minutes from stem to stern, 15 minutes when you know what you're doing without the recipe.

Serves 4.

I eat this at least once a week, sometimes twice. It freezes incredibly well.

Braised Coconut Spinach and Chickpeas with Lemon

2 teaspoons oil or ghee
1 small yellow onion
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon grated ginger, from a 3-inch piece
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 large lemon, zested and juiced (about 2 tablespoons juice)
1 dried hot red pepper or dash of red pepper flakes (optional)
1 heaping tbls of dulse or other seaweed, finely chopped, if desired.
15-ounce can chickpeas, drained
1 pound baby spinach
14-ounce can coconut milk
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Toast a handful of coconut in the oven.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Heat the oil or ghee in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is beginning to brown. Add the garlic, ginger, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon zest, chopped dulse and red pepper, if using. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

2. Add the chickpeas and cook over high heat for a few minutes or until the chickpeas are beginning to turn golden and they are coated with the onion and garlic mixture.

3. Toss in the spinach, one handful at a time. This will take about 5 minutes; stir in a handful or two and wait for it to wilt down and make room in the pot before adding the next handful.

4. When all the spinach has been stirred in, pour in the coconut milk and stir in the salt, ground ginger, and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer then turn down the heat and cook for 10 minutes or until the chickpeas are warm through. Taste and add more salt and lemon juice, if necessary. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top.

This can be a fairly thick soup or use as stew served over sliced baked yams (da best) or rice or rice noodles or basmati rice or....

NOTE: In withdrawal emergencies, you can sub a couple of cans of spinach as all these ingredients can be kept in your cupboard, omit lemon and use bottled lemon juice.

Outport Woman was Busy in the Kitchen

Between other bursts of energy and engagements I've been cooking. A lot. I like to make about 4 or 5 dinners and then freeze the extras. With this in mind I can afford to take more time and effort with some dishes.

In the last wee while I've made seafood crepes which I rarely do as it takes a while. But I am in receipt of a long awaited cast iron crepe pan and these were the result. The extra three servings freeze so well:



Then I made an old favourite, steak and kidney pie, making it an unbroken rule to freeze the extras (4) as I could eat it every day and not get fed up with it, it must be the memories of a long, damp, bone-chilling chilblainy childhood in Cork:



And then finally, this recipe which I've fed to so many at my table as it is so nutritious. I call it coconut spinach. I made 6 of these.



Next up is moose lasagna which is incredible. And then someone was telling me about cooking lasagna and then putting this marvellous stuffing along the strip and rolling it all up and baking. It could have been Grannymar, h'm.

Now if you're in this area, drop in. If there's one thing I enjoy more than cooking, it's feeding it to friends.

Ita's List

The graveyard had a festive look to it. A light layer of snow had smoothed out the hodge podge of headstones, black, grey, white, marble, wood, stone, cast iron. Gave it a pleasing December uniformity. I slowed and stopped, taken by a stooped figure bent over a grave.

Her appearance was edging more towards the grotesque than the eccentric. A long greenish coat, hooded. Footwear that could only be described as old-fashioned with ancient galoshes, unfastened, flapping around her ankles as she trod gingerly around the oversized graveyard plot, leaving huge footprints.

A massive scarf, knitted in the colours of a shabby rainbow, bleeding dropped stitches and a half-hearted incomplete fringe at one end was thrown around her neck. She had stuffed a large pair of snow-mobile mitts into each capacious pocket of the coat.

The hair I could see was scandalous. Her yellowed scalp bore an inch of white roots followed by the lankest blackest straightness of any hair I'd ever seen. I felt an unwelcome revulsion at the filth of it.

A much younger woman stood off to the side, bored, texting furiously on a pink pad. She didn't even raise her eyes to look at me as I approached the older woman.

She was very busy, I could see that. Draping pieces of Christmas tinsel on to some small wooden crosses. Standing back to evaluate her handiwork. Moving forward again to adjust the sparkled thread in some intrinsic pattern only she was privy to.

"A time of remembrance" I said to her, a bit nervously, for how dare I intrude like this. A stranger. A nosy stranger.

"Yes, my darling," she said, as only old women of Newfoundland would speak to someone they didn't know. Something caught in my throat. How long had it been since I'd been someone's darling? I wanted to hear it again.

"A lot of family graves here, then?" I gestured at the many crosses.

"I replaces them every few year, my darling", she stood up painfully. I was surprised at her height. A tall outport woman, far, far older than I had originally guessed.

I told her who I was. I told her I was a writer.

"I'm Ita O'Neill, my darling," she said, "and this here is my family!" and she slowly waved her hand out over the plot as if introducing everyone. I bowed generally in their direction.

"I'm ninety-one," she said then, "and over there is my great-grand-daughter, her nose and hands so busy with no one who is here, the way of things now, right my darling?" I nodded. We are all so busy with no one who is here, I thought. It is easier than dealing with those who are.

"And these," and she spread her hands outwards and over the graves, "are my babies."

"Your babies?"

"My ten babies. Imagine that. All dead within a week of their coming into the world. Some right after their birthing. Some within a few days, no doctoring then. No reasons at all. All born with my black hair. All dying. None to have a birthday or Christmas or schooling." She draped a piece of tinsel over the last white cross.

"Well nigh over sixty years ago now since the last one. Albert. I gave them all names when I put the holy water on their foreheads. I never had the money for a real headstone. With the names all fancy on it. A list, like."

"Maybe this way is better," I offered, "Now they've all got their own markers."

"And I'm the only one now who knows which darling is under each cross."

"Tell me," I said, "I'll remember".

Bernadette. Rosemary. Peter. John. Annie. Bernard. Sheila. William. Agnes. Albert.

My Summer's Still With Me

It is extraordinary to me that I can plant all these pots of flowers in spring of each year and NEVER have to water them. The weather takes care of that. Rarely too hot and enough rain to keep these babies happy. Still in bloom today. We expect our first snow, usually, in February, which always startles people who view Newfoundland as a land still in the Ice Age. Well, no.

We have a micro-climate where I live and since I've been living here, we always have a green Christmas. Our trees are still more green than russet or rust as our spring is always later than others (May-June). Late June is when my lilac blooms for instance. So our fall is later too.

My driveway which is long and winding, was ploughed 4 times last winter. Yeah, 4 times. Not much of a winter and it was always worse in Ontario. It can get biting cold when the Nor'easter blows and being An Outport Woman I can be caught huddled around my woodstove when that happens, reading a good book and tossing bon-bons while my woodstove soup simmers away.

Ah poor me - life lived in the rough by the Outport Woman.

I Play Well By Myself At Recess

There are about five berry seasons here. Immediate bottling, pickling and jamming are things of the past with the advent of the ubiquitous deep freeze so these lovely berries are all bagged and frozen right after harvest.

I still have a dwindling stock of frozen bags of cranberries, marshberries and blueberries left from summer’s happy picking.

Yesterday, which was wet, cold and stormy with multi-footer waves (who goes out and measures these things anyway? A measuring tape would get too wet, so do they use a ruler?) crashing on the shore, I cancelled my plans for a trip to town and hauled out my daughter’s recipe for oatmeal cranberry scones. I also made the loaf of Irish soda bread you see in front of it. I use a loaf shape and not the traditional round with a cross shape as I find it much more workable to slice into squares to enable an easy pile-on of the sangy filling.

Outport Woman uses cast iron cookware (I am the fortunate giftee of most of these pieces) on the woodstove fire for these housebound, unexpected-storm-event-baking days. And there’s something about the woodsome taste of such wonders.

It makes all those tax returns preparation go down so much easier.

(Recipes will be posted subsequently - they need to be keyboarded from my brain to paper - upon request)

Huntin’, Fishin’, Gatherin’.

I speak from a vantage point of many years of vegetarianism.

I returned to carnivorism, with emphasis on mainly fish, nearly always organic meat, several years back.

I have blood type “O” positive, which apparently means that we don’t do well on a vegetarian diet. I agree from personal experience. My body simply wasn’t getting enough protein.

For a city woman living in an outport in Newfoundland this means actually seeing
your protein before you actually eat it. This takes some getting used to. Like last week, this rabbit was snared on my Back Seven And A Half. I took this shot, with much queasiness, before the rabbit was ‘dressed’. (Shouldn’t that term be ‘undressed’?)

The extraordinary part of this is that one of my first distinct memories is at the age of about four, going with my grandfather to check on his rabbit snares in the early morning dew and watching him tie their legs to a long stick to throw over his shoulder before we headed back down the meadow with our supper.

My life has come around in a complete circle.

Reflection

Outport Woman in the City

Sirens blow, traffic weaves
Swift, careless, callous
Around and about and
Over and under my paralysis.

Leaving me breathless,
Sound breaking into bits
Inside me, me relearning
By brute force, city life.

I see the smudged colours of
Pollution laced sunsets,
Smoky orange, smeared crimson
Behind uncertain tall buildings.

And squeeze far too tightly
Memories of the lilting swirl
Of lavender and rose and lemon
On the willing waters of the bay

Photo courtesy of the grandgirl.

The Tiny Things

I never used to get such a charge out of the small things in life as I do today.

A few examples in the last few days:

The dog and I were waiting anxiously for the first frost. A very important event in this outport with masses of wild rose bushes everywhere. That’s when rose bushes give us their final gift of the year: rosehips, which are ready for the picking after the first frost.

Well it happened. And they were. And I made them into fabulous rose hip jam right away. Much to the astonishment of the locals. They pick all the wild berries here, bakeapples (or cloudberries), cranberries, blueberries and partridge berries. But have never heard of doing anything with rosehips until the CFA (Come From Away - i.e. moi) started picking them.

I don’t have to tell you about the taste surely? Incredible. And a surefire cure for a cold or the flu.

And then, as I’d treated myself to a really good thermometer for setting point of jellies and jams, being this fresh reincarnation, The Outport Woman, I decided to make my own organic yoghurt. Temperature is of the utmost importance with homemade yoghurt at all stages of the making. And by gum. Guess what. This yogurt is to D-I-E for. And I’d say about 1/5 of the price of organic yoghurt in the shops.

And finally, as I’d promised myself and family I’d use every inch of wool stash (you have absolutely NO idea) before I bought more wool, I started knitting a cardigan for myself. I’ve always wanted a hand-knitted cardie and have knitted so many for others over the years. My turn. With every colour of the rainbow on it. You’ll see The Outport Woman coming, let me tell ya.



It’s all the perfect antidote to Iran, climate change, the Great Depression and Peak Oil.