Gratitude - Day 5

The barn cats continue to wait for Ansa. She adored them. And they her.

At times, it is difficult to keep focussed on this attitude of gratitude. And in case you think life is a sunny bowl of cherries for me, it isn't, I have other more serious painful health issues which I prefer not to obsess about (hence my last post) but of which I'm consistently mindful. Further tests coming up next week.

(1)In my volunteer position I was extremely stressed about an employee situation I had to manage as some had threatened to quit over an ongoing dispute knock-down-drag-out-hostility between two men. It tested every level of employee conflict resolution I had negotiated in my working career. But a half hour later after I started the meeting, they were apologising to each other. Surprisingly, one of the men was close to tears, the other looked ashamed. There are no sex stereotypes. And I didn't have to pull my old woman card once - i.e. "I'm getting too old for this shyte"- which I've used sparingly in the past to great effect.

(2)"You are just another version of me." I read this recently and was moved by it. It's a shame it's not a national anthem or something.

(3) I had put a little nostalgic statement on FB about the Sunday brunches I would enjoy in Toronto with different groups of friends. Lo and behold, in response, a local restaurant is test-marketing a brunch this coming Sunday.

(4)Midnight last night, as snow had been forecasted, I thought to put my car in the garage which I use for the winter season. And holy disaster, batman. No room for the car. I'm in my PJs. But I got down to shifting and moving and tut-tutting all over the clutter on the floor. There was more dog stuff than anything else - 2 beds, her blankies, her car gear, her dishes, her stool, water fountain, dry food holder, etc. I didn't cry which is good. But there's nothing like cleaning up your own mess at midnight in a floodlit garage for neighbourly entertainment. "You OK?" came sailing up over the meadow from numerous stopped cars. Any truthful answer would have rendered me certifiable so I waved them all away with a nonchalant grin. So yeah, I finally parked the car where it belongs for the winter. And PS the snow was pathetic, about 10 flakes. But I felt so good about this midnight housekeeping so I did.

Gratitude - Day 4

Sunset on the Bay - 2009

I'm decidedly weird when it comes to my health. When symptoms are serious, I toss it off, when mild I obsess. A rare headache is a brain tumour, problems with my feet are definitely malignant melanoma, maybe gout if I'm lucky, or worst case scenario: amputation of the entire leg due to (take your pick)gangrene, undetected aforementioned melanoma (it happened to my mother)or blood clots everywhere.

(1)I trot off to my podiatrist yesterday, self-diagnosed from all my toes hurting, particularly in bed, unbelievably so in socks. Fully expecting any of the diagnoses featured above, in flashing lights. I had to say pardon? when he shook his head and said "Seriously dry skin," and bumped up the strength of my foot cream.

(2) I was going blind a few weeks ago, thinking white cane, home for the blind, too old for a guide dog?, loss of licence, friends, lonely in a one roomed hovel because of tripping over everything around me, rationed down to audio books and a 2 hour a day helper to wash me and ensure I hadn't set fire to myself or my hovel. I took the bit between my teeth and checked in with my optometrist who told me that my eyes hadn't changed in 8 years, I still had good eyesight. But my gawd my eyes were dry I must be rubbing them all the time and causing blurry vision, how uncomfortable for me and handed me a bottle of drops to use.

Yeah, a heavy duty foot cream and a bottle of eye drops.

Sorted.

And so very grateful.

Gratitude - Day 3

Copyright - Christine Henehan

(1) A pyjama day, so few of these nowadays, it was brilliant. Got hooked into a Netflix "Shetland", rather lovely with the main character sharing custody of his daughter with her biological father.

(2)Coffee beans. Good coffee beans. Ground to taste. Perfection.

(3)Moose stew, donated by a friend. Delicious for dinner.

(4)Perfect weather, bay as still as a mirror, clouds of summer blue, bright sun, green grass, lilac tree still hasn't shed its leaves.

(5)My clothes dryer vent now fixed. For those wet snowy days.

(6)A picture that enchanted me - see above.

(7) Fresh sheets on my bed.

Gratitude - Day 2

(1)As I look out my window right now I see a fishing boat heading out to sea. I think: incredible I get to live here, looking out at the bay, watching boats, hearing birds, being in this moment.

(2) A long time friend from Ontario called in distress last night. I believe that the only one who understands another's pain is someone who has lived through similar. Hers involved familial abuse and I've certainly lived through that in many of its forms particularly the shunning and back stabbing coming out of left field. So I could commiserate and share what I had done to rid myself of the ka-kas. Not that the scars leave but they heal over and we move on and then only go to where we are valued and respected. We had over 3 hours of chat and I am grateful she reached out and even more grateful I could revisit my own times of (looking back)painful turmoil and surviving it. It does pass, although never forgotten, but the hurts we endure can help someone else when malice strikes out of nowhere.

(3)Daughter left a message saying she had booked brunch next Sunday. She has been working so hard and I am so happy she plans time with her mother on her precious days off.

(4) My fire. I took joy in the faces around it yesterday when we had that meeting concerning my young friend and her intolerable living conditions. A fire adds to comfort and ease, brings us back to the basics of hewing wood and carrying water. A great meeting. My friend said, through tears: I never imagined I could have a caring family like this. Tears all around. And action plan initiated.

(5) Staying where my hands are. Not getting riled up on the political scene. Anywhere. Backing off.

All is well.

Gratitude - Day 1

In these times of turmoil and uncertainty and to lift my face skyward, I thought to list, each day for a while, the uniqueness in my days, the sometimes tiny things that bring me joy, the often unnoticed kind gestures of others, which frequently get squelched underneath this anxiety that haunts each waking minute. I need to be reminded there is so much good in the world, so very much.

A friend and I had a date to go an afternoon tea and concert today which featured a few other friends of ours. At the last minute she cancelled. I felt like cancelling also. Schlepping all the way into town all by myself, blah, blah. But I phoned an acquaintance who doesn't live too far from here and arranged to hook up with her. I'd like to get to know her a little better. This was completely out of the norm for me.

(1)On my way another friend called and said he'd been talking to someone who might be able to help my young (29 yo)friend find a place to live as she needs to leave a toxic family environment. Meeting arranged at my house tomorrow.

(2)When we got to the venue (an old church), an unexpected pleasure was a good friend racing up to me at the door and insisting we join their table. There's nothing like walking into a large performance space and being made feel so very welcome. When I gave my name for the pre-booked ticket the guy in the box office said "Oh, you're the playwright, right?". Talk of warm fuzzies and girlish blushes!

(3)The concert was wonderful and the food so lovely, all served with élan. There's something about afternoon tea and real china accompanied by live music that zings.

(4)My acquaintance, now friend, who has lost a ton of weight, told me she had a bag of brand new clothes in her car which no longer fitted her, some of which I might like. There are Santas everywhere.

All in all a rather lovely day now that I think about it.

And not the other stuff.

The Mighty Abyss

The mighty abyss. Waiting for us all. Two this week. One today. Long term friends. One a client, or maybe two, one asking for free tax assistance periodically. I was reviewing emails and had forgotten that. My sent folder was full of such requests along with affectionate exchanges over the years. The other, who died today, was a successful, long-term client. Friend would be a strong word for E, it was one of those connections in between client/acquaintance and not-quite-friend. Friends are those I invite to my home for kindred spirit communion. Not E.

You know how it is when someone close dies. You mull over the times. Revisit. And try not to speak ill of. E was a strange bird indeed. I don't think she allowed herself closeness or intimacy.

Twenty years ago, I remember flying to South Carolina with her for a retreat in the mountains near Asheville. A gorgeous spot. I'd had a huge argument with my man of the time in the morning. He had said he was going to drive me to the airport to meet E before boarding. In the morning he said he was too tired, go get a cab. And I went spare. He sullenly drove and I made the airport just in time for boarding. I remember not sharing what had transpired with E and faking normal. The trouble with people who don't share with me is that I usually feel like a crazy lunatic if I do share: the eyebrows, the long stare, the h'ms, as if such derangements were your peculiar dysfunction and certainly never happened to them.

I had all these gift certificates for a car rental, courtesy of another client. So we rented a car at the airport and E insisted on herself taking the first driving shift through the Blue Ridge Mountains. I didn't argue, though I was feeling slightly miffed as I had paid for the car, certificates notwithstanding. When I feel miffed I feel small, and ask myself why are you making a big deal out of this?

It was a long drive and after a coffee/pee break, she got back behind the wheel in spite of my friendly "my turn to drive now?" The weekend was great, I reconnected with some old friends and the workshops were powerful and memorable.

So we leave the retreat and E, who had not given up the key to the car, gets into the driver's seat. I say (very nicely) "It's my turn to drive."

"No," she says, firmly and clearly, "It's mine," and started the car.

I debated this. Get into a whine of: you drove ALL the way here, my turn, my turn!

But I let it go, I did. Because, surely, how important was it?

But truly, it was symptomatic of everything she did. She had to be in charge, in control, running things. I gave up having dinner with her on Wednesday nights in downtown Toronto, as I realized I'm not built for the kind of superficiality she represented. Her Blackberry, for instance, was constantly under the table sucking her attention. I let her go as a client about 4 years ago, mainly because of the stress she engendered in me by leaving everything to the last minute and not heeding my gentle/and or humorous reminders.

Her death was quick and unexpected. The vicious tentacles of an aggressive cancer which she kept hidden from most who knew her.

E was a good woman. That I know. Nobody is black and white as Hollywood likes to depict. We are all a mighty mix of oddity and occasional profundity with our inner demons bouncing around for attention.

E did her best as we all try to do. She was generous and kind in many areas. As long as she was in charge. But people like E leave us with many unanswered questions about the complexity of human nature.

And now I'm wondering who's next?

On Viaducts and Trestle Bridges

In two books I've read recently railway tracks spanning rivers or gorges feature. I love this in books, when my mind can drift off and I'm back, once more, lost in a memory.

I remember getting my first bike. I was 9 years old. My post office savings account had been stuffed at birth by relatives and grandparents (1st grandchild) and there was enough money there to buy a Raleigh. A rather splendid bike. I was tall for my time so it was a lady's. I don't even know if there were children's bikes and training wheels then.

I learned to ride on my father's ancient bike with my leg stuck under the crossbar. He didn't know, as I'd finish my dinner quickly and take his bike from the side of the house and head off down the road at this odd angle, my bum on one side, the bike on the other. You see, I couldn't reach the pedals from the seat. I'd return it before he finished his post prandial fifth cigarette. He was a mad smoker then. Players and Goldflakes. He was a much calmer man when he smoked but I didn't want to test his serenity by revealing the temporary theft of his precious bike.

I was over the moon with my very own bike. In those days there were no parental restrictions on distance or time. The only injunction was to be home for supper at half five. I went wild on that bike. I rode to Blarney Castle and would lurk underneath where the Blarney Stone was and collect the money falling out of the pockets of the tourists, much of it American.

I had a taxi service. An odd thing about my neighbourhood, it was mainly boys then, very few girls to play with and those few, unfortunately, stuck close to their dollies and little tea parties. The big attraction for us more adventurous 9 year olds was the Chetwynd Viaduct about 2 miles out. The picture above doesn't do it justice. It was magnificent.

I could carry three passengers on my bike and off we'd head to the Viaduct. We'd traverse its length, we'd dare each other to run across it, we'd shove each other around, we'd clamber on the struts and time how long we could hang, we'd flatten pennies on it. There were very few trains but we'd leave the big old pennies on the tracks and collect them later, all flattened out. It fascinated us. Or maybe just me for I'd ridden it a few times on the West Cork Railway.

When I think now of this risky behaviour, I shudder.

"Where did you go today?" my mother would ask when I finally showed up for my supper.

"Nowhere, just around, nowhere really," I'd answer, "But my bike has another flat tire."

"What do you do on that bike? You must be very rough with it. Your daddy is getting fed up with fixing it all the time."

What's Important?

I make idiotic stuff important. Like ranting and raving about the political structures both here and abroad, that seem to hurt us rather than benefit us. From the small to the large. And I engage in pointless battles on FB about ideologies and which reporter/newspaper/magazine doesn't have a slant. Ad finitum. Fascist or non-fascist, you decide. And how can we, we all might ask?

I don't think I've ever read of a kind act Herr Drumpf has performed - that's an aside. Shouldn't our leaders be kind?

And should I care? Is it my business?

Perhaps when he starts registering Muslims/homosexuals/blacks/Mexicans/Irish/aborting women it will become more my business?

Meanwhile, I feel like pulling away from it all. The flurries from the Guardian, the old writings of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky and various talking heads weighing in. And why do we praise men writing letters to their daughters? (another aside, he calls his wife a "girl") Shouldn't men speak up for all women and not just their "own"? And pardon me? - model respect for women for their sons? Spare me the daughter drivel.

And the callout from the cast of Hamilton last night to the Veep Elect and the Prez Elect tweeting hysterically about it this morning.

I mean it's all too surreal for this elder-head to handle. My internal logical centre fails me. Completely.

I weep once more for my dog, when we'd play hide and seek around the house. And she'd always find me, no matter how outrageously I'd hide, standing at the top of a step ladder under a blanket in the craft room upstairs with the door nearly shut? - in 2 minutes flat.

But it's not the dog I lament, I know that.

It's everything about this strange new world, blathering its inane way to another teetering Babel of infinite voracious consumption in a tiny finite planet.

As the arctic rolls over and dies.

Despair is my new neighbour.

Should

It's an awful word. Should. I've struggled with it for many a year.

The internal voice.

As I'm sitting here, all the shoulds are piling up on top of me.

I have a PG** coming for two nights. She's from Switzerland. She's travelling the world. I debated taking her as technically I'm a shut shop until Spring. But then the water tank blew up, needed replacement in breach of the tight budget around here, and I thought (as I always do) don't worry about money so much when money is thrown in your face like this. Bad karma. Take it when it's offered. So I did.

Another friend just died, an expected death but still. She's in Ontario and has lived an extraordinary life. She would never have seen it that way, but the truly great don't. For example she devoted a couple of years of her life to working in a clinic in Africa to help FGM* victims and educate residents as to why this was so barbaric. She will be missed. I heard from her only a week ago.

Another friend has pretty much a terminal form of cancer.

The true cost of aging, as the old man said, your friends drop like flies around you.

The silken thread of memory gets severed, you carry the memories alone.

No, I'm not morose. Philosophical really.

I'm shoulding myself into making up the guest room and tidying the dining room where this long, long table gets so quickly covered in the detritus of my life. Oh yeah, and the bathroom. And the hall where my storm door was fixed and there's more detritus. And the living room and kitchen.....

And a deadline of reading a book for the Book Club (thick, tiny print, 400 pages).

And darkness comes so early, melancholia. A season for dying, truly.

I'm sure I can think of many other shoulds.

It's a bloody useless word.

It should be banned.

*female genital mutilation
**paying guest

Politics and Religion

Well, that was quite a volcano on my last post. I love the debates, the differences, even the justification for Trump voting. I don't have to agree but I certainly can listen. Nothing cranks the handle more than politics and religion.

I remember being told that they were absolutely taboo topics at the dinner table and no polite family would ever broach them if they wanted to keep their guests' stomachs in operating condition.

Civil discourse is the hall mark of a well bred mind. So I was told.

We had debating teams at school. Taking opposing sides to positions. It forced us to study up on topics. I remember being on the Jewish side of a Christianity-Judaism debate - and this in a private Catholic convent school - so I had to research in the City Library and learned so much I wanted to convert on the spot. Then again I was one of those irritating teens who'd read about communism and wanted to strut down the main street with a placard demanding union rights for workers.

Nothing has changed in me anyway. I'm an enthusiast. If something fires me up I want to know all about it.

You'd never know by the sedate tone of this post that my water heater has bust, would you? I'd love to have given a long whine here but know that my handyman is taking care of it all tomorrow. Daughter popped in today unexpectedly, she was out on a drive and wanted to go for an aimless spin with me ("giving mother an airing", she calls it).

We love these aimless spins. Dropping in here and there as the mood takes. I left the millions of wet bath towels all over the kitchen and the utility room, bragged briefly how I'd managed to shut off the water to the tank all by myself, and we headed out.

I'd gone out for a solo airing yesterday and dropped in on a friend and we stuffed ourselves with scones and cream and had 4 kinds of homemade jam and drank tealeaf tea for 3-1/2 solid hours. And talked Trump and local politics and religion and feminism and books, lovely books.

Even with a squelchy house I don't lose the run of meself.

Adulting feels good.

The Day After

Michael Moore predicted it in July. And I remember back then, when reading it, my heart freezing in fear. But I quickly shrugged and thought: Never.

We can analyze the thing to death but it gets us nowhere when so many feel angry and abused and misunderstood and fall in love with the jingoism of making a country great again. What was great? The Civil War? Endless wars on foreign soil? Women without the vote? Slavery? And on. Maybe Norman Rockwell's portrayal of an America that never existed. Or Hollywood's old black and whites evoking the fantasies of what refugee Jewish intellectuals and artists envisioned as their perfect apple-pie America?

Who the hell knows? Nobody explains it. Gun sales have soared.


So violence comes into it. And outrageous misogyny. And a lack of critical thinking.

And maybe this simplistic, inarticulate, non-intellectual and inexperienced psychopath reflects back onto those who voted for him their own damaged, wounded selves.

Who knows?

But this is only the beginning.

For vengeance is his now.

Duck and cover.

Updating

Updating
(1) My blog - check.
(2) My Reading List - check.
(3) Watched 2016! - NEW for those who care.
(4) My freezer contents - out of control. Seriously. I don't really know when famine and pestilence will occur and the general breakdown of civil society along with food availability will collapse but hell, my larders will outlive me.
(5)My pantry - ditto to freezer.

And yeah, seriously working on these - interesting, haven't bought food in 10 days

.

(6)Acceptance of DST. Seriously, it was lovely at 6.30 this morning. Dawn!!! But dreading the darkness descending at five-ish tonight. Nobody has every explained why this is necessary apart from, drum roll - schoolchildren! Could they not adapt school hours? And speaking of....why this unearthly summer break?

(7)What does happen if the USA becomes Drumpf Nation? I don't think I've ever seen such a democratic travesty in my lifetime as this current US election process.

That's <30> for now.

Outport Life

So today. I go and work my volunteer library shift. We have a volunteer library in the town. A good one. Well used. Business was slow as the rain was pounding down. I sorted out some donations. Posted some info on the library FB site, chatted to some volunteers who were setting up the card game for tonight.

The usual.

I head home eventually after picking up my mail and come in to find our local lawyer, toasting himself by my fire.

"Oh hello," sez he, "Where's Ansa? Are you still my accountant? I've been away for six months on the mainland."

"Right," sez I, "Well......"

I'd been going to break it to him that no, find someone else, I've given up the business, writing now, health, blah, blah. And Ansa.

"See?" sez he, "Here's a $100 cash. All you have to do is sign off these papers for the Law Society that I was gone for six months and transacted no business in Newfoundland."

"Oh," sez I, "Leave the papers with me for review. No problem. I'll call you tomorrow."

Down the Rabbit Hole

Happy New Year in the old Irish tradition.

It was like that for a while. Black Dog weather. There are advantages to having the old BD by my side. I brutally edited some of my own work. It's the best place to be for this writer. Of course I isolated and had the misfortune to share with a good friend over lunch who left me far worse off than the condition she found me in.

At the end of this bleak weak I forced myself out the door to get some groceries and on my way back another friend called, intuiting I'd lost the run of myself, and said he's meet me for fish and chips at our local pub. He's one of those great listening guys who never offers solutions, he just listens, dredges up some similarities in his own life and offers comfort. They're a rare breed these friends.

He left me far better off than the condition he found me in.

Isn't that life though.

I find accumulation of challenges and downswings and disappointments and worries press down on me so hard at times that I sink further into the hole with very little encouragement.

The loss of Ansa has been terrible. I've been trying to be a pillar for my friend who lost her daughter. The mess next door and the loss of 100s of more trees weighs heavily. And I'm waiting on some more medical tests to sort out some baffling health issues which have impacted my mobility. I've lost interest in my community, which is understandable, I suppose, as measures were never taken in the past to implement and enforce a town plan and zoning.

The bright side is that I entered two pieces in a competition, I saw a wonderful show (a treat from Daughter)on Saturday which had us both gasping for breath we were laughing so hard. I can't remember when I last laughed like that.

And Grandgirl has suggested, and strongly, that the three of us hoof off some time in the spring together to celebrate the completion of her undergrad and her stellar academic year.

Something to look forward to.

Like the Old Man said.

Basil and Clover

In late October
The indoor Clover
Charms me.

Clover?

Bought as Basil,
Which flickered and died
Much like my old flame
In another life.

In its place sprang Clover,
Nervous, tentative.
Until assured.
Then draping fetchingly

Greenily, greedily
On window ledge.
Smiling over kitchen sink
Nestling with Herb.

Clover clings tightly to life,
Thirsty, solid, faithful
Stolid companion in this
Far too empty house.

Oh Me Nerves

So the anthology is off to a friend for formatting. A virtual friend in California whom I met through an online writers' group. Da Webz: she is amazing. VF has since become a well established author in the sci-fi genre while raising four daughters under the age of 7. And helps out fellow authors with her expertise.

I like the cover which features my office and an old fashioned lamp and a photo of my parents which seemed to fit. I wanted to show modern technology in conjunction with the old fashioned timbre of some of the stories/memoirs/poems within it. The photo is meant to be blurry with clear text. Not sure whether it works or not even though I am enamoured of it.

I've never taken on such a humungous, soul destroying, exhausting task in my life. It ripped about a year out of my life between rewrites and revisions and formatting, repaginations, four levels of editing and banging my head off my own keyboard. I would never do it again. Sympathy and compassion (except from other writers) was in short supply along with the challenge of the writers' impatience to see the book in print.

I think it will sell well locally as it truly is a type of compendium I'd see in the old days. Bits of everything.

A few of my own and Daughter's pieces are in it. One writer pulled a piece that was her best: afraid of relatives' judgements. A lovely piece, sadly never to see the light of day. Her substitute piece never made the final cut as it was so inferior.

It's done now and I can move on to my languishing 3 novels and the CBC Short Story Contest.

Freedom.

Mixed Emotions

Living with others has its trials and tribulations. I get to the conclusion I don't share the sandbox well unless the visits are of short durations or with the type who have profound knowledge of or have simpatico of the other. In sync as it were and I have a few of those.

I'm not terrific around smokers, I'm talking the fierce, smoke-gulping kind who need constant hits of the drug. (And I was such a creature until nearly 30 years ago. So I have an understanding.)

A friend who stayed with me all last week to Monday past, in my age range, has yet to quit nicotine. So my time was spent waiting for her to finish, to start, or to plan the next intake from the white tube. Not to mention detours to buy the weeds. And the house freezing as she bounded in and out.

It's been years since I've been around non-social smokers so it took a fair degree of tolerance and understanding from me. I found resentments piling up as I waited yet again for her to come back into the restaurant or the car or the house.

I thought toting a book to occupy me would be rude. But I found my subtle android screen-sucking would entertain me and remove the puss off my face.

But still...often she ran into stranger-smokers outside and as she's gregarious could light up yet another in their company as they chewed the fat between drags.

I love her dearly but dear gawd, if I added up all the time waiting for her in various locations, I would be canonized.

How do others deal with this?

It's not a topic I've ever seen addressed.

She's gone back to the homeland now, so my life has been returned to me to do with as I will.

And she's never been interested in my blog, even if she had the expertise to locate it for Google is beyond her.

It Goes Like This

So yeah, I'm getting a grip. I'm lining up the acceptance modules. Pragmatism is on order. I'm drawing the zen bubble around myself.

I was away for a week. And on returning home, I was faced with this newly dug crater next door. Crater? It measured about 60' X 20'. It matched the other former crater (now a ginormous shed) up the hill beside my tigeen in size. Oh lawd, sez I, another mother of a shed, this time plonked beside my house. Many more trees had been removed. Some extraordinarily old, over 100 years. A great wind barrier against the fierceness of the weather which at times blows in off the ocean. Now gone. Irreplaceable.

Yes of course outrage set in, rapidly followed by a kind of hopeless depression as the people who bought this land many years ago are perfectly entitled to do what they want with it as there are no land use regulations or zoning laws in this town. It's a haphazard mix of commercial and residential. Even though industrial blazes in the past have nearly wiped out the residential sections. I've brought up this high risk zoning on more than one occasion to be met with raised eyebrows and zero interest in changing the status quo.

So now I listen to happy residents sawing up these beautiful old trees for winter fuel and the sounds of diggers all days long, adding to the fill across the read which may accommodate more sheds.

I propose the new name of our lovely old town could be Shedsville.

So there you have it.

House Memories

It's mainly silence. But I believe a house holds both visual and aural memories forever. So now and again I hear the tinkling of a dog-collar as the tag briefly strikes the collar-hook it's on.

Or a rustling from where the dog bed was.

Or the slurping of water from one of the two bowls on each end of the house that I kept filled.

And then at night, I still say goodnight to her. The last couple of years the stairs were too much of a challenge for her. I still look to see her heartbroken face lifting up to watch me go up the Mount Everest of stairs and turn at the top to look down and catch the remnants of that enormous sigh of hers.

I still don't walk on the area of floor in my bedroom where her bed used to be for years.

Lying in bed at night I sometimes hear a deep groan which is creepy in the extreme. But this is a house memory forcing through the anguish of a previous resident who died of cancer here, far too young, many, many years ago, leaving her teenage children with an elderly father. It could be her enormous grief lingering on. Now mingled with mine.

I now close the three inside doors to the family room when I have the fire lit. To conserve the heat. I couldn't do that before as Ansa needed access everywhere. I look up from reading or knitting and see the faint outline of her sitting, back towards me, staring at one of the doors aa if there was a magic trick to opening it and she was patiently waiting for the technique to reveal itself.

I find my right hand still going to the backseat to have her kiss it even though it was a long time since she was able to ride in my car.

I still have the remains of her dog-food in a kitchen cupboard but gave away her cookies from the jar that was always stocked. Her car gear is in the garage. I find her water flask particularly poignant as after a good long hike I would pour some into her car-bowl and after she was finished drinking she would lick my hand in gratitude. I tear up even thinking about it.

I still can't finish a sandwich without tearing off a corner for her.

And leave the remains of my morning egg for her to enjoy.

Our little routines, so automatic when we lived together, now so deeply heartbreaking.

This house remembers.


And PS - more on my previous post soon. I am still processing but I am OK and the overwhelming support I received has eased my outraged shock remarkably.

Life at "Home"

"Home" is subjective, isn't it?

Do you ever write about stuff you can do nothing about?

Trying to sort out feelings like anguish, disturbance, fear, uncertainty?

I've been triggered badly and I'm trying to sort it all out, for there is absolutely nothing I can do about any of it.

I think: I have to make serious changes.

But my very livelihood and future security is completely threatened. And, I repeat, there is (seriously)nothing I can do.

This all happened while I was away. Shock and horror prevailed when I came back on Sunday, and still does.

I hate this feeling. I can't change it. I'm not like Barbara Bush. Though some can do this shelving. I can never do it. I have to pick at it until it unravels or something else distracts or.....

But I feel the earth shaking underneath me (not just a metaphor) and life will never be the same again. Serious evaluation and taking stock is happening.

More later when I develop a coherence to my thought patterns.

And you know how I do that? By talking/writing about it with a trusted few.

Until my world rights itself again.