30 Days - Day 2

Parties. There's one on tonight. A lovely lady who turns 88. Big hall rented. Loads of food, booze and live music. About 50km from here.

Invitations like this have two responses in me. Initially I agree to go, especially when the lady herself phones me and tells me I HAVE to be there. I always agree. Initially.

Second response is today. Reality: going there will destroy my Saturday. I despise participating in such events. Mainly because I'm not very social. Small talk evades me completely. Being around relentless conviviality leaves me exhausted.

My week's quota of rhubarb-rhubarb was used up at a dinner party yesterday and the host, a dear friend, was in bed with the flu and all the out-of-town guests milled around to lay out the food, etc., and I dredged my brain coming up with topics when called upon and responding with interest to those brought up. There was a toddler and lots of baby talk and the teevee on all the time even during dinner. I made it through for about 2 hours but I always leave such events thinking to myself: what the hell is the matter with you? I'm definitely and positively missing some kind of social gene.

See, I'm basically a gregarious loner and the prospect of two nights in a row making nice is frightening to me. Don't get me wrong, a gathering of likeminded spirits really turns my crank and one-on-ones are fantastic, I've had a few throughout this week.

So my strategy now is: an "oops, not feeling well" at the last minute. Which seems to work best though I need to brace myself for onslaughts of tubs of chicken/turkey soups which has happened before for this socially inept liar. Which makes me feel worse, i.e. sickened.

And I deserve to feel that way. Right?

Humbled

Cod drying on a clothesline

I spent a lot of time as a parent with adult children travelling with my father who was in the same, well, boat.

I love this 'destined to repeat' aspect of my life. For now I spend time, frivolous, playful time, with Daughter who is herself the mother of an adult child.

We were walking the roads today with Ansa and she linked me and stopped me dead in our tracks. And we looked down over the sunny sparkling bay with all the boats in a row nestled in the harbour, the two offshore islands with a red hulk of a barge lurking on the horizon, and she said: "My God Mum, we live in paradise."

And on the way back, we stopped in at friends who have been incredibly kind to me (and now to her) over the years. I had this small bag of boxed gourmet chocolates. Not too big a token, not too small. I felt it was just right. The couple were leaving to go visit her 90 year old mother but immediately threw their coats off and invited us in to their roaring fire where we cuddled with Jeff and Buddy, their large cat and small dog for a while.

So we get up and I was feeling that surge of joy one gets when you feel loved. For nothing really. Just for being yourself. This couple have always made me feel this way. I just look in their eyes and I feel loved. And I don't have to do anything for it. It is so very rare that feeling. And so treasured.

And here's where the humbling comes in. Daughter and I are leaving, hugging them goodbye, and we are each handed a bag of freshly caught halibut and a huge salted cod.

And we look at each other, tears in our eyes, as we drive off.

"I've never known people like this," says Daughter emotionally.

Me neither. Me neither. But I'm too full of gratitude to verbalize it properly. But this says it for me:

From the Hermitage.

We've been through a rough time on this island. Power outages. No water. The pump house frozen solid. Outrageous weather of lashings of snow and freezing rain completely outside of the norm for the bay. We usually are all green until February.

I am trapped in my house as the ice outside is severe. I laid down salt earlier, hardly a dent on the ice pack. First time ever I had to cancel my Nollaig Na mBan. But, time and again I realize I am never alone. Neighbours astonish me. Trucks arrive with hot (yes, hot!) water, trucks arrive to ferry me elsewhere for dinner, plumbing genius digs out pump house, runs heater into it, defrosts pump. Blessed water pours forth after another day. I genuflect to my wood stove every night during this. I cook on it and it heats the house.

Perversely, I am glad of these emergencies. They show my 'hood in its true colours, kind, caring, sharing. My chicken lady's husband delivered eggs today. Calls of care and compassion come in. A friend hands me an old fashioned phone to plug in. Those wireless fancy things do not work in a power outage but the old fashioned kind do. Note to self. And others out there.

And all systems are now go again. But I'm wondering about tomorrow, wondering whether I can leave here to head into my office up the road. I am wary of this ice. I have the utmost respect for it.

It looks so damn pretty but I know it hides nasty underneath.

A Maple Leaf Christmas

Leo's easy to buy for. And I buy for him rather than make for him as his mental age is 12. He keeps my house running beautifully. The stuff I would be reluctant to learn. At my age we know our skill sets. And I have many. But the sawing of wood and the drawing of water are not amongst my talents.

He has an undying passion for the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Team. A totally losing team. And before a game starts on TV, he dons it all before he sits down to watch: the hat, the jersey, the pants. All logoed.

I've managed, over the 10 years I've employed him, to endow him with Maple Leaf gear: the watch, a bed blanket, coffee mugs, a rack, etc. I am running out of items to get him. Each gift is met with a joy beyond bounds. This year Daughter tracked down a wreath, a wreath with two Maple Leaf snowmen in the middle - see above. It came in a big box. When I gave it to him, I was reminded of my own childhood Christmases. The longed for teddy. The books. The fresh supply of building bricks. My brother's first train set. Magic.

Leo takes care of all my wood. He harvests it up on my back woodlot, he brings it down to the meadow in his ATV trailer. He chainsaws it, he makes the splits, he stacks it in the barn. He makes sure my indoor woodbox is always full. He cleans out the chimney every 3 months, top to bottom. He mows my lawn, he takes care of the sheds.

He is indispensable. And he teaches me all the time.

For instance, the other day my fire just wouldn't light. I am too rushed at times. He showed me what his father had shown him and what his father had shown him......you get two splits. You place them in the sign of the cross over the struggling fire. And bingo! the fire starts up in a beautiful blaze.

How were you born?

It got me thinking. What she said.

I'd asked her why she couldn't be all by herself in her home. She's a long term widow of perhaps 20 years. Nudging her way to 90. But very active. She has 8 children, all grown and gone. All university graduates. All devoted to her. She still misses her husband.

The odd thing is: She can't be alone at night. So if one of her daughters can't make her way out of town for the night she has different villagers stay with her.

"My goodness," I say to her, we are very free with each other in questions now. We like each other.

"Surely you must have stayed alone at least one night in your life?"

"Ah no, no," she responds, shaking her lovely head. She has one of those heads like on an old Roman coin. Regal.

"No, I never did. Not once. You see, my darling, I was born lonely."

Born lonely.

So, like I said, it got me thinking.

I was born crowded. A first grandchild. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, relatives. I was held and carried so much I didn't walk for ages. No need.

Is that why I love being alone while others crave company?

Post Performance

Wow! Wow cubed!

As promised, a report on the NIGHT.

Nerves vanished as soon as I sat on stool to Seanchaí myself: miked, filmed, applauded, dispatched to bar, where I met with many of the audience. The craic was ninety. There were cameras lurking in every corner as the crew who are making the series on the history of our bay want to catch the atmosphere and flavour and charm of rural Newfoundland. So into this melee a tourist from Boston, Mass. walks in to the bar to book a room at the inn for the night. First visit to Newfoundland. One couldn't script this. The place was packed. He is stunned at his reception, applauding the fact his family is from Mayo originally. So Cork meets Mayo in a Newfoundland inn on the edge of the Atlantic. I think the guy's head is still spinning at the level of the welcome.

The music was incredible, the talent awesome. Only in Ireland do you get the equivalent of a Newfoundland "time". Oh, well, of course, most of the inhabitants around the bay are descended from Irish stock. And brought the ceol (music), caint (talk) and craic with them.

I'm beginning to like this. A lot.

PS Anyone know how to pixellate a face out of a photo? I tried pikasa and can't seem to work it. As promised, I was going to post a picture of myself but with my anonymity preserved.....

Ramblin'

~~~~~~~~~Ansa on boat inspections duty, her day job~~~~~~~~~

I value the stuff that doesn't cost money. I wouldn't have said that even twenty years ago, for I wouldn't have truly felt that way. I do today.

I was out and about today with my camera, it gives me the greatest delight to do a walkabout, go to the shore, look at the wintering boats cuddled up together on the wharf with their Christmas lights. Yeah, the boats are decorated seasonally here. I breathe in the salt sea air. I chase a bit with the dog who did her own boats inspection as you can see.

It touches me no end when crusty old fishermen invite me for dinner. Meet the wife, they say, she'd like ya. I want to ask them what is there about me to like? Tell me, for I've never been sure of myself, much as I try. But of course I don't.

Sometimes though I get a bit of insight. You like us, they tell me, and you're like us. Easy to please, nothing too fancy about you at all. You fit in right well, we can be normal with you, no airs or being careful, like. We can be ourselves. We like how you treat old Mike's house and saved all his lovely woodwork. Respect, like. You're one of us.

I can't count the invitations I get. Though on a bad day I'd tell you they don't mean it, they just feel sorry for me, as that was the language I was brought up in. But the old language is dead and buried most days. Can't we do awful damage to a child, though? Can't we give them lifelong agony with our careless words? I'm sure I've done my share of it with my own. I didn't know any better and I have to allow that to my parents too. For what did they know? Fresh out of unbelievable poverty thrust into a middle-class lifestyle, wanting the best for their children even down to elocution lessons to get my country accent out of my voice so I'd fit in with the city folks. A voice that has served me well, thank you parents.

These thoughts come to mind as I finished off a book I wrote, editing, stroking, taking all the luxurious time to do it before I forwarded it on to a beloved to read and comment.

Beloved. Someone used it on a comment. Is there any greater word?

~~~~~~~~Sunset tonight, another freebie, thank you, Gaia~~~~~~~~

New Circles

When I moved to Newfoundland I left old circles of friendship behind. Most of those loving links survived my move, we are in weekly telephone conversations supplemented by emails, FB exchanges and little gifts and cards sent through old fashioned postal services.

My new circle really came to focus when I was planning my annual Nollaig na Mban which will fortuitously fall on the actual date next year, January 6th. I was overwhelmed a little when I realized that I would have to prune the list of everyone I wished to include. Prune. So in my short time out here I've made that many friends? Yes. I had to do the same thing in Toronto, prune the list. That sure brings gratitude to the forefront of my mind. My house can only take so many guests in comfort, though it has crossed my mind to have it in the community hall.

I was at my Book Club's annual pot luck yesterday. This book club has been running for 35 years. For this event we each bring a dish - I  was specifically requested to bring the same as last year which is a cheese ball - a great recipe of mine if anyone wants, just let me know. We exchange wrapped books anonymously - usually the best one we read in the past year outside of the book club choices. Some of our members are part of the St. John's Choir so they prepare and rehearse some harmonized musical pieces which are absolutely incredible. I look around the room and feel so very fortunate that I found this group of intelligent and welcoming book lovers.

The rest of my friends out here I met through my closest Newfoundland friend and her vast circle which I think encompasses all of this island. Seriously. And through my play, of course, and a few through my bill-paying work and the kindness of some of my fellow villagers who worry about my living alone.

All in all I feel very, very grateful that these new circles have included me in their midst. A later in life move could have turned out way, way differently than it has.

And for a gregarious loner such as myself, faced with pruning a list, remarkable.

Newfoundland People, salt sea.

Tonight on the Beach.

Hello, I say to the tiny woman wandering the beach in front of my house, a large bag slung over her shoulder. An older man and a younger man stand off from her, as if biding time. Her son, home from Moncton and his companion, she later tells me.

Well, hello my darling, she responds, she reminds me of a little robin redbreast, the kind that bounces over the lawn looking for worms. Her face is tan, her eyes bright as blueberries.

We exchange bits of information.

She's out collecting “mermaid's tears” - known as beach glass to the rest of us. Hence the bag. She makes birdhouses covered in beach glass.

All kinds all colours, her garden is fair full of them, she tells me.

My husband died fifteen years ago, she says, and he's been doin' all the sleeping for the rest of us. None of us have time for sleep. Life is too rich, too wonderful, too much to see and do. I've no time for that television business, no time at all.

Me too! I exclaim, it's been over twenty years now without television for me!

Life is out on these beaches, isn't it, she picks up a rock, I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's if it took me away from any one of those stones you see here. I just love this place. She says it with such fervour, I laugh outright.

She has five children, she says, but really six as she raised a grandson when her daughter got “caught” when she was sixteen.

And my dear, isn't he the best of them all. He's a doctor with a practice up in Cornerbrook, and you'd never know it but he's saved my life three times now. She clutches her chest, bit of a bad ticker and he's a heart specialist. A wonderful boy.

I'm seventy-five and my friends are telling me to move into a home! Imagine that! I might as well hang up me boots and lie down and play dead if that happens and she points to the stout rubber boots on her tiny feet. Her beach boots.

I show her my house across from us.

Oh my darling, that's a house I love, every time we drive by I want to just sit up on that porch and look at the water and the loveliness of it all. Oh my dear, I've always loved that house!

We watch the sunset in silence together.

Well Marge, I say as Ansa and I move off, next time you pass, you'll just have to come for a play date. Please visit!

Yes, my dear, you can count on that!

Lighthouse Doctor

I had to visit my lovely doctor today, he thought I had pneumonia, I was beginning to believe him, being a bit dizzy. Hard of hearing too. You would have pitied me at rehearsal yesterday:

"Can you repeat that?"
"No, I'm not yelling at you, I can't hear myself!"
"The harmonies were a bit off? Oh, sorry, right."
"Oh, I'm just repeating her idea? Sorry."

Gives me a fresh appreciation for the gift of all my senses.

Anyway it turns out both my ears are infected quite badly requiring anti-bs and ear drops. Rather crucial it gets cleared up by the weekend, yeah? This script will do it, Dr. M says as he hands it to me.

Anyway, as he is wont to do, my doctor entertains me with stories as he assesses me.

1972.

He gets a ship to shore call from a lighthouse 2 miles off the coast telling him there's a patient in terrible pain who can't be moved. He heads down, as instructed, to the wharf to find an ancient oarsman and his dory ready to take him off across the rough seas to the small island.

My god, thinks Dr. M, the man doesn't look like he'll make it to morning never mind through tonight!

Dr. M offers to take one of the oars and the old man reacts in horror,

"No doctor will ever touch my oars. No sar. Your hands are for the healing!"

The oldster doesn't break a sweat on the arduous journey and pulls in at the small pier off the lighthouse. A huge Newfoundland dog bounds down countless steps and waits, panting.

"Follow her now, she'll take you to the sickbed!"

Dr. M followed the dog. Up and up and up. And there's a woman roiling in pain around the bed, her husband ringing his hands in sympathy and not much else.

Dr. M completes the examination and inserts a suppository and tells the woman she will be out of pain in about 15 minutes and heads downstairs where the lighthouse keeper offers him tea. In the middle of his tea there is a series of screams from upstairs and he bounds up, two steps at a time.

He bursts out laughing at this point in the story and gasping, regains control of himself.

"Swear to god," he sputters, "She must have been constipated for a month! A month I tell you! It even hit the ceiling!

"I laughed all the way back in the dory. I didn't wait to see yer man the keeper's face after he went upstairs to the wife! A month of Sundays would have to come and go to get the place cleaned up again!

"And the very, very best part, and this shows you the heart of us Newfoundland people right there, is that a few days later a fresh salmon was delivered to my door sent by the two of them!"

Treasures

The wife of a friend makes these miniatures out of her own handmade crocheted lace and satin and sequins. She stiffens the lace in the old fashioned way with sugar. She handed me a little box of them tonight – they look like snowflakes. Along with these there was her home-made molasses bread, a dark fruit cake, marshberry jam and cookies to stagger out her door with. The casual generosity of Newfoundlanders still takes my breath away.

Reason # 2621 I live in Newfoundland

It is an extraordinary feeling, the sense that my whole life was just a holding pattern to prepare me to live here in Newfoundland. Getting ready, as it were.

Even in Ireland, surrounded by relatives, friends, acquaintances, I never felt that complete sense of belonging for my self alone, I was always someone's daughter or cousin or niece or grandchild. There was a sense of obligation both on my part and theirs.

But here it is just me, there is none of that baggage, none of the tribal or historical about it.

When I go berry picking here with friends, it feels like I've been doing this for ever. Blue sky above, with the matching ocean below, the hills a pulse of blueberries, the conversation monosyllabic for the most part as butterflies and bees dance among the bushes and I think: there is no finer thing than gathering winter food from the lavish abundance of the land.

My days lately are full of activities. Visiting and being visited is still very strong here, in the true Irish tradition. It is hard to work, the distractions are too attractive.

Today it was afternoon tea at a friend's. And there was all the time in the world to savour the slow talk, the village gossip, the condition of our planting, the work being done on my house, who dropped in to see me, who dropped in on them, our respective families.

Earlier in the afternoon, it was another friend bringing her visiting sister, while Gordon-The-Gift banged out a holy floor in my bedroom above us - the gorgeous narrow boards are from an old church and I, this godless woman, is getting an enormous charge out of that.

And I haven't even talked about the food thing yet.

The Saddest Stories in the World

Today I heard another one.

Maybe it is only in the small wee places we hear of such stories that would make your heart burst with grief and wonder how so many people just pick themselves up and simply carry on to brave a future full of more storms and other tragedies.

And it sets me to thinking maybe these are just everyday stories. In big cities we simply don't hear them for community life is sadly absent.

Elsie was thirteen and saying her prayers in church after school. She was the only one there, she was a good girl and prayed every single day for her father to stop hitting her mother when he came home late with his body full of drink. Being the eldest she worried about the bare larder and all eight children going to bed with their stomachs painfully empty.

Old Father Shaughnessy had been inspecting the altar cloths. He was very fussy as to how they were laundered and ironed by the parish women. And he oftentimes would humilate them into taking them all down once more and redoing the job. Even if it was only one that didn't meet his approval, the rest were then suspect.

She heard his leather soles on the floor before she saw his feet with her downcast eyes. She was very much afraid of his big roary voice and the way he'd pinch her chest when he asked her about her catechism. Now when he ordered her to the big house beside the church she instantly obeyed. Maybe he would give her some food, maybe he could pray too for her father to stop drinking.

But it wasn't that at all. He told her she would be called to the side of the Virgin Mary if she was willing to do what God had told him she must do and then all her prayers would be answered.

She didn't like it at all, it was very painful but she offered it up for all the sins of her family and Father Shaughnessy gave her some apples and bread and told her not to tell anyone as God would reverse all the prayers she had ever said in her life.

Elsie didn't know what the big belly meant. But her mother did. And her father beat it out of her who had done it. She was yanked out of school and hidden away and her mother told everyone that David was her new baby brother. And her father would go up every Saturday night to the confession box and come out of it carefully folding a few dollar bills into his worn old wallet. But there was a bit extra for them all, in spite of her father trying to drink it all away.

And David was sent off to Toronto when he was fourteen where he was to die when he was twenty-six of a work accident.

And Elsie went on to marry a man just like her father and had seven children in seven years and then the man just like her father was killed while driving home drunk out of his mind from the club. Her mother died from exhaustion the same year.

And Elsie's father lived on and on and on until he was ninety-seven and getting awards and medals for being such a great old man.

And Father Shaughnessy was made a monsignor and died with many Vatican honours and a holy book written about him. There's even talk of beatification still.

The Careless Club of "They".

~~~~~~~~~~~The potato inukshuk, held by Leo.~~~~~~~~

I've written about him a few times before.

I saw his heart break again this morning. 'They' promised to take him jigging this time. Jigging is catching cod for domestic consumption only as there has been a moratorium here on the commercial fishing of it so as to replenish the catastrophically depleted stocks.

There are many members in this club of 'They'. It's cheap and easy to join. All you have to do is tell Leo you will take him trouting or berry-picking or to a kitchen party or jigging. And then forget about it.

Thing is, he doesn't. And when he came in this morning having swept out my garage from a project's sawdust accumulation he mentioned his most recent disappointment. 'They'd' all left without him again.

Have I ever broken a promise to you, Leo? I asked him, in an effort to show him we - the so-called human race that is - are not all cut of the same careless cloth.

You've made a lot of promises, he said slowly, thinking, and then his face lit up, and you haven't broken any! You even gave me my very own shed for my bike! (A “bike” here is an ATV).

And what did you do last night, Leo? I asked him as he stood there beaming at me.

Oh, he said, you hardly want to know that. My next door neighbour, Dezzie? Well he's in some bad shape and no one will go near him anymore because of the smell.

What? I said. I've never seen Dezzie, Dezzie gets everything delivered and keeps his curtains drawn.

I thought he might be dead from the booze, Leo continued, so I bashed my way in and put my hanky up because of the smell, but someone had to clean it up and clean him up and his furniture too. It took me forever, just about all night. Dezzie's drinking himself to death and he never uses the bathroom now. Imagine!

I was horrified.

Shouldn't we report this,Leo?

Oh I did, he said quietly. I can't manage to take care of him anymore, it's just too much, so I called the health care number and they're coming over.

As he walked away, straight and tall, like a military man, I sat down and wept.

He is the finest man I've ever known.

'They' are just not good enough to breathe the same air as him.

A Splinty Splice of Newfoundland Time

I enchanted myself with a phrase I used in a comment on Stan's wondrous blog: Sentence First, so I grabbed it and ran with it and plopped it right on my header here. Splinty Splice. Say it.

I had an intense week work-wise. Could barely manage to squeeze in my ongoing online Scrabble games which are usually priority numero uno. Followed closely by blog-reads which had to go by the board while I earned a few coppers to keep the roof over my head for another year.

A couple I don't know very well (no, not Fred and Lily)invited me out for dinner at their place on Wednesday night and a viewing of their organic garden.

They live in a saltbox house similar to mine and right on the ocean in another part of St. Mary's Bay - and what an enchanted place it is. You'd never suspect they had such a magical kingdom from meeting them. They're quite brusque, no-nonsense types. But oh my what an evening we had!

First of all he cooked 4 different kinds of fish in 4 different ways. While he did this she gave me the 5 star tour of the gardens. There were flower beds everywhere, and she proudly told me all flowers had been gifted to her or she had 'helped herself' to the gardens of strangers. "With respect," she added. Masses and masses of different flowers. They had strawberry beds, root vegetables, rhubarb and runner beans ready to go.

Best of all, however, she had created an outdoor art gallery on her trees. Hanging from about fifty trees were pictures and bird feeders of every description, plaques and shells and driftwood and lights and candles. On the ground she had glued arrangements of miniatures - people, tables, chairs on old wood in hidden little spots. I was entranced. I felt it would be totally intrusive to take pictures then but asked her if I could come back to do so and she was thrilled.

But that wasn't all of it. Inside, she gave me another tour and proudly showed me her craft room where she worked on the old treadle sewing machine of her grandmother's. An 1888 Singer. Still in great running order. She had six quilts finished. I admired one gorgeous one of subtle Mexican colours (I'm in love with Mexican culture) and she insisted, over loud and long protests, that it was mine.

After a stupendous meal inadequately squashed down by partridge berry pie, I had the unfortunate stupidity to admire a history book of his and I was presented with that as well. My face reddened even further when he wrapped up a mountain of leftovers and told me I wouldn't have to worry now about cooking for myself with all the work I had to do over the next few days.

They both had to help me stagger to my car with all the bounty they had bestowed on me - oh yeah, did I mention her collection of conch shells from the beach I had the appalling lack of tact to admire?

Newfoundland people. Salt sea.