Old Lovers

Some die off.

Some move on.

And the very few Somes keep in touch

Via

The Christmas Letter Email!

I got one today.

I can't tell you how many years I've been getting them from a former gentleman lover. As my name is sprinkled throughout with a couple of dearests, I think perhaps, unless there were many such as myself all bestowed with this fairly common name, that the email is personal. For my eyes only, so to speak.

I'm at the age where lovers can be pretty thin on the ground, ex- or otherwise.

He's a few years older than I, I wrote about him - kinda sorta with my usual poetic and literary licence - here, for those who are curious. (And I know I would be if you were writing this post). Go to the extreme right column for the succession of instalments - there are 6. That 1st draft remained that way.

It's rather gratifying to have any kind of passion declared for one at my doddery age. I imagine the passion is for my younger, adventurous self as is my passion for his sprightly, but fearful, self (he is now crippled with arthritis).

One of life's greatest kissers was Ian.

An admirable skill set at any age.

September Month

First blasty winds of winter scoop down today, shovelling leaves from trees, flattening the blades of grass to a green ocean, scattering the cornflowers.

Shoulds crowd my head. I should make rosehip jam. I should paint the spare bedroom.

Oh yeah, and deadline for first readership lineup of book looms ever closer. I should be editing, should be fixing that last chapter.

But I worry. Next door they are burn-clearing a hill. Smoke hangs like a pall over everything and then gets scooped up by the wind and filters through windows and doors and lurks, gasping, over the bay until the wind snarls it up again and throws it against distant houses.

What if?

I run to the post office to send back some library books. So I don't have to look at the flames licking the vast hill about 500 metres from my house. But I smell it even 5 km away.

Yeah, they ran hoses across my property as a precaution. I gave them permission for this. But the fire starters/carers are about 12 years old. How would they know anything about flame-killing if the trees catch? Or maybe it will leap across the grass over the fence and on to my house?

Anxieties.

Now unfounded.

Day is done.

The winds are intense and noisy but warm.

I will take the dog for a walk along the shore. As is our wont at this time of day. I love watching the waves pound up the cliff on the other side of the bay and then fall back exhausted.

Much like me.

Worrying about nothing knocks me right out.

Inside Looking Out

A Storm on the Bay

The wild of it
The wind of it.
The wend of it.
The weft of it
The warp of it
The whisht of it,
The whelp of it
The whinge of it.
=======================================================

It's a nor'easter - a savage day, wind howling, blowing the bedroom curtains across the room in jigs and reels. Trees screeching sideways. Reluctantly, I close all the windows and glance at the wood stove. And glance again and set a fire and light it. Birds dart around the empty bird feeder. I had to move it when I spotted the squirrels hanging upside down from an overhead branch and swinging towards it and tipping the contents on the ground. Barnum and Bailey acrobats had nothing on these critters.

I think, in gleeful anticipation, as I do on such days, safe indoors, wind and water tussling to the death in front of me, what will I do? A friend had recommended a great read, her favourite book for the last five years, and it arrives from England yesterday and I hold it for a while, heft the weight of it, find the love note within, savour that, read the reviews printed this way and that all over it. A Sunday Times bestseller that never found its way here, it seems.

I defer the actual reading of it. I smell it. Touch the slightly worn pages between my fingers. The energy of previous readers cling to it, I imagine. I anticipate the pleasure of reading that first page. On some books we agree, my friend and I. On others we engage in animated discussion. It's been that way since we shared Annie Smithson's Irish novels of love and love lost in Sixth Class back in the day. We each came out of the cradle reading, our mothers would say.

It's coming up to a night for a fire and a read and maybe a movie later. I've a few lined up, some from friends, some rescued from bargain bins in various secret shops around St. John's. Maybe a bit of knitting. I've always loved days and nights like this. It seems to me like the pressure is off.

You ask me what pressure?

Ah, sure now, I 'd be hard pressed to tell you.

Blog Jam

Strange this. July 14th and I've lit a fire. I had a client session at 1.00p.m. and thought: the house is freezing. I checked the calendar for the 6th time. Yup. July. Not December. I lit a FIRE.

Having come from Toronto where the humidex+temperature would have my brain fried, this startles me. As to what I hear out of Oklahoma and Kansas, mein Gott, I think, I would be in an asylum.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not unhappy with this weather. Not at all. My body can't abide heat. Put me in the tropics and I stay indoors with the A/C blasting and a good book. All that blistering sun wasted on me.

But seriously, a fire in July? What other surprises does Mother Nature have?

I hear the bakeapples will be ready in about 10 days. My friends watch the blossoms like hawks. We will descend and pick as soon as they ripen. Of the approximately 9 berry seasons here, this one is my favourite. The competition to gather them is intense and secret berry patches are guarded with the ferocity of guerilla warfare.

Meanwhile the green here hurts the eyes along with the wild daisies and irises. Water is grey under matching skies. Summer has completely skipped us out here on the edge of the Atlantic.

Mathematics

I've always hated the phrase (and usually from girls and women) "I just hate math!" or " Math is so not a female thing!"

When on earth did that perception start? Women have always being doing math. Try making a cake and measuring out the ingredients, or even eye-balling them or calculating how many to feed with the recipe. Math.

Try embroidery, measuring out the floss, counting the stitches, calculating the design, the hem. Math.

Try knitting. I started some gift scarves for Solstice today using an old pattern of my paternal grandmother whose portrait shows her wearing this pattern in a jumper. If that's not counting and calculating what is? The quantity of wool, the repeats of the pattern, the border of the design, divided, multiplied, don't forget seam allowance, both sides, mind you. Measure and repeat. Size of needle to get the required swatch in inches and stitches. And I'm not even mentioning the complex arithmetic of old Irish aran patterns. Math.

Dressmaking. I would design clothes, even made my husband's suits at one point. All measuring and calculating. Fabric is expensive. Measurements save money. I made my own wedding dress. And all my daughter's bridesmaids' dresses. Math.

I could go on.

Amazing what thoughts go through one's head as one sits in front of the fire, the only sound that of the crackling logs, the dog's even breathing and the whisper of the needles.