Over the Edge and Into Laughter

Seriously. My house is a construction zone. Grit covers my floors, my windows have been semi-replaced (11 of them), wet paint hangs off doors and foundations, thingies are propped open or shut. Bins of debris surround the house, abandoned scaffolding lines the deck. The only living beings who enjoy this mess are the blue jays who patrol the railings and dive bomb the bird feeders. And that's just the front of the house.

At the back of the house Leo is sawing wood for the winter. He treks up the hill into the woodlot with his noisy ATV and trailer and drags down logs and chain-saws them into stove-shapes.

And then: friends I haven't seen in 10+ years show up from Ontario, I'm very easily found on this island. Ask in most shops on the Avalon Peninsula and you'll get excellent directions. Normally I don't mind and this has happened a few times in the past.

But today? It was a chaos of hammering, stamping, banging, sawing, dragging, accompanied by indoor window fixings, dust flying everywhere and debris crunching underfoot.

On top of all this, Ansa watchdogged like a mad thing trying to keep track of all the invaders and barking while protecting me by sitting on my feet and glaring and sniffing and yapping at Those Who Dared Enter the Holy of Holies.

Timing? Sweet Jeebus. Couldn't be better.

And speaking of Jeebus.

My friends had found Him a few years ago.

And wanted to share the Good News.

It was then I broke all the way down and laughed and laughed like a lunatic.

A tonic, I tell ya, a tonic.

The Blues for the Greens - Part 3

An unusual shot of Silver Strand

So there we were on Sherkin Island on Friday night. We were staying at the hotel for the weekend. The pile of us. The whole big gang of us. It was like summer camp without counsellors. Breakfast had that air of an unceasing cast of characters brought forward for entertainment and stimulation. I was up early so as not to miss any of it.

Every day was cloudless. Every day we hit Silver Strand and banjed off. As only the Irish can when we get a spot of rain-free, cloudless days. There is a frantic air to the sandcastling, the swim-togging, the picnicking. We grab it while we can as we shrug off the mould and rust.

So there we were at dinner on the Friday night. And an old friend who lives on the island and his wife were invited to join us. To catch up. This old friend I've known since I was a single-digit-aged child. We go back a long way. I got to know and like his wife in later years when I rented a house on the island in the summer with Daughter and Grandgirl.

So the moment of comeuppance: they arrive and get settled. There's a big crowd of us around the table and Sinead (pseudonym), the wife looks across the table and greets me in delight and then says, looking at my sister (who is fourteen years younger than me):

"Oh, WWW, I'm so happy you brought your daughter with you!".

Karma, she be savage.

You can imagine how this took off for the rest of the weekend. Sinead was mortified in spite of my reassurance of absolutely no offence.

We couldn't stop laughing as I explained to the family I had a big, long-held secret to tell them. My sister called me "mammy" for the rest of the stay, requesting permission for various activities like swimming and eating and referred to her brothers as her new uncles, including my "twin."

Helpless laughter resonates a long time.

I think it's the most powerful healer of all.

LAUGH

The leg of the evening

I hosted my annual women’s brunch yesterday. Fourteen were in attendance. Over the years the numbers wax and wane as southern and warmer climes beckon some of the invitees. Other times, to my surprise, there is a wealth of women, thirty-six was the all time high achieved about ten years ago.

The day lingers long and lovingly, beginning around eleven in the morning and tailing off at around ten at night. After polishing off the big meal, we snack on the leftovers throughout the leg of the evening, the cheese and fruit trays, the plum pudding, the cinnamony thingies.

I prepare standard fare, this year ably assisted by the grandgirl who throws herself into co-hosting and who just may carry on the tradition as the whole event fascinates her. We had wild salmon on a long platter, my famous egg strata dish, equally famous curried cabbage, perogies, Irish soda bread, croissants, fruits, cheese, desserts, potatoes, ham, Irish tea, strong French roast coffee, juices, neglected wine.

Photo taken after the savaging of the feast.


There are many Irish in attendance so the conversation loops around our Irish experiences, upbringings and evolution, emigration, feminism, relationships, Canada, politics, passions.

We touch on those who are no longer with us -far too many.

We follow some of the tradition of my mother’s Nollaig Na Mban celebration in Ireland and halfway through we have a little meditation to the spirit of Saint Brigid and ask her to take all the trials and tribulations of the previous year and put them away so we can get on with the new year.

And then I pass around a basket where everyone blindly selects their gift. This year they were silver stones in tiny frothy lace bags with different words on each that everyone had to open and reflect on. All had particular and unique meaning for each participant.

Mine was “Laugh” and even though everyone present thinks I am a reasonably happy and content person, I recognised that I have a doom and gloom philosophy when it comes to politics and global warming. I need to lighten up and stop taking it all so seriously. I am limited - I can only take care of my own tiny section of the universe. I shared this.

And today my daughter forwarded me a very good article that I’ve taken to heart:

It would be possible to write an entire book on the psychology of disaster. Fire and flood, earthquake and tornado, explosion and collision, robbery and arrest — our response is always the same. The Irish potato famine, the 1929 stock-market crash, and the rise of Nazism were all received in the same manner: widespread denial, followed by a rather catatonic apathy. But those historical events at least reached an end.

The systemic collapse that we are now undergoing has no such end. There will be no return to normal. There may very well be a return to happiness, but there will be no return to "normal." We will become like the Australian aborigines: naked on the outside, but with a rich interior life. There will be no more television. And that is why it may be obsessional and ultimately self-destructive to be talking about disaster.

It would be more positive, more pro-active, to deal with survival skills, rather than with prophecies of doom. Instead of reading one more article about the fact that food prices are skyrocketing worldwide, it may be healthier to get out the seed catalogs — which are being published at this time of year — and ask oneself: Which corn is better, Iroquois White, Mandan Bride, or Painted Mountain?

See the rest of the article here.

And next I hauled out my Terra Edibles Organic Catalogue and plotted ordering and planting some new stuff for the acres on the Avalon.

All photos taken by the grandgirl