Five Loves

I love when I can open my back door and front door and let the ocean breezes sail through my house.

I love when the phone goes and it is somebody that wants NOTHING from me.

I love the anticipation of guests coming here, the prepping of the bedroom, the nice towels laid just so, the good soaps, the small little gifts they'd enjoy like a good book, their favourite chocolate, lotion, reading light set on a good angle, offer of my dog for their feet at night in bed (Ansa will put them to sleep and then seek me).

I love my indigo days here, the breathtakingness of them.

I love stroking a new book before I open it, knowing there is another world I will enjoy within, especially if it is recommended or sent by a friend (thanks Dianne!)

Yackity Yack

Some bills are really, really good. I look at my telephone bill for last month and I laugh. One of the long distance calls shows:

Toronto......280 minutes.

Who was this person you chatted to for ZOMG - 4 hours and 40 minutes on the telephone?

Did you take a pee break? (no, but I could have if I wanted to)

Did you skip a meal? (yes, I completely forgot to eat)

And in case you think I busted the bank: I get a global rate (I call Ireland frequently) of 5 cents a minute.

I don't particularly like the telephone.

So it makes this length of call both astonishing and hilarious.

And this endless conversation happens with my daughter.

What do we talk about?

Politics, feminism, art projects, writing, teaching, partnerships, entrepreneurship, her beloved daughter, now 16-1/2 - my grandgirl, cooking, growing, ideas, dreams.

She called today, it was another marathon. I only know this when I got off the phone and looked at the clock and realize lunch was skipped. Again.

I think she is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. I've thought that since the day she was born. She has never ceased to fascinate me. Even when she painted our front steps bright blue when she was four. And dug out under our backyard fence and escaped when she was three. And registered herself for swimming classes when she was four (they phoned me as my forged signature was printed in poorly executed CAPS - "MOMY")and showed up four months early for JK school and refused to leave so that the principal called me and I had to physically pry her out of there as she screamed and then put a calendar on her bedroom wall so she could mark the days until she could legitimately be at school. She was already reading and writing at the age of 4. So far ahead of herself she had to skip Grade 4 or she would have died of boredom.

She still has the capacity to surprise me all the time. I learn from her.

I remember the writer Isabel Allende being asked one time about the relationship she had with her mother. She responded that it was the longest love affair of her life.

I could say the same about my daughter.

Blog Jam

Sunset on the Bay, taken by me


10 LOVES

(1) I love the way my dog does a stately paddle in the sea every night. Just for the sheer joy of it. Head thrown back and this grin on her face. She lets the hair of her belly just touch the water and she lifts her paws high, throwing me an eager eyeball: try it oh two footed one, just try it!
(2) I love the way we all left the community hall after cards last night. It was after ten. We stopped suddenly, as one, and looked at the remains of the maroon sunset striking the still water like a paintbrush below us. My, said Myra who is 91, isn't it grand to be alive? Grand indeed.
(3) I love the way the conductor of a fabulous youth choir Shallaway was spontaneously invited into an Ireland-Newfoundland meeting I was at today and cried as she talked of how her dream became reality and her choir now tours the world.
(4) I love how I rush about tidying up and rectifying really bad areas of my house before the cleaning lady gets here tomorrow.
(5) I love watching the boat building across the bay and how they water tested this large vessel they were working on this evening with all these other little boats running around it. Like a mother duck with ducklings.
(6) I love the smell of the fresh mown grass and the forget-me-nots that are everywhere around the house.
(7) I love how my value has risen in the village because I now have a potato trench with actual potato plants pushing up through it.
(8) I love how certain friends 'get me' as I 'get them'. It is so easy to talk to them. Like shorthand for soulmates.
(9) I love how I'm beginning to tell tomorrow's weather by the colour and condition of the water in the bay tonight.
(10) I love the feeling of this old book that arrived today from the states. Thanks to Abe Books.
It is called "Newfoundland and its Untrodden Ways", a 1907 tome by J.G. Millais that I have wanted for a long, long time. It is bound in red leather and comes from Stanford University Library. Gorgeous doesn't do it justice. It has many old, old photographs and maps and drawings, some worth framing if I can get good copies.
I quote from one paragraph near the beginning:

"St. John's is a quiet old-world place, something between a Canadian town and a Norwegian fishing village. On one side of the beautiful harbour are endless codflakes and a few sealing vessels, and on the other is the main town, built on the side of a steep hill, where electric trams and lights add the one jarring note; but the whole atmosphere of the place is charming and without noise. They discourage the American spirit there, and the man who wants to hustle soon breaks his heart. Business men stroll down to their offices at ten o'clock, and have always time for a cigar and a chat."

I am looking forward to tucking into the rest of it. The interior of Newfoundland, the vast unknown, has always intrigued me.