Life Lessons from Knitting

Knitting has taught me so much about life. I'm currently working on an afghan (sofa blanket) for a dear friend who has been so good to me.

The other day I discovered an error in it and I'm a little OCD when it comes to knitting so I immediately ripped down the four stitches to the error, corrected the problem and moved on. Not so fast. For I soon discovered that two stitches had gone AWOL.

There was nothing for it but to rip down all the rows and then reknit the entire problematic row again. And the two missing stitches magically reappeared with innocent faces on them.

Which put me in mind of relationships, how some are irreparable – they can't be patched up and oftentimes they have to be taken right down to the foundation and assessed to see if they can be rebuilt. Challenging.

Sometimes a design on paper can be beautiful but in practical application can be a disaster. All the kinks have to be ironed out, often with a practice run. It's far better to find out early in the game if something's not going to work than to invest time, effort and dreams into a project that is destined to fail.

It is best to concentrate on the project at hand. At times, my mind drifts off to the next project which is always more exciting than the one in my hands and that's where I make mistakes, cabling (twisting) the pattern the wrong way, forgetting plain rows and purling like a mad thing, forgetting to insert a key element like a heart or a piece of lacework.

Before, I would tell you that knitting is nothing, anybody can do it. Today I recognise, like all creative endeavours, it is something that comes from my heart, my soul, my spirit. It nurtures me, slows me down.

As I knit, I think, with love, of the people I am knitting for. A gift of time and memories as I run the needles back and forth. Most of the projects I complete and gift take well over 100 hours of my time around the rest of the busy-ness of my life. I weave in the sounds of birds, the ocean, the blue sky, the fire, people who bide with me a while and stroke the knitting and yes, always, my hopes and dreams for the giftee.

For I've only ever knitted for people I love.

Mother Stuff

My mother and me. When I was her only.

This mother-stuff is so very complicated for some.

I've often said, and kinda half meant: I wish I wasn't so complicated. I'm fairly intense at times. And I feel. Oh, boy do I super-feel. I've heard addicts feel things seven times more intensely than non-addicts. Hurts, slights, dismissals, wounds. I've nothing to compare to, right? So how would I know? All I know is I can feel demolishing pain at any kind of betrayal, whether real or imagined. It's all the same to me. So I talk to people who are just like me and who feel the same sense of hopelessness and sadness and loneliness now and again over, well, the mysteries of life.

Some days I can be over the moon, really happy. Next day, and for no earthly reason, I will wake up in the depths of despair. Analyzing doesn't help at all. Picking up the phone often does and gentle listening and soothing and often laughing at how ridiculous life is, can comfort like nothing else.

I'm guilty of loving my daughters to death and also another "daughter" who, at times, felt more close than my birth daughters. For we do the best we can with the love we have to offer.

But maybe it's not the kind of love that they want or need. I get that. And maybe they've given us all the love they're capable of and there's no more in the bucket or they've moved beyond needing a mother and thus sever all contact.

And that's the part I don't understand at all.

Every day I think of my own mother and how valuable and wonderful she was in all her humanity. She wasn't perfect, none of us are. But I miss her with such an intensity at times it takes my breath away. Her little phrases, her wit, her creativity, her positivity, her support of me, her only daughter for many years in a household of males.

So today, Daughter and I chat for long time. She was upset. Her daughter had broken a promise to take her for Mother's Day brunch. And I felt her pain deep in my heart. But we talked it through, we managed a few laughs over pictures she had posted on Facebook and the lovely things she'd said about me there.

And I focussed on this most precious connection with her.

And then I lit a pair of candles and incense for my two other mother-beloveds locked in my heart but never out of my mind.

Happy Mother's Day to all celebrating on this side of the world.

May your mother-stuff be the size of a lunchbag and not of a trunk.

Letting Go

Glorious sun in the clouds this past Sunday.

If there's one thing I've learned in this long eventful life, it's that it's fine to say one has let go of hurts or slights or losses, it's another for them to be permanently banished. Right?

I suppose the pain gets a little easier but never quite vanishes.

There are loved ones I think of every day. Even though to all intents and purposes they do not appear to love me. My thoughts are not obsessive, don't get me wrong. Not at all. But kind thoughts go out, love is sent and light is imagined surrounding them.

I have this little thing I do. Daily, I'm out on the shore with the dog (and oh yeah, today was her first 2013 paddle in the ocean, spring HAS to be here now!) And I pick up stones from the beach for these loved ones. And I name them. There were a few today. The number varies as relationships wax and wane and evolve. And the odd time I pick up a stone for my mother, or my granny, seeking the wisdom of the ages. And then I whisper a name into each stone and toss them one by one into the water. Sending love. Kind thoughts. Healing. Joy. Contentment.

And I go on my way.

At peace with the world.

Sucker Punched

The man so far away.
Safely Ontario-ed.
Remarried.
Odd thought
Thrown his way.
Full recovery
From broken heart.
And then. And then.
The grand announcement.
He and new wife
Moving to Newfoundland.
Soonest.
Door bangs open.
Disbelief enters.
Many, many WTFs.



Newfoundland is small.
Too small.
To contain us both.

Ungapped

Strange this.
We meet again, a year later.
And it is like we pick
Up the long conversation
Exactly where we left off.

I am old enough
To be your mother.
I know that never stops
Men who are old enough
To father the women
They end up with.

But it stops me.
I can't entertain such thoughts.
But you speak of moving here
Permanently.
And me helping you
With this and that.

And your eyes sparkle
And you tell me things
Did not work out
With that woman in Toronto
And could I read to you.

Please.

Sometime.

Soon.

As you love my voice
And the words I give you.
And then you'll tell me more
About Michael Collins
And I'll tell you more
About how I got here.

Night Owl

This is the latest addition to my owl collection - a birthday gift of a commissioned handcrafted rug from a dear friend.

My animal totem, given to me by a shaman many, many moon cycles ago is an owl. For wisdom, he said, and for night-loving and wooing. I don't think he was punning but I like to fancy he was. Either or. I've woo-hood back at any owls who flit around here and I would like to woo another night owl like myself if he ever presented himself.

I fight this night living thing all the time. It is late now, I look out over the mirror of the bay and see the lights reflected on the water and feel happiest. Day time is not my preferred time but as it's nearly everyone else's I have to suit up and show up when dawn appears.

A belief in former lives would say I must have been a courtesan or a night club dancer or at the very least a jazz singer in a smoky boite.

And of course any relationships I've had were mainly with day people with a few notable exceptions. With one, we would always make a point of having breakfast at Vesta's in Toronto at 4.00 a.m. As we both had to work, this was only accomplished on the weekends to our great glee. We often walked the boardwalk in the dead silence of the deep night, only the waves and the odd flutter of a sleepy bird underscoring our conversation.

With another we would drive off to, well, anywhere. Niagara Falls. Kingston. Sarnia. Only the midnight ribbon of highway beneath the car and some well loved music on the car stereo.

Now I savour the silence as I write this. How wonderful is the silence of an outport late at night. It comforts like a warm cloak.

Simon and Garfunkel were right. Darkness and the sound of silence. Truly my old friends.

Blog Jam

~~~Through The Fog~~~

I spend a lot of my time alone. Which is my preference. People would say I'm extroverted but I am not. I spent a lot of my time as a child escaping, to bathrooms, under the stairs, solitary bike riding, solitary walking and cliff hiking. Reading. Writing. Playing the piano with the door closed, oblivious to any query as to what was I was playing in there.

I live in my head most of the time. Always have. Escapism? I suppose so. I sometimes find the insanity and pain of the world too much to bear. This heading straight off a cliff into nothingness which looms ahead of all of us. I talk to the spirits of my grandmother and mother that live inside me. Certifiable? Perhaps.

I find it such a challenge to be understood. I would love to do light and fluffy like so many I know but I'm just not put together that way so I hold myself back a lot of the time. I have very few friends that I share my inner thoughts with for fear of being found incomprehensible, or being ridiculed and rejected. I differ in values with a lot of my family. As I get older, I realize the chasms are getting larger rather than smaller. And when I reach out across the voids created by others that were once close to me it is more often than not met with a stinging silence.

Daughter recently went on a hiatus from Facebook as she discovered that it was increasing her sense of isolation, seeing photos of other family members temporarily unite from other corners of the globe and excluding her even though she is in the same city as them and is all by herself. I surmise it was probably inadvertent. People just don't think, do they?

I saw that for myself in the past 9 days when I was carless. Only one person called to see if I needed groceries or anything else. But it just takes the one. I see that too. We just don't think outside our own personal self-contained little boxes.

I am going to try and do better with this. To jump outside my own personal safety net a little more and see if others could use a hand or even a listening ear. And risk.

For after all I am the change I wish to see in the world, right?

That Alternative Universe Thingie

It's like this. I casually check up on an old boyfriend on yer Googley machine. I do this now and again. Throw a name of an old lovie-dove into the big G and watch it spindry for a while and regurgitate an old Himself into something new and shiny or sodden and sad. It's fascinating. Everyone does this, don't they? No? Oh, c'mon! I'm the only one owning up to it then?

The odd one has an obit, I'll tell ya that can weird me out a bit. And in case you think I've been around the block a few times, well I have. But not as much as you're thinking even though I'm flattered that you would.

Well I did this with one the other night. And guess what, if he's not making a big name for himself in politics. Really big. All based on his honesty, open-mindedness and transparency. A manifesto, like. All printed up on his website like an old papyrus document. And a picture of Himself beside it, all blue-eyed truthiness with a matching sweater.

And I sit there gob-smacked.

Maybe I wasn't looking when we were madly in love a decade ago or maybe those qualities are like bunions – you grow them later on in life. But I remember the last sorry week of our relationship when it became evident he had done nothing but lie to me for the two years we were together.

And broke my heart.

A Day in the Life of a Solitary Woman

I live alone - well, apart from Ansa - but I am rarely lonely.

Like last night, I came home from the day’s events and find that Leo had filled the woodbox. Not only that - and this is so special - he had laid a fire in the grate, ready for me to put a match to it. We place a lot of value in each other, Leo and me.

Today, I entertain a gentleman caller to lunch. My famous woodstove soup, some lovely smoked salmon and soda bread, a camembert cheese and small salad. He is 89 going on 40. He teaches me a lot and is a considerable and well respected artist in wood.

We enjoy talking to each other. We are both coming from the Church of Reality and are surrounded by the Cult of Christianity where we often dare not speak openly of our beliefs. It is a blessing to talk freely and spontaneously with each other about so many events and changing times without the pall of a mystical Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper hanging over us.

Later on, I moved my laptop out of my office and in front of the fire. Not a good thing, perhaps. No reading, writing (apart from this) or knitting is being done as I play on it in front of the flames, toasty and warm.

Tomorrow I head into town for The First Annual Sparks Literary Festival which promises to be a day overflowing with authors and readings.

I sometimes ask myself, where would I squeeze in a full time relationship in all of this? He'd have to be a very busy man indeed.

Saturday Night 5.30 p.m. to 1.30 a.m.

Scene: Restaurant.

He: Oh you got here early.
Me: Yes
He: You should have called, come over to my place.
Me: I finished with the client early.

Chaste kiss.

He: Next time, let me know.
Me: Oh, I always have a book and also I have some workshop work. Ha.
He: You could do all that in my place.
Me: Well I wouldn’t, would I. We’d be too busy talking. Ha.

Intermission.

Share appetizer, dinner. Talk for 4 hours over 286 coffees.

He: Come back to my place now.
Me: OK.

Scene: His place.

Me (thinking): Gawd, he’s got my artwork on top of his stereo. Oh, look more over there on the bookshelf.
He: I love your artwork: see?
Me: I’m flattered
Me (thinking): Self: Can’t you think of something even remotely intelligent to say?
He: I’ll make tea, right?
Me: I’ll make it with you.

Intermission. Talk for another 2 hours. We never run out of conversation.

I need bathroom twice after 25 gallons of coffee and tea. He’s put out the guest towels. Sweet.

Me: I should get home, it’s late, the snow stopped.

He: I’d like if you stayed longer.

Me: I should go.

He: OK then.

Chaste kiss.

Me: Driving away.

He: Waving at door.

Me (thinking): Did I miss any cues? Should I have stayed on? How does one convert a chaste kiss to something else? Was that up to me or up to him?

If it was meant to be it would have happened, right?

Posted Later:
Thank you so much Twilight for this lovely award:


Now hung proudly in my hallway at the left.

Missing: An extra layer of skin.

That’s me.

Maybe I feel things a bit more deeply for I react more sensitively to the situations that others can toss off with a “Next!”

Not me.

I do wish I could move on and leave slights and slings and arrows behind me. Not personalize them so much. Not to feel so hurt.

I’m far too sensitive. "For God's sake," my father would explode, "Why are you always wearing your heart right there on your sleeve?"

I don't know how not to.

With one huge change: this is the stuff I used to drink and overeat over. But not today.

Today I let the feelings wash over me, and allow the flashbacks to old feelings of abandonment, rejection, never good enough, loved enough, respected enough. No stuffing anything down. Feel the feelings. Put them on stones, toss them into the ocean. When I'm ready.

I find out at the last minute my family of origin doesn’t care enough to come and celebrate a significant milestone birthday with me. A party I had planned at the beginning of the year is not going to happen now. I was so looking forward to seeing them here in Newfoundland. Showing them the sights, spending time together under happy circumstances rather than a funeral. I even called it my pre-funeral party.

And to add insult to injury, they leave it to the last minute to tell me they’re not coming. Even relatives that are living really close by to here have made other plans. A multiple whammy of rejection.

I had been sensing this coming when a huge void of silence refused to be ignored anymore. Their original enthusiasm had faded into forwarded jokey-e-mails, never anything personal and my birthday party never addressed.

Is this the emigrant experience, I ask my emigrant friends. Yes, they say, it is finally catching up with you.

I used to go back to my family of origin frequently but in the last few years I felt it was always this one-way scene, they would only come here to Canada when the visit was tied onto the end of a business trip.

I went back for weddings and christenings and just to be with them all. Sometimes several times a year.

And I know it wouldn’t matter as much if I was in a partnership. All my siblings are in partnerships where family rebuffs, real or imagined, are in turn buffered by their significant others.

I wonder about family ties. Do they exist? Is it all ephemeral? Do they just inhabit my imagination?

I’ve changed my plans. I won’t go back to Ireland in September. For the first time in my life I feel this real emotional distance from them all.

I would be staying with strangers.

I hesitated about posting this, but here I am warts 'n all (and , of course, anonymous!).

Topsy Turvy Time

And yes, in case you're asking, I am so a huge fan of "Topsy Turvy" the movie.
Life's like this at the moment:
Calls from friends in Newfoundland telling me they can hardly wait till I get home.
Friends and family here telling me they are so sad I'm leaving home.
I finally decided that home is where the heart is, like the song says. so wherever my gypsy heart lands is my home.

And I get a few very sad emails from my dear friend R as his girlfriend had broken up with him, for the final time in the space of a few short months. She had tried to break up with him a few times, but he had been persistent in trying to make it work. I've met her and wondered privately at their partnership. Not a flicker of a spark that I could determine. And this is what she told him when she dearjohnned him, the spark was never there for her. I feel so sad for him, he had great hopes of this working out and had confided in me last week that the relationship had relieved his chronic loneliness. We can never run from ourselves though, can we?

And two of my brothers, both grandfathers, have been expecting babies - their partners are, I should add. One of the babies was born yesterday, emergency, but doing well now, praise be. The other is due in a week or so. This baby will be uncle to a fifteen year old. Rather them than me. I can't even imagine such a situation.

My mantra of late has been: I'm too old for this shite. Pays off handsomely in difficult situations. And a new baby in your sixties is a challenge, n'est pas?

And I'm all in upheaval here, thinking to myself I had thought my life simplified but when parking yourself elsewhere for four months, it is amazing the detritus that has to go with you when you pry up the tent pegs once more. I am leaving on Tuesday for Newfoundland with a tightly packed car but with a bonus of my dog riding shotgun (she adores road trips).

And yeah, I should be working and not blogging, but every good woman deserves a break.

I'm a little bit at sixes and sevens at the moment. Can't you tell?

Enlightenment

Picture is of Cape Spear, Newfoundland, August 2007
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt like pluralizing the above title but decided against it, why contribute to further deterioration of the language - and at my crusty age I should feel ashamed of the temptation.

Answers to life's puzzles come in their own good time. Like the ongoing teaser of the great R puzzle. Now resolved. A further conversation with him last night showed his heart very clearly is in another direction. My investment in the whole thing was entirely removed this morning when he forwarded me a Christian YouTube film about this 13 year old boy whose elderly cow gave birth to a calf and broke her back in the effort. He had to shoot the old cow but as he stood there afterwards in grief the voice of God came into his head to tell him that God had endured the loss of His Only Son so could understand the sorrow.

I was snapped into reality really, really quickly. My mind riffed off on this. God voices in the head have gotten the world into a lot of trouble. See George Bush and his God calling him into war. See The Crusades. See The Holocaust. See the Irish Famine. Then I had the thought that given a Goddess and the same wonky scenario would She have had the same enthusiasm in torture-slaughtering Her daughter for the good of womankind and our 'sins'? While watching and having the power to stop it? Just puttin' it out there.

The R switch has been turned off for me. I found this whole film (and his admonition for me to get out the Kleenex first before watching!) appalling, the brainwashing of the young boy, the attempt to thread the two similarities of sacrifice vomititious in the extreme. Far from R's intent. He was 'inspired'. Another dream bites the dust.

I must admit to shedding a few when Hillary got the nomination in NH last night. I'm not a Hillary hater like many, I've felt from way back, when she was Bride of Bill, that she was the better 'president'. Opportunistic, yes, aren't they all in the cutthroat and Hollywoodized politics of our Southern neighbour? But looking at all the Democratic candidates since the outset, for my money and the future of the planet she is by far the best choice. I absolutely cannot see her sacrificing any more youth to this undending war on so-called terror, her past votes be damned. Politicking. And we need more women in politics. We need more of an equal gender balance however we get it. Compassionate people get slaughtered out there in the voting trenches. Given a chance, I think she will do her best to clean up the mess and initiate universal healthcare and education. If the pot hasn't been totally licked dry by the Incumbent and his cronies.

Remind me, who are the terrorists again? They are currently patrolling the Persian Gulf. How would the U.S. react to Iranians patrolling their war ships in the Gulf of Mexico? Little speedboats wouldn't be it. Nuclear warheads more like. WW 3 for sure. And the bought-and-paid for MSM falling over themselves to pontificate on the threat of the little speedboats on their own waters against those "benign" humungous battleships? There's money to be made in tham thar war zones!

Mixed Signals?

I had a lovely dinner with R on Tuesday at his insistence. He was pacing the lobby of the restaurant when I arrived and rushed to hug and kiss me.

He was very insistent on a table rather than a booth and then to my astonishment sat beside me. The backstory to this is that when he was with me in NL I had talked of my last great love who had always sat beside me rather than opposite me in restaurants.

He said he had a huge apology to make to me at the outset and that was for the ignoring of my birthday when he was with me. All the way back to TO in the plane he had beaten himself up for this and many times since. I was gracious, of course, and acknowledged the depth of his remorse and also the fact I had forgotten it, which was true.

He could not keep his hands off me and apologised several times, telling me he had missed me so much. He told me had been seeing a woman who had since dropped him (and I was so pleased I had intuited this on the dry spell of e-mailing!) and also that he had an eye on another and didn't know what to do. I queried him on experience in the dating scene prior to his marriage. Just about zero. I said maybe he needed to lighten up and just date several women and not think everything was a huge commitment. This hadn't occurred to him. I'm not surprised at this as I miss the bleeding obvious so many times that I never condemn it in others.

I told him of my gentleman caller and how lovely it was to feel like a romanced woman again. As he was touching me (mainly arm stroking) I realized how much I miss that kind of intimacy, not so much the boinking but the touching. He seems to trigger that in me. I hesitated to tell him this - I've never dealt well with rejection - so didn't and in hindsight I'm glad.

We had a 3 hour dinner and at the end he hugged me many times, told me how much he appreciates me and how he felt so much better having had a chance to talk to me.

I should add he is an only child, always has been, parents now dead so no one in direct family to talk with. I think he sees me as a very loved sister. The women he is attracted to are age appropriate also which pleased me no end and of course makes him look more attractive to me.

But the thing is, I get a little worked up when I'm with him. It could be attraction, it could be a freshly woken kind of lust, or just the need of intimacy.

Oh, and he no longer wears a wedding ring and I did comment on this and he was delighted I noticed.

I keep thinking of that book ~





~ and just letting go of any romantic notions while still being his close friend. Easier said than done.

Transition.

It’s a word I’m quite fond of. It seems to envelope me lately, being back in the big city of Toronto ‘n all from my little village in Newfoundland.

I am sorta wearing my grandgirl lately, she packed her bags and landed up here


with me on Wednesday and I dropped her off home today but am picking herself and a pal up tomorrow. We have missed each other most dreadfully. She and pal are going to help me sort out my lockers (my stuff, my stuff, as George Carlin would have it) and then spend overnight up here in this fancy schmancy house I am house-sitting for four months.

I’m in the lap of non-owned luxury here down to the whirlpool tub and monster flat screen TV (my prior opinion confirmed, 400 channels and nothing to watch). Lots of security to protect their stuff. Remote controls everywhere, for light dimming and fireplace tuning and built in speakers everywhere music selection.

I’ve landed smack dab in the midst of someone else’s life. A very respectable life.

Family photos everywhere and well thought out pictures of places visited, hills climbed, mountains skied, seas swum. Being the under-the-rock-peeper that I am, I keep speculating on what secrets they must carry, mother, father and their now adult and living away from home children. One of each naturally. Male child older, naturally. It is so darn perfect this house. A kitchen that belongs to Martha Stewart, bathrooms designed for creative purposes involving candles and expensive lotions. Clean and organized but not neat enough to make you barf. Tilley people I call this couple and their like. You know, lots of khaki clothes and those hats that float and ne’er a cross word passing their lips. Ever.

I think if I had to live this life all the time I would quietly prop myself in a corner and open a vein and bleed out slowly.

Which confirms yet again why I was never marriageable material. I should have taken the alternative plunge at an early age in Ireland and become mistress to a series of wealthy old men who wouldn’t bother me much, being of pre-Viagra vintage, and been indulged in all my mad passions for writing and art and music and travel and eccentric conversation. But in the era I emerged in Ireland, I would have been ex-communicated both by my family and the Church. And that would have bothered me then, being pre-feminist and unenlightened as to the misogynistic ways of the Baby Jaybuzz 'n all and no clue as to the acquiring of the means to provide the afore mentioned lifestyle to, by and all for my little ol'self.


I spent today with a dear friend out in the 'burbs, admiring her new paintings, winding up late in a Scrabble Game in front of the fire with grapes and cheese and polish sausage and really good pale Christmas cake and chai. I am blessed.

And more on R when I process what happened on Tuesday night over dinner.

Worry

Picture is of a bowl made out of local wood by my friend, "G.C."

It hit me again last night as I was driving home from meeting friends. As it has hit me many, many times over the years. The reality of worry.

A worry had been perking all the way through our many cups of coffee, stealing my presence throughout much of the night.

Why, sez I to myself do I let this happen? Let a stupid thing like a blocked up toilet in my bathroom at home interfere with a nice evening out?

And then, next thought, when has a worry actually actualized itself, inserted itself into reality?
When?
And I laughed out loud as I drove.
And came home. And got the plunger out again and rammed that sucker into the toilet and next thing, it flushes. Duh.
What makes me this way?
Well, the last time the toilet got blocked my genius of a handyman was out at the fish for a week and unavailable and I couldn’t get anyone to fix the toilet (nobody from the nearby town would drive out) until I dragged myself literally into the publicity of the local shop and bawled my question out loud after four days of using a bucket.

“Anyone here can fix a toilet? It’s really, really badly blocked!!” When I’m whipped and beaten and down for the count I lose all pride. I become shameless. Not a bad thing.

Well, the town drunk who is a you-have-to-be-desperate-to-hire-me kind of fellow volunteered. And he sorted me out. Early in the day before the fairies took him. He had to take the whole thing off the floor. What some people do for a living - or a bottle - has me in awe. I mean I used to gag changing my babies’ nappies. I tipped him well for his efforts. And knew who to call the next time. At his mother's. He's 55. Doesn't believe in wasting money on a phone when he can use his mother's. He doesn't live there. She has ways of getting hold of him. She even lets him borrow her truck if he has housecalls like mine. But I was sorted. No worries.

No matter what, I get taken care of. Time and time again. Septics, wells, wiring shite, no firewood and no chainsaw, no backdoor. It all gets taken care of.

So why, why, why do I worry about insane stuff?? Stuff that has no intention of ever happening?

Like my gentleman caller. I worried for a while he would make some kind of move on me. I haven’t the slightest shred of attraction to him (maybe the way R felt about me, there’s a thought!). So sometimes I avoided him. All for the worry of losing his friendship when I was forced to reject him. Jaybuzz, the insides of my brain frighten even me.

Well, in the last few weeks, I’ve helped him a few times with his computer issues and he gave me one of his beautiful hand crafted bowls (picture above, taken a few minutes ago), a loaf of his home baked bread and told me he is very much open to having a friend like me and he’d like to cook me dinner and talk some more and play a spot of cribbage, maybe. I do not feel threatened in any way. We have the most interesting conversations (ship wrecks, WW1, artistry, words, poetry, paintings, aging) and never once has he even touched me.
Worry.
Never happens.

Shore Thoughts

It has been a solitary life, these past few days here. I’ve wanted it that way to get at the book, now that reminders are coming in from the editors. And something stops me and I let it.

I walk a lot by the shore with the dog. I’ve started to follow the example of my neighbour down the way and pick up the bits and bobs that float in with the tides. The ubiquitous water bottles, shot gun shells, plastic bags, chip bags, motor oil bottles. I don’t take any great pride in this, it just is. Part of my responsibility for the planet and this tiny section of it.

I observe how water changes landscape on an extremely intimate level. It has been heavily raining and it stopped today and I watch the many residual streams and rivulets pour into the bay, altering the landscape, washing out some muddy bridges and building new ones. Creating new moats and demolishing old islands of shrubs. The power of water!

I pick up kindling for the fire and collect some interesting twists and turns of driftwood. I compose wonderful poems in my head that vanish before I can get back to the house and put them on paper or computer.

I think about friends and friendships and how sometimes I’ve been a “filler-friend” for others who drop me when they meet someone new. R has done this to me. From a daily contact for a very long time, to zero now that he has met someone. He did not tell me this. A mutual friend did as I was puzzled by his unresponsiveness to my emails. I must admit to being hurt. And saddened. And I try not to let my heart harden up to any future friendships with the males of our species. And I reflect on my male friendships that survive. And the female ones that always do, come hell or high-water or the best new lover in the world.

I sort many things out on these long shore-walks. And bring my life into today and the moment and doing the next right thing like picking up another tossed plastic bag on the beach

Much to mull

I get into these modes periodically. Reflective, overly analytical, perhaps too self-indulgent. Many thoughts and ideas percolate, I always carry a mini-journal with me. So I jot things down throughout the day as I read or observe or reflect.

I was reading the life-journal/biography of a now elderly man who "came out" publicly and on television in the early seventies in Toronto. A professor, well respected, an activist, husband and father. It took enormous courage to do what he did. I admire such bravery and wonder if I could have done the same in his shoes and doubt it. His book is almost heart-breakingly personal.

He has a fetish for younger men that consumes him in tandem with a fear of being alone. His childhood was sad, he and his brother abandoned to foster homes by a drug addled mother. His whole life is about finding that perfect younger companion who, along with being sexually stimulating, is his intellectual equal. A herculean goal, never to be met, of course. So he has a revolving door of a life. So many men being test driven for the role of lover and companion.

But it is in the failures and the hurts and the savaging of his heart that I find inspiration. To this day, he never gives up. Mid seventies now. Still hopeful. He cherishes his friends amongst whom are his ex-wife who remains loyal as do his ex-in-laws.

I think he does not quite perceive his own heroism as he is full of self-doubt at times and touchingly grateful, so grateful, when his birthday is remembered. This man was and is an icon of gay liberation in Toronto, a hugely successful author and talking head, revered professor, activist, well-known, and yet takes sleeping pills on Christmas Eve (and feeds a small measure to his dogs) so he (and they) can sleep through Christmas and wake up on Boxing Day, bypassing the day completely. He succeeds. That is how terrifyinly lonely he is.

But he drops many nuggets and quotes on the way to a conclusion of his lifelong desire - the belief that serenity trumps loneliness. And finally - I like to think - embraces it.

Some thoughts of his: The world's not made up of atoms but of stories.
And this: There is no duty we so much under-rate as the duty to be happy.
And this: Loneliness and love create each other.
And this: A person is not best known by his abilities but by his choices.
And finally: We are what we want to be.

This last on the surface almost too simplistic, but quite profound.

Thank you, John Alan Lee, for giving me much to ponder over the course of reading your book. Gay, straight, asexual or whatever, our lives have such common threads, not the least of which is the eternal search for that perfect soulmate who will know and understand us like no other.

Here is the link for anyone interested in reading this groundbreaking work, though I need to warn you that the sex (homosexual)can be quite graphic so avoid if squeamish.

http://www.johnalanlee.ca/

You can't force romantic love

**Sigh**
And I sorta kinda tried. So much of possibility boils down to Pheronomes. They weren't there. I had this past week with R, long planned, and long longed-for. My widower friend. A very lovely man. Still grieving his dead wife. Still wearing his wedding ring.
It was his first vacation in forty years without her. We talked solid for the whole week. We picnicked. We went to a house party. We hiked. We ate long leisurely dinners. We meditated together. And oh how we talked. We touched, though as brother and sister would. We washed and dried dishes together at the end of the day. And had little injokes, some revolving around a 'moose god' I have on the counter. You have to touch him before you leave so you can avoid encounters on the highways and biways. Moose are everywhere here and a serious danger. The moose god works. So far.
He told me sex was over-rated, never had done much for him. Ahem.
He told me one of his regrets about his wife was that he had rarely touched her. He should have touched her more.
He played with his toy bucket and spade that I had bought him. And made sand castles.
We took photos together and I helped him with some.
Did I say we laughed a lot? We did.
But we slept in separate bedrooms.
And the advice from my brothers, whom I deeply respect, was to let him make the first move.
And he didn't.
And he forgot my birthday, even though I had talked about it the day before.
But we are still good friends.
And he wrote in my guest book that we are more bonded than we ever were.
And I take him to the airport and we kiss, as we always do, on the lips, tightly and chastely. And he leaves. And doesn't stand on the pavement and wave. As most leave-takers of mine do. As I do. One last wave of thanks and love and see-ya-soon.
And he told me he is very excited about a grief counselling group he will be attending in September. One of the reasons is that he hopes to meet a potential partner there.

Life's Like This

You have plans.
They change.
We change.
My friend B dies and I can't be at the memorial service.
B loved attention but his personally planned funeral is the Simple Alternative, no flowers, casket, mourners. Just a little service. A post mortem shock for those of us who know him and his fondess for centre stage.
I planned Part 3 of the Pornography Series. It hasn't been written yet.
I have a houseguest who is staying far too long but leaves this Tuesday. Today we entertained a disparate group to a midday "dinner" and she did most of the work.
The conversation soared and swooped and I was asked to read some of my short stories publicly. One particularly wonderful - and true - story told by a guest today involved a cross-dressing tough old cod fisherman. Tremendous Monty Python factor.
Since I had a dream about reading my stories aloud I am more than thrilled at the theatre possibility mentioned today. I've always wanted to read my work to an audience.
My article for the month of July didn't get written.
My shelter and food work is way behind.
I want to blame the over-extended guest but this would not be truthful.
It is my own disorganization and procrastination.
My own immaturity that cannot defer gratification.
We had some lovely days on the beach and I showed her my own stunning Newfoundland.
We played Scrabble every night by candlelight though I must admit to being pissed tonight when she got all her letters off twice and beat me soundly. Sometimes I feel I am three years old.
She is a very nice, intelligent, interesting woman but I struggle when people are around too much, I struggle with liking them. I realize my inner recluse needs a lot of attention and she doesn't get it when I have to host graciously.
I decided to build a small cabin way back on the hill on the property here. Somewhere to escape to and write no matter who inhabits the house.
I feel I'm on display in the main house. Newfoundlanders are very friendly, they love to pop in and see what's going on and think writing is a fairly silly pursuit and of no value when compared to boat-building or trench-digging. They wait for me to do something important like plant potatoes.
Blackflies are making a meal out of my head. I have lumps where I didn't think lumps were possible.
I have a gentleman caller who is a very alert and lively jean-clad eighty-five year old who makes bowls and incredible artifacts out of local trees. Exquisite work. He is full of stories and very courtly and gracious. I am enchanted. He moves like a man in his twenties and entertains me with lovely anecdotes. He also calls to hear my outgoing message on my telephone line when I'm not here. Sometimes ten times a day. He is unaware I installed call-display a week ago. He could be a stalker. But I think he is lonely and also thirsty for a paramour.
I also had an email from a very, very long-ago boyfriend who found me through my published work. He was very much in love with me at one point (egads over forty years ago) but, alas, not I with him, and this out-of-the-blue attempted re-ignition has piqued my curiosity meter.
R arrives here on August 11th and I find myself greatly amused that from an absolute dearth of a possiblity of a relationship over a month ago, there are now three.
Much like a dessert table at a buffet.
A veritable feast of choice. Or not.
But it is terrific to feel alive and savour the potential.