Running smack dab into my own faulty assumptions

I can form snap judgements on people which are invariably incorrect.

This was proven to me a few nights ago when I invited someone I know (but not very well) in, who was walking by on the road. I told her I had a really good blend of coffee and there was some to spare if she was interested.

She came in and we sat and chatted. She is a simple woman. I will call her Annie as the village where I have my house is very small. She was widowed young and left with seven children and she is six months older than me. Though in that way I have of looking at others of my age group, I view her as quite elderly.

Her husband and his brother were in their late twenties and out on a batter and got drunk and had a bad accident. The brother survived without a scratch. The husband died instantly. Co-incidentally the survivor’s the man who does all the handiwork around the house here, very gifted with woodworking, fishing, hunting, and digging holes for septic tank problems and installing stoves. A veritable genius.

She harbours no illwill against her brother-in-law. You can’t in a small village, she says. It teaches you to get over it and get along and to do all that with speed as you could wind up demented and alone if you took something like that on.

She has lived on welfare all her adult life since being widowed and says she should have been born a man as she never could get her head around the womanly things, like baking and dressmaking and housework. She built a house for her son, though, she couldn’t afford the backhoe so she dug out his basement by hand and then put the rest of it together from what she’s observed about housebuilding.

We took a walk after our coffee, Annie and I and my dog. Annie likes the bit of company she says, It’s not good to walk alone, the time goes faster when you have company. I agreed. I remarked on the good condition of the lane by the shore, how the hedges were so nicely trimmed and the grass kept down and the erosion halted by careful stone and plant placement.

“Oh, I do all that,” she said casually.

I was astonished. I thought she was joking.

“Ah no, I’m not”, she said, “The government has been good to me, all these years taking care of me and the children so to speak. I cut all the grass on the lane and keep the bushes trimmed, and I noticed the ocean was eating away at the edges of the lane so I stopped it. The old way my father taught me. Plants and rocks and seaweed.”

And no, she doesn't get paid for it. It's just her way of giving back.

And here I was thinking what on earth could a simple woman who has been on welfare all her life and me, who hasn’t, possibly have to talk about?

Well, like, loads. Life lessons. Forgiveness. The environment. Recycling. Housebuilding. And that's just for starters.

Picture taken a week ago in Cape St. Mary's

Keys

Brain riff on the topic of keys today.

A funny line I read once was that if you see someone with a huge bunch of keys you can be sure they don't open anything (s)he actually owns.

I was brought up short by my key ring today.

Two keys.

One to my car.

One to my house.

I've never had only two keys in my life. I always had a heavy key ring. Garage, house, back door, front door, apartment in house, office at back of house, keys to my daughter's house, my friend's house, client offices.

I was important obviously.

Slight identity crisis took place.

Who am I now?

Almost keyless.

I'm not important.

I should be tasting a new freedom. But I'm not. My reaction was fearful.

No one has given a safekeeping key to me.

I can't go anywhere else but here without permission.

I am really, really alone.

Road Trip Part 3

Travelling all the way to the core of our beings. How many of us get this chance? There are always so many distractions in my life. My work, my writing, my family, community, volunteer, theatre, friends, music. Whirl.

I needed this trip to be alone with myself. An old woman once said to me that to be truly successful in a relationship we first of all need to be totally comfortable with our own vibrations. Four days on the road presented the opportunity to me. Anonymous motel rooms, Carole King and her Tapestry album. J.J. Cale. Christy Moore. Beethoven's Fantasia, the precursor to his glorious Ninth. And on. Backdrop to my thoughts.

I've travelled a lot with others. Partners, family. Sometimes alone. But rarely this alone, no home to leave, the future so uncertain.

My father and I travelled around the Northern United States and Maritime Canada together, many times. I reflected on those times with him. We were thrown together a lot and this normally reticent, proud man would open up to me as much as he was able.

He was a long standing widower, a daily Mass attender, a Knight of Columbanus, a Vincent de Paul collector. He didn't believe in re-marriage although he assured me he had lots of opportunities. Parish priests in Ireland in that era presented him with many available women. I would like to think that it was the undying love for my mother that kept him devoted and celibate to her memory(and of that I have no doubt). But that would not be the truth at all. My father's firm belief was that remarriage created havoc with the original children and he wasn't going to have that kind of discomfort in his life. Plus he'd be taking a chance that it mightn't work out and the neighbours would have a field day with his troubles. So he confided. And I've no reason not to believe him for the time that it was in Ireland then.

I don't want to live his life and wind up as he did with his faith shattered by the freshly erupting scandals in the Catholic Church in Ireland then. Shaken to the core particularly by the Bishop Casey scandal (he worshipped Casey). My compassion for Dad was great. He was literally gutted by it all and I do believe his faith in God and the hereafter left him. And I think that in some ways he must have felt he missed all sorts of opportunities that were lost with the noose of his formerly strong faith around his neck. He was a broken man at the end.

I don't want to end up my days alone like him, cursing the darkness and my own belief system that has held me to this independent walkabout. I saw my own defects quite clearly on this trip. I saw him in me also. My rigidity, not suffering fools gladly when they have equal rights on this planet. My intellectual snobbery which intimidates, my "ICanTopThatitis" which is distancing and self-defeating. My thoughtlessness. My arrogance which can be downright funny when I think of it. I need to pay more attention to everyone and everything more often. I need to be more humble.

Thank you, Dad.

(picture taken a few days ago near my house in Newfoundland)

Road Trip Part 2

There was a lot of hustle and bustle here in the last few days. A beloved niece and her toddler were here and that kept me engaged and busy. She is twenty-eight and her mother, my sister-in-law, died when she was thirteen. At the age of forty-two.

We are very close, this wonderful young woman and I, she is closer to me than my own daughters, we have no emotional baggage, we just love each other to pieces. And share our lives with openness and honesty. We also recognise that this is a rare gift in this world, this special relationship we have.

I told her of this road-trip and my thoughts and longings. And the wide open spaces in my soul. And how all the relationships in my life had brought me to this point of not really knowing how to be in a successful relationship.

She is in the same boat. For such a young woman she's had a series of rocky heartbreaking liaisons. And we tossed all that around for hours, our difficulties in:

(A) Being attracted to men who treat us badly
(B) Wanting the 'nice' guys who don't seem to want us.

Why not? we pondered. Conclusion: we give off these independent woman not needing a man kind of aura. We are not honest when we like someone, we back off. Our signals are extremely mixed. For instance, I've had a few compliments from R, my widower friend, which I've dismissed, as I always do. Examples:

R: I really like the way you're wearing your hair at the moment.
Me: Oh I only do this with it when it needs a haircut, I call it my emergency upsweep.
R: I could get your car road-worthy for your trip if you like.
Me: No worries. Jack the mechanic takes care of all that.

I'm beginning to get it. Slow learner this strong independent woman.
The more I'm immersed in the beauty all around me here, the wider my heart is becoming and I'm finding that I may have to untangle all the ropes of past relationships and start over from scratch. And just risk, risk saying what I mean, flirt again, allow men to do things for me. Cease this endless solitary plodding.

I invited R here to spend some time alone with me.
He has accepted. Sometime in August as July was conflicted for each of us.
No matter what happens in August, I am prepared to risk now. To permeate this tough old exterior I've spent so many years growing. To sand off all the battle-wounds and scar tissues of past relationships and feel renewed and maybe hopeful again. To allow someone in. To be gracious. To not worry about outcomes or expectations. To be in the moments that R and I can give each other and to be honest about all the tumbling feelings I've had on this trip.


And my niece? She's gone back to her home today, ready to invite this rather nice client of hers home for a cup of tea on their next appointment at her office.

The end of a very long road trip, Part 1

And here I am in what is the closest thing to paradise, in my book anyway, Newfoundland. Foggy in this part, but I drove 900 KM of it today and the weather varied between snowy mountains, a tropical Gander region and now fog.

I had the oddest sensation today, walking out of the restaurant after breakfast. I was surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the third by the majestic ocean. I looked up at the mountains, still speckled with the winter snows, and down at a gorge gushing over the granite and crashing into the sea. I felt really, really tiny, insignificant. I never get this feeling in the madding hoards of the city. Never. But today, walking in solitary splendour across the parking lot, I was merely a pin prick on some huge sprawling canvas.

Driving from Toronto to Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is quite the hike even with another driver. Solo (with apologies to my faithful dog)it is a challenge. Although I love driving and playing my collection of CDs and staying at sundry motels. This time it was different. I was outnumbered by couples of my age, in cars, in restaurants, walking, checking in. It made sense, we are all sans children, semi-retired or retired, free to come and go. I felt very much the odd one out. The misfit, the reject. I'm not foolish enough to think that these relationships are all perfect, in fact, some of them were rather snappish, some were silent, others superficial and some involved holding hands and/or touching. And that is what I miss the most. The touching, the light stroke of the hand on the arm. The sheer contentedness of companionship, the shared experience.

Travelling alone I get the opportunity to think, sometimes saddening up, reflecting on the loves no longer here, or gone on to other relationships, or the ones that did not work out at all. Even though I wish some had. I am surprised at the intensity of my sexual desire at times. I consulted with my "shaman-guru-in locus mater" who is ninety and she tells me it never leaves, this sensual, sensuous, sexual yearning. Oh my.

I think of my dear friend who lost his wife last year and fire up a needle of hope. Would it be possible? Who can tell? We e-mail/call each other daily. We are the best of friends but lovers? A bit of a head spin that. Is it because I am lonely for the physical, lonely for the touch, that I place him front and centre in my brain as a possibility?

Spending so much time with myself has loosened all the bats in my belfry obviously. This is to be continued, if you're up for it.

Picture is of St. Bride's, Newfoundland, taken by www.

Leaving this house....

Today is the last bit of day I spend in this little house that has been so good to me.

I've wandered the echoing rooms and said goodbye to each one. Memories come flooding in. Each of my daughters has lived here, my granddaughter lived here. A love of my life shared the space for a while. My father, RIP, was the guest of honour at a dinner party here, my annual women's brunch was held fourteen times here, many who attended have passed on.

My daughter thanked me yesterday for doing this packing up. You see most children are left to empty out the family nest when the parent dies. I and my siblings had to do it for my father. Scrape over the pieces and all the emotions attached to them and squabble over the blue kitchen jug. She or her sister will never have to do this. It is done.

Everything I own is in storage or given away. The junkman came yesterday and the saddest thing he did was smash the old piano into smithereens and carry it away. No one wanted it. These days few have the space and if they have the desire to play they buy an electronic keyboard.

It feels amazingly light, this feeling I have. Not drenched in sadness, only a light mist of nostalgia.

Last night I celebrated the newly empty garage and parked my car in it for the first time. The space had always been filled with the detritus of my children or my own.

This morning I noticed the buds of the climbing dog-rose from Ireland had burst into bloom and the whole garden was scented as my grandmother's had been in East Cork. A validation of what feels like a new lease on life.

I type this on an old bridge table and a collapsible tin chair in an empty back room with my keystrokes resounding off the empty walls. I wanted to take a picture of the roses for posting here but realized that my camera is in the locker in preparation for the summer trek to Newfoundland.

It is a good farewell, this closing of the door on my Toronto life for now.

I shake the dust off my soul along with my feet and look ahead to finishing the book of short stories, completing a writing assignment on the Jews of Newfoundland, writing the memoir of my mother and converting the barn into a studio/small theatre.

Life over sixty is a gift to be treasured even when we say goodbye. It is never too late to for reinventing ourselves!

The Helpful Rules of Life OR I wish we could all live this way.

My favourite always being, the Three Rules for World Peace:

1. Everyone Eats.
2. Nobody Hits.
3. There is no third rule.

And I pass these on as being thought provoking and helpful:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over-prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read some good books. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don't ask, you don't get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

I practised 49 today, in spite of myself. Kept yielding in the car. Felt good when other drivers acknowledge, some don't. And some yielded to me. And it is a less stressful way of driving. But I have to work at that, being impatient by nature. Yield.

The Powerful Pull of Newfoundland: Part One.

ODE TO NEWFOUNDLAND

When Sun-rays crown the pine-clad hills,
And Summer spreads her hand,
When silvern voices tune thy rills,
We love thee, smiling land.

When spreads thy cloak of shimm'ring white,
At Winter's stern command,
Thro' shortened day and starlit night,
We love thee, frozen land,
We love thee, we love thee,
We love thee, frozen land.

When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore,
And wild waves lash thy strand,
Thro' sprindrift swirl and tempest roar,
We love thee, wind-swept land,
We love thee, we love thee,
We love thee, wind-swept land.

As loved our fathers, so we love,
Where once they stood we stand,
Their prayer we raise to heav'n above,
God guard thee, Newfoundland,
God guard thee, God guard thee,
God guard thee, Newfoundland.

--Sir Cavendish Boyle.

The anthem of Newfoundland - how many times is the word 'love' mentioned? Every time I hear this song I want to fall to my knees and weep. For the beauty of it that touched my soul so profoundly the first time my boat pulled into the harbour. A shock of recognition. Like a piece of Ireland had broken off and floated over to the other side of the Atlantic.

And every time I arrive, many times now, the tears spring to my eyes, that sense of 'home' seizes me by the soul and shakes me up until I am shivering with delight and awe. My people, the tribal connection of the wandering Irish, but it is more than that. It is the softness of the bay in front of the house there, the colours whippling and waning from turquoise to denim to grey flannel to cloudy white to azure blue. The frolicking sea lions, the soaring eagles in the trees, the fat lynx that patrols the acres, the gathering of so many sightseers when work is being done on the house, commenting, celebrating. True community. It is the man with the bag of weekly vegetables grown on his farm, the neighbour with the fresh fish, the delight of friends and family who keep the door opening and closing all summer and who crowd the deck with their writing and painting,collecting shells and stones and twigs and feathers, the humming and low murmuring voices spiked with peals of laughter.

It is the long sunset walks on the beach with the dog and the sandpiper who loves to divebomb her. It is the music. It is the others there who share this huge secret with me. We have found this magical place, like no other on earth, this place called Newfoundland, which split our hearts wide open, and enfolded us forever in her bosom.

Soon I will be there. Soon.

A Surreal Conversation

The one with the ex-husband. That’s the thing when you share children though, there is never too much ex about it. They are always there, this former co-parent. The evidence of our one-time passion being now a grandchild we both adore.

He’s picking up stuff out of my garage for our adult daughter. I’ve just finishing taking a call from my best friend in Dublin, the one who was bridesmaid at our wedding. The one who is my friend for nearly sixty years. The one who was with me on the night he fell in love with me.

‘Helen says hi,’ I say.

‘Next time you talk to her say I said hi back’.

‘How are you,’ I say.

I don’t see him too often, just around our daughter's and granddaughter’s events and his wife is invariably with him. Like now. She is always friendly but a little wary of me. He has obviously shared the blow by blows of the latter acrimonious half of our marriage with her. Many years ago now. The water so far under the bridge it is unmuddied again.

He launches into his latest doctor/hospital/drugs/potential operations saga. I plaster on some polite attention to my face flickering a side-glance of gratitude to his wife. I had forgotten his family legacy of obsessive hypochondria. He will never finish, he will want a cup of tea and tell me more.

We are down to this, I speculate. Every time I see him. I know enough not to wind him up when I ask him how he is, but I forget. Now I have ignited his compulsive need to tell me his medical troubles and never ask one question of me. Never speak of our other estranged daughter in Ireland who has detached like a free-floating balloon from us. Who loved him more than she loved me. How his heart must be breaking more than mine. This child that carried a tool belt just like his and followed him around like a shadow. That took him to her kindergarten for ‘show and tell’ and announced proudly, ‘this is my daddy’.

He talks on and on of maybe they will have to break his breastbone to get this peculiar growth off his thyroid and my mind drifts off to our brave emigration on one of the last liners out of Ireland. How he never tired of my guitar playing or my singing. How I never tired of his story telling to put me to sleep when I was lonely for my family. How he never tired of holding me or stroking my back. How he dried my hair like a mother just about every morning of our marriage. How I went to every single one of his rugby games when he was a huge strapping footballer. How he went to every single stage show I was in, no matter how small the part.

How we wept together over the first pregnancy that ended in a horrible miscarriage. How we stared for hours, through our tears, at a picture of an unborn foetus and named our unborn child.

How sometimes, after a night out, we didn’t want to go home and deal with baby sitters and domestic matters and would pull over to the side of the road and make love like teenagers.

And I finally say, gently: ‘I hate to cut this short, but I have work to do.’

And I smile at him and tell him good luck with his surgery and I thank his wife. And mean it.

And I carefully roll my memories up the wood steps and back into my office.

The Simplified Life

I once knew a man who kept reducing the stuff in his life until he was living in just one room and he said he had never been happier. I think of him often today. He lived on fish he caught in a nearby stream and from money for cashed in beer cans picked up from the side of the road.

I've made enormous inroads myself in this twenty-year project of simplifying my life. I've worked my way from a veritable marital mansion to a three bedroom townhouse to the Toronto bungalow (now sold effective May 31) that I live in today - on one floor and I rent out the other.

I am listmaking and starting on the packing and I am very surprised at how little I do have now. Lots to sell/donate/give away. Not much to store and the no attachment thing is hitting me delightfully. By contrast,I am surrounded by neighbours who are getting on in years and still clinging to the detritus and clutter of forty or fifty years of family life.

I have decluttered a few times now and everytime I do it I feel the effects internally. A huge load has been lifted. I paint my rooms in wild colours - it took me years to get the nerve to debeige and dewhite and depastel and my priority room is the kitchen/dining room where I meet with clients or entertain a full table when the inclination strikes me. I have as yet no place to move to in Toronto, I am blocked at every turn in finding a small apartment to rent in the downtown area I would like. I pay attention to this message. It is not meant to be. I have offers from family and friends of accommodation. I am curious as to what this "homeless" feeling is. Even though I do have my home in Newfoundland to go to in late Spring/early summer. But no home soon in Toronto where the bulk of my business is. I sense change in the air.

My decor is a vast collection of old and new movies, CDs and piles of books. I've reduced the higgledy-piggledy art gallery that used to clutter my walls. Laid a lot out on the sidewalk for others to pick up and enjoy. I find one picture on one wall sufficient now. I look at it more closely, study it. One from an artist in West Cork delights me particularly, full of the fall colours that entranced me in that part of the world. I did not pay attention to this before, it was distracted by others. Clutter to the eye. I have learned to take my time now in the AGO (the Art Gallery of Ontario) and just visit one painting at a time for a few hours and leave.

My house in Newfoundland is similarly simple. Decorated with books and bags and bags of lovely wools and knitting needles. A place for the soul. All sheets are old cotton picked up at Goodwill. Old embroidered pillowcases. Old soft towels. White muslin and old lace at the windows. Long table with benches in the diningroom and it can seat 12 comfortably.

My decor are family, friends and books.

(Picture is of the house in Newfoundland, thriving and stretching under a fresh coat of paint.)

Now I can justify myself - a legitimate owl! {LINK}

Interesting link on the nightowl syndrome. I've always been one, since memory started kicking in. Reading with a flashlight under the covers. Seeing more dawns than most of my friends. Really getting into high gear around 3 a.m. when the writing muse usually strikes and I plough out a few chapters.

No interruptions, like phone or email or sounds of traffic or birds. The world is my oyster. Often the dog and I will go down to the lake and walk along the boardwalk in the bath of silence where each footstep resounds off the boards and I can hear the geese and swans ruffle their feathers in bird-dreams and the lake lisps on the stoney fringe of the shoreline.

Years ago I was given my power animal by an old aboriginal shaman and it was an owl. All seeing, sometimes wise. I never thought, until now having read the above article, that it also meant I was more efficient in the night. A true night-walker, -dreamer, -reader.

Bullying and the massacre at VT

See link in header above for a terrific post from Nick of the North on bullying.

And it appears that all these massacres are about bullying and the resulting isolation. As a victim myself, I recall feeling those murderous thoughts, feeling the isolation and slashing my own wrist at fourteen as the fear of facing my tormentors would overcome me and my pleading for another sick day at home fell on deaf years.

We need to understand the Chos of the USA to get a handle on how each and every citizen is responsible for this abhorrent and sickening catastrophe, from the happy gun-peddlars to the disdain of his co-students who laughed at his accent and told him to go back to China - a country he had never been to, incidentally. And all this in front of the teacher who condoned the abusive behaviour by not speaking up.

How isolated and lonely was this young man? We cannot even imagine his state of mind.

And here are the words of another troubled young man whose rage also built up into a murderous crescendo.

Luke Woodham, the high school killer in Pearl, Miss., whose murder spree preceded Carneal's by two months, was even more explicit in his rebellion. Minutes before starting his schoolyard rampage, Woodham handed his manifesto to a friend, along with a will. "I am not insane," he wrote. "I am angry. I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society, push us and we will push back. ... All throughout my life, I was ridiculed, always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do? Yes, you will. ... It was not a cry for attention, it was not a cry for help. It was a scream in sheer agony saying that if you can't pry your eyes open, if I can't do it through pacifism, if I can't show you through the displaying of intelligence, then I will do it with a bullet."

But I expect the same lack of self-examination as from 9/11 - a true opportunity is presented to understand and reflect and will be ignored by an increasingly aggressive and isolationist culture.

In the very near future, I can foresee universities being re-invented as armed camps with the only true beneficiary being the giant military industrial complex which includes the Glock/AK 47 et al manufacturers.

We are all barking mad.

The idiotic cult of the cowboy

And the unfortunate victims.

My heart grieves for the devastated families of these talented students and professors.

I read that you have to be the wizened age of 12 before you can legally buy a gun at the corner mom-and-pop gunshop in Virginia. Thank heavens they're not standard issue for toddlers who might not have the fine hand/eye co-ordination to pick off their play-date buddies which could result in a lot of collateral damage.

What on earth is wrong with these cowboys and their right to bear arms?

Like there are still frontiers to crash and injuns to massacre?

The Shrub re-iterates his Through The Looking Glass World by manfully stating every American has the right to bear the assault weapon of their choice but will be charged if they use it to commit a crime.

I step back a bit from these lunatic ravings and can't imagine them issuing even from the mouth of the poorest president of the poorest third world country.

And then I follow the trail of the bullet casings, ah now let me see, all the way to the NRA!! One of the greatest lobbies of all time. Financing what? Oh wild guess here, the Bush campaign!

Silly me.

Ghosts

Tis the morning when
They all line up
Like little tin soldiers
On a marble mantlepiece
Without a fire beneath.

One carries a book
And barely glances at me.
One has a real gun
And a real uniform
And marches away. Forever.

One is at my feet,
Sad and pleading
For one more chance
Just one, always one.
Until they piled too high.

One I loved too much
I crushed him hard
To my needy heart.
He couldn't breathe
He, of course, escaped.

One I didn't love enough,
I was too afraid you see.
He brought me joy
Encased in golden rapture
And I turned and walked away.

A Selective Culture of Life????

Bush Renews Call for 'Culture of Life'
AP - Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:24:04 -0400 (EDT)
By ANN SANNER
President Bush, at the national Catholic prayer breakfast, stressed his opposition to easing restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, a reference to a bill he's threatened to veto.

"In our day there is a temptation to manipulate life in ways that do not respect the humanity of the person," Bush said Friday. "When that happens, the most vulnerable among us can be valued for their utility to others instead of their own inherent worth."

The Senate on Wednesday voted 63-34 to pass the measure that it hopes will lead to new medical treatments. The vote, however, fell short of a veto-proof margin needed to enact the law over Bush's objections. The House, which passed similar legislation earlier in the year, is expected to adopt the Senate's version in the weeks ahead.

"We must continue to work for a culture of life where the strong protect the weak and where we recognize in every human life the image of our creator," Bush said.

His brief speech also included a call to Congress to pass immigration reform, a prayer for U.S. troops serving abroad and praise for Catholic schools across America. Later Friday, Bush planned to meet with parochial education leaders and parents at the White House.

The prayer breakfast at a Washington hotel attracted religious leaders, members of Congress, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and top government officials. After the president spoke, a female heckler shouted "War criminal! War criminal!" It was unclear whether the president heard her.

Bush, a Methodist, noted that this year's prayer breakfast occurred the Friday after Lent.

"You can eat your bacon in good conscience," he joked.

I have difficulty believing that this man can stand up and stay these things barefaced - with the blood of a quarter of a million (250,000) innocent, helpless Iraqi children on his hands. Does he see the image of God in these too? Or are they infidels?

Rage and frustration

Someone I love very much is trapped by her anger and I fear will stay there as it is by now familiar: warm and safe as the inside of a septic tank. Until the rot sets in and the infection too and she won't be able to breathe. And people can't be around her because of the stink. And I fear for her and for all of us who love but are but a helpless bystander to another's insanity. Loving detachment is the order of the day.

Fine Dining

A full plate.
Of many piles of sludge.
Going back and back.
Maybe to the Famine.

Going back and back
To foremothers
Who swallowed it
And brought it up

For you to pick at
With your sharp utensils
Over and over. Say it:
Four thousand days

And counting one more
Now. Gulp it down, girl
Clean your plate. De-bile,
De-louse, De-frown.

The Quality of Mercy

Forgiveness.

Though the word 'mercy' has a more comforting ring to it.
I was reading once again about the My Lai Massacre, the horrific murder of helpless women and children caught so cruelly in the Vietnam invasion. And I think of Darfur today and Rwanda and Iraq. All these innocents denied the chance of a life. And - if you believe as I believe that this is the only life we ever get and that Cloud God does not exist - that is a very serious thing. To lose one's only wild and precious life.

I got to thinking of the massacre of my forebears - my mother's forefathers and mothers. There was only one survivor - Philip O'Sullivan who was twelve years old and hid himself away on the Island of Dursey, the seat of the royal O'Sullivan Bearas. The story he told was appalling, all the little babies of the island were put on pikes and paraded throughout the island before their parents eyes and then everyone alive was butchered and thrown over the high cliffs to be dashed on the rocks below. My mother told me the story with passion and fire and always ended with "How can I ever forgive the British for slaughtering my family and for the terrible famine afterwards?"

Here's the story of Dursey:
Dursey Island lies at the south-west end of the Beara Peninsula. The island is separated from the mainland by a narrow stretch of water called Dursey Sound which has a very strong tidal activity. The water swirls in and is quite spectacular to watch. With only a few permanent winter time residents, the island is one of the quietest in Ireland area with no pubs, shops or restaurants. There is no accommodation on the island so unless you have prior arrangements or wish to camp, make it a day trip. Dursey Island, which is only 6.5km long and 1.5km wide, provides the tourist with some lovely walks and breathtaking views of the nearby West Cork coastline.

The island is about 15 miles from Castletownbere, but will take awhile to drive on the narrow roads. You’ll probably want to stop often to view the scenery along the way. Ireland’s only cable car was opened in 1969. It runs at about 250m above sea level, and the 250m trip takes about 6 minutes. The car can take up to six people at a time or one large animal. No cars allowed and you may have to share the ride with smaller animals. The cable car operates between 9 and 11am, 2:30 and 5:00pm, and 7 to 8pm. Different hours apply on alternate Sundays due to mass. Check locally for details.

The island appears to have been inhabited at least back to the bronze age judging from archaeological digs. Kilmichael church was built on the island built by monks from nearby Skellig, but little remains except stones now.
The inhabitants of the island suffered a massacre from the English under Queen Elizabeth in 1602 when many of the captured were thrown over the high cliffs on the island.

Dursey Island was home to Dermot O'Sullivan. He and his allies, the McSweenys, fought the English during the Desmond rebellion as well as the later Munster wars. Most of his sons were killed during the wars. He and his wife sought refuge in Coruna, Spain. He lived to be one hundred years old and he and his wife were buried at the Franciscan Monastary in Coruna.

Thirty years ago, after the collapse of the fishing industry, the government relocated the islanders to the mainland. The remains of the island's three villages can be explored, giving an insight into lives of the people at the time. The island is also well known for birdwatching and has many colonies of birds.

And I'm posting a picture too. A hallowed ground, much like Darfur and My Lai.
And we have to forgive, don't we? Otherwise it eats away at us and chews the very soul out of us. Even when it's a very personal story, like my family history or a more removed one like Darfur or Abu Ghraib. We are all affected by each act of cruelty. It tears the humanity away from us, if we let it.

Our higher selves must overcome the depravity of our lower. Mercy and forgiveness. Amen.

You shoulda known me then, me boy

You shoulda known me then me boy
With hair so long and a voice so grand
And the bluest eyes and the greatest legs
And wearing the skirts up the to the skies.

And a laugh that would fill your belly
And a hold on the world like a graprefruit
Squeezing every last drop out of it.
And not wasting time with sleeping.

And I’d talk you awake and I’d talk you asleep.
Round the clock. And then again too.
And with a few whiskeys I’d stand on the bar.
And show off my legs and my voice too.

And I was ready for just about anything.
A misfit in a small world of priests and nuns.
I knew there was much more to life
Beyond the stolid walls around Ireland.

And I took my chances and my luggage
And jumped over them with my long legs.
And bit off more than I could chew.
But oh the taste that was in them bites.

It was the freedom of my own rebellion.
There was no stopping me then.
I crowned myself the queen of everything.
Until the whiskey caught in my gullet.

And I choked for years on the vomit
Of the world I’d left behind me
And the bitter bile I’d found on the other side.
Life looks like that from the bottom of a bottle.

A remaining smidgin of vanity

Today was hair colouring day, I keep putting it off and hoping:

(a) the multicoloured hair of my youth returns
(b) a marvellous curly grey starts bursting through my scalp
or
(c)A silky swirl of white cascades softly down my back ready to be swept up into an elegant chignon.

Alas, none of these options have transpired so I am stuck with colouring my hair about every eight weeks. I really dislike the grizzledy grey/brown/blonde that my hair has turned in the life I have over the fence of sixty. Still very thick, my mother always said we each had enough for two heads and it is true. The hair gene manifests mainly through the female line. My father and his mother and his sisters had skinny sad hair and in my father's case it had just about vanished into a thin white circle of tonsure at the end.

None of the salons surrounding me are familiar with a non-chemical dye which is a frightening comment on the hair industry. Hairstylists believe in stripping and blasting every bit of old colour from the hair then applying bleaches and toxic colours to what's left after the first assault.Frightening. Any research shows that this type of arsenal on the head seeps through the skin and can cause brain tumours.

I buy my colouring in the local health store and it does a fine job. I go lighter than my own shade and at the end of the few painstaking hours it takes with a toothbrush I'm left with colouring that is quite natural.At least my doddery old eyes tell me so and that is good enough.

My little vanity, I have a few. Don't we all.

But surely there is room for an all natural hair salon in a city the size of Toronto?

Movies

God, I love movies, I always have. And write reviews on line and even published articles. And in the past couple of weeks I see clearly what some movies have become. Tripe masquerading as greatness, never more in evidence than in that gob-smacking win by Martin Scorcese for best picture for the regrettable and forgettable "The Departed". Awful bilge.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/usercomments-1447

And then I watch The Diary of Anne Frank for the umpteenth time and it still holds true, nearly fifty years later and the effects of the viewing linger on for a few days. Like all good movies.

Why doesn't Martin aspire, yet again, to something as good as Goodfellas?