Pacing

The first time I felt the Black Dog pacing was at an impossibly young age. Age 6. I would not have known it was the Black Dog, of course. I would have called it being afraid and very sad.

At that age, I had had measles which affected my eyes with ulceration. It necessitated hospitalization as the infection had also spread to my adenoids. In those days there were no children's hospitals so I was put into an adult hospital. I remember all of my stay there, it stands out in a kind of gothic starkness. There were no children in the ward I was on. Just all these adults. And casual cruelties were thrown my way (my eyes were bandaged for about 4 days)- being deliberately misled as to where the washroom was, my few toys being hidden, my hair being pulled,another patient assigned to feeding me and deliberately missing my mouth, all this accompanied by raucous laughter,etc. In those days it was called "teasing" today it would be called abuse. I was wretched.

It was to get worse.

My throat was healing from surgery, my eye bandages were removed when my mother visited with some handmade clothes for my doll. Including a little nightie. When she was leaving, I followed her out of the ward and as she went down the main stairs I screamed and screamed until my throat bled. I fell on the floor until I was carted off (roughly I remember) and told to behave myself.

The following night my father visited. In a rage. He told me I had upset my mother terribly and if I didn't promise to behave myself she would never visit me again.

It was to get worse.

I woke up the following morning to be told there was a great surprise in a cot (crib) down the ward from me. Come and look.

I did and there was my baby brother, under a year, pulling himself up by the bars, recognising me, delight all over his little face. I remember touching his soft head, rubbing my hands over the bandages on his ears. It seems that the measles had given him massive ear infections and primitive tubes had to be inserted to drain them so he wouldn't go deaf.

I remember feeling overwhelmed. I remember thinking my parents had gotten rid of their defective models and were just keeping their perfect middle child (another brother).

I resigned myself to a life on a Dickensian ward, knowing that keeping my mouth and tear ducts shut would mean a possible sighting of my mother again.

My therapist said it was one of the defining moments of my life.

It certainly removed the foundations from it. The idea of abandonment has always haunted me. More than anything the abandonment of myself by myself.

On another note, in adult hindsight, I can't imagine what my parents were going through with two of their children in hospital.

Knowing the reason for one's anxieties and irrational fears will not fix them. I'm just very grateful the episodes get further apart as I move along on my journey.

I'm not at the point where I can chase the Black Dog off my psychic landscape yet. But his visits are shorter and I recognise his pacing and know that he will get bored very quickly if I don't feed him.

And I think I know what to do to protect myself. Very little contact with other, more 'normal' humans, and some contact with those who know exactly where I am.

Pace on, BD, pace on.

Norah

This story was inspired by the photo above taken by my friend Joe Healy.

[As a follow-up to yesterday's post and requested by you faithfuls via emails and comments, here is the short listed story. Thank you kindly and feel free to critique.]

Strange how the simple regimentation of childhood fell into place once again in the declining years, the seeming spontaneity of middle life vanishing almost imperceptibly. Each day blended seamlessly into the next. Every morning at eight she had her simple breakfast of tea, toast and marmalade while reading the headlines of the Irish Examiner which seemed to slavishly follow the unwritten rule of 'if it bleeds it leads'. Accidents, drug lord battles, a drowning in Crosshaven. The bowl of mixed fruits in the middle of the table brought the only spot of colour into the kitchen, a counterpoint to the murky grey day nudging at the window. She rinsed out her dishes.

November is a wicked month, she reflected, looking out. Now who'd said that?

Ginger wheezed at her feet. A most unattractive fellow, all the colours of the dog world on him none of which were even remotely appealing. A mottled thinning wiry tufty fur: grey, dirty sand, streaky black topped by his white whiskers in a downward swoop giving him a constantly mournful expression. Fifteen. A great age for a dog but it was far too challenging to calculate it in human years like some did. Multiply a dog's age by seven? Maybe six? Or something far more complicated. She couldn't remember. And she a maths teacher back in the day.

Ginger was a witness to the last breath of her married life. A couple of years before he died, Hugh had found Ginger on St. Patrick's Street huddled up against a rubbish bin. A wee puppy. Rain slick and softly whining. He'd brought him home wrapped in his winter scarf and wanted to call him Pana after the street. Ah now, he'd said, don't be so hard Norah, a dog will get us out of the house more. And on the third ah now she'd relented. What harm? But she stood her ground on calling him Pana. Ginger, she'd said. And that was that.

And he'd stayed runty small and Hugh, God bless him, ignored the laughter-laden jibes, the 'sure what kind of rodent-rat-squirrel is it at all?' remarks that were tossed casually at his six foot self and his ugly little dog by passersby on Pana. Ginger. How euphemistic a name was that, you'd have to hunt to find the small bit of ginger fur on his belly.
Hugh had died right there on the kitchen floor while he was bent over topping up the dog dish. Ginger had a voracious appetite. They had laughed about it. Taking a peculiar pride in his enormous consumption. Hugh would joke about the subsequent output, he'd put all the Irish wolfhounds out there to shame would our boy!

Ginger whined and licked Hugh's face as he lay there, dog food scattered around him, while she dialled emergency services, stuttering into the phone, her words panicked and incomplete. For they both knew, she and Ginger, that Hugh lay forever still beneath the death that had silenced him.

Lisa and Jeff and the grandchildren came down for a week but that was all a blur. A disturbance really. Lisa had left home many years before and Hugh and herself had always visited them up in Dublin as there wasn't room in their small house in Cork for the swarm of them all. Five grandchildren including one set of twins, all within five years. All very loud.

After her cancer and hysterectomy and some very careful consideration, she and Hugh had adopted Lisa. They'd hoped for a quiet girl. And Lisa, as if she knew what was required of her, was one of those self-entertaining babies fascinated with her own fingers and toes, overjoyed with the mobile they hung over her cot, rapturous at being taken outdoors into the sunshine and best of all she slept through the night. She was barely an intrusion on their reading and listening to classical music, was entranced by their singing rehearsals for the Cork Baroque recitals and gurgled as they hosted their turn at bridge nights. Pretty too. And bright. They took a modest pride in her accomplishments, her scholarships. And then she'd met Jeff and all these children started arriving. Quickly. Unseemly they'd thought but had agreed it was truly none of their business. Three days in Dublin every Christmas, they decided, followed by one long weekend in the summer. That would keep their grand-parenting end of things up. And, of course, remembering all the birthdays and the anniversaries and putting aside modest educational funds. There, that would be their duty done without the noise of the rambunctious four boys and their even louder sister offending their delicate sensibilities.

She'd embraced the internet some years before after a few night classes. A vast encyclopedia of untapped knowledge, she'd said to Lisa, excited for the first time since Hugh had died. She missed Hugh's stimulating conversation. The vast world wide web compensated for this in a small way.

A month ago, she'd looked up the symptoms for depression. Old Doctor Harmon hadn't picked up on what was really going on with her. By now he was just seeing her and a few more of the stalwarts as he called them - patients that had been with him for the fifty years since he qualified. So he listened carefully as she read off her symptoms from a slip of paper and then handed her a small pack of anti-depressants from his samples. He wagged his finger at her in that way of his that she was used to by now but that Lisa had so much trouble with when she was a teenager.

Now Norah, he'd said, you can only take these with a bit of food, and just one three times a day mind! She'd nodded, repeating what he said as that had always pleased him.

And the three prescription renewals were no trouble either. He'd asked to see her again after the third one. She made sure she pasted a smile on her face as she walked into the surgery and remembered to keep it there even though her face ached as she left with the new prescription. Feeling marvellous, she'd assured Gerry Harmon, like a new woman!

She'd seen her mother going down the road she was headed. Second childhood they called it then. But at least children could recognize their own families. Her mother hadn't known any of them during the eight years before she died, even their simple brother Bertie who had lived with her all his life. A mother to nine strangers.

On researching Alzheimer’s on the web, she found that there were ten early warning symptoms. Not that she could remember all of them now.

She went into the hall and put on her blue quilted coat, forcing her mind back to the symptoms. Oh yes, one had to do with driving, another with forgetting to pay the bills. She'd always liked driving out to the country, especially Kinsale, usually with friends, most of them now gone or in care homes. Lovely spots for lunch there. But the confusion on the roundabout, and those coloured lights, what were they again? – traffic lights that was it - and deliberately avoiding the motorways and then getting on to them accidentally. This was all alarming enough for her to hide away the car keys in a lucid moment a few months ago and then forget where they were. Good thing too.

Ginger was sitting in front of her, staring at his leash hanging on its hook. She certainly never saw the need nor had the desire to talk to Ginger as Hugh had done. They existed within each others' lives without the clutter of language. Ginger knew the times of his twice daily feedings and his walk or reliefs, and would leave his basket by the kitchen stove and show up by the dish or the coat-rack or the backdoor without prompting and at the right times for these functions. He made no unusual demands on her nor she on him. It was a highly satisfactory arrangement.

She snapped the leash onto his collar and put on her blue hat and her red mohair scarf and her winter gloves and took her cane out of the hall stand. Ready steady go.
Not for her the stroll on Pana of Hugh's days but the scantily peopled North Mall with its nice flat footpath around the corner from the house. There were no twists and turns on their promenade and they both knew the way.

As she walked, she found herself pondering yet again on that Ten Point List. Something about forgetting to groom, using poor judgement. She'd made careful notes. Stuck them around the place. Especially about bath times and washing her clothes in the machine. One day, she'd found herself washing sheets in the bath like her grandmother would in the old copper tub at the farm. At times, alarmed, she'd had to decipher what the notes meant as once it took her many hours to figure out the word shampoo as she'd thought it had something to do with Ginger's doggy business.

Lisa hardly telephoned anymore which was all well and good. They now exchanged emails. Lisa sent current photos of her family on Sunday nights from her Iphone. Dinners, graduations, Halloween, birthdays, sports, performances. She would respond cheerfully, exclaiming over the children, all adults now, some married themselves. Unknown beings to her. She assumed their communal loudness had decreased in volume. Or maybe not, as on line she had kept herself up to date on heavy metal music and that rap nonsense that so polluted the airwaves on the radio.

Before she realized it, Ginger had turned around and they were headed back down to the corner of Marlborough Place. Close to sixty years at the one address though for the life of her she couldn't recall the number of her house if she was asked even though she'd silently repeat it to herself when she saw it on her own gate.

Mornings were the best. Afternoons were more of a challenge especially with the sun going down, for her agitation increased and then her ability to read even her own written directions to herself failed. She had let go of her beloved books, how long ago now, a year? Still aware enough then to find herself re-reading chapter one of each well thumbed tome over and over again trying to set the characters in her mind. And failing.

She carefully hung up the walking paraphernalia on the hall stand, placing Ginger's leash on its special hook and stared at it. She'd never been a sentimental woman. There was room for very little sentiment in the house she grew up in, and Hugh, bless him, had provided what sentiment there was in this house.

She took the four bottles of pills out of the kitchen cupboard and ground down two of the pills with her mortar and pestle and mixed the powder into some fresh mince meat. Ginger wasn't used to treats and devoured the snack quickly. And then she waited. It didn't take long. Wordlessly, she laid him in his bed beside the stove.

She put the remainder of the pills into the pestle and ground these. She poured some cornflakes in a bowl and sprinkled the powder all over it and poured milk on top and set it aside carefully and then went into the parlour to the computer in the corner and opened her email. She reviewed the instructions for 'delay delivery of email' and set the time for eight p.m. that evening. Then she painstakingly typed from notes she had prepared over the last few days.

Dear Lisa,
By the time you get this, I will have passed on to be with your daddy. I sense the onset of my own Alzheimer’s in more ways than I can tell you and I do not want yourself or Jeff to be burdened with my ever worsening condition. I've left all in order for you in your father's small safe. I'd like to be buried with him in St. Finbarr's.
You've been a joy and a source of pride to me Lisa and always respectful of my need for privacy and quiet. I am so very grateful that I can take care of this one small task left to me without bothering you. If you would, please have Ginger's ashes scattered on the grave. Your daddy did love him so. Goodbye. I've had a very good life.
Love, Mother.

So - A Strange Story

The Magical Beach

At my age we have to be careful of the men in white coats brandishing strait jackets.

Especially when it comes to the unexplainables.

I verbalized an extraordinary occurrence to only three people.

The first dismissed me out of hand and changed the topic of conversation immediately and never got back to what I had experienced.

The second asked me quite seriously and with concern: Did you hear voices in your head?

The third nodded carefully and said: Oh, I totally get that.

So here goes:
I was on this spectacular beach on a gorgeous day sitting in my beach chair. A young man passed with his dog and we exchanged pleasantries. This youngish black dog looked me right in the eyes as he walked past, he was on a leash. Dogs do this with me sometimes as if desperate to communicate their thoughts.

The young man went a distance away on the sand, the tide was out. He began to train his dog. I am familiar with that having trained a few. All the commands obeyed were rewarded with tiny treats. He was good, the commands were simple, one word, clear. Memories flooded me. There is nothing like a quivering dog, rooted in a stay, waiting for a release. The joy shared by trainer and trainee is immeasurable.

I just couldn't stop the tears. I was alone so there was no one to see, feeling utterly sad, missing my Ansa so much, how she loved the beach, how we frolicked, she was a great paddler but hated swimming. And paddle she did once she saw water with this wonderful grin on her face. Sometimes tears can hurt right down to the toes. They did for me that day.

A large perfect feather wafted down onto my lap and I held it to my cheek and stopped crying. And clearly I immediately sensed I could walk the beach, an impossible challenge.

So holding the feather I got up off the beach chair and walked and walked without pain and then turned around and walked back to the chair. An unimaginable feat. I held the feather for a while and then carefully inserted it into my camera bag for safe keeping and walked a little more, I came back to the camera bag and the feather had vanished. I searched high and low everywhere within quite a radius, no feather.

I had the strongest message again that the feather was merely a temporary sign of greater things to come, to stop hunting. To be still.

Which I did.

Three days later, I was having breakfast with my guest-friend in my local diner when I looked up and standing there in front of me was a person I love dearly but who has been long absent from my life for many, many years. We both burst into tears. This reunion has been exploding with joy ever since. In ways I could never have imagined. This remarkable event is now all connected to the dog, Ansa, the tears and the feather in my mind.

Coincidence? Well yes, says my reality check.

But something else? Well, perhaps yes. Though I am far from being a woo-woo person.

But this whole experience?

Inexplicable.

Of Books and Potatoes

Scattered week.

Out of sorts. Flu-ish. Black Dog pacing around the house. Far too close for comfort. The ghosts circle and start chattering and I miss the ones who vanish without a farewell or a reason, and then it's a very short hop to self-flagellation. And Black Dog gets within biting distance.

I worked on Grandgirl's afghan.  She never reads this blog so I am safe in saying that.

I knitted a prototype for the book design I was struggling with for weeks. Thanks for all your help, Grannymar.  Now, what do you think?

And then, the best part, some overdue writing for the conference at the end of the month.

And then the jobs that pay my bills.  Without them I would not survive. Freedom 95 I call it. I can't see my way to affording the writing lifestyle, much as I've wanted it for all of my life. This depresses me. Utterly.

Given my druthers I would write all the time. And create knitting designs and read. And play the piano at night by candlelight. And take long hikes with Wonder Dog.

I wrote about routine this morning in my journal. How it can be the salvation of elders. Lay out the day and evening clearly and ahead of time and stick to the routines. No matter what. I thought creative spirits didn't need routine but the research I'm doing shows that it is just what we need. If everything around us is organized and we have a routine it frees up the creative juices like nothing else. Nothing acts more like a distraction than living in a mess and a formless day, or week or month. Then nothing gets accomplished.

So at the beginning of my day today I laid it all out piece by piece and allowed time for all the things I love to do, like write and knit and even meditate and I even put little rewards in for stretches of the bill-paying work. And a good long walk with Ansa.

And later, Leo comes over with the potatoes from the edge of my back meadow.  And laughs and laughs at this particular one:

 

Can you see the face and the big ears and funny hat?

The Unwritable

I don't see many oldies writing about depression so I'm punching down on the keys here today and writing about my visits from the Black Dog.

He's been away more years than I can count and I have written about him before which I will link to later.

My PHC, who is pretty terrific, marked all the stuff going on with me yesterday and ordered lab work on new criteria one of which was B12. Not often done so special requisition.

Then she said: I can put you in touch with a therapist if you are dealing with depression.

Now I seriously had not added depression to my list of issues and I gaped slack jawed at her (further convincing her, no doubt, that I was definitely in the dark clutches of it.) I managed to sputter "Hang on a minute here, I'm NOT suicidal."

So I check in with Dr. Google on the symptoms to refresh myself

The psychological symptoms of depression include:

• continuous low mood or sadness.
• feeling hopeless and helpless.
• having low self-esteem.
• feeling tearful.
• feeling guilt-ridden.
• feeling irritable and intolerant of others.
• having no motivation or interest in things.
• finding it difficult to make decisions.

I would add constant pain and exhaustion and grief to that mix.

And I imagine you could call me full blown and cuddling down with The Black Dog.

These are the forbidden things to write about.

But I do write about forbidden things.

I'm running out of old people who have the unmitigated gall to run off on me and die and not be around to discuss their visits with the Black Dog.

But I truly believe I'm not alone as a depressed oldie.

And I owe an apology to my PHC, she knew.

Links to other posts on this forbidden topic.

Cognitive Decline in the Elderly

I won't get into the link business here as there are far too many essays and articles on the topic of cognitive decline during these hazardous times.

Elders have been adversely affected during Covid, due to lack of social interaction, normal leisure activities, large family gatherings, etc. I would add the appalling new layers of climate change (which is quite horrifying out in British Columbia at the moment), here's a link to that for readers outside Canada. BC has been cut off from food delivery and is totally isolated with highway washouts and mudslides.

I am witnessing a situation first hand here in the building with a friend who has virtually pulled down the shutters and refuses to come out. I've tried my best over the past week or so to get her to come to the beach or out for a meal or even a coffee or even to come here for a chat in her PJs or me to visit her. I believe the Black Dog (or perhaps a pack of black dogs) has got her firmly in it's grip. I can't get through to her and it's alarming.

She's let many activities go, even her driving. Another friend tried to coax her out to a prime beef dinner on Saturday night at the RAF club ($15.00!!) and she declined even though our table will be just people who know her well. 

I texted her today that I didn't want to be a pain in the arse trying to break through to her and said I was always available for a chat. All I got was a little heart emoticon in return.

I am really concerned. The Black Dog was my familiar in the past but thankfully, gratefully, he took off some time ago and hasn't shown his slavering jaws in a long while.

I believe this is a rough time for many of us (children, seniors) And the future of this wee planet is looking grimmer and grimmer and Covid rates are through the roof in Ireland and the UK again. Masked will be part of our daily existence (forever?) and I have little faith that politicians will sort out and correct the trajectory of the acceleration of devastating weather conditions due to advancing climate change.

As an Australian prime minister said a few years back (sorry can't remember his name) when the fires were chewing through his country "You're on your own."

We are all on our own basically. 

There is no magic wand.

The Black Dog

Is my value - my self-calculated value - to me, in spite of all my self-esteem boosting practices over the years, still liable to be smashed without warning? Why can’t I move on, and quickly, when casual meetings go sour, trivial conversations go south, and the merest dismissive flick of a stranger’s eye can cause a few hours worth of critical self-evaluation?

I see. This is depression, the Black Dog pacing up and down the hall waiting to come into the room. And, as always, I brood on all the human beings on this planet who are worse off than me, the Haitians, the chockfull cancer wards, and I feel worse. Where did anyone ever get the idea that thinking of those who would trade lives with me in a blink would automatically cheer me up?

I rarely write about it anymore. As it is that infrequent. But sometimes the moon is just right, the tides just so, and I get the urge to go outside and do a spot of baying. I resist it, of course. I used to cover pages and pages, book upon book, with the depresso-ramblings of the compulsive. Never to be shared. Every single journal packed up in Toronto and shipped to me here. Stacked like deadweight in a corner of a guestroom, like the corpses of small animals. I should bury them. They are beyond decay and more into a state of mummification now. But I can’t.

For picking one up, randomly, reminds me forcefully that whatever depths of despair I may be in at the moment (Howard Zinn dead. A SOTU that was laughable. a prorogued Canadian parliament ducking awkward electorate questions and appointing political favourites to the Senate, an economy worsening by the minute, a blog meeting gone sideways) it is as nothing to the way I was then.

The Dead

I'm a bit of a movie buff. Every since I was very young and my best friend of the time had a father who was a manager of the Savoy Cinema in Cork. Free passes. Need I say more. To add to this bounty, I used to stay with an uncle and aunt during the summer. They lived in a small town in East Cork and my uncle was the owner of the local cinema. Unlimited access to the double bills, the serials, the documentaries and the cartoons. Bliss. In those days, it seemed like a visit to the cinema was a huge event that took place for the entire afternoon or evening.

I have many favourite films. But top of my list would have to be "The Dead". This is a movie based on James Joyce's short story - a short story many have voted the best ever. John Huston directed it. A very ill and dying John Huston. It would his last film. And what a swan song! His son, Tony, adapted the story for the film, and his daughter Anjelica starred in it. The performance of her career.

The premise of the film revolves around a dinner party in Dublin at the turn of the last century with a great mix of characters drawn together to share food, music, poetry and dancing, and the remembrance of one great lost love.

My review of the movie is here.

I get a lot of correspondence from people who love the film as much as I do. We are almost a cult, I would think :-).

Many ask me for the words of the poem that is recited half way through the film and I send it to them.

Here is the wonderful, heart-breaking poem, by Lady Gregory.

Donal Óg
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory


Translated from an anonymous eighth-century Irish poem


It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

N is for Nipper

Oh, I'm familiar with the nipper alright. I'm the type of person at a campfire who's the primary target. I wind up huddled under a blanket, my face hidden, only to find myself discarding it a few minutes later to run madly about flapping my arms quite uselessly. Those nippers are relentless when it comes to my blood and squeeze their way under blankets and protective gear as if I were the long sought after crème brûlée on their dessert menu.

When I heard the word here in Newfoundland for the first time I was puzzled. Growing up in Ireland 'nipper' meant a young lad, an active young lad:

“Fine young nipper you got there, Mrs. Murphy!” and the mother would beam in pride.

“You better watch out for those nippers,” Leo warned me many springs ago, “They can do a lot of damage to you!”

I had visions of marauding young lads bashing me around with sticks.

But no, here they are a cross between a black fly and a mosquito and boy can they bite. And leave swollen reminders all over the body.

(PS and for us oldtimers: what was the name of the dog featured in the logo for the HMV company?)

And here is the definition:

nipper1 n
1 A large biting mosquito; GARNIPPER: gallynipper.
[(1663) 1963 YONGE 60 In July, the muscetos (a little biting fly) and garnippers (a larger one) will much vex us.] [1819] 1978 Beothuk Vocabularies 46 Nipper—bebadrook. 1854 [FEILD] 70 The title or name [Nipper's Harbour] is rather an alarming one, particularly to thin skinned Southerners, as the Nipper is the largest and most formidable of the mosquitoes. 1861 Harper's xxii, 744 Mercy! who ever saw the flies and nippers so bad as they! 1893 Trade Review Christmas No 14 The operator in charge waged a daily and [nightly] war against insect life, viz.:—black flies, [mosquitoes], nippers, horse and sand flies. 1913 THOMAS 191 All day long the black flies made our lives miserable, and as night approached the 'nippers' took their place. [1926] 1933 GREENLEAF (ed) 251 "Change Islands Song": The weather still got hotter, plenty nippers, flies and stout. T 45/6-64 [tall tale] Nippers was that thick that they come and used to drive their thorns down through the bark-pot. According as they drove them down, he used to clench them, and by and by they got that thick on it that they rose the bark-pot and went away with it. C 68-23 We didn't want [the frog] to die because we were told that frogs used to eat nippers (mosquitoes) and we didn't want to hurt anything that helped to destroy the nippers. 1973 PINSENT 56 All Ruth could seem to do was point to the door, which made about as much impression as a nipper's bite on an elephant's arse.
2 In various ball games, the catcher.
M 69-2 The millyer and the nipper were similar to what is today the pitcher and the catcher.

Today's post brought to you by the letter N from The Dictionary of Newfoundland English in partnership with the rest of the alphabet beginning here.

A Thin Shaky Line

I think sanity is a matter of perception and degree. Same for insanity - like obsessive-compulsive disorders or OCDs - excessive hand washing or germ- and other phobias. I remember the old definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And milder forms, almost slipping under the fence post so to speak, of chatting to oneself or counting compulsively. I have ruminated on this topic for a while having been on both sides of this shaky line, I believe. What is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour after all is a very thin line - apart from the screaming obvious of running naked down the street at midnight and howling at the moon as you do so.

I am reminded of human mental fragility in the days I spend working in my office, which is on the second floor of the house in which I’m temporarily residing. There is a fine view of a similar large house across the way in this refined, quiet neighbourhood a little north of Toronto. I am privy to the comings and goings of the man of this house who is always attired in unfashionable baggy light jeans topped by a worn jacket that would have looked hip in the cheering section of high school basket ball games forty years ago. This man fills his days with trips to shops. Often up to eight times a day. I say shops because he comes back from his short journeys and climbs out of the car (he always drives, this being the true ‘burbs) holding a little bag of whatever and marches importantly into his house hoisting it aloft. The car is left on the driveway during the day to facilitate another trip, because that always follows, as night follows day. He scoots out again within an hour and heads off for another ten or fifteen minutes and comes back, once again triumphant, holding another little bag.

Now the fact that I watch this performance with such avidity brings my own sanity into question. The fact that I write about it would be a strong case for determining my own mental health as well.

But he reminds me of something which is tickling at the edge of my memory and it finally comes to the surface today and I ponder on the – as I call them – Eleanor Rigby kind of lives that people do live everywhere, whether in mansions, lofts, apartments or rooming houses.

I had a dear friend, now passed, who loved nothing better than to cook for me, usually down-home food (he was from the heartland of New Brunswick) and he lived on the twenty-first floor of a high-rise. One night he passed me his binoculars and told me to have a look over at the building next door, at a floor just beneath ours. I was astonished to see a woman, dressed completely in black, lit by the naked lights above her, pacing the whole length of her apartment from kitchen to bedroom and back again in full view of her uncovered windows. He told me she would do that from when she got home from her day, around six, until eleven when all her lights would go out, one by one, leaving her in complete darkness.

Killing time. Afraid to be still. Being busy, oh so busy. Keeping the black dog at bay. We all have our methods.

An Unlove Story – Part 1 of 3

OK, I've retracted my exploded lobes with regard to the climate change  blog-harumphs I've had in the last few days and am back to doing what I probably do best which is story-telling. OK? I'm anonymous here for a reason. I tell true stories. And this is one. I'm glad I'm anonymous. I could get into a lot of trouble, couldn't I?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The ending had been abrupt. Their relationship had been worth more, surely, than that last cruel phone-call, followed by her hurriedly packing up the boxes of ex-lover debris, the bathroom detritus, the changes of clothes, the zircons (she would've kept diamonds, if there had been any) that outrageous red lingerie, the books, the letters, the cards, the framed pictures, the silver-plated (plate? pshaw!) hair gear, the tiny emerald earrings, the golden chains.

She had felt bad when it came to the bonsai garden, even though it had seemed rather too precious sitting on its own table in the curved corner of the living room. But still. It was perhaps the only element alive of what had once been an incredible passion. It came complete with water ponds and tiny lily-pads which had died when she had forgotten to fill the water tank at the back. But the miniature oak held firm and green. She wondered how it all would fare in the box on the post office truck to his house and couldn't stop the guffaw, yes, it was an uncontrollable guffaw, thinking of all that earth spilling over his black underwear. He wore only black jockeys. Clue number one to the fallacy of a man who declared himself adventurous and fancy free.

But there was a missing element to the break-up. And she couldn't nail it. Something didn't sit right. What the hell was it?

He had been very depressed. Had actually forbidden her to be happy as it was making his depression worse. He went on and on about his financial situation. He was way over extended in the financing of his real estate portfolio. Lines of credit, expensive mortgages, utility and tax bills. Along with an upcoming finalization of the asset split between himself and his ex-wife (his second). His son had severed a business relationship with him. He was at odds with his grandsons, couldn't tolerate their ill manners, the long hair hiding their downcast faces as they thumbed their electronic devices. Who were these creatures with no respect for the old?

She had suggested therapy. She had given him financial counselling (not a small thing, it was her living, after all). She had continually asked if there was anything she could do, anything to help. He would respond he would wind up on the streets begging for quarters from strangers He didn't deserve her. She thought he might snap out of it. He was beginning to sound like a peevish querulous old geezer, someone from another generation.

He was far from the man she had fallen in love with. His new criticisms of everyone and everything associated with her had given her this unvoiced anger which rippled across her life and tainted even the small victory of a morning run. He had begun to hate her leaving him when they were together even for such a mundane event as a dog-walk. His refusal to walk came by way of his mother who had lived to ninety-five with no exercise. For an intelligent man with many degrees he could be quite obtuse.

All in all, the break-up wasn't a bad thing. She knew that. Logically. But what did emotions have to do with logic?

And still the thoughts of the pre-depressed Jack kept intruding. The light-hearted Jack. The supportive Jack. The Jack who would sit in the bathroom as she showered at the end of a long working day and would say: “Tell me all about your day.” The Jack who would travel hundreds of miles for an art exhibit. The Jack who would book outrageously luxurious hotel rooms for no reason in Niagara Falls and Kingston and London. The Jack who would sing publicly walking along a Toronto street and tell anyone who would listen of his love for her. There had been two years of this lightness, this fun. And then.

 

Copper

I would be most grateful for feedback on this very short story that I have struggled with on and off for about two months. I think it finished now but am totally open to suggestions. I am hoping the point of it is clear or that some reflection on elder life is teased out of readers. It's a true story.

COPPER

His middle-aged son brought the dogs for a visit every Wednesday afternoon, Scotch Terriers who looked just like the picture on the old Black and White Scotch whisky bottles. I’d be drawn to my second floor window by their ecstatic yips.

The old man would be at his open window on the ground floor, leaning out, waiting, calling them by name, Maud, Billy, over and over, his quavering voice filled with longing, his magnificent head of white hair streaked with traces of a youthful auburn. His son would hold each dog up in turn for him to pet with his crippled arthritic hands.

Someone told me they were like children to him after his wife died. He held on to the marital home until he was no longer able and his son then moved him into our no pets allowed independent senior living building five years ago. Word had it he signed over his house to his son with the understanding that he took care of the dogs and brought them to visit.

Last month he graduated from our building into one with a higher level of care. A couple of small trucks and a station wagon showed up with the whining dogs peering out the open window. Ten minutes later his son emerged from the building carrying a large suitcase. Next came the old man, tottering along on his walker, his extraordinary hair like an orange-streaked cloud at sunset. He was stooped over, reluctance in each uncertain footfall, losing more and more ground as he fell further behind his son.

But catching sight of the dogs he straightened with some effort and his eyes lit up, Maud, Billy! and they bounced out of the open car door to greet him, trying desperately to climb the walker to get at his face. His son folded the walker into the trunk as his father clung to the car door, looking up at my window. I saw tears lodging in all the folds of his face and I nodded, absorbing a little of his pain and fear.

As his son helped him into the back seat the dogs fell onto his lap in spasms of joy, his words were blurred and hoarse under the excitement of their yelping.

The station wagon moved away and was quickly out of sight. No one stands around outside to say goodbye to anyone leaving here. It’s like it’s contagious and no one’s been vaccinated.

The trucks immediately disgorged their drivers and the two men vanished into the building. Shortly afterwards, the windows to the apartment were thrown open and the accouterments of his left-behind-life were tossed onto the lawn.

Where are you taking all his stuff? asked Bertha, who patrols the grounds of our building like a border guard, all ninety years and ninety pounds of her. The men looked at each other then at her.

To the dump, lady, to the dump, one of them said impatiently. They loaded the two trucks with boxes of dishes, cheap shelving, metal tray tables, a saggy couch, an over-used easy chair, pantry items, an old mattress, a melamine headboard, sad linens, a wonky kitchen table with rusty kitchen chairs, photos in frames of weddings and children and soldiers, many albums, scrapbooks, magazines, an old console television and a stereo turntable, rickety bookcases, books, a giant bag of dog biscuits.

It took a week to air the place out for I heard the old fellow smoked like a chimney.

Professionals then came to dismantle and eject all the cabinetry and fixtures and cart it all away, some of it falling apart, missing knobs and drawer fronts.

A few days after that a pair of plumbers came. I could hear the hammering and the sound of things being torn apart, next I heard a clinking and clanging an hour or two later and looked down below and caught a glimpse of copper and for a few seconds thought it was the old man’s head protruding from the window.

But no,various lengths of copper piping were being passed slowly and carefully through the apartment window from one worker to the other.

They were then wrapped like treasure in flannel sheets before being reverently placed inside a van, to be auctioned off, no doubt, to the highest bidder.

Inertia

Boat on the bay, November 2008, taken from deck of my house

I find a creeping paralysis of emotions taking me. I've tried distracting myself, I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" last night. A great distraction. I assigned it an 8 out of 10. But such distractions only inhabit the mind for the time it takes to view the film.

I've a reluctance to connect with friends and family. I prefer this self-imposed isolation. I'm afraid they will see my pyschic distancing from them all. As if they are strangers in a strange land. I bide my time until the feeling passes and I am once again the person they know. Eager to see them, anticipating the solid reconnections.

For now, I resist completely unpacking my suitcases and boxes and hanging clothes in closets and decanting business documents into files. I am a gypsy with Strawbella the caravan waiting outside, tiny in her huge garage, ready for my pots and pans to be hung on the sides.

I read the two books I have on the go at the moment. I journal but only thoughts of what I'm lacking pervade the pages. I miss Newfoundland. Intensely. Deeply. I find the flurry of the city meaningless. The surrounding of the suburbs I inhabit sterile: I went to a small enclave with the dog last night to walk her in reasonable safety and could not find a sidewalk. No pedestrians allowed. No inhabitants walk anywhere. It really frightened me.

I can't make a decision, schedule appointments with clients or commit to a writing workshop with valued colleagues.

I find it hard to sleep which is very unlike me. I was up till 4.00 a.m. I awoke at 10 with a headache. I sneeze all the time.

Perhaps this is the pains of transition from a small, fresh-aired intimate outport to the miasmic pall of the city.

I sense the old black dog pacing the horizon.

Over and over I say to myself : What the f*** is wrong with you?

And

This, too, shall pass.

The Books of 2012

Here is a link to prior years' posts on BOOKS

Well it was a record year for me. 77 books read in 2012. Mainly because I cut back on my business demands (gulp) and jumped into the unknown. Reading so voraciously whets my appetite for writing. And vice-versa. Even as a small child my visits to the library were the hightlights of my week. I'm still in paper mode with books, though I do have an E-Reader. I don't think paper books will ever be of the past and I believe that publishers are making books more worthy and by that I mean they are including more beautiful endpapers and fancier editions.

Here's the list of 2012 reads in order of my reading them, I have highlit the very best:

Skin Room - Sara Tilley
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (BC) - Helen Simonson***
The Other Hand - Chris Cleave*****
A World Elsewhere - Wayne Johnston**Not up to his usual standards
The Virgin Cure - Ami McKay*****
All He Ever Wanted - Anita Shreve*****
February - Lisa Moore(skimmed as re-read for BC-1/2)*****
Exit Lines - Joan Barfoot***
A Cold Day for Murder - Dana Stabenow**
Bay of Spirits - Farley Mowat*****Newfoundland,(thanks, Toddy!) beautifully told
Springfield Place - S.A. McCormick (won't rate, she's a friend)
Afterimage - Helen Humphreys*****beautiful
The Weight of Water - Anita Shreve****
Light on Snow - Anita Shreve*****one of her best
At Home In France - Ann Barry*****oh I hated leaving this one
Sea Glass - Anita Shreve***
Pagan Babies - Elmore Leonard*
The Way We Were - Marcia Willett***
Galore - Michael Crummey
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton*****Oh to write like this!
Memories of Peter's River - Bride Martin (a friend: not rating)
Swimmer in the Secret Sea - William Kotzwinkle*****short, powerful
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley(BC)****
The Best of Bernard MacLaverty - Bernard MacLaverty***
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain(BC)****
Heft - Liz Moore***** one of the best.ever.
The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard*****
Grandmother's Footsteps - Carol Smith****excellent thriller, meaningless title
The Fault in our Stars - John Green*****One of the best
Sense of Wonder - Ann Patchett(BC)**
Thin Ice - Marsha Qualey***
Dressing Up for the Carnival - Carol Shields (again)***
Lies of Silence - Brian Moore*****Heart stopping, breathtaking
Because of Winn-Dixie - Kate Dicamillo*****beautiful
The Sleeping Beauty - Elizabeth Taylor *** A reissue, I love this writer
Mistaken - Neil Jordan**** (thanks Helen!)
The Collected Stories - John McGahern*****
Good to a Fault - Marion Endicott(BC)**** ( a little too long)
Pictures of You - Caroline Leavitt**** (dragged at end)
Black Juice - Margo Lanagan*bleurgh
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler*****(wow!)
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls***
Where the Heart Is - Billie Letts****
The Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis****polical humour at its best
Still Missing - Chevy Stevens*****compulsive,unputdownable
Savoury on the Tongue - Anthology**nothing to chew on
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern*what a painful slog with no payoff
Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill****
Broken Harbour - Tana French****
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn*****
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon*****
Lost in Translation - Eva Hoffman****
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - Deborah Moggach***
Long Gone - Alafair Burke****
The Hijacking of Cassie Peters - Mary Stanley***
Beyond Belief - Liam Fay***
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas(BC)*
The Emigrants - W.G. Sebald*****
The Famished Lover - Alan Cumyn*****
Seating Arrangements - Maggie Shipstead****
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell*****
Skeletons at the Feast - Chris Bohjalian(BC)0 gack!
Never Knowing - Chevy Stevens****
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Broken Shore - Peter Temple****1/2
Winter Garden - Kristin Hannah(BC)****
The Calling - Inger Ash Wolfe****1/2
A Curious Dream - Kate Pullinger****
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See(BC)*****recommend
Truth - Peter Temple****
Christine Falls - Benjamin Black***
Guide to the Aran Islands - J.M. Synge
Still Life - Louise Penny***
The Taken - Inger Ash Wolfe***1/2
Consolation - Michael Redhill*****
The Rings of Saturn - W. G. Sebald*****
Eager to Please - Julie Parsons****
The Edible Woman - Margaret Attwood (again)*****

Some were re-reads - Wharton, Attwood - and worth it. Attwood writing of 1969 and perfect housewives I saw in the fresh light of 2012 and found myself nodding at how brilliantly she captures the interior rebellion of a woman caught sacrificing her spirit and not knowing it was sacrifice. Wharton, well because I think it's one of the most perfect stories ever written.

W.G. Sebald - all I can say if you haven't read him, please do. It is like sitting down with him and listening to him riff off on many topics.

Michael Redhill and his alter ego Inger Ash Wolfe were a fresh discovery. I have more on order.

Gone Girl and Still Missing were unputdownable crime novels.

Heft by Liz Moore was an incredible first novel. All about a huge man trapped in his own body. She actually wrote back to me when I sent her a fan rave.

Barry's At Home in France was also one of those books which held me in rural France and wouldn't let me go.

So there you have it. My year in books. Eclectic? Yeah, that's me alright.

Mr. Geoffrey – a Love Story. Part 6 of 6

See Part 1 Here
See Part 2 Here
See Part 3 Here
See Part 4 Here
See Part 5 Here

I read him Irish poems in the Irish language. He told me Jewish ones in Yiddish from memory. We would slowly translate the words to each other. And sometimes back again, verbally fondling those that had a commonality between the Gaeilge (Irish language) and the Yiddish.

On our very last afternoon together I read him Lady Gregory's marvellous translation of Donal Og.

Donal Og
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday
and myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

My mother has said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me, you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

In my memory, that poem filled up our entire session and spread out over all the afternoons we had shared. I took my time in reading it. My voice felt strange and thick and lonely to my ears. As if there should have been foghorns in the background. Every line felt heavy in my mouth. I had to wrench it out of myself.

His eyes never left my face. Now and again he took his thick glasses off and swept a finger beneath his eyes without closing them. More times than I could count. Catching the tears before they fell, I like to think.

I hesitated when I stood up to leave him. I felt awkward, ungainly in my last week of pregnancy, awkward in the emotions that threatened to overflow into tears or into awkward, inadequate words that would diminish all we had given each other.

Silence can say far more. Silence can bathe everything in golden amber, preserved forever. Taken out of the mind's secret drawer every now and again and admired afresh from every angle.

I turned and I left, closing the door without looking at him.

I never saw him again.

Act As If

Well, that's what 'they' say. Until 'it' goes away. And it hasn't. In spite of. Acting as if.

Acting as if life is wonderful and I am so lucky and my gawd you are living your dream.

But right now it is overwhelm. Every single phonecall I get needs something from me. Not that I lay the blame on anyone else. Sometimes, I need a phonecall that just says "How are you?" and means it. Not as a prelude to do this and do that and can you and will you.

But all that aside. This thing always comes out of nowhere, sometimes to stay, at the top of the stairs, at the door. I try not to feed it but I do. A poem came into my head last night and I sat and cried. A harsh poem about words and boots and fists that came out of nowhere when I was five-six-seven. Old ghosts gather as the black dog paces, see? And nothing I can do can stop them. Well medication did for a while but the payback demanded was flatlining. As in dead. The unme.

At this age I know it will get bored if I don't feed it and move on. I will show it no fear. I will do the things I have been taught. Take care of me. Walk in the sunshine. Breathe in the deep sea air. Take some pictures. Write more secret poems. Read other blogs that get the same visits from the same black dog.

For I am not alone in this fragility and how comforting that is.

The Kindness of Strangers.

Life can throw some curves, can’t it?

I mean I had my first ever blowout there in the car with the winter tires (good woman that I am) on it. Not that they’re needed here in Newfoundland at the mo. We’ve just been having damp drizzle, occasional rain, a bit of wind, sometimes a bit of a gale, not enough to keep you in winter gear or anything, for the last month or so. After a three month fall which was lovely. Not a lick of snow yet. My herbs still fresh as daisies in the garden. Walks in a sweater or slicker every day. Long walks. Ne’er a boot has touched my feet yet.

But to get back to what I was saying. I’ve had slow leaks, mysterious flattenings of tires. But never a blowout.

You think you’ve been shot. That’s the first reaction. Bang, like a gunshot and the car slews sideways and makes a grinding noise all over. And you grip the wheel tightly, thinking steer into the skid, no: that’s for snow, stupid, hang on for dear life, any other vehicle around me? Oh, put on the hazards, Sweet Jaybuzz, I’m in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. Turn off the Rolling Stones playing at full blast, idiot. Look at the dog looking accusingly at me. What has this dumb human done now? OK pull over. Slow like, real slow. Breathe. Now check for the bullet hole.

Oh dear Maude, would you look at the back left tire. What’s left of it. The rest is lining the highway for ¼ of a mile back there as far as the eye can see. And it’s smoking, looks like there was a bit of a fire on the rubber. Cripes, you’re some lucky woman. You coulda pitched off the mountain back there. Can you see that headline, ha? Would you be considered headline worthy? Nah. They’d do that awful thing they do, right? Women classified only by their biological function as in: “Grandmother dies a fiery death as her car careens off the TransCanada Highway after blowout.”

Lordy but it’s teeming rain, pelting off the car. And it’s darkening too, it’s 4 o’clock.

Ah, thank heavens for these wonderful Newfoundlandlers, always helpful, one will stop soon. I shoulda learned how to change a tire back in the day. Never needed to. How girly can one get? Now I'm payin' for it, I’m this idiot helpless woman at the side of highway. Call CAA. Oh boy. They can’t effing locate me. I’m miles from bloody everywhere. I can’t effing locate myself. I’m heading towards Goobies. Goobies. A one stop gas station, diner. No service bays. They can send someone from Clarenville. Two hours it’ll take. Two effing hours!!!

It’s 4.30 by now. No one has stopped. Is everybody going past me from out of province today? I have the hazards on, I have a pitiful expression on my face. Tears lurk. I’m frightened too of all the traffic rushing by. They could hit me. “Grandmother crushed by tractor trailer near Goobies on the TCH.”

5 o’clock. It's dark now. Someone in a black van is doing a dangerous u-turn right there, oh, gawd he could hit me. He’s going to hold me up. Take my wallet. Wake up dog! Look threatening for eff’s sake, bear your teeth or something. No, don’t grin, don’t wag your tail at the lovely man.

“That’s some awful blow-out!” He’s barely thirty, maybe younger, “Me and the wife just said we have to help that poor woman, so we turned the van around”.

He has no umbrella, he has no rain gear. He changes my tire in the pouring rain. He is drenched to the skin. He uses his own jack as it appears I don’t have one. I’m ready to go on my way in 5 minutes.

I insist, against his embarrassed refusals, on giving him money to buy himself and his lovely wife a warm dinner. My gratitude has me crying. To give of oneself so freely and in absolute and utter discomfort for another’s ease and comfort has me overwhelmed with emotion.

Would I? That’s the question that dangles there in front of my eyes as I head off on the spare tire. As I contemplate what a thin sliver hangs between ourselves and death on most days.

And a few days later – well, sin sceal eile as we say in Ireland – that’s another story.

Hallelujah!

Thank you for all your kind comments and personal emails. Wow, I am so lucky to live in Blogland!

I was at a meeting a week or so ago, where the topic of anger came up. Anger, a fairly useless emotion, is just the mirror side of depression. Often when someone is depressed, anger will be exhibited, masking the more authentic emotion. I witnessed that in my family of origin.

Well, to make a long story shorter, I had finished posting here yesterday, feeling at sixes and sevens, when that meeting came to my mind and the solution to anger had been presented:

Action Plan. Determine. Follow Through.

What was my Action Plan apart from ranting and raving and allowing the black dog into my living room?

What could I do? OK. I looked up the head office address of Bell Aliant. And went a-calling. It was Saturday. I was the only customer with 3 service reps.

Bottom line, they produced a hub. Brand new improvement to cellular highspeed, they assure me. I was entitled to a free upgrade and two months free service. The hub would provide wireless high speed for up to 5 computers.

Disconnects? No service for days? A thing of the past, the triplets assure me. If I'm not over the moon happy, the triplets again assure me, I bring it back. No questions.

Cynical and jaded I leave. I am so unexcited about this whole experiment that I take a nap in front of the fire that Leo has so kindly laid down in my absence, once I get home.

Then, yawning, I set up the hub. You wouldn't believe how easy. Something this easy has to go sideways. Hardy-har. Wireless internet all over my old house as the triplets had envisioned for me? Dream on, baby!

Action plans can result in dreams becoming reality. This hub - kiss, kiss - has given me unbroken and powerful high speed. For the first time ever out here at the Edge of the Atlantic.

As I type this on my netbook in front of the fire I feel I can shrug off the slithering remnants of depression and shoo the old BD out into the May sunshine.

The world, my friends, is full of fresh possibilities.

Side-swiped

Things go along really well but then, like a bolt out of the blue, that Old Black Dog thunders into my psyche. I'd been in denial for a while. Noticed some subtle changes in my behaviour and the absence of any kind of joy. Desiring just to be Left Alone. Not reading too many blogs, not doing much of anything apart from socks. I couldn't stop knitting socks. Ripping socks. Re-knitting socks.

Avoiding the phone. Lurking. Pretending I'm alright Jack at unavoidable social events. Fooling myself. And nobody else. Mentioned depression once to others, tossed it out there into the conversation pit, nobody bit, drew it back in again.

Just dying to get back home. And hide. And avoid.

"Aren't we all a bit bats?" said an old friend from Ontario on the phone today: by a fluke I picked it up when she rang, my 200lb telephone, "I think there's comfort in that, don't you?"

Well, sort of. My oldest friend is away, sunning herself on some beach in Portugal, unplugged. I miss her. This is completely illogical as she lives in Dublin but we track each other every day by email and the odd mailing and phone-call. And the Black Dog is our familiar, we bat him back and forth.

My perception of the world, in this condition, is that everyone is having a great time and I'm stuck somewhere, poised between frowning and lemon-faced, miserable, desperately lonely and wanting to stay that way. Forever. Being completely unfit for company as I am.

Did I mention the awful dreams?

They truly are.

Bear with me. This will pass.

I throw it out there as I know I'm not alone.

Much Ado About Nothing.

 I don't really know what I'm writing about here, I'll just go with my own flow. I could transcribe my hand written journal but I'm afraid you'd completely snore off before reaching the end of a couple of sentences.

I am seeing all these pics of my five siblings in Ireland and feeling quite sad and yes, my old friend The Black Dog lurks in the undergrowth of my mind.

WhatsApp and Zoom keeps us all together and I can see my sick brother being taken out and about to old spots and it was a big thrill to see the photo of my four brothers today. I can't remember the last time a photo was taken of the four of them as they live in three different countries. 

All this to say with incredible heat and humidity and yes, loneliness for family,  I need a fainting couch and some smelling salts. I have always hated heat and time in the tropics has been wasted on me. I have never understood the concept of wintering in the sunnier climes like Florida and Arizona. I thrive in the cold, not the heat. And this 95% humidity does my head in. One of the reasons I moved here was to escape the viciousness of Ontario summers. But climate change has caught up with Newfoundland. An island not equipped for heat.

So I've accomplished nothing in the last ten days. There's a huge cooling porch in my building but I would have to put on a nice face and engage socially which feels like a mountain I can't climb at the moment.

I actually drove down to take a pic of JK Rowling's yacht in the harbour in the fog.

And stopped to catch these ducks in the fog in the lake near my home.