Exile

 

Exile

Definition

“the state of being barred from one's native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.” 

I would add "religious."

I am an exile from Ireland. I have been so for fifty six years.

It’s a strange word, exile.

Me, I left because of religious intolerance – which infected entire families – of a woman/girl who became pregnant outside of holy matrimony. Back then, if this happened, there were three choices for a woman in that condition.

(1) Get married if the fellah was honourable and didn’t vanish or deny his responsibility. A choice not available to raped women or girls who were blamed for their condition and were now “spoiled” and deemed unmarriagable for any decent man.

(2)Be incarcerated in a Mother and Baby Home, run by nuns, giving birth in agony (suffering being a reparation for carnal sins committed) and then have the baby whisked away immediately and sold to a decent Catholic family in the U.S.

(3)Become a slave for life in the infamous Magdalene Laundries, mocked, beaten, demeaned and the baby yanked and sold immediately post birth.

 (4)Emigrate to the UK, Australia, South Africa or Canada.

I chose options 1 and 4. I was twenty three years old.

To be pregnant and getting married (in a side chapel away from the prying eyes of relatives and friends who would be counting the months) was no joyful event. Disgusted judgment would be wrought upon the family of the bride for raising such a tramp. Fathers would forbid the errant daughter from darkening their doorway so the neighbours could observe their disapproval as would her siblings as a signal as to what could happen to them.

I hid my condition from everyone. I was, luckily, tall and carried high.

My wedding was a grand affair. Absolutely no one knew of my four month’s pregnancy and the Canadian Embassy blessed my potential emigration with free passage to my new country along with free rent on an apartment until we “settled in.” Many employment positions were lined up as Canada was in need of more bodies in the work force. Economically then, Ireland was dismal.

Shortly after the wedding we vamoosed on the SS Carinthia.

The SS Carinthia.

Standing on that deck, looking down at the tender taking my grieving family back to Cobh Harbour, I finally realized why it was known as the “Irish Wake”

Cobh - also the last port of call of the Titanic.

I didn’t cry. I turned my face to look west, to the new land that awaited me with open arms.

I had exiled myself and my little one to Canada.

Pink Tax

 

“The “Pink Tax” is a term used to describe the phenomenon where goods and services marketed specifically to women, are priced higher when compared to similar goods and services marketed to men.”

“Women in Canada paid more for toiletries and more than 50 per cent more for deodorant and body washaccording to 2021 data.May 9, 2023”

Latest development: no buttons or buttonholes or pockets on many jackets and cardigans. Same price or higher than before but still they cost more than men’s cardigans. Imagine a man putting up with this shyte.

Pockets are such a rarity than in my family when we find a skirt, trousers or shirt with pockets we rave about it. Men would roar loud and long if pockets and buttons were eliminated from their clothing and they were still charged the same price.

On a sidenote I always buy men's pyjama bottoms and men's t-shirts. Why? They each have pockets AND last longer as they are better made. Women's nightwear is not made to last and costs a bundle compared to men's.

Dry cleaning charges for male and female shirts have a huge discrepancy in price. Guess in whose favour?

Walk down the personal care product aisle and see the price differences on:

Body wash

Razors

Deodorant

Shampoos and other hair stuff such as male hair dyes and female hair dyes.

And don’t get me started on the tax on menstrual products in many countries but eliminated in Canada.

With women making far less than men in the world, this is unconscionable. And an unfair tax burden on women.

I imagine this is something many men don’t think about.

No Roadmap.

Old age is not an overcoat I slip into easily,

I feel threadbare, uneasy in my own skin

Memories flood my mind of those beloveds lost

And never found except as dimly lit ghosts.

Daily challenges are suddenly mountainous

And steal more time from my meagre pantry.

I was feeling very tired recently. I never think to myself, there's something wrong. I always say to myself, well, it's old age, everything starts to break down.

And then I'm with one of my specialists yesterday and he tells me my hemoglobin has tanked and I need to get iron infusions from here on in.

And I ask myself, why do symptoms become so difficult to sort out from aging itself and I bet this also happens to others in the elder boat. Writing every peculiarity off to the aging process.

There is no roadmap that I'm aware of. It's a kind of hit or miss senior life. Is this serious? Do I sound like a whiny baby with an organ recital for every day of the week? Should I just up and get on (poorly) with putting one foot in front of the other while craving my bed at eleven in the morning?

I'll tell you a story about a dear friend of my daughter's who's a little older than I. She went off to the hospital to have her heart checked and felt very weak and sick after her treadmill test. So much so when she got home she had to use a walker (Zimmer frame to many of you). There is a shallow step between her kitchen and living area and the very next day (yesterday) the frame caught on this and tumbled her to the ground, unconscious. She has multiple fractures and had to be carted away by ambulance. 

And I ask myself why do elders go through awful testing sometimes - you might remember I went nearly blind in my right eye after one such procedure as it was so painful and I wasn't permitted anesthesia due to the medications I am on.

Needless to mention after her friend's accident, Daughter called me and asked me about surfaces and do I rest after getting upright from my bed, etc. And do I take my time going down steps or stairs. Next step, a videocam on Mother (joking).

Which got me writing the above poem and thinking at this precious time in our lives when time is in short supply we gobble up so much of it just in walking upright carefully and being vigilant in not tumbling or falling or stabbing ourselves with sharp objects.

 

Violence

I must stop watching the news at night. I resolve over and over again to do just that and then tell myself - well just the headlines, well, just five minutes, and then before I know it, it's the whole sorry flood of it, on and on and on.

What kind of effing planet are we on anyway?

We have the obscenity of billionaires spending in frivolity, in lavishness, in greed with the pollution of private enormous yachts and private jets and multiple homes with millions and millions starving.

Meanwhile - (now stop here if you don't want to get depressed and move on to a sunny blog)

Lebanon: the whole economy has tanked and seniors, yes seniors, have had their pensions, their life long savings, erased and are living on the streets in poverty, depending on charity to sustain themselves. Forget any medications.

Israel and Palestine:  at it again, my land, no my land, here's a bomb onto your camp, I'll teach you. And on it goes.

Sudan: well, unbelievable starvation and desperation.

Russia-Ukraine, war crimes, toddlers dead in their mothers' arms.

The oceans are dying, warmed just about to extinction. The quantity of icebergs here for the last few months is staggering. Greenland is finally green I would imagine.

Forest fires in Canada are at a record high and the polluted air has hit most of the northern and mid USA in a yellow poison along with the major cities here. Millions of hectares gone forever.

Heatwaves in the southern USA at record temperature highs.

Maternal deaths in the USA are one of the worst in the world. And the rights of women and gays eradicated by their corrupt Supreme Court. The USA desperately needs to change its entire system of democracy. I mean, seriously, Trump running again? Is this a joke? A traitor president? 

It's violence everywhere. Wars between countries, wars on women. 

Constant violence waged upon the only planet we have.

We are a pathetic species.

And yes, maybe I should stick this old head in the sand and go nah-nah-nah and shut off the news.

But seriously? We are on the road to extinction, at least I believe that.

You? Do you have any hope for us at all?

Living Tips and Lessons Learned

 Sailing  Lurching into extreme old age, I am reflecting on the navigation of it. I assume "extreme" would be over 80. I haven't hit 80 yet but it winks at me.

Worry.

I abandoned worry a long time ago. It is useless and pointless and a total energy vampire. I had the realization that none of my worries had materialized and my classic last visitation to worry was about 35 years ago when (a) buying my dream home in Toronto (b) losing the position that was paying for the mortgage (c) going into an almost catatonic state with the definite and certain possibility I was going to lose my home and be jobless, destitute and unemployable. I did not hang a curtain on a window or a picture on a wall as I knew the dream would shatter when my severance pay expired in a few months. I huddled there in desperation and solitude calculating how much money the piano and assorted bits and pieces would sell for. After two weeks of this inertia and terror I had an unexpected phone call from a stranger who had heard about my abilities and offered me a year's contract to help him shut down his large hundred year old family business with everyone happy. At an astonishing fee. I jumped at it. And for six months I had two incomes rolling in my door. And after that enormous life lesson, I've had many challenges but I never revisited the worry pit again.

Adaptation.

Life is full of changing circumstances all the time. I was up for a full medical pending this big birthday and having my driver's license renewed. I thought with the blindness in my right eye, there is a risk I will lose it after close to sixty five years of accident free driving. And always loving driving, across Canada so many times, seeing this beautiful country. Having the security and adventure of four wheels sitting outside waiting to take me away to wherever, whenever. But, I thought, there are cabs, there are electric thingies, there is a senior bus that trots around this area. And I didn't worry. My life would adapt. When I passed the medical it was a gift, a bonus, a joy. But I knew I could have adapted peacefully to losing it.

Always have something to look forward to.

This was one of my dad's philosophies on aging. And he was right. I have a black board and write looking forward stuff on it. It's not about achieving the stuff but the journey is made lighter.

Don't give up the joyful things

Music (Schubert - Claudio Arrau at the moment)

Reading (Migrations - extraordinary.)

Knitting (Just completed one side of a cushion)

Delighting in a beautiful handmade card received yesterday from a dear friend in Ontario.

I think I have tons more. But that's enough for today.

Death and Fair Maidens

I'm second from the right. My oldest friend still with us, took the photo.

I have very few remaining friends in my life from way back when. Those I have are precious with a layer of melancholy spread over us all like a protective shield. My layer, I have no idea how they're feeling.

As many of my readers know, I have no belief in a life everlasting somewhere up in the sky or parts unknown so the finality of death breaks my heart more deeply than those who believe in the pubs and singing and birthday parties continuing in the great beyond. (As an aside though, none of those believers embrace death as the escape route from earthly challenges and pain, am I right?)

Suffice to say I have emails from all three of my surviving circle when I hit the Oul Sod in the late autumn.

One has been a dear friend since we were eleven years old. So yeah, close to seventy years of friendship there. We never lost touch. She has beaten cancer twice.

On a trip to Niagara Falls with Daughter and my "Emigration Liner" friend.

Another is a dear friend now living in New York. I met her when she was twenty and I was twenty three. Where? On the emigration liner pulling out of Cork Harbour in 1967 our heads turning to our new life ahead and then turning back to the tender leaving the ship holding everyone we held dear behind forever. She is flying into Dublin so we can sit and yabber to our heart's content.

Another still is a long time friend I made here, from Dublin originally, who turned tail when her mother died and her father needed her and her husband deserted her and her only choice of safety and comfort was returning "home" as she felt there was no home in Canada anymore.

I believe nurturing friendships of such long standing takes effort. I know so very many who can't create the time and let these trickle through their hands. But how can the connections survive if not given the life breath of a card or an email or a phone call? Often just a stamp and five minutes of one's time is all that is needed. Surely they are worth that? And like I've said before a piece of paper or a card in one's hand is more sustaining than a quick email or message or whatsapp.

It's a joy to meet those who knew me back then, who knew my secrets and our youthful exuberance. Our fearless looking ahead, our love affairs, our hopes and dreams, our music, our humour.

My connections with those of such long duration are drowned in laughter and delight and, yes, poignancy. And gratitude for the unexpected pleasure of being alive.

Still.

Joy and Inspiration.

What does it for you, what brings you either or both of these gifts? It's the small stuff for me. Never the large.

I watch my African violets carefully for signs of buds. I get an unbelievable amount of joy from these tiny pleasures.

I don't think of the vast gardens of my past, I concentrate on the now of my life. What is one thing I can do today that will bring me joy?

Often I look through old knitting designs I created and work out something new, something to give away, something someone would like.

Othertimes, my energy is depleted. I never take a good energy day for granted as it fluctuates, as does the pain. Poor energy and I roll with it.

I take joy from a good coffee bean like this one, which is locally roasted and just how I like it.

I read, I learn. I write. I ponder the news, which isn't that great lately is it? I honestly feel that the planet, or Gaia, is on its last legs, howling in pain as us humans destroy it.

I stare at the dichotomy of all those unfortunate emigrants, leaving desperation, at the mercy of traffickers, drowning off an overloaded wreck of a boat, 750 crammed on board, women and children abandoned to the harsh sea and dying and those millionaires in their submersible getting all the news coverage. Was it ever thus?

I look to what inspires me. The diligent crows outside my window feeding their young. Sensing when I arrive with little tidbits for them. Just about tame as they land not too far from my feet. They know me.

I look at the bravery of some in my building, who are challenged in many ways but still get out of bed and get their exercise every day in the gyms we are blessed with or walk the halls like I do. I appreciate this building I live in for many reasons, not least of it in that I can see the ocean and the nearby lake and so many trees outside. And it's so quiet it's easy to climb into my thoughts and jot them down as I roll through my day.

Staying where my hands are, knowing how safe we are here on this island off the edge of Canada surrounded by breathtaking seascapes which inspire me every single day.

Disneyfication

I have a friend who is continually let down by the world's reality. She lives in a  disneyfied version of our world. I made up that word myself but surely it has been thought of up prior to this? (I checked, it has).

She is over sixty, never married and lived with her parents for the last thirty years of her life. On her own now since her dad died last year nudging towards 100 years old. Her dad took care of everything, meals,  bills, repairs and she had to ask him every time she needed the car.

She is continually disappointed in a world where parents divorce, children become estranged from parents or hit drugs or drop out.

I blame the movies for this. All those happy endings. Life is not a happy ending proposition. She is addicted to feel good series and fairytale types of films.

Since her father died, she has filled the house with six cats (it's not a large house) and visiting her is a bit of challenge, I am not good with cats crawling over me. If you have one or two cats, that's fine. But a roomful I find hard to take. 

She is extraordinarily judgey on her five siblings. They do not fit the picture of Happy Families by a long shot. She is the youngest, the baby of the family, and I have pointed out to her that their lived experience with their parents is far, far different to hers. She was an "oops" as her parents were in their forties when she was born with the rest of their family just about raised. She bemoans that they are not close and refuse to visit her with the six cats as they are (a) not allowed to bring their dogs into the house and (b) think she is gone over the edge with so many cats.

She loves hearing stories of my five siblings and I and our weekly zoom calls even though I assure her we are unusual in this. For 'tis a rare thing indeed to be on line every Sunday afternoon for nearly four years and never running out of interesting conversations. We all make the time for this. And no, we did not come out of a happy families environment. We have created this haven through hard work and much therapy for some of us.

I know she is not alone as I know so many going around disappointed in what life throws at them. Jealous, "it's fine for you" type of resentment oozing from every pore. As if rose gardens are given to the rest of us. And I do blame Hollywood and the Father Knows Best type of crap that was served up on television.

Me? I love the dark side of life, the depressions, the deaths, the loss of one's footing for a while, overcoming disaster and loss and disappointment, adapting to shitty circumstances. Inspiring stuff. Brave stuff.

 Knowing in my heart that any kind of contentment (screw happiness) is entirely of our own making and never, ever comes from outside of ourselves.

Pinned in The 'Peg (Part 4 - final)

See Part 1 here

See Part 2 here

See Part 3 here 

I'm taking them to dinner in their favourite place but we find it closed. She should have called, he says, why didn’t she, everyone calls. They have one of their interminable conversations in the front seat. Her alternative suggestions are squelched quickly. I'm not consulted even though I'll be footing the bill.

Schezuan, he decides, finally. I touch lightly on a few carefully thought out topics over dinner. I say I like the excellent tempura pickerel. Who said it was tempura? He turns on me, he didn't know what it was but it wasn't tempura. I ask the server, wondering why on earth I'm bothering. She's surprised I ask, “tempura pickerel,” she responds. Ah, he says darkly, they don't know tempura! The last part of the meal is rushed, there's another sports event waiting for him at home.

I sit in the kitchen with her and knit while watching an episode of "Foyle’s War" on one of the six televisions scattered throughout the house. From the den, he regularly calls out orders for tea, water, let Dingo out or in, all of which she obeys without question. When he comes out to the kitchen for yogurt (he announces she'd bring him the wrong one) he turns off the TV as he walks by. She turns it back on without comment or surprise once he leaves the kitchen. She stacks up more albums of knitting patterns for later enjoyment. I bail abruptly. He emerges from the den and tells her she's not coming to the airport in the morning as he's going directly to the gym afterwards. She's crestfallen, close to tears; I make my escape to my room, complete with dog butt.

Drifts of eternal one-sided arguments reach my ears from downstairs as I pull the covers over my head. No, no, no, that was 1951 not 1949, how could she be so mixed up?

I wonder if I'm permanently brain-damaged.

In the morning, I sit beside him as he drives to the airport.

You don’t say very much, he remarks, are you always this quiet? It’s not a good way of getting on in the world.

I look at him, take a deep breath. Measure my words.

You’d never be interested in what I have to say, I say slowly, thinking how insulting my words are.

Without missing a beat, he responds, delighted: Correct! He nods his head as we pull into the sidewalk below the departures sign at the airport, you women have nothing interesting to say!

I get out of the car, haul my suitcase from the back seat and slam the car door without another word.

I cry with relief as I board the plane.

Unbelievably, I hear from them a few more times via email telling me they are visiting Toronto and would love to see me.

I never respond and block him on his request to befriend me on Facebook.

They walk among us.

With no warning signs.

Pinned in the 'Peg (Part 3)

See Part 1 here

See Part 2 here

See my comments on Part 2 for further background on the main players and more details if you wish.

Red River, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Canada.

Dinner is served under the harsh unforgiving glare of the chandelier. They're busy discussing 1992 and who showed up for dinner at his sister’s place in Calcutta. Her brother-in-law looked like the Dalai Lama. No, he didn't, it was the doctor who looked like the Dalai Lama. Eileen never, ever responds to these clever conversational gambits. She merely shifts gears. His sister had that lovely yellow sari on. No, of course she didn't - she was still in mourning!

After dinner, Eileen takes me to the den and we squash together tightly on a love seat due to the absence of other seating. The many albums of knitting patterns she's been collecting for fifty years are produced - each page has a story: when she made it, what yarn she used, whether the beneficiary liked it, if she had to rip it and re-do it. That lunch in Toronto has shown me in floodlit clarity that she's not joking. This is her life. I can't interrupt. She's simply not interested. At eleven I yawn and yawn and at one I finally bail, ignoring the hurt expression on her face as she lovingly touches the patterns in album 45. The meal itself was unmemorable, a mishmash of unidentifiable stew with mushy vegetables. Though, of course, I murmured delicious when I got a word in edgewise.

I'm up at nine, plotting like an engineer as to how I can shower, dry my hair and climb into some crumpled clothes without swimming in a pool of water all day. My teeshirt-nightie does the trick and I hang it on the curtain rod to dry out.

Eileen prides herself on her ability to make cappuccinos, but does not believe in using espresso coffee beans for this, she finds a light blend works really well. If I don't look at this cupful of pale mud, I will ingest it without convulsions. Real coffee is now but a dim memory. Twenty-four more hours to go.

I'm again crouched in the back seat of the car as I'm taken on another tour - the North Side of Winnipeg. There are no distinguishing features between the north, south, east and west for the ignorant tourist, but many for the host and hostess. Each building is disagreed about. Watkins Pharmacy used to be there. No, wrong! He responds gleefully, Brown’s Furniture! The Red River flood took out a few houses here. No, no, no, that was over at Norbert. They renovated the hospital last year. No, not a renovation, that was strictly cosmetics. Silence. A lot of sky here, I murmur. Well, not a lot, he rejoins irritably, I've seen more elsewhere. I subside, swallowing the whimpers that rise unbidden to my throat.

Over brunch, which is in a lovely spot out of town, he starts in on my decision to move to Newfoundland. He's never known anyone to stick it for long, he snorts his disapproval. A half a million do, I say mildly. They’re stuck with it, no choice, he says triumphantly.

Surprisingly, he's addicted to sports on television so all excursions are calibrated to the broadcasts of sports events from around the world. We race back from brunch and he encases himself in the den and Eileen and I sit and knit in the living room, the dog protruding out of my hind quarters. They were right, they said I'd get used to it.

Pinned in The 'Peg (Part 2)

 See Part 1 here

Park Cafe, Winnipeg.

Thoughts of coffee and a nice rest quickly vanish when faced with a tour of South Winnipeg. We don’t do this for everyone, she says, laughing. Oh, yes we do, he interrupts. And at this point, if I'd had the tiniest glimmer of how many of these interchanges lay ahead of me on this June weekend, I'd have broken the window and flung myself under the nearest tractor trailer.

My attention's now captured by the flattest vista I've ever encountered. The flatness is alleviated somewhat by an oozing eczema of big box stores and multi-national restaurants. I mention Portage and Main, the famous intersection of downtown Winnipeg. Edgar, forgetting he's driving, turns around and informs me I know nothing about Winnipeg if I think it's all about Portage and Main. The Forks are interesting, Eileen offers. No, they’re not, he says. Five minutes of silence. He giggles. You pronounced Portage like a hick he says to me. “Portidge.” I dutifully repeat it after him.

I'm taken to a restaurant in the middle of a park. I stare out the window at lilacs, spring is late in Winnipeg, I remark. I'm quickly told Toronto has spoiled me for early springs. Eileen reaches across the table suddenly and takes both my hands in hers and tells me how she's thrilled I'm here. I'm dumbfounded, look away. I count internally, three hours since landing, another forty-five to get through.

I arrive at the house only to be met by one of those dogs, bum height, whose specialty is rectal probes. Everywhere I go from here on in, I'll wear most of this dog, Dingo. He wants to be your friend, they say.

They're well traveled and the walls are covered with photos of their world trips. It takes two hours for a hundred and fifty frames to be travelogued extensively. I finally whimper I'm tired and need to lie down, just for a half an hour.

The look they exchange would blister paint off a door but at this point I couldn't give a rat’s ass. I escape and unpack the suitcase on the bed (oh god, she wraps on the door tells me she knitted the bed spread in 1983 and it took seventy two balls of Sirdar and she put it on the bed just for me). I've tears in my eyes. My friends wouldn't be safe now, their secrets would spew from my mouth just to get this woman out of my room.

I unpack the case and then realize there is absolutely nowhere to put my clothes. The closet and every single drawer are jammed and every surface has pictures of Dingo. I repack and try not to obsess on the fact there is only a fingertip towel and a small hand towel on the bed. I might, but only if I am miserly in my usage, have one complete limb dry after a shower

Pinned in The 'Peg (Part 1)

This is a true account of a time I spent in Winnipeg about 25 years ago. The Peg is a nickname for Winnipeg. I hadn't read it in years and never dared publish it until now. But it's time. All names are changed to protect the guilty but every word of it is true and I relived the horror of the whole experience as I read it a day or so ago. Alternative title at the time: The Hosts from Hell.

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Portage and Main, downtown Winnipeg (CBC photo)

It all started with Caroline, who worked for me. Her parents lived in Winnipeg. I met her mother, Eileen, over dinner with Caroline. Caroline thought we'd loads in common because we both knitted. Knitting has never been my life, I should make clear, usually indulged in during summers by the sea or in the winter over a movie.

Caroline moved to England. Next time Eileen came to Toronto she called me and I took her for lunch. Caroline had emailed me that it was also Eileen’s birthday that day, so feeling pressured and not totally out of generosity, I presented her with “A History of Canadian Knitting” a book that I'd recently bought for my own use in an obscure little shop. I took her to The Distillery, filled with artisans' studios where we could wander afterward.

Very early on I realized that I had been misguided in taking the afternoon off. I'd been with bores before but this was the auntie of them all. For a while I thought Eileen was going to burst into laughter and scream “gotcha!”

After lunch, as we toured the studios I was treated to a day by day accounting of life in England in 1965 and the details of every item of clothing she'd ever knitted for her children.

Demented, I whipped out my mobile around three o’clock and said I'd forgotten a very important appointment, could I drop her off.

Just about weeping with relief, I pulled away from her hotel. I will never, ever have to endure Eileen again.

Eileen raves to Caroline about the wonderful time we'd had and lickity-split, Caroline immediately buys an airline ticket for a full weekend in Winnipeg with Eileen and Edgar, her dad.

Horrified, but loathe to offend Caroline, I tell myself it won't be that bad. After all Edgar is a professor which required some degree of intelligence.

I arrive at Winnipeg airport on a Saturday morning. I'd been up since 6.00 a.m. and am exhausted, cranky and shy about a quart of coffee.

They're both waiting for me in arrivals, grinning, each with a coffee. As I struggle with my bag they tell me I didn't want a coffee. Really? I follow them and stop, horrified, as they open the two front doors of a two door 1991 Toyota Tercel and climb in. I am a tall, large woman and survey the back seat of the car which is piled high with jackets, tools, rags and cleaning supplies. It takes me five minutes to move all the material to the trunk and ensconce myself in the back seat accompanied by the happy sounds of slurping coffee from the front seat.

That was the week that was.

Often, I feel I have nothing to write about. Ever feel that way? So this week I got notice that my driver's licence was renewed. This after an intense medical as I turn 80 in August. My doc submitted all the forms with a few reservations (my congestive heart failure, my barely there kidney performance). My right eye after one procedure is just about blind but when she did the eye-test I was able to look sideways with it and read the chart.

I admit I cried when I saw the approval. I was prepared for the worst, I always do, adapting and adjusting mentally to losing the old licence after 62 years of driving - accident free I should add, which has now jinxed that because I wrote it here. I've always loved driving and for many years drove across country when I lived part time in Newfoundland and worked in Ontario.

Grandgirl sent me this when I shared the news of my driver's licence renewal

I'm struggling along on a 1000 calorie a day diet (try it, it's hard) as I would like to lose poundage to ease the load on my heart and kidneys. 1000 calories a day forces me to eat healthy and avoid any kind of snacks. At my age, the metabolism slows and it's hard to lose and so much easier to gain with a sliver here or there of something delectable.

I managed to get out for a bit of a hike with a very supportive friend. I hike along in fits and starts with George, my trusty cane. Glad to be out there when so many seem to be confined lately.

This is the lake in the city not far from where I live and I never knew it was there as it's hidden away. It's beautifully laid out with many benches along the way for a quick little rest up.

It's home to rare birds that get blown off course here by the winds, one of which is the mandarin duck. Isn't he just gorgeous?

 

My friend Lana is deteriorating more with Alzheimer's. A call during the week broke my heart as she was in a panic as she didn't recognize where she lived or what she was doing there and wanted to get out. I calmed her down after a while.

All of the above makes me so very grateful for what I have and what I'm doing. And, well, just being. A mighty "just". Being.

Energy

I have to roll my life around days of energy and days of lack of it, the unpredictability of it all drives me mad. Plans get shoved aside. This does not suit this former Type A personality of mine.

Pain is also up and down. Today I took two doses of pain killers with a shrug and a WTF. I despise pain killers, that buzzy wuzzy feeling does not suit me. But my energy for the day is fairly even and not in the dumps. So these small mercies I am so grateful for. It is only in the shortfall of things we normally take for granted that we recognize with joy a taste of their re-emergence.

Grandgirl is now living in Paris. She and her partner visited the grave of Van Gogh and sent me this beautiful postcard and mentioned how much I would have loved the town and place he was born in.

I am so glad we are a postcard sending family. When I am out of town I send many. And even throughout the year if I see one that is interesting. I think the internet has stolen that beautiful tradition for far too many.

She also sent me a photo of what she sees when she looks out the window from her desk.

Living the dream, indeed.

In the absence of pets in this pet free building (why, oh why?) I concentrate on my plants and yes, of course, talking to them.

These started as tiny babies given to me by Daughter when I moved in. I had a massive repotting recently on a good energy day.

And my African Violets (how I love them!) sit on my windowsill and take turns in blooming. 

That white you see outside is dense fog. I woke up to it this morning. I'm one of those weirdos who loves the fog and the foghorns which I am hearing right now. Warning all the ships and boats out at sea to be careful. Though I am sure radar has made all the difference.

This and That and T'other.

My friend Lana, whom I speak to every week has started hallucinating in this dreadful disease of Alzheimer's. It has worsened lately. But she still knows my name when I call her.

Last night her hallucination was a man and his daughter coming to take her to a shoe shop to fit her with new shoes as she had broken her foot. I went along for the ride. She said she wore the shoes to bed as they were so comfortable and would never take them off again. I think it might have been her son and granddaughter who took her. But she had lost track of who they were and their names. If it happened at all.

She has a new friend who is thirty years old (living in a senior's full care facility?) but even though she protests at reception she, Lana, is not allowed to take her for walks with her which is, she says, totally unfair as she'd like some company. As they were spying on her all the time now she couldn't tell me her name.

We don't abandon our friends of such long duration though, and I focus on the few minutes of joy she has in hearing my voice and know that I am forgotten so very quickly until I call again in a week.

Blogger, Master of the Blogverse, decided that a post I had written about Iraq, way back in the day, was offensive in my critique of the politics of that so-called war invasion. Oddly enough, everything I wrote has been proven since.

Daughter booked our trip to my homeland for October. I did the pro and con list and will be interested in reading Andrew who is writing about his very last trip to the homeland of his partner in the UK. Always challenging with aging, disabilities, medications, too old for insurance, etc. Plus the roundabout way of getting there from here with the cancellation of direct flights to Dublin from St. John's. Now we have to back trek west to Toronto and then fly east to Dublin in a sardine can. My pro and con list for the trip had pros winning though. 14 hours.

In love with my air-fryer.

Flowers from my daughter in April.

A very faint rainbow landing in the middle of the lake outside my window this past week.

So many thoughts

I have a brain that is very busy all the time. What about you?

Meditation is helpful, it calms me and centres me and focuses me. As does knitting. 

I love me a good knit. Or taking photos or writing fiction, which takes me outside of myself. 

I look forward intensely to alone time. More than people time. I have never been able to manage small talk. When I was in public office I would wander around with a camera which worked like a charm to keep people at a distance. I never know what to say apart from a series of stock clichés.

I live in a building which is full of small talk. I put on a nice face, being well practiced at my advanced age, and do my best, I remember things about people which soothes them. Like where they used to live and I ask about that. "Have you been back there recently?" Weather is a good coverup. And I range through my string of tropes and haul them out which seems to soothe others: inflation, weather, health status, weather, grandchildren, weather, new tenants, weather. 

I scan my list of internal topics of off limit stuff, climate change, Sudan, Ukraine, Somalia, floods, arctic collapse, rising sea levels and about a 100 more and shut my mouth. Along with the stuff I love to talk about, books, theatre, good films, art, seniors' concerns which usually draws a blank with most. Those I would chat to about such things are all gone to the great beyond of stardust.

One of the enormous voids of old age is losing those with whom we went to the opera or concerts or great theatre or a new showing at the galleries. Those who had this commonality of interests and could discuss such enhancing wonders with kindred spirits.

I imagine if one has a soulmate, old age is much more enhanced by shared interests but then again, if the soulmate dies it leaves one very unprepared for the loneliness and isolation to follow. So six of one and half dozen of the other.

I am so used to being alone and it's totally by choice as there were a few opportunities over the years to change that. I had a few great loves, one particularly of such depth and magnitude that I was only recently able to write about it in a memoir. He was definitely "The One" but there were far too many barriers in that time and place so very many years ago to take it further. 

I am grateful for so much in my life that often I find myself tearing up. I realize that any of us with family love and respect and living in the privilege that is Canada are so very fortunate and find myself crying openly at the child massacres in the US - the Gunster Capital of the world - and when the Ukrainians arrive on our island here with their hope and their pets and their little children, leaving everything they held dear in the appalling mess behind them.

A long post. I stop myself here as I could go on all day and never stop.

I never had to kiss the Blarney Stone. When I was a kid, I would ride out here on my bike from home, about five miles, and wait underneath, and pick up the coins from the tourist pockets as they bent over backwards to kiss it.

Where Has All the Singing Gone?

We lost our primary Canadian troubadour Gordon Lightfoot this week. He was 85 years old.

An enormous talent with incredible music and lyrics left as his legacy. So many covers to his work they are uncountable.

His legacy is poetry, all songs a story. 

When I lived in Toronto I never missed his annual concert at Massey Hall for countless years, forty, fifty?

But as I played all his albums I was profoundly shocked that I knew all the lyrics and sang along to every single word (with a tear or two for the memories they evoked).

And then I started to ponder on when did I stop singing? 

I sang through so much in my life, I was a folk singer at one point, and on stage singing operettas, writing a musical ten years ago and having that performed to sold out shows. I grew up in a singing house, spent many nights at pubs singing my heart out back in the day. 

Singing "party pieces" at parties and gathering, along with my family members. Singing solo pieces on stage here, a few years ago.

Singing joint playlists with Grandgirl on our road trips.

And then I stopped. 

Until Gordy died.

Thank you, Gordy. Soar with the stars, buddy.

Exits

A long time blog mate has gone to the stars. I believe the day I started blogging, which feels like centuries ago now, I found Ramana.

This is his blog.

And his beloved son kindly let us know of the progress of his deterioration since November and his final passing today.

We shared many emails over the years and thoughts on every topic, addiction, existentialism, food, family, careers. He would regularly send me links to articles I would enjoy. 

Now and again we would have a bit of a tussle on items that amused him but appalled me but we surmounted our little conflicts.

I learned a lot about the different cuisines of India (and recipes too!) from him and his lifestyle there which circled around his books and crosswords and the family dogs and evening strolls in the local park.

He's a loss to the blog world. I'll miss his enthusiasm and his insights and his spirituality. And his sense of humour.

It always leaves an enormous hole when a blog mate dies. And there are far too many now.

For whom the bell tolls indeed.

Soar with the stars my friend.

Surfacing

I've never taken this kind of a break from blogland before and I do hope to catch up with all of you soon.

I've been writing and submitting and re-editing and editing again and then feeling like a schlump some days for even thinking I can do it and then other days feeling on top of it all. Sharing with other writers, I understand that this is entirely normal. We waiver madly between thinking what a wonderful piece and in the next hour thinking this is absolutely appalling dreck. 

Needless to mention I have missed you all, I've been blogging and reading fellow bloggers for yonks now and it was hard to pull away but knowing myself, I can't go down the deep dark worm-holes of the web if I am committed to other projects. I am a screen sucker. There, I've admitted it again.

I've also been piecing together an anthology volume two for my writers' group. We sold out two editions of the last one and are hoping for similar success this time. I have a bunch of enthusiastic and committed writers and they inspire me in so many ways. We are a very tight group now and that is lovely.

My family has been planning a major event for me for my upcoming significant birthday but more on that later.

Organ Recital

My health continues to improve and my gratitude knows no bounds. I honestly was at death's door only a year ago. And to come to this re-installation of my life Version 4 or 5 (I've lost track) overwhelms me. I'm on a new kidney drug and it's doing wonders. I'm actually building up stamina in my walking. This from a person who couldn't even cross her own living room without needing massive gulps of air and a lie-down this time last year.

We've had a lot, a whole lot of snow. This is a photo I took just down the road from my home with the frozen lake.

One of the best books I've read this year (there have been a few)

And one of my favourite films (and again, there have been many more) for  the multiple layers of story telling in it and the brilliant acting.

And yes, I saw most of the Oscar nominated films but did not, by a long shot, agree with the best film award.

And I was positively thrilled to go to a real live theatre for the first time in three whole years. Though I am still cautious and play it safe (masking, sanitizer) as Covid is not leaving us anytime soon and our cases out here on The Edge are dismaying and the deaths so far this year from it are appalling.

I try not to think of the state of our sad and sorry planet that seems to shed a little more hope off herself every single day. Climate change alone not to mention the wars and the starvation of countless millions. It's all kind of hopeless isn't it?

I guess we should all be more like the late unlamented Barbara Bush who tossed all concern about her son's unwarranted and brutal invasion of Iraq out of the window with:

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

And no, Barbara you did not have a beautiful mind. Your cesspool of a mind begat another cesspool with no conscience or ethics or morals.

And the truths are now pouring out about that twenty years ago invasion now. And it's all pretty appalling and sickening.

Twenty Years Later.