Dreams

 Tuesday, I sat on the cliff at the ocean and watched the wild waves and mused.

I find dreams enormously revealing. In fact I am quite good at analyzing the dreams of others, and a blog friend, sadly missed - who has gone into the vast stardust - and I exchanged our dreams at times as she also had the gift of dream insight.

Now, I'm on my own with my sometimes baffling dreams.

Recently, two nights in a row, in sleep, I lost my car and the pursuit of my car was fraught with difficulties and challenges. One night I could see it at the top of a cliff and tried to climb up but kept falling backwards. I had a huge Newfoundland dog and endeavoured to have her help me by towing me up the cliff to no avail as she kept falling too. I woke in despair, carless.

The next night I was in a familiar small town in Ireland which had a parking lot for shoppers and when I went back to the lot, my car was missing. I was told by a cop that I had the wrong parking lot, there were more parking lots, I had to check them. So I did, I kept wandering around, exhausted knowing I would never find it as I knew this town had only the one parking lot.

Dreams are utterly symbolic and tap into our subconscious deeply. I wrote about this dream in my journal as I knew it was powerful and I didn't want to forget all the details.

And then it all fell into place.

Recently I resigned from two pretty intense projects for many reasons. And now I am noticing I have lost bits of myself. I was changed in a way I couldn't define.

And then it hit me. I have lost the drive, the force, that has always informed me, made me, ME.

I need to find it and this is my challenge at the moment. I need purpose. 

I need to find my drive - my car.

A photo from 9 years ago in the town I loved so well.

Cults

A couple of the definitions (brief):

a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

"a cult of personality surrounding the leaders" 

a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

I am continuously surprised at those who can't understand those who worship Trump, who will put this criminal in charge of their very lives in the next presidential election in the US in spite of the indictments, the foiled impeachments, the 91 criminal charges. A man who exhibits contempt for them at every opportunity and spews venom and revenge rather than policy in every pathetic "speech." Who all believe it when he says he is doing it all for them as when they come for him they are "coming for you."

We have seen all this before in the cult of Hitler, the cult of Mussolini.

But more importantly for me, I observe it in the cult of the RC church. I am continuously astonished that despite all the evidence that it is and was a cult of rampant paedophilia endorsed by the Vatican in constant cover-ups and denials with victims thrown to the kerbs, and hundreds of thousands of children's lives destroyed forever, many continue to worship and donate and entrust children to be educated by this monstrous organization.

So the cult of Trump I completely understand.

Cult Psychology.

Experts who study cults suggest the human need for comfort prompts people to seek out others or things to soothe their fears and anxieties. Research suggests that these elements and others have led hundreds of thousands of people to commit to of cults operating around the world.

With RCism, it is the promise of suffering here on earth which will guarantee you rewards in the afterlife.  Like all religions. But we need your money.

With Trump, he is the sacrifical lamb on the altar of Deep State. But even though bragging he's got billions of his own he desperately needs your money to save him.

Bottom line is, of course, that it's all about money and the poorest of the poor are usually the ones who give it. Willingly, hopefully, thinking that their lives will be somehow improved, that the ones leading them by the nose will "save" them from the boogey man who lurks everywhere ready to pounce.

Thoughts?

 

 

Film

In another life and time I would have loved to have majored in film study. I have been in love with films since I was 6 years old and taken to my first at the Savoy Cinema in Cork to see Cinderella. The night enchanted me. Thehuge organ at intermission coming out of the floor with the words of the songs printed on the screen, the extra B films, the newsreels,  the icecream brought around in those little tubs with the wooden spoon, the upper balcony, the lower balcony. The magnificence of it all. Spellbound didn't cover it.

One of the huge bonuses of my childhood was spending a chunk of the summer with my favourite aunt in the small town where I was born. Her husband owned the town cinema. I remember the serials on Saturday and the rapid turnover of various films during the couple of weeks I stayed there. I feasted on the likes of Roy Rogers and other films which were sanitized  censored by the RCs who influenced the government and their righteous puritan hypocritcal hellhole  Office of the Censor. I only got to see complete films when I moved to Canada including, if you can believe it, Hamlet with Lawrence Olivier and the unintelligible Gigi (huge swathes of film-ribbon on the floor in that one) so the plot hadn't made sense and finally did.

I've been in love with film for ever. I would mitch off school on a Wednesday afternoon and scrape enough money to go to the foreign film cinema and feast on German, Italian and French films (all cut by said Office). And of course the American blockbusters, short on nuance but loud on effects and Big Screen theatrics.

I had a collection of thousands upon thousands of films, many taped by me especially from TVO, an Ontario station that featured fabulous films on Saturday Night at the Movies along with serious interviews with the cast and directors. Downsizing, I had to let go of this massive collection (indexed and documented to boot - ADD much?)

I saved some of my favourites. But not many.

I recently discovered Criterion which has about 1000 old films in stock for streaming and am positively thrilled to bits. It continuously changes what's available and for me, this is a gift out of the blue. Around $8 a month to subscribe. Many are the foreign films from my teenage life at that tiny foreign film cinema in Cork which opened up so much of the world to me.

I try and see all the Oscar winners every year. Still. And I post irregularly on IMDB and have since 1999(ye gads, 24 years!)

Here's the link to that: Wisewebwoman - Movies

My favourite film of all time? The Dead

But there are so many close that I can't possibly list them all.

But a recent one comes to mind (pardon my Irish bias)

The Quiet Girl

But there are so very many incredible films. Many of them made in the forties and sixties but so many made today also.

Bless you, Criterion.

And your favourite film?

Unsteady As She Goes

Two wonderful Australian friends visited and took me here for dinner.

 

I told them (to much laughter) I had arranged for this cruise ship to leave as we ate dinner to enhance their harbour experience.

I get frustrated with this old age business. I'm finding lately I lose patience with myself. A lot.

There is so much on my plate and I want to tackle it all at once, just like the old days, quickly wipe my hands together and get on with the rest.

But no. I'm finding more and more I need a whole day's break between a busy day's activities.

I was complaining to Daughter yesterday about this and she said, as well she might: "Mum, you're 80 years old, that's normal!"

I don't care for this new normal.

The way my body cramps up and exhausts itself and falls down into sleep at weird times.

And then, like today, I remind myself of how sick how I was just a few years ago when the pain wouldn't allow me sleep in my bed but curled up in a chair, where I needed a wheelchair to get anywhere, where tests and procedures ran my life and those of my family, where I couldn't stand long enough to get even my breakfast put together and had to send my laundry out and I feel a flood of gratitude that I am still here and more mobile but need to honour my body, my outlook, my life and yes, ADAPT, my motto. And remain grateful in my self-reminders  of how far I've come.

So I will pace myself and know my limitations. Say no, politely and nicely and do the things I do  best and there are many and it takes a long, long time for us to know we are precious and amazing and talented and are worthy.

Our one wild, extraodinary life waits for us to wake up. 

Every single day.

Analogy for Life

So like all carefully plotted and planned ventures, my latest knitting project blew up.

My rebellious circular needle gave up the ghost and gathered much of my stitchery to its shattered bosom before it did so.

Above you see the lifesaving results of many needles salvaging the disaster.

And here a McGyver solution on the brazen suicidal needle loop.

A mugshot of the disgraced needle.

And finally, after a few intense hours, a triumphant photo of the restored work.

My local knitting supply shop were so fantastic and as soon as my car pulled up out shot an employee with my blessed silvery brand new needle. Note to self: always have a back up needle for a project..

All the above inspired me to write this:

Time

At times like these

Uncertain, unfinished, unknown

The ancestors sit on my shoulders

And say, over and over again

As if I’m still three

“What are you afraid of, girl?

What exactly?”

And then I take this sliver of time

And roll it around in my hands

And stare at it, at all the colours of it,

Mutating, twisting, transforming,

And say back to them, the wise dead ones,

“Afraid? Me? No!

Look at the colours of now!

Aren’t they beautiful?”

Clinging

 We do cling to life don't we? And the more we age, the more we cling. I took huge risks with my life back in the day. Cliff climbing, racing a motorbike at 100 mph (by myself) - on a flat straight road, mind you - but still, one false move and bingo, meat on the pavement, driving way beyond tiredness, falling asleep at the wheel, jerking awake, driving in blizzards on highways in the dark. Pushing myself far too far in road races. Unkillable. That was me.

Friends and I joke  are semi-serious about when Alzheimer's or dementia comes knocking at our door. Stashing little supplies of pills, looking at towering cliffs with a keen evaluating eye on the ocean below. We'd stop that baby in its tracks. Or would we?

I have observed the onset on this mental breakdown in fellow tenants or listen to the anecdotal evidence. Two recently "forgot" to eat and were carted off in ambulances to go on an IV for a week to bring their bodies back into balance and then released to their own devices back into our building. Only fellow tenants checking in on them. Families all on the mainland. Apparently forgetting to eat is a sign of the "middling stage" of dementia. 

Point being jumping off cliffs will be forgotten along with the meals we're forgetting to eat or the pills we don't know what to do with. Dark humour there.

I have been here long enough now to observe some of the final stages of mental collapse. Stoves unplugged permanently, licences yanked, cars sold, medications put into those automatic dispensers that beep at you, all services paid for by family members if they can afford it, helpers, launderers, cleaners, companions. shoppers, Then evacuation to long term care, quietly, silently, with no farewells.

Offing oneself when the time came is now a long ago idea, buried with all the others in the dark grave of yesterday's plans.

Interestingly enough, anecdotal again, it's the readers and doers and creators and puzzles-solvers that don't join the legion of these sufferers. And I do wonder if mental acuity along with exercising of the brain regularly keeps that particular wolf from the door. Learning new skills is a good workout however challenging and frustrating it can be at times.

So, thoughts? 

Knitting Art

 Knitting has long been a skill that has been way undervalued and diminished by dismissive comments such as "women's work." I was very much taken aback recently by a friend who asked me to knit her an aran sweater and offered to pay me. I laughed a little, as I am wont to do when presented with such an "offer."

So I did a mental calculation of what hours were involved even if I agreed to do it. With design, drafting and gauging, followed by swatching and then knitting it up, it would be 150 hours + material. I told her this and as she was a friend and not a stranger I didn't add "So how much would you pay me an hour?" She merely looked at me aghast and said ruefully,"I guess no, huh?" and I nodded.

As I begin a project, I am struck always by how mathematical a skill it is with all the calculations involved. Like architecture. I reflect on my foremothers who were ill-educated if at all, and marvel at how they managed to do endless arithmetic on sizing and yarn thickness and measuring the multiple many sized bodies in their households as all winter wear was knitted then from socks to sweaters to mittens to underwear and hats. And sanitary napkins. I believe I was one of the last people on the earth to see these knitted feminine hygiene items on a clothesline when I was quite young.

I am working on a sofa throw - afghan, sofa blanket - for a nephew at the moment, and I thought to do a series of photos showing the process as I go along.

My "drawing board" i.e. dining table, where I develop the pattern. Note I use many abbreviations that only I can understand. D is for diamond, C for cables of different sizes, T is for twist, G is for Garter, etc.

A one stitch mistake can be a disaster so I double and triple check my numbers.

I evaluate my yarn colours, I am extremely fortunate in that I can visualize the whole completed colourful project in my head before I start in on the drawing board. I lay the materials on the couch in formation of how they will integrate. At times like these I miss my craft rooms which were always an integral part of previous dwellings. There I could lay everything out and walk away and close the door and get on with other things.

Then I do a swatch for measurements which involves knitting a small piece to make sure the design works.

Now I'm ready to rock and roll and start the piece with bated breath that it all works out mathematically and gauge-wise. This becomes super important in aran work as with plain borders moving into a design there is a massive increase in stitches across the work to accommodate the cabling and twisting and diamonds.

And now, yes, yay, brava, the pattern has worked out beautifully and I am on my way with the project. Just a little showing here of the honeycomb pattern which is in the middle and is tricky.

I will post a little more as I go along so you get an idea of what happens as it blossoms. And particularly, for me, the creator as it encourages me onward.

So there you have it, readers. If you have read this far, I know you will never think of the simple complex art of knitting quite in the same way again.

Do you do any work that you believe is undervalued?

Little Things

I imagine that when we age the joy of little things take more significance, gives us more pleasure and get noticed far, far more.

Hell, even to get out of bed in the morning, sorting out the limbs, catching a breath, finding the floor with our reluctant crampy feet are little things but the success of standing erect, ready to face another day is a little thing, unnoticed in the past, laughed at by the youngers (Whut?). The smell of freshly ground dark roast beans, ths sunrise as I sip, the birds, the silence, the sea with fishing boats in the distance. None of this I take for granted.

I finished a cushion I designed and created. The back is jet black but shows grey in the photo for some reason. It took me a while, a kind of inertia for the few knitting projects on the go. I was busy with the writing and the workshops. But I realized knitting may be a little thing but it calms and focuses me and gets my mind off health and other challenges. 

The size is about 18"X18", I still struggle with metric and constantly convert, either in my head or with a measuring tape. I gifted this yesterday to a friend, long overdue from her birthday in February.

Another friend gifted me with my very first orchid and I absolutely love it. Her buds continue to burst out and smile at me.

May your day be full of the little things that make you smile, however briefly.

A Mini-tour of St. John's, Newfoundland Yesterday

We get quite a few cruise ships in our wonderful harbour here in St. John's. Yesterday it was the Insignia. So I toddled down to the harbour front to have a gawp.

There was a lot of traffic down there so I couldn't get far enough away to get a good shot of the whole ship so I decided to go to the south side of the harbour, which is always devoid of tourists and vehicles and crammed with boats of all kinds, fishing, service and coast guard.

So I took another shot of the ship across the harbour.

It's always lovely over there, I saw this gull sitting on a pole surveying the scene. You might have to embiggen to spot him but he caught my fancy.

I love the houses climbing the cliffs surrounding the entrance to the harbour.

I then took myself off up Signal Hill, which was crowded with busloads off the cruise ship and I overheard some conversations. Apparently this cruise line speccializes in off the beaten track cruises and their enraptured comments about St. John's were pleasing,

I stopped to talk to a woman who had six dogs and I fell in love with all of them.

I am old so no one gives a tosser when I am listening to conversations, I have the advantage of being invisible. So I was sitting on a wall behind two thirty-ish men who were holding hands, standing extremely close to each other, pretending to be catching the spectacular view but their undercurrent was electrifying. Summary: they were on the cruise, had met the night before on the deck at midnight, were married (to unsuspecting women?) and were planning another midnight sojourn once more when the ship sailed later on, meanwhile they had to get back to their wives who were left browsing in the tourist shop. As they were whispering intensely I took this photo of a fishing boat heading out to the open ocean. I am always struck by the forty shades of blue we have out here.

And I pondered on the secret lives of others.
 

Beautiful rain

 

With all the dreadful fires happening in Canada and elsewhere, I view rain in a different light than ever before. 

Outside it rains today and I find a tear of gratitude, matching it, rolling down my cheek. I imagine that most of us in the world see rain differently these days. I am hoping that it rains in the Northwest Territories and Northern BC here to bring desperately needed relief. I can't bear thinking about the lack of it in so many parts of the world. And the excess of it too. All out of whack.

One thing that sickens me completely about these fires are the animals, the innocent animals (and birds) trapped in the conflagration and I daren't google the numbers, even if there aren't statistics on all these precious creatures who are lost. It really doesn't bear thinking about, but I do. And I find thinking about their terror heart-wrenching.

What absolute evil us humans have wrought on this tiny planet where democracy is worth shyte and theocorporatocracy rules and regulates our bodies and our very existence. And is the ongoing cause of these climate change events disasters.

We're on the edge of a cliff and like many, I no longer feel safe and secure.

Outside today. Our noon cannon on top of the hill facing my window just boomed. The soldiers dress up like soldiers of yore, all red coats and mighty feathery head toppings and the tourists flock and us locals go: ah, lunch, and at times I think of the noon city wide angelus bells that rang out my childhood in Cork.

Macassar

Note: blog name change as I embrace 80 and french kiss it to the ground. I meant to do it when I turned 70 but I was damn busy then, mayor of a town, host in my wee inn, running a business consulting service and building an off the grid cabin.

"You're a baby," said a fellow tenant to me today in the laundry room as we introduced ourselves. She's 85. It was a luscious feeling if only for a second when my knees, back and wrist reminded me you are no baby, lady.

Anyway to draw your attention back to the title of today's entry.

I saw this word in a book I just finished and I knew what it was but here for your edification is the definition:

Ma·cas·sar

noun

1. 1.

   a kind of oil formerly used, especially by men, to make one's hair shine and lie flat.
2. 2.

   variant spelling of Makassar.

So male readers, if you're missing out on that desired shine, you know what to get.

 

So I thought of my mother and grandmother washing the antimacassars back in the day and hanging them on the line. 

And I haven't heard that word in years, though it was used a lot as the antimacassars had to be washed, starched and ironed quite frequently.

You are puzzled.

Here's the definition:

an·ti·ma·cas·sar

noun

1. a piece of cloth put over the back of a chair to protect it from grease and dirt or as an ornament.

But also note the grease and dirt belonged to men's heads, their easy chairs, the rarity of washing their hair. I often speculated as a youngster that their hair was glued to their heads by all that oil. You could use their heads as a mirror and see yourself when you looked down on it, as I did frequently, sitting on the arms of their armchairs, one of those kids that wanted to share the newspapers, books or crosswords.

But, I am really, really happy the antimacassar days are over. Along with those filthy hankies men used often in great trumpeting nose-blowings that women had to boil, blue and dry and then iron into perfect folds for Da Man.

The hidden and unacknowledged work of women. 

Never ending.

Dropping Off

Yes, many of my blogmates are dropping off. I hesitate to email them in fear, you know? I'd rather they stay vibrant in my mind's eye.

I will officially change the name of my blog on my birthday, next Wednesday, where to my shock (and astonishment) I cross the bridge of eighty turns around the sun.

I am astonished because I lived for many years with a cigarette hanging from my mouth and a drink of rum and coke solidly in my fist. Both abandoned in humility and defeat nearly forty years ago - now that deserves an exclamation mark, what! Nick of time should be my mantra.

I hesitate to write here now and again as I feel I have nothing to talk about. There's always a lot, of course, but I am conscious of being one of those old drones who goes on about nothing at all.

I am busy (I use "busy" when busy is a full day because of One. Solitary. Task) formatting and editing the anthology which has been ongoing for four years now, my writing workshops sadly interrupted by Covid. Writing workshops, face to face, are, to me, essential elements of writing. They are stimulating, encouraging and inspiring and most of all, massively improving to the individual writing process.  

But we are ready to roll now, the formatting has taken ten days due to the different platforms my writers were on and other issues like paragraphs tossed aside, fonts all over the place, spacing random, unessential capitalization, exclamation marks spattered like mud and, well, you get the picture.

I close with this photo I took a few days ago from the front of my building, which shows the lake on the right and the ocean on the left. Yes, I live in paradise and I need to remind myself of this when I whinge and whine.

Pleasantville, St. John's, Newfoundland.

and this gave me pause and then a huge laugh.

Soothing the Spirit

 

An artist en plein air on the beach yesterday. Click to embiggen. Note his red beret.

I betook myself to "my" beach yesterday. I sit there and let the sounds and sights wash over me. I love the dogs and kids playing in the sand and jumping the stones on the stream nearby. I had an intense day and needed my "fix" desperately. It always does the job.

I popped off the pic to the family on whatsapp later on in the day and a picture of the Sturgeon Moon over the sea in Kerry, Ireland, came back. Taken by my sister.

She is all alone down there, consuming books and looking at the ocean. We agreed it was so healing and centering. It's our goto.

I was inordinately pleased at the synchronicity.

And PS did you know that a fairly new profession is "climate therapist?" People are so stressed out by the non-stop climate disasters. 

My therapist is the ocean.

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.