The Morningstar Chronicles

Moving

2009-09-16T18:53:00.001-04:00

I've changed a lot again, and what makes most sense is to change the blog too. I started this one when I was having issues of faith with the organizational structures of the Anglican Church. How that's played out is, I don't do anything in the organizational structure of the Anglican Church right now. I'm still on a faith journey, and it's still wild and wonderful, but I'm in a different place, so I'm going to blog in a different space. I'm not taking this down, because I want to harvest the text of some of the posts and comments -- I'm hoping to find an easier way to do that than by copying-and-pasting the text of each one.

But in the meantime, if you're here because you're looking for ME, try this: www.NavigatingbyMorningStar.blogspot.com

Solsbury Hill

2009-01-28T18:01:00.001-05:00

I am listening to what might be my favourite song ever, by Peter Gabriel (favourite song changes a lot, depending on what I just listened to, but this is an enduring favourite). He says,

"When illusions spin their net
I'm never where I want to be.
And Liberty, she pirouettes
when I think that I am free ...

"Today, I don't need a replacement,
I'll show them what the smile on my face meant.
My heart going boom, boom, boom!
'Hey!' I said, 'You can keep my things,
they've come to take me Home!'"

I just love that song. He talks about feeling part of the scenery and walking out of the machinery, cuz the Eagle comes for him and says, "I've come to take you Home." And that's how I felt before -- part of the scenery. I blended in and hid, the best way I knew how, and that way was pretty good. I'd had decades of practice. Being fat makes you invisible. And I've felt caught in machinery -- I thought it was a bad marriage and family of origin and bad jobs ... But it wasn't. The machinery was the trap inside me. The Eagle came for me, God, in whatever way I fail to understand God today, came for me and is letting me walk out of that trap. He's taking me Home.

If you don't understand any of that, don't worry about it much -- I don't either. I'm just grateful for it.

From NPR's "The Writer's Almanac", a couple of weeks ago -- as promised

2009-01-16T11:25:00.001-05:00

What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back

by Roseann Lloyd

Find a clean cloth for the kitchen table, the red and blue one
you made that cold winter in Montana. Spread out
your paper and books. Tune the radio to the jazz station.
Look at the bright orange safflowers you found last August—
how well they've held their color next to the black-spotted cat.

Make some egg coffee, in honor of all the people
above the Arctic Circle. Give thanks to the Sufis,
who figured out how to brew coffee
from the dark, bitter beans. Remark
on the joyfulness of your dishes: black and yellow stars.

Reminisce with your lover about the history of this kitchen
where, between bites of cashew stir fry,
you first kissed each other on the mouth. Now that you're hungry,
toast some leftover cornbread, spread it with real butter,
honey from bees that fed on basswood blossoms.

The window is frosted over, but the sun's casting an eye
over all the books. Open your Spanish book.
The season for sleeping is over.
The pots and pans: quiet now, let them be.

It will be a short day.
Sit in the kitchen as long as you can, reading and writing.
At sundown, rub a smidgen of butter
on the western windowsill
to ask the sun:
Come back again tomorrow.

"What To Do the First Morning the Sun Comes Back" by Roseann Lloyd, from Because of the Light. © Holy Cow! Press, 2003. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

World AIDS Day

2008-12-01T22:10:00.003-05:00

I've posted this before, but it's worth doing it again, especially today. A wonderful message, powerfully expressed.

Playin' the Name Game with FranIAm and Politits and ...

2008-11-26T00:37:00.000-05:00

FranIAm’s name game ... the one she found at Lisa's that she got from Phydeaux aka Bob.

Other Names Meme:
1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names): Loftus Irwin

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): Thomas Robert

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): Mokate
4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Green Giraffe

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live): Laura Hamilton (I really think that one works.)
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning): Purple Sleeman

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Kaar
8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): Caramel Gingersnap (sounds like a porn star name to me)
9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name): Yeshua Cline
10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on): Smokey Hopkins

A Blog Post on Not Being Seen

2008-11-24T17:46:00.001-05:00

Well, you haven’t seen much of me recently. That’s because there’s been so much life to live, I haven’t had a lot of time to talk about it.

Some of it’s been wonderful, and some of it’s felt awful. There was the funeral, and other family things, to talk about. Things I’ve learned. Things I want. And, just no time. I’m sorta keeping up with reading other people’s blogs, but a couple of times a week, not daily.

In the meantime, here’s something to help keep you all occupied.

Friday Night Home Alone ... could be worse edition

2008-11-14T19:17:00.000-05:00

My Cousin Michael

2008-11-11T12:15:00.003-05:00

I was watching a news clip video this morning, at Mad Priest's. It was lovely, a lovely editorial piece, delivered with conviction and passion, about Prop 8 and love and God and everything. Thinking, my cousin Michael will like this and I'll send it to him. My cousin Michael lives 40 miles away. He was born in England, because his mother was English and his parents lived in South America, and his mother wanted him to have an English passport. (I may have mentioned that my family ranges from dysfunctional to off-the-map-lunatic -- nothing milder than that. One WOULD take a long boat trip, heavily pregnant, in 1951, to make sure one's eldest child had the correct passport.) Michael moved to Canada 35 years ago. We would talk on the phone sometimes, but the first time I met him in person was at my first stepfather's funeral in January 1993,

It was funny. He's three years older than me, almost, raised on a different continent, sent to school in England. Our grandmothers were sisters; he was some other order of relative than cousin, but he's my age, and that's how we call 'em in our family. We have very compatible religious and social and political views. We got drunk together one night, very early in our knowing each other, and had a hilarious time, describing the things about which we were totally unjustifiably unreasonable, and finding out that we both said the same horrible things to our life-partners because of them. Genetics, I guess. He's been on my mind and in my prayers a lot recently. In January he fell down stairs at work and busted up his collarbone badly enough that it took three surgeries to repair it. In one of the series of tests, they did a CT scan and found a something, a one-eighth inch something, in the top of his left lung. That was in the summer. We both knew before the test results came back -- he smokes three packs a day. Last week, he had a quarter of his left lung removed. They biopsied some other parts of both lungs. He'll get the results on the 25th.

Michael and my husband get along well, even after my marriage break-up. My husband called me just now at work, and said that Michael had called his place because he's lost (again) my phone numbers at work and for my cell. His father died in the night. Terry had a massive stroke, I dunno when exactly, and got recovered enough that they moved him out of ICU and into a ward. He saw all his kids, and I think all his grandkids. Michael saw him yesterday, and Terry died 15 minutes after he left. His wife and daughter were with him.

We don't know yet when the services will be -- Michael's mother and brother are going today to make the arrangements. Michael asked if I'd phone my mother's one remaining sister, and tell her. I did, but she was just leaving the Sailors' Memorial after the Remembrance Day service, and asked if she could call me back. I said sure -- there's no need to rush this news. I'll talk to Michael tomorrow and find out when and where the service will be. The aunt I called today may not want to go -- most of the family's been fighting with Michael's mother since 1951, when she did something unforgivable -- married Terry. As I just told my sister, "That doesn't mean one wouldn't do the correct thing in difficult circumstances." If she doesn't want to go, I'll take the train.

I'm tired again. Inside tired, not body tired. Thursday was my Mum's birthday; Friday was my husband's; this coming Thursday is the anniversary of my Mum's death. Today's the anniversary of me having her admitted to hospital, which she'd never wanted, but I had no other choice. I had lunch with an old friend last week, and it's shaken up what I thought I knew about myself and my life. Had a misunderstanding with my best friend on the weekend, and that's always an ache. I need to leave my job -- it's lost almost all of what was joyful in it for me, and I show up and endure days at work. I might find that more bearable if I was getting paid TONS of money, but I doubt it. I miss, ferociously, the kitten I left in Texas -- if you're feeling lonely, bruised and overtired (I played on-line Scrabble with a couple of friends way too late last night), a kitten's a cure-all. I miss life in Texas -- feeling like this right now, I could go lie in the hammock and look up into the trees, which always made me say, "Thank you," to the Force in the Universe that makes them, or I could go find something covered with rust and grind it off and maybe make it into something else. That's restorative, meditative too -- although I'd never have thought that makes noise and metal dust and showers me in sparks would feel meditative. It requires total mindfulness, or it'll tear the skin off your fingers. Ask me how I know. I'm sick of dead people.

What I don't feel is any desire to reshape reality -- either by doing my control-freak-drama-queen routine, or by swallowing something that'll alter my inner reality. I'm tired. Not tired, tired OF. The answer to that is to pray for God's will for me to be revealed and for the power to carry out the vision I'm given. And to share. And to be grateful. Because the truth is, if it never gets any better than it is right this minute, that's okay with me. God's giving me so much, it'd just be churlish to assume I need anything else.

Processing Culture Shock

2008-11-09T13:11:00.004-05:00

Okay, that picture has little or nothing to do with the content of this post, except at the end of it, I tell about him being a joyful thing to come home to. His name is Yeshua – he yelled so loud for food that I thought the walls of Jericho could fall down. I eyedropper fed him from 12 days old until I got him onto a bottle, then started on solid food three days before I left, just before he was six weeks old. I couldn’t bring him home, but I’d have liked to.

This post is a letter I wrote to some friends while I was away on my trip. I was gone for a month, staying in northeast Texas. About a 25-minute drive from Tyler, which is closer to Shreveport than to Dallas. I was staying with a friend who builds knives, and there was a gun and knife show in Tyler the weekend after I got there. The timing was important. He’d never tried to sell his knives like this before, and I went to help get things polished and sharpened, and tagged, and make business cards, and mind the table.

Lots of times, I felt like an alien from outer space. I’m posting this with a few updates – it was written on the 5^th of October, to people I know well. There’s language in here I use, but not on the blog, and there’s language in here that I’d never use, except I’m directly quoting other people, ones I’m glad I don’t know. Now you know – here be dragons. The rest of this was written within 24 hours of it happening, while it was fresh. Oh, and it’s long, too.

If I'd grown up in the country, my life experience would be different, but I grew up in the city, mostly. Just outside the city -- lots of forest around, but owned by the Conservation Authority, so you could walk in it, but you weren't supposed to change it in any way. And Dad had a cottage in Muskoka and went fishing, and I'm used to that, but never hunting. My life experience with firearms is this: Grampa owned a shotgun and kept it at The Lake (summer home on Lake Ontario at Niagara-on-the-Lake) and once, when I was maybe eight, he shot it over the lake for effect. And then I guess it went back to the house when they sold the summer home, and the next time I saw it was after he died, when Dad had inherited it. He was giving it to Uncle Jerry, who did hunt, and it was standing in the dining room the day Jerry came to get it. Dad had put it there and that was fine, and Jerry picked it up to take it to the car, and MacDuff, our German Shepherd (who'd never seen a gun before either, and was unfailingly gentle, unless someone was gonna hurt the kids) was ready to take his arm off. So Dad carried it to Jerry's car, and Jerry drove away with it. That's it. My whole life experience with guns.

In Canada, firearms are restricted and registered, and you can't carry them around in public. If you're driving to the shooting range or going hunting, they're in the trunk of your car. Cops have 'em, but even those are discreet. People have shotguns and rifles for hunting, and hand guns are pretty much illegal unless you’re a cop.

So, just being at Bob's was already, different. I got in the truck one day after we'd been in the supermarket and moved the kleenex box on the seat and there was his handgun under it. I was looking for beeswax to do knife handles in the cupboards and there's boxes of ammunition in the kitchen cupboards, and I've seen long guns in the house, and dunno how to tell the difference between a rifle and a shotgun, so I dunno what I saw. The other night coming home, we hit a little armadillo in the driveway somehow -- neither of us felt anything, and he saw it when we were getting out of the truck, before I did. You could see how badly it was injured, and I said, 'You can't leave him like that,' but the little thing had died before he came back outside. And that was the first time I really understood why I had to know how to shoot if I'm to be able to live up north. There was no other kind option.

The gun and knife show was so out of my realm of experience; it was like a fantasy novel and I just found myself transported to another world, and hated a lot of it. There were handguns and automatic weapons tied to the tables, and signs up saying they had to be unloaded and tied so they couldn't be fired. What they were for -- handguns are only for shooting at people -- just kind of radiated at me, and I was, I couldn't even walk past the tables and look at them. I got to be able to spot those tables, and take a different route through the hall. The guy at the table behind us had a handgun in the back of his belt; there were people walking around with long guns in their hands and over their shoulders, and I found the people walking around holding handguns in the palms of their hands really scary. Some guys had multiple holsters and guns, and ammo belts. Sunday there was a guy who looked military to me, with a padded vest and just tons of pockets and weapons on his belt. It bothered me a lot, seeing women with handguns and short automatic guns. There were people carrying around plastic boxes, that I am familiar and comfortable with -- my husband had several of them for carrying cordless drills and things like that in -- and then I realized what people were carrying in them at the gun and knife show.

The long guns didn't bother me so much, esp. if they had a lot of wood in the stock. In fact, there was one guy who had some that were just beautiful. I went back to look at one in particular three times yesterday, and then this morning I told Bob it had dropped a hundred bucks in price overnight. It was still $1,300. But I didn't even know what it was -- rifle or shotgun, exc. it said 12 gauge on the card, and I thought that was a shotgun -- just googled the maker's name and that's what they make. I guess when it's time for me to need one, I 'druther have one that I liked aesthetically. And these aren't intended for killing people, and that made it easier.

I've stopped being scared of knives, because I've stopped thinking of them in terms of weapons, but there were lots there that were intended as personal weapons against people. Bob's got those little bearclaw knives, and they're pretty as jewellery. Saturday there was a woman who was looking at a lot of the knives, and she said of the bearclaws, 'It's a good personal defence weapon for a woman -- no-one could take it away from you.' Well, sure they could, if they had a gun, or were prepared to bust up your fingers for it, and I guess if he was okay with raping you, he'd be okay with that too. And I said to Bob after -- it reminded me of being told, 'When you're worried about what other people are thinking of you, remember that mostly they aren't.' There was a lot more fear, an assumption that someone would want to hurt you and you need to be able to, not just defend yourself, but make a pre-emptive strike, than I'd understood there'd be. I don't understand that kind of fear, and fear's been one of my best things most of my life. She'd said she didn't have enough money and would be back today and took his card -- but she didn't like that the one knife was called a Mill Bastard cuz it was made of that kind of file and he left the mark on it, and we think she looked at the website last night. Believes in Jesus in a way neither of us does, and Jesus doesn’t like people who use the word “bastard,” even about a metal file. Bob said he thought she'd see the prices were lower than on the website and not fuss about 'em again, and then we saw her a few times and she never came down our aisle the next day -- he said she'd seen the website and decided we were communists, and I said, "Yeah, it says so on the website, but it's prolly us likely being perverts that bothers her more." It was funny -- she was so friendly yesterday, and avoided us like we were Democrats today. He is, of course, and I would be if I lived here.

And then, there was racism. I'm not telling you there's none in Canada -- there is. But I haven't encountered anything like this. The man who was to have the table next to us got sick, and the organizers didn't want empty space, so we spread out, and the guy behind us, who sold holsters and gun belts he makes, did too. He had a shipment of 'Nobama '08' teeshirts, with an underneath line about stopping the change, or something. Takeoff on the Obama campaign line. So, they were right beside us, on a table with Bob's knives, and people thought we were selling the shirts, and overwhelmingly, they approved. There was a federal election going on at home too, and I'm used to politics -- this stuff woulda been okay if it was just politics.

But in about a 10-minute space I was walking around and there was a guy with miliary memorabilia, he had uniform patches and things, and there was, front and centre in his display case, and big, a Swastika. Nazi memorabilia. Then I came back to the table, and there was a guy wearing a 'Beat the Hell out of Obama' teeshirt, buying one of the other guy's, and they were telling each other a joke they both already knew, about St. Peter greeting Obama at the Pearly Gates, and asking what he'd done in his life and he said, 'For the last 15 minutes I got to be President of the United States.' And they laughed.

And then another guy came along, and was talking to Bob, mostly, but me too, about the election campaign, and well, if anyone said he was prejudiced he was, and he was too old to do it, but if Obama's elected, someone's gonna assassinate that nigger bastard ... Bob was being a lot more polite than I wanted to be, but I'm so far out of my element I kept my mouth shut. Bob got him switched onto the handgun on his belt instead, then, thank God, someone came along who really wanted to look at knives, and I could interrupt that conversation and the guy went away. We were kinda afraid he was headed back in our direction later. For the next morning, I'd decided what I COULD say, if anyone started it again, but another vendor near us got sick last night, and the guy behind us moved his fucking teeshirts farther away from us and no-one said political or racist shit directly to us again. Maybe, I just needed to be prepared with an answer -- I can use it again while I'm here, if I need to. I’da simply said, “I’m not from around here and where I’m from a man wouldn’t use language like that talking to a lady. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy looking at the guns for the rest of the day.” We didn’t have any guns at our place. And if that hadn’t been good enough, I’da said, “That was in Canadian. It translates to, ‘Shut your filthy mouth and get it the fuck away from my table.’” I was glad it didn’t come to that.

Some of it was kinda fun, and there were some people who were just a joy to meet, and had helpful information for Bob. Saturday I had a jar of beeswax and polished every handle except the antler and bone ones, and a bottle of Turtle Wax and polished all the blades except the Damascus ones after that. There were men, usually in their 70’s and 80’s, who'd make remarks to me about being careful around a woman with a blade like that, and I’d say, “Yeah, all the men have been real polite to me this morning.” They didn't want to look at knives, mostly. People had never seen the brass cable Damascus before and stopped to look at it and ask about it, and people who know knives said very pretty things to Bob and gave him ideas about places to go to sell his knives. There were some really sweet moments with little kids -- one was looking at one of Bob's knives, one with a wooden sheath, and his eyes got all big when he opened it and Bob just gave it to him. And there was a little boy, four or five, yesterday, with his Daddy, and he saw a knife in a pearwood stand, like the sword in the stone, and said, Daddy, what is it, twice, but Daddy didn't hear him, so I reached across and pulled it out and he looked like he got a puppy for Christmas. A couple of teenaged girls, who were clearly interested in the knives as ways to hurt someone, but generic someones, they weren't looking to do it today, and I wasn't above telling them what the other woman said about the bearclaws.

I walked around Sunday, mostly to go say hello to another knifemaker who'd talked to Bob and brought him a little block of bloodwood, to be neighbourly. There were some people there with a jewellery display -- pretty bracelets, like little cuffs, with the sides made out of the ends of matching silver spoons, bent, and in between a coin or a concho or something else. Mostly bracelets spin around so whatever's the prettiest part sits against the inside of my wrist and no-one sees it -- this can't do that -- I'd never seen anything like it and I liked one with a Statue of Liberty dollar in the centre. I went back to get money, and the man put an extra couple of chain links underneath where it fastened so it'd fit better. Later his wife walked past our table and we talked -- they're from Palestine, and they know who Bob's sister and her husband are, but don't know them. That was kinda nice -- to be able to introduce someone I knew first to Bob.

It was exhausting, and when we left after it was all done I felt like I'd escaped. I'd been singing, "We gotta get out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do ..." We came home, used all the really bad language we couldn't in a place like that with family standards for the vendors, and I fed the kitten again – he was just getting interested in more than just getting fed and cuddled -- he'd look around when he heard noises and just spent ten minutes rolling around upside down in my lap, wrestling and nibbling my fingers like he would his littermates, if he was with them. And he'd been grooming his paws a little. Good signs.

He was three weeks old when I wrote that. This picture was taken Thursday night this week – he’ll be eight weeks old tomorrow. I miss him and it hurts like a sonuvabitch. There'll be more about the trip -- I did really good things and there were other kinds of culture shock. This afternoon, my son's taking me to see Passchendaele -- I've gotta go get showered now.

Early Happy Hallowe'en, Thanks to Tracy K

2008-10-29T18:35:00.000-04:00

I'm back -- sorry I was gone for so long and silent

2008-10-29T18:33:00.002-04:00

I want to thank the people who looked for me and got in touch during this hiatus. It started because I couldn’t stand to read one more word about the American Presidential election or about Lambeth. Just wore me out.

And then it continued when I found out on September 11^th that I’d be leaving for Texas on the 27^th. I didn’t have a passport, I didn’t have a driver’s licence or a learner’s permit, I had one week’s vacation left at work and I was going for a month. I got everything I needed. You can pay $30 extra in Canada and get your passport in less than 10 business days – they have it the day before your trip, and you have to take proof you’re leaving. I went straight from picking up the passport when the office opened at 8:30 on the 25^th to write the test for the learner’s permit. Found out the 5:00 a.m. bus from Hamilton to Buffalo Airport only runs weekdays, so I left at 7:30 Friday night and sat up overnight in the airport. Took three planes to Tyler the next day. We had wireless there, but it was slow, and we were busy.

It was a HUGE culture shock. I will write more about it. I wrote down about some of it as it was happening, and I’ll reproduce here, with some pictures. While I was there, I learned to drive a pick-up truck without hitting anything; I learned why I need to be able to shoot something sometimes, and how to do it – with long guns and a lot of time, anyway, I can hit the target pretty well. With handguns, I anticipate the recoil and move and miss the page altogether. I can go out the back and poke through the metal collection and do something. Removing rust from sewing machine treadles with a wire wheel is VERY good for some kinds of frustration – if you don’t give the project 100% of your attention, you get hurt. I learned how to cut up railroad spikes, old files, and hardware cloth with a chop saw and a plasma cutter, and to put them back together different with a MIG welder – that was lots of fun.

And there was a 12-day old kitten whose mother abandoned him three days before I got there, who was being fed with an eye-dropper. I took that task on gladly. I fed with an eye-dropper and later with a baby bottle. I carried him outside and showed him how to dig little holes in the sand, and applied warm water while I held him over the hole til he peed in it, then told him how good he was. He started eating solid food three days before I came back. His name is Yeshua – when he woke up he was so hungry, he hollered and the walls of Jericho could come tumblin’ down, and almost all the other cats have Hebrew names, so so does he. I’ll post some pictures from the time I was there, and I’ll keep getting some and post them from time to time too.

Let’s see. I got scratched when we went for a hike through a thorny forest and I was wearing shorts. I stepped on a fire ant nest and got stung on the ankle. Got ringworm from the kitten. He’d hold the back of my hand for dear life when he was sucking the eyedropper, and I expected scars, cuz he always got the same place. But I didn’t scar. Took off skin and fingernails on the afore-mentioned wire wheel. Got burns on my arms from the welding, and once a big coal fell inside my sneaker and burnt the same foot I got stung on. And when Yeshua learned he could climb up pant legs, it didn’t occur to him that he shouldn’t climb my legs cuz I was wearing shorts. I’d be cutting up vegetables with the kitten hanging off my bare knee. Those are the marks on the outside. On the inside, I’m a whole new person.

Gotta go out tonight. I’ll post some of the other stuff on Friday or Saturday. Thanks again to everyone.

Always been a Moon Girl, Born Under the Sign of the Crab

2008-09-13T23:58:00.000-04:00

The Moon

And Now for Something Completely Different

2008-09-12T00:18:00.000-04:00

I'm not blogging

2008-09-11T22:46:00.000-04:00

What’s really the thing is, I haven’t been reading any blogs. Well, a couple. I’m checking in with friends every day or two, but mostly skimming. I’m so fed up with the United States election, and it was bad enough before when it was Clinton or Obama, but now Palin’s in there too. Even the people who would normally write about God, or art, or poetry, or literature ... they’re all writing about Governor Palin. It’s led me to avoid the intertubes altogether.

A Canadian federal election was called on Sunday. The Prime Minister went to the Governor-General, and said that the government was no longer functioning adequately, and asked that Parliament be dissolved. That being done, there will be a federal election on October 14^th. There will be less than seven weeks of active election campaigning. The leaders of the parties get chosen at annual or biannual conventions – that’s already decided. And it’s decided by the party members, not the public at large.

I’m healthy and very happy – got good things happening. I’m keeping track of the hurricanes, and who’s been evacuated, or going to be. Praying.

Phew!

2008-09-04T15:26:00.000-04:00

You know, I don’t know why I don’t tell you all these things first ...

Yesterday, I had an EMG. An Electro-Myelo-Graph, I think. It’s a test of how well nerves are functioning. I finally coughed up to a couple of people that I was afraid of something with my left foot. The toe’s been dropping, and I stumble on it a little sometimes – that proves I have Parkinson’s. It gets numb sometimes, especially in the middle of the night when I wake up, and the numbness spreads up the outside of my leg. That would be diabetic peripheral neuropathy – in the course of all this, I found out that I have had complete terror about neuropathy. It translates, in my insides somewhere, to, “They’re gonna cut my feet off!” Or it could be MS (I don’t know why) or the aftermath of a very peculiar traffic accident I was in years ago.

Well, my family doctor said it’s NOT neuropathy – that’s when I found out I was terrified. Could barely hold off crying til I got home. And he sent me for the EMG. My son had had one when he was about 9 and he cried all through it. You know how people tell you scary stories about how awful their tests were? A friend of mine told me it helped a lot when she substituted the thought, “This is interesting,” for “This hurts!” That made me pretty sure it would hurt a lot. One of the things I know for sure about physical pain is, we can’t hold on to a memory of it – otherwise no woman would have a second child. We remember THAT something hurt, but we can’t retrieve the pain.

That helped, while I was planning for the test – I knew that as soon as it was over it would be and stay over. Still, when I got there, I had this tummyache. There was a technician first – she told me another thing that was helpful. There would be a doctor there for the second part of the test, and I would know what the results were before I left. No waiting for a couple of weeks, fretting over what would come next. The first part of the test, she put little leads on my feet, one at a time, and ran an electric shock down the nerve. At one point, she left the room, and I knew I had a minute or two to get myself back together. I asked God to remove from me pride, fear, anger and rebelliousness about having the test, and about whatever the result would be. I asked to be okay with whatever the result was. And I prayed the Serenity Prayer – after all, whatever was the matter with my foot was already the matter with my foot – that wasn’t going to change or escalate instantly.

In fact, that part of the test was easy enough – a couple of the shocks were worse than what happens when I’m cleaning the stove with a wet cloth, and make contact with the electrical plug on top, but not many. That’s pretty manageable, too. It was frightening again when she drew a couple of lines on my leg, for the doctor to look at THAT SPOT with, later. (I didn’t ask about that; I just knew.) She asked questions about back pain, and if I’d fallen, and I knew that she wasn’t thinking about chronic illness, but about some kind of trauma – that made me feel better, for some reason. I don’t remember falling or banging anything.

Then the doctor came, asked a whole lot of questions – the usual kind about whether I smoke, and how long it’s been like this, and if I’d injured myself, checked muscle strength by getting me to push in different directions. He did a test where he stuck a little needle, like an acupuncture needle, into the muscle. Aha! The pain part was going to start. I’d thought there would be more shocks now, but the needle was a kind of microphone probe -- we could hear crackling all the sudden – electrical activity in the muscle. THAT was cool! And I could see the monitor then, and see what happened when he stressed the muscle during the test Some of that was very uncomfortable, but not really painful, and it didn’t last long.

Then the results. There’s some underlying neuropathy. “Underlying” feels like not something to worry about at this point, and my diabetes is very well controlled these days. What I believe I know about it is, there’s no way it’ll ever get better, but the very good control (and I’m doing it without meds now) will keep it from getting worse. There’s also a pinched nerve, up near my knee. That, he says, will heal itself, and take about a year.

All that was in the morning. I went home with the tummyache still – reaction. I scrubbed the heck out of the kitchen – took everything out of the fridge, including the shelves and baskets and bins, washed ‘em all and put ‘em back. Displacement activity. Said thank you to God, for the results and for not behaving any worse than I had – kitchen-cleaning as an anxiety-response is so much better than a lot of other things I’ve tried. Later I went out with friends – we sat outside til almost 11:30 and drank coffee and laughed. In the course of THAT, I got really happy – just-fallen-in-love happy, without having had the falling-in-love part. (Too bad.) That’s stayed with me, all the time I slept, and all day today.

So, everything’s sweet in this little corner of the world – I even had that yummy yoghourt again for lunch. I wish I’d thought to tell you all first though – I still operate out of the (mistaken) assumption that if I say the scary thing out loud, it will make it come true. I forget, turning the light on always makes the monster in the closet disappear, doesn’t it?

The Beach

2008-09-02T21:00:00.002-04:00

It’s September. I’m not ready for it to be September. Tracy K called Friday night and said it’s supposed to be lovely weather this weekend and it’s the last summer weekend – want to go to the beach? I said, Yes.

This is Long Point, in southern Ontario. It is, to me, The Beach. A thin spot. The drive there takes three years (it’s about 100 km) and the drive home takes 20 minutes. It’s wonderful – you drive through Norfolk County, with it’s wide-apart farms. The ditches are full of flowers – white Queen Anne’s Lace and blue cornflowers, or orange daylilies, or some kind of yellow lilies. Sunday we went past a farm where they’d sown a six- or eight-foot strip of sunflowers around the perimeter of the farm. Short ones – they looked maybe waist height on me. (And I’m 5’2”.) The flowers were yellow, and I think there were thousands of them. A little further on, a field of pumpkins – the foliage had died back, and the pumpkins were pale orange in the sun. There’s willow trees and birch trees, and pines. And it’s not all lovely – there’s tent caterpillars too, and a really bad infestation in some parts of the county this year.

Long Point is a UNESCO Biosphere preserve. It’s on the migration path for a great many birds, and there’s a couple of annual counts. There’s a lighthouse, and there are an enormous number of wrecked ships around it. It’s a sand spit that runs parallel to the north shore of Lake Erie, directly south of Brantford, Ontario, and if you go south from there, the next thing after the water is Erie, Pennsylvania. The water’s shallow a long way out, and there are sand bars that shift, and baats run aground. The people who lived there over a hundred years ago, some of them made their living “blackbirding”. They’d put up lights to fake a lighthouse, and lure ships onto sandbars, and plunder them.

The sandbars make this a lovely beach for families. Because the water’s shallow and it’s all sand, it’s good for children, when the water and wind are calm and there’s no undertow. I had a great many of my birthdays there, and I’m sure I was there by my first birthday. My grandparents had a trailer and used to take it to the provincial park for weekends, with a pair of grandchildren along each time. My parents bought tents, and took us camping in the New Campground. My soon-to-be-ex-husband’s family used to rent a cottage down the other end of the Point, and have tents there too. When our son (now 26) was little, we took him tenting there. Tracy thinks it would be a good idea if we went camping next summer, and within two hours of getting home on Sunday, I’d arranged to borrow a tent. I have to tell you, the invention of 30SPF sunscreen has made the days following a trip a lot more comfortable for me.

I didn’t take these pictures Sunday; I took them in July, on a day with my aunt and my cousin. That’s their backs you see walking down the beach. It was wild that day – the strongest undertow I recall there. It was aerobic just standing hip-deep in the water, and we couldn’t really swim, just ride the waves. I’ve put in pictures of the water, which is grey because all that undertow stirred up the sand. And the sand dunes. And some beach grasses. The marsh, between the spit and the mainland. Also, a savannah sparrow, which we think was hurt – it didn’t take off when I was taking this. I did get an awful lot of pictures of a little square of empty sand though.

I’ve been three times this summer, and it’s helped restore me. That, and those rocks in the previous post. This place is timeless for me, very special. God can get at me more easily there, that’s what I said after the first visit this summer. It is so terribly difficult to leave. It’s an easy place to be, on a day like this Sunday, and it can be terribly hard – the thunderstorms that blow in are ferocious, and the ice build-ups have wrecked houses too close to the water. I remember my Papa stopping the car on the Causeway, to lift a big snapping turtle off the road, and into the side of the marsh it was heading for.

Canadian Cultural Icons -- Tom Thomson

2008-08-30T01:15:00.005-04:00

I was at Sand Bay, off Georgian Bay, off Lake Huron, last week, just outside of Parry Sound. I don’t know if a sound is a Canadian geographic term or if it’s general – a sound is a large, wide body of water that connects two other bodies of water – in this case, Georgian Bay and Five Mile Bay. There’s Parry Island on the east side of Georgian Bay, and the Sound is north of it, and Five Mile Bay is south of it and feeds back into Georgian Bay. A little confusing.

We went on a couple of picnics a short boat ride from my sister-in-law’s cottage. On Picnic Island, where else? Here’s a couple of pictures I took at Picnic Island. We are on the Canadian Shield here, an enormous slab of granite that includes Greenland, most of eastern Canada from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, and the Adirondack Mountains are part of it too. In the Pleistocene era giant continental ice sheets 1,500 to 3,000 metres thick receded over it – they carried off most of the topsoil, exposing the bedrock and carving lakes and rivers into the rock. There are grooves cut in the bare rock, left by those ice sheets. I just love it there – for me, it’s another one of those “thin places” that Ellie told us about recently.

I was taking pictures of those trees, and trying to remember a poem our Grade 8 teacher, Mrs. Dyment, had us memorize. All I could remember was the line, “and the pine trees leaned one way”. Thank heavens for Google. Here it is (and by the way, I didn’t understand this when I was 13, and it reinforces my view that children should not be made to memorize adult poetry like this or “In Flanders Fields” or prayers like The 23^rd Psalm and the Our Father):

The Lonely Land

Cedar and jagged fir

uplift sharp barbs

against the grey and cloud-piles sky

and in the bay

blown spume and windrift

and thin, bitter spray

snap

at the whirling sky;

and the pine trees lean one way.

A wild duck

calls to her mate

and the ragged

and passionate tones

stagger and fall,

and recover,

and stagger and fall,

on these stones –

are lost

in the lapping of water

on the smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty

of dissonance,

this resonance

of stony strand,

this smoky cry

curled over a black pine

like a broken

and wind-battered branch,

when the wind bends

the tops of the pines,

and curdles the sky

from the north.

This is the beauty

of strength

broken by strength

and still strong.

A.J.M. Smith

It also made me think about Tom Thomson, member of the Group of Seven, a Canadian painter who loved and painted and died in northern Ontario. He’s a Canadian cultural icon for certain sure. I think if you went to school here in the ‘50’s through the ‘70’s, you’d be able to look at a painting and guess by the style it was by Thomson, even if you hadn’t seen it before. Beautiful paintings. A fisherman and canoeist. Thomson’s death adds to his legendary status. He went canoeing in Algonquin Park one day, and was never seen again. The official verdict was accidental death by drowning, but there have been rumours of arguments and speculation that it was homicide, ever since. That's not what matters, though, the paintings are.

Got New Jeans While I Was On Holiday

2008-08-29T12:16:00.002-04:00

And that seems to me to be a good enough reason to change my picture (just to show you all), and to post something else silly. First of all, I LUVS me my new jeans! They fit the way jeans are supposed to fit (painted on, but not enough to be obnoxious, my landlady said), and my sister-n-law said, “You are SUCH a toothpick!” when I came out of the changing room in the store. Ultra-low rise, because I am not put together the way manufacturers think women oughtta be (I have a narrow, kinda racing-greyhound rear elevation) – two buttons and about a two-inch long zipper in the fly. Sparks should fly.

In 1979, I loved The Monks. “I Ain’t Getting Any” and “Drugs in my Picket”. And this one, which seems most appropriate today. Have fun! I am …

Kinky Boots

2008-08-20T13:01:00.001-04:00

Well, if I’m gonna kick ass, I gotta have a decent pair of boots, right? I LOVED the 2005 movie “Kinky Boots”. I love when they make Lola the first pair of boots that’ll bear the weight of a man, and she rejects them as disgustingly ugly. She wants “three feet of red leather tubular sex”.

The movie’s based on a true story, the story of “Divine”; and Wiki says the shoe factory’s story, turning to making fetish footwear to survive in a market dominated by cheap mass-produced shoes from China, was featured in an episode of a BBC documentary series called “Trouble at the Top”.

The factory is staffed by the people who've worked there for decades, some of them, or their parents did. He's trying to explain to them what they're going to be making, and a tiny, elderly Japanese lady says to him: "Look to the heel, young man... Sex is in the heel... Stilettos require constant balance from the upper leg causing the muscles of the backside to tense and appear pert and ready for mating."

You can see the red leather boots on Lola, about a minute into this video – it’s not the whole clip of the walkway scene, and it will likely ruin the end of the movie for you, if you haven’t figured it out already.

I want me those boots.

Goin' on a Lion Hunt; Gonna Catch a Big One

2008-08-20T01:41:00.001-04:00

Well, maybe not, but I’d hate for anyone to worry. On Thursday morning, I’m getting in a car with one sister-in-law and one niece, and we’re going to drive about 170 miles north to another sister-in-law, who comes with one nephew, and stay for a week. There will be rocks (the Canadian Shield), water, an unknown number of dogs, snakes, bears, a trampoline … And I’m hoping to get out tomorrow to get a new battery for my camera, so I can share.

I won’t be back til late on the 27^th, and I have to work the next day, so DON’T WORRY. There are no computers or phones where I’m going, and my cell won’t get any signal either.

Hot Damn!!! I Kick Ass!!!

2008-08-20T00:57:00.003-04:00

Gina at Pagan Sphinx is a Kick Ass Blogger, and she says that I’m one too! No-one’s ever told me they thought I kick ass before. I have always been a very good girl-type, who behaved herself. This is so much better! Thanks, Gina!

Here’s the rules for the Kick Ass Blogger Award:

LOVE ON 'EM

Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are "Kick Ass Bloggers"
Let 'em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they've received an award
Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

And here’s my picks. This was hard, because there are so many kick-ass bloggers in my circle. It was made easier by know that some, like Fran, have already got the award:

Grace, at Jesus Wept, because Jesus surely does, at what she’s been through because of her previous place of employment, and her struggle to find a new church home.

Derek, at 89Days, because I know what he’s been doing for the last couple of years, and I know what changes he’s made, and we did the struggling together.

Mimi, at Wounded Bird, because, among other things, she has a kick-ass fleur-de-lys tattoo on her ankle.

Sherry, at After the Bridge, because I love the poetry – hers, when she posts some, and other people’s when she posts that, and while I’ve had mornings that FELT like Multiple Tweetie Mornings before, I didn’t know what to call ‘em.

And Dennis, at Psychology, Dogs, Politics and Wine, because of the Jazz, the elephants, the homesickness, and Pinkie and the Brain.

I said I'd write more about fear

2008-08-20T00:36:00.002-04:00

Well, I said I’d write something more about fear, and I’m going to. Heaven knows, I’m an expert on it. And I’ve had a lot of practice with it in the last few weeks.

First of all, I’ve got something wrong with my left foot. It’s been bothering me for a few months, and usually in the middle of the night, or when I’m not near a phone. When I am near a phone and the doctor’s office is open, it’s not bothering me and I don’t think to call. That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

Finally, it got too bad to ignore, and I knew I was being an idiot. So in the middle of the night, I e-mailed two people, detailed the symptoms and the fears. The fears are from my expert medical diagnostic skills – it was Parkinson’s, MS, diabetic neuropathy, or residual damage from when a beer truck ran over my foot on March 1^st, 1993. Go ahead and laugh: it really WAS a beer delivery truck. He pinned the foot under the front driver’s-side tyre, and I fell under the cab, tearing up some ligaments on the outside of the ankle. (Someone asked me once what made it important that it was a beer truck, and not full of milk – it’s VERY important!!! This is funnier.) I promised to make the doctor’s appointment the following day, and I did – it was a week away. Having “confessed” my fears, I then prayed for God to relieve me of them. And I was not afraid between telling on myself, and the appointment.

The nurse practitioner did some tests. The high-tech neuropathy test – you close your eyes, and he pokes the bottom of your foot with the cut end of a short piece of fishing line, and you say “Yes” every time you feel it. Pressing on some things in the back of my knee, and on my foot, to see if they hurt. I am TERRIBLY ticklish, and the test was agony, but it didn’t hurt. Stand on my tiptoes. I can do that. Rock back on my heels and lift my toes. I can’t do that; I can with the right foot, but not the left. And I asked, as I always do – Did I feel it every time you touched the bottom of my foot? Yes. He said, I definitely do NOT have diabetic neuropathy. And he’s ordered some tests – I’m having an EMG early in September.

I barely got out of there and home before I flooded the place. Called one of my confessors, and blurted out, “It’s not neuropathy!” He said, “What is it then?” and I said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. They’re not gonna cut off my feet!” Holy cow, who knew THAT was there? I honestly had not felt fear all the time I waited for the doctor’s appointment, but the minute he said not neuropathy, I realized I’d held deep terror. Way down where it’s barely verbal, neuropathy to me means, “They’re gonna cut off my feet.” I am not at all afraid of whatever comes next.

Then there are the other people. My friends in their late 80’s. She’s ready to move into a retirement home, and he’s not. She asked for moral support. What I want for them is peaceful transitions. What I want for me is not to have whatever changes are coming. They have my moral support, and practical support too. and not least of the practical support is prayer.

Someone else I love has been having a lot of medical tests in the last week. One in particular was frightening me to the point that I cried every time I talked about it. And I DID talk about it – the things I’m afraid of are like mushrooms – they grow in the dark. I guess I didn’t talk specifically enough to the person who was having the tests – I totally misunderstood what they were looking for, and I was needlessly afraid.

But I was not constantly afraid. I would talk to someone out loud, and say, I know that fear is based in the future, and the future is imaginary. Roland told me in the spring that when I’m in the valley of the shadow of death, I need to remember – I’m in the SHADOW, not the reality. When I was afraid I’d ask God to relieve me of the fear, and then I’d go do something, like scrub the kitchen cupboard doors, to keep me stuck right in the here and now, and not let my brain wander around in the imaginary future.

The other thing I could do is remind myself that the condition I feared either already did or didn’t exist. If it did, it could get better or worse. If it didn’t, it could start to exist, or it could not. And even if it did exist, and even if it was getting worse right now, that didn’t mean that in six months, it would be what I feared right now. There are an infinite number of possibilities. The internal medicine specialist I saw for the first time last December, because my family doctor was retiring after being my doctor for over 25 years, said, “You’re hardly diabetic at all any more.” Everything changes all the time, and it’s only in my mind that things always only get worse. The fear went away, and it came back, and I’d pray again, and it would come back at longer intervals, and with less force. We get stronger with exercise.

These look overwhelming, because you’re reading them all at once. I’ve been living them serially, over a few weeks. Nothing here is unusual or makes me special; this is life. The answer is always the same – talk to people and pray. I have this feeling that most religions expect that we will gather together to pray and worship, at least some of the time. Jesus said, “Whenever two or more are gathered in His name …” The synagogue across the road requires ten men for a minyan. Muslims gather to pray at specific times each day. Even AA says the only things you need for a meeting are two drunks, a pot of coffee, and a resentment, and they always pray at the start and end of the meeting. The answer is to join together and turn to God and ask for help. It doesn’t even matter what name you call God. It works out – God is so good.

Late Canadian Cultural Icon -- Stan Rogers

2008-08-17T00:15:00.003-04:00

Stan Rogers lived in town with us; his kids went to Montessori with my best friend, Lisa's. He was killed in a plane fire in Cincinnati or someplace. I believe the fire started with some bastard smoking in the can, and he was off the plane and went back in to help the others get off, and died of smoke inhalation.

This is wonderful. I've known it for years -- we had the "Between the Breaks" album as vinyl for a turntable. Tom used to go around singing the chorus to Barrett's Privateers when he was about three: "God damn them all! I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold. We'd fire no guns; shed no tears. Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett's Privateers." A little embarrassing sometimes. I’m posting two videos – Barrett’s Privateers, just mentioned. The second is The Mary Ellen Carter, and the beginning of the video is important -- it's not the singer, it's what the song can do to someone. Here's the words:

THE MARY ELLEN CARTER
(Stan Rogers)

She went down last October in a pouring driving rain.
The skipper, he'd been drinking and the Mate, he felt no pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.
There were five of us aboard her when she finally was awash.
We'd worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost.
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter'd rise again.

Well, the owners wrote her off; not a nickel would they spend.
She gave twenty years of service, boys, then met her sorry end.
But insurance paid the loss to us, so let her rest below.
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For she's worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.

Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.

All spring, now, we've been with her on a barge lent by a friend.
Three dives a day in hard hat suit and twice I've had the bends.
Thank God it's only sixty feet and the currents here are slow
Or I'd never have the strength to go below.
But we've patched her rents, stopped her vents,
dogged hatch and porthole down.
Put cables to her, 'fore and aft and girded her around.
Tomorrow, noon, we'll hit the air and then take up the strain.
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again.

For we couldn't leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.
She'd saved our lives so many times, living through the gale
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave
They won't be laughing in another day. . .
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken
And life about to end
No matter what you've lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

Things to Be Grateful For

2008-08-16T11:59:00.002-04:00

It says in my profile, “newly thin”, and I keep saying I’m going to say something about that, and I don’t. Twenty-five years ago I was morbidly obese – morbid means you’re gonna die, and obese means fat. I know for sure I weighed 285 pounds, and I didn’t like seeing that on the scale. So I stopped getting ON the scale. (Sigh.) I didn’t stop eating the way I did to get that way, but I only count from 285 because I’m sure of that number.

I’m diabetic too (no surprise, eh?) and I got heart disease as a complication of that. Five years ago, I was on the waiting list for bypass surgery. Then the surgeon said that with my history of post-surgical infection, he wouldn’t DO surgery on me. He failed to mention that there were other options – I thought they only did a bypass if they couldn’t do anything else. I went home that day thinking all I had left to do was die. It was VERY bad coronary artery disease. They found an interventionist cardiologist, who performed a miracle on my behalf. My cardiologists haven’t even felt I warranted a stress test in the past two years.

In December 2006, the month after Mum died and before I’d moved out of the marital home, stress made my diabetes terrifyingly unpredictable. I was waking up at 4 a.m. with life-threatening low blood sugars, and I wanted to lower my insulin dosages, so I wouldn’t be so at risk. I have a friend who manages his eating disorder with a very low-carb food plan. I didn’t want to do his food plan – it’s restrictive and boring and bad for you and onanonanon and I didn’t want to do it. So I’d pray, “God, should I get Bob to teach me how to do that?” And the little voice would say, “Why wouldn’t you do something that would make you better?” Took a month, cuz I really, really didn’t want to do Bob’s food plan.

But I gave up, and asked him to teach it to me. That was January 21^st last year. That was the last day I took an insulin shot. I started eating the way Bob told me on January 22^nd, and thought, “I won’t inject cuz I don’t know how much I’ll need yet. I’ll just test a lot today, and figure it out.” Well, I NEVER needed an insulin shot that day. I was also on pills for diabetes, and they were enough. I went from four shots a day on January 21^st last year, to not one ever since. And in the months since, I’ve lost the last 60 or so pounds I had to lose, and I don’t take the pills daily any more, just when I need them, and they reduced my blood pressure medication too. I got a miracle. And I weigh less than I did at 15. Hot damn!

So I eat very low carb, and it’s NOT boring, and I love my meals. Yesterday because I’d worked hard, I splurged, and bought yogourt from Liberte Dairy in Quebec. All their products are wonderful, but I’d never seen the 10% milk fat yoghourt before, and I bought two containers. One is the amount for two breakfasts. Usually, I buy whole milk yoghourt and drain it in a coffee filter in a sieve overnight to get it thick – this is wonderful. Organic raspberries were cheaper than regular yesterday, and I bought a half-pint of those too. I added vanilla and a little sweetener (I know it’s bad for me, but it’s not as bad as sugar) to the yoghourt.

This picture only has a few berries on top, so you can see the yogourt, but I’m eating them all – while I’m writing this. The pretty blue glass bowl and the yellow placemat are from IKEA, but they’re both discontinued, I think. Blue and yellow together – I love that. They’re sitting on a wooden cutting board my Dad made me one Christmas.

What a life – I woke up happy, and said thank you to God before I got out of bed, and then I get this great breakfast. I’m about to shower with sandalwood soap, and get dressed and go meet friends for the afternoon. We’ll talk about God, and drink coffee, and hug each other a lot, and prolly someone will cry. Then I’ll go out in the sun for a while. Life doesn’t get better than this~

A Big Adventure

2008-08-16T03:10:00.003-04:00

I’ve been so busy, I haven’t blogged, and I’m having trouble keeping up with everyone else. I’ve been doing housework-for-hire, to supplement my income. Who’d have guessed I’d LIKE it? But I do. Part of it is, I have clients I like, and they both need and appreciate the work. And part of it is, I’m good at it. And another part is, I work hard and really earn my money. That makes me feel happy. It also takes up time, and when I am home, I’m very tired.

On Monday, I had an adventure. A friend of mine lives with his parents. They bought that house a few years ago from a man who owned a wolf. He’d bought it illegally as a puppy, and as an adult, the wolf wouldn’t get in a car, so couldn’t move. Plus, the man was moving into the city. Now my friend and his family own a 12-year old wolf.

It’s illegal to own them. When my friend inherited him, his family obtained the necessary permit. I read on Wiki that the life expectancy for them in the wild is six to ten years, and in captivity, up to double that. This wolf is showing his age. His hindquarters and back legs are stiff and slow; he’s graying around the muzzle; there’s a few bald patches.

I fell in love with him. None of the hands here are mine – another friend took pictures of me and the wolf on his phone, and doesn’t think he knows how to forward them. I was too dumb to hand my camera to anyone else. I was awe-struck, really. I sat on the ground in front of him, and held his head (it’s huge) in my hands and rubbed his head and ears. He was pushing his left ear into my hand, the way dogs do. I didn't want to wash my hands, because I could smell him -- did wash before supper though. I’d have stayed for hours, if I could – I’ve been invited back.

More later, I promise.

Kol Adonai ...

2008-08-08T00:00:00.002-04:00

Ascribe to the LORD, O divine beings,
Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name:
bow down to the LORD, majestic in holiness.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, over the mighty waters.

The voice of the LORD is power;
the voice of the LORD is majesty;
the voice of the LORD breaks cedars;
the LORD shatters the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the LORD kindles flames of fire;
The voice of the LORD convulses the wilderness;
the LORD convulses the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the LORD causes hinds to calve,
and strips forests bare;
while in His temple all say, “Glory!”
The LORD sat enthroned at the Flood;
the LORD sits enthroned, king forever.

May the LORD grant strength to His people;
may the LORD bestow on His people wellbeing.

--Psalm 29

Go over to JohnieB’s place, to see His flames of fire – breathtaking.

Stilling Stormy Waters

2008-08-04T22:00:00.001-04:00

For the last couple of days, I’ve been living with fear. As usual, I’m frightened about something that is beyond my control, and the answer is prayer. I’m not the kind of person who just naturally turns to prayer, you know? I’m the kind of person who knows exactly what the right thing to do is in any given situation, and I’ll tell you about that, or yell at you about it, and get bossy and manipulative about making sure you do what I know is right, and resentful if you don’t. Sometimes, that’s how I can TELL I’m frightened – I get all controlling and I scream at people. I want to DO something, and it’s hard for me to remember that praying IS doing something. The only thing.

I’ve spent a lot of time returning to the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change …” And breathing. One of the teachers in my life says ANYTHING I try to do consciously is fighting, and what I need to do is just, once an hour or so, when I remember, pay attention to my breath. Not DO anything about it – just pay attention to it. It does make tension drain out through my feet somewhere.

Another one of my teachers says to me (I need to hear it often): “I wish you could see this as part of the natural order of life, and not as stressful and catastrophic.” When I first started hearing it, I just wanted to shout, “You’re not LIVING with this!!! It is F***ing stressful and catastrophic!” But he DOES know. And he’s right. When I notice myself and say, “This is as stressful and catastrophic as you allow it to be,” the stressful and catastrophic drains away too.

I do an ocean meditation. I’m on the ocean. Sometimes in a bathing suit, sometimes not. Floating on my back. A starfish float, I think little kids call it, except that’s face-down and I’m face-up. On top of the ocean. If you’re going to float like that, you have to relax everything – once your body gets tense, things start sinking. So the meditation involves staying relaxed so I float on top of the ocean.

And the ocean varies. Sometimes it’s calm and blue and flat, like the Caribbean. Sometimes, it’s grey and there’s big swells taking me up and down. Sometimes, I’m aware of the things that live in the ocean. “That great Leviathan,that you made for the sport of it.” I know they’re down there below me; I know some of them are carnivorous; and the only thing to do is keep floating, and trust. Sometimes, my ocean is the North Atlantic in full storm, and it sucks me down underneath it. Even that’s okay. Sometimes, I need that.

Last week, on Wednesday, Ellie posted on silence at Meditation Matters. I’ve gone back and read it several times this weekend. I have a friend who was an English major: loves poetry and writes it, and loves Rumi the best. Ellie’s post includes this: The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, "Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being."

That’s a great line for someone who meditates and craves oceans.

I was thinking about it tonight, a little while ago, when I read it again. I thought, “I just need to remember to still the waters.” And then I remembered – that’s not MY job. There’s someone else who stills waters. There’s someone else who leads me beside still waters.

22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, ²³and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. ²⁴They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. ²⁵He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’ – Luke 18:22-25, NRSV

So, it’s MY job to let go of all this, pray, and let God handle it. To pray, to be calm and still like the waters, inside, and to be loving to others as I go through the night and the day.

Thanks, Ellie.

Thanks, Eileen and Sharecropper

2008-08-03T14:25:00.000-04:00

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

What Is Your Dream? What Would You REALLY Like to Be Doing?

2008-08-01T19:37:00.002-04:00

I tell myself a lot, “Everything changes all the time.” I’ve been through a lot of change recently, and it’s felt hard. I don’t WANT this change, I say. But everything changes all the time, whether I want it or not, and whether I try to ignore it or not. I’m not built to ignore it forever; I have to do something else.

There’s been a lot of change. Where I’m living isn’t home. My income’s insufficient for my needs, not for my wants, my needs. What I’ve been doing for a living for 15 years isn’t working for me any more. I’m so aware of how much it’s about serving an institution and not people. The Div College and ordination track I was on – well, I changed, is the truth, and God has different plans for me. My relatives – I’ve lost most of my relatives in the last two years. I have family, that’s a different thing, and it’s pretty portable. Very few of them are right here anyway.

And you know what? I’d love to have my mother and my aunt back. But being and being here while they were sick and dying changed me, and I don’t want to go back to what I was. This is better.

Do you remember at the end of The Wizard of Oz, when they’re getting ready to fly back to Kansas in a balloon? They slip all the guy ropes for the basket off their pegs, and the thing just lifts off. “Losing” the job, the relatives, the sense of call to ordination, the home … My guy ropes are being slipped off their pegs. There’s nothing to hold me where I am, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Freedom. I also feel it as a vacuum sometimes. But nature won’t support a vacuum. I FEEL it that way, but the vacuum doesn’t exist. There is something else that exists, waiting for me to start doing it. I just don’t know what or where it is yet.

Sometimes that’s discouraging. This little statement from Wayne Dyer helps.

And now for something completely different -- Jesus' Brother Bob

2008-08-01T17:22:00.003-04:00

Well, trolls, Lambeth, guys who run the red at the last second meaning they’re on the way INTO the crosswalk while you’re crossing through it with the light … We all need a little lightness in our lives.

What we need is The Arrogant Worms! It’s kinda hard to explain The Arrogant Worms, and it’s probably better not to try. You can look at them on Wiki, from which I’ve borrowed this (I think it's SO COOL that the links copy when I do this):

The Worms usually perform the following songs at every show:

"Carrot Juice is Murder" — a parody of an animal rights protest song comparing vegetarians to murderers, including a line about Coleslaw being a fascist regime.
"The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" — a ballad about a farmer who takes up piracy on the Saskatchewan River. The song was also covered by Captain Tractor.
"Mounted Animal Nature Trail" — an audience interaction song about a real place [1] on Manitoulin Island: Terry's Taxidermy and Mounted Animal Nature Trail.
"I Am Cow" — a bovine anthem.
"We Are the Beaver" — a tribute song to one of Canada's symbolic animals, the beaver. The song mentions how the peaceful rodent compares to other nations' animals like America's bald eagle, Russia's bear and India's tiger.
"Canada's Really Big" — A satirical national anthem for Canada.
"Log In to You" — a love song using computer network euphemisms for sex.
"Rocks and Trees" — A song describing the distinguishing features of Canada.
"Jesus' Brother Bob" -- A song about Jesus' brother, Bob, who is always in the shadow of his brother. Bob is seen as "A nobody relative to the son of God", and states that "If only I'd been born just a little sooner, I'd be more than just the brother of God junior."

And, there’s a semi-religious quality to what I’m doing here, so I’m picking one of their best songs. I think this can stand as the Canadian Cultural Icon tonight too, since it’s my landlady and landlord’s wedding anniversary today and I’m invited for Shabbos supper, and then I’m going out to drink coffee on an outdoor patio at 10:30. Don’t know when I’ll get another chance.

A Message from Mad Priest, via Mimi

2008-08-01T16:25:00.003-04:00

Borrowed with permission from Wounded Bird: OCICBW ... got attacked by a particularly vicious troll last night. It was so bad I had to close down the comments overnight.

He seems to have got his revenge by reporting me as a spam blog to Blogger and they have blocked my blog. I have asked for reinstatement but it's taking up to a week to sort out at the moment.

Would you please notify people of this on your blog and tell them to put it on their blogs. I don't want them thinking I've done a runner or been disappeared by the Church Police.

Jonathan

UPDATE: To all bloggers: the best way to help is to copy Jonathan's email and post it on your own blog.

UPDATE 2: A good laugh is always in order. Padre Mickey posted the same email, but he added a picture with a caption that is priceless.

UPDATE 3 (Mine): Phew! Apparently it wasn’t a troll war. Blogger has a new anti-spambot, and it seems to be going haywire. Jonathan said he’d heard a thousand blogs went down because of it. So – everything’s okay, and he’s back at it, at Of Course I Could Be Wrong.

At the End of the Day: A Mirror of Questions

2008-07-31T00:16:00.003-04:00

I stole these from Jan, who borrowed them from John O'Donohue (1953-2008). I just wrote the other day that I do a type of examen at the end of the day. I'm going to try answering these questions, in the examen and pondering them in meditation for a while. Thanks, Jan. And, by the way, she has a lovely picture on her post.

What dreams did I create last night?

Where did my eyes linger today?

Where was I blind?

Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?

What did I learn today?

What did I read?

What new thoughts visited me?

What differences did I notice in those closest to me?

Whom did I neglect?

Where did I neglect myself?

What did I begin today that might endure?

How were my conversations?

What did I do today for the poor and excluded?

Did I remember the dead today?

Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?

Where did I allow myself to receive love?

With whom today did I feel most myself?

What reached me today? How deep did it imprint?

Who saw me today?

What visitations had I from the past and from the future?

What did I avoid today?

From the evidence—why was I given this day?

Sarah McLaughlin -- Canadian Cultural Icon Night

2008-07-25T23:56:00.003-04:00

Three posts in a day! Holy Mackerel! That virus I’ve had must be going.

Sarah McLaughlin is one of my favourite singers. Period. And, I like the songs – her poetry, the music, the way she plays her voice makes me SO jealous. She’s a Canadian Cultural Icon if I ever saw one. The hard part was picking which song to put on the blog. I’ve asked Pagan Sphinx to teach me how to post music files, without all the videos, and then I’ll put more of McLaughlin's music up. Here’s two, cuz she’s special. The first one, "Possession". She had a video released for this in Canada that wasn’t released elsewhere. YouTube told me I couldn’t see one video of the song in this country, and the other had no embedding. This is the one I saw on TV when it was released though. See how many characters you recognize. And the second, I wanted "Ice Cream", cuz it’s just lots of fun. It'll have to wait. You get "In the Arms of an Angel" instead.

This is from her website:

Sarah McLachlan has made a career out of putting herself on the line emotionally; fans are repeatedly drawn in to her candor and forthrightness in her lyrics and music, and in her efforts in putting together Lilith Fair, an all-female artist festival which successfully toured North America for three years in a row.

My Very First Meme-Tagging!

2008-07-25T23:07:00.000-04:00

I’ve been tagged!! First time!! By Crimson Rambler, so here we go. Here are the rules:

1. List these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.

(a) I am very, very nearsighted – in the old days, when we looked at white cardboard eye-charts on a wall, I could only fine them if the wall was painted a colour. And I buy coloured soap, in case I drop it in the white bathtub.

(b) I never learned how to drive. Too chicken. I’m going to this fall though.

(c) And when I do I want a motorcycle. Harley Sportster, 650 cc. That’s for starters.

(d) I have read To Kill a Mockingbird about a million times, and am madly in love with Atticus Finch. Gregory Peck, as he was in 1961, will do just fine.

(e) I keep kosher in my apartment, and I can make a low-carb, kosher Chicken Paprikas you wouldn’t believe. And Pecan Pie with maple syrup for dessert, for those who don’t do the low-carb thing.

(f) I dream of a place to live where there’s lots of windows on the south side, bare pine floors, a dog, rocking chairs, and no carpets but lots of cushions, and a big, wooden dining room table with lots of chairs so people can come for supper all the time.

(g) And I’m too shy for Rule Number 3 – play along if you like.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

Rocks. Lions, The Twelve Steps and Having Babies

2008-07-25T22:29:00.003-04:00

There used to be a professional dance series every winter at the local university. One of the women I went to church with, faculty wife, would buy tickets and six or eight of us would go, and go somewhere expensive for pretty desserts after.

One time we had seats in about the second row of this really small theatre. We think about ballet as airborne, ethereal, delicate ... We saw sweat, and the muscles that tightened and clenched, nipples erect, heard the "thump" after she leapt and landed, and always the footfalls or the slide of her foot across the stage was audible. It wasn't ballet she was doing; but it's one of those, "You can never go back from knowing it's like this," moments.

She was very tall, too tall to be a ballerina in a company, blonde, slender, elegant. After the intermission, she was wearing a yellow leotard. Dandelion yellow. It was just her. She did this dance. She had no props, okay, just her and the music, but she made me see what she was doing so clearly.

She had a bag of rocks. She carried it or dragged it everywhere, and it bent her double trying to shift it. She hated the bag of rocks. And yet ... She'd put it down in a corner of the stage and move away from it, and all the time she was away she'd watch it, then go back and get it. She unpacked it and took out some or all of these rocks ... and then she put them back. They hampered everything she did: got in her way, slowed and bent her, hurt her sometimes. And she couldn't give them up.

There has to have been a transition I can't remember; I remember the ending. She squatted on the stage and her body strained hard and she reached between her legs with both hands and gave birth to this bag of rocks. The part I can't remember is how we knew it was inside her; it had been outside, but giving birth is unmistakable. I was in labour with Tom from two a.m. until they found out he was oxygen-deficient and did a section cuz the labour wouldn't progress, the cervix needs to open 10cm and mine never got past 6, even with the pitocyn drip they used from 9 a.m. to make the labour. I had hard contractions every three minutes from 9 a.m. when they started the drip til 8 or so when they said we have to do the C-section.

I have never done anything that was harder physically. It starts out being the kind of hurt your muscles GET from labour, from work. Carrying or pushing. I think now Lamaze breathing is a type of self-hypnosis -- it didn't work for me. It hurt more than I could have believed: full-intensity every three minutes, there wasn't time for me to get a normal breath in between and I was sweating and crying. Months later, the resident who'd been with me told me that there was something about the angles of the uterus and pelvic saddle bones. That baby would never have come out; I'da just kept doing that until one or both of us died, if it wasn't for the section, and I'd always have to have sections if I had another baby.

So somehow, this dancer convinced us she could give birth to this bag of rocks, and she did. After that she was able to treat it kindly or lovingly, and then walk away from it forever, and you could see in her posture that she WAS free, finally.

I've always thought of my own bag of rocks since then. The people-pleasing and the lies, mostly, for me -- they were a bag of rocks, heavy ones, I carried around all the time and they prevented me. And I couldn't leave them, and sometimes I was even aware, this is me putting another rock in my bag. And God gave me what I needed to put it down.

I did a course at Div College, we read St. Benedict’s Rule, and had to write out our own Rule of Life. “Shit,” I thought, “I don’t have one.” But I do. I had to learn, the hard way, the Twelve Steps, starting over 20 years ago. So in my daily life, I do things that St. Benedict would have recognized – I pray. I meet and talk and listen with others on the journey. I do something just like an examen. I read St., Francis of Assisi’s prayer, “God, make me a channel of your peace …” And I’ve been told that the way to get the things I want into my life is to LIVE that prayer.

One of the most important things, and hardest, was Confession. You know, Anglicans are kind of dry about confession. We do it all in a group in the service on Sunday morning, and no-one has to say anything out loud. There’s no private confession on Saturday evenings. That’s probably good – how would you STAY in a state of grace all through Saturday night?

Step Four is “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” Step Five is “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Ugh. Step Six is “Became entirely willing to have God remove all these defects of character,” and Seven is “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”

Four and Five were very hard. There were things I was deeply ashamed of having done. And the person I was going to tell – well, people who were supposed to love me had this habit of going away and leaving me alone when I didn’t do what I was supposed to. I had to tell someone I love the worst things I’d done – I was very afraid of what would happen next. He’d go away. I knew HE wouldn’t, but that’s what had always happened and I couldn’t see past that. What was more frightening was knowing what would happen if I didn’t. I’d be the one who went away. I’d have stopped being honest with the one person in my life I’d committed to myself to be honest with … and I’d stop being able to face him if I wasn’t. And, I’d go back to the life I had before, when I acted like a good girl, and did what I was told, and wanted to explode all the time. I didn’t, mostly, I did other self-destructive things. On the first Sunday in Lent, last year, I did it. I gave it all up to him. And that’s when I got free of that bag of rocks. I was like a bunch of helium balloons, that someone had let go the string of.

On the Thursday, I met with my Parish Priest, and did “The Rite of Reconciliation of a Penitent”. Confession and Absolution. I’d told him – I’m not telling you what I DID – I’ve done that. When the time came to fill in the blank, I just said, “The things I gave up to Bob on Sunday night.” It was enough. Steps Six and Seven. Then there was making amends … That’s a story for another day.

I go back sometimes and look at my bag of rocks and pick it up, and sometimes I even carry around new rocks for a while, an experiment ... But way deep inside, where babies grow, I KNOW that bag of rocks is NOT me anymore, and I don't have to have it, and I know how to put them down if I do carry them. And I'm upright and free.

All right, having a baby is hard, hard work. It was awful when I was going through it, and I'll admit, I begged them to turn off the pitocyn, just for 10 minutes so I could stop crying and get a grip. They couldn't. Poor Steve, the resident, was almost in tears telling me he couldn't.

AND I GOT THE BABY AND I'D DO IT ALL AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT. Your body forgets pain. I remember that it hurt that much and it is impossible to go down inside and make it hurt again like that so I can feel it. Women have more than one baby because your body forgets and the end results are worth everything you give for them. I remember the shame and fear I had before I told someone what I’d done and who I’d been. But they don’t hurt me inside any more. And feeling like this is worth what I did for it.

All that was triggered by the Inward/Outward message in my e-mail box this morning:

It's heavy to drag...

William Stafford

It's heavy to drag, this big sack of what
you should have done. And finally
you can't lift it any more.
Someone says, "Come on," and you
just look at them. Trees are waiting,
mountains. You never intended
that it should come to this.

But Now has arrived and is looking
straight at you, the way a lion does
when thinking it over, and anything
can happen. It's time for the cavalry
or maybe the Lone Ranger. But they
won't come. Maybe the music will
spill over and start it all again.
Maybe.

Source: The Way It Is, New & Selected Poems

I was gonna share that with a friend and say, "I know what this is," and it turned into this post. I never intended “that big sack of what I should have done” to come to what it was, and the Lone Ranger isn't gonna be able to rid me of what's inside me. But the Now can if I'm prepared to cooperate with it. And the lion looking at you thinking it over ... Lions have been important for me the last couple of years – two years ago, I listened to Bruce Cockburn alla time -- "Had another dream about the lions at the door and they weren't so frightening as they were the time before and I'm thinking about eternity. Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me." And now, lions and ecstasy are linked for me.

You’ve heard this before, if you’ve been hanging around, but it’s a new video and a live version.

Canadian Cultural Icon for Tracy K.

2008-07-19T17:15:00.002-04:00

I’m posting the Canadian Cultural Icon now. But you gotta promise that first, you’ll go over to FranIAm and see the electric Jesus pickle. I laughed so hard I got hiccoughs.

I had coffee with Tracy this afternoon. Her Mom had got an infection and spent five days back in hospital, but is home now, and going out for short walks. She brought me two CD’s for my birthday – Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, “for my wanderlust” and Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat, “for the hippie-girl”. Wanna-be. But I’m allowing myself to indulge that these days. Leaving her, I said, “I have to go decide who’s going to be the Canadian Cultural Icon,” and she said, “Joni Mitchell”.

Of course! One of my favourite songs is on Hejira – “Song for Sharon”. So here it is, with love and gratitude for Tracy, and I know a few others out there who’ll love this too.

Due to circumstances beyond our control ...

2008-07-19T01:34:00.003-04:00

We regret to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our control, the Friday night Canadian Cultural Icon will be postponed until Saturday. Wednesday night I slept very badly, for no reason I can think of. Thursday night I went to bed early and woke at 10:30 p.m. with a migraine. I’m fine now, just tired, and I'm posting this when I oughtta be sleeping again.

Go over to Pagan Sphinx’s place and look at the Friday Evening Nudes instead -- it's easy to guess the theme tonight.

Yesterday will have been my birthday ...

2008-07-15T23:39:00.002-04:00

I was going to say, “Today is my birthday,” but it’s been SO full – by the time I hit “Post”, yesterday will have been my birthday.

I’ll tell you – it’s just been one opportunity after another to see the fullness of my life. A friend in Texas sent a happy birthday e-mail as soon as it was after midnight and my birthday where he is. Oystercard is now in King’s Lynn and sent me a happy birthday song by e-mail. And my friend Robby sent me a happy birthday message too – he’s in San Bernardino. He’s 12 days younger than me. We’ve known each other since June 1962. He was my very first boyfriend, when we were 8 years old. We’re 53 this month. Birthday greetings from three different time zones!

My alarm went off!!! All right, that may not sound great, but it didn’t Sunday or Monday, and I missed church, and the barbecue lunch after. Today, I got to work on time, showered, with makeup on and dressed nicely. I forgot to make or pack breakfast, but I had eggs packed for lunch, so I bought an apple on the way and had that with the eggs and coffee. There was a birthday card on my desk when I got there.

Someone from church called and took me and another friend out for lunch, which meant eating the eggs for breakfast was okay. I got started on a project that’s a little boring, but needs to be done, at work. Made good progress, and was alone most of the day. The J. Geills band, Rolling Stones, Cream and The Eagles, all played loud, helped. Talked to Dad on the phone. Got an e-mail from a friend who trusted enough to tell me and someone else what hurts a lot. My boss came in in the afternoon – she’d made me a really beautiful birthday card.

Three friends went shopping this afternoon, and bought a picnic. We had maple-smoked ham and prosciutto and roast turkey and salami and five-year old cheddar, bocconcini, salad … I’d made gingerbread for a meeting Sunday evening, with lemon icing, and took some – I don’t eat it, cuz of the diabetes, but everyone else did. Fed the end of a baguette to the mallards, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds and swallows. Watched families with bicycles, strollers and dogs; and adult cyclists, a walking club, and members of the rowing club, single and pairs-sculling. Talked and listened and laughed. I’d known about the picnic; they brought me a present too – a sampler box of Four O'Clock Fair Trade chai teas (I already know I love the rooibos chai), and a book called Solo: Writers on Pilgrimage, edited by Katherine Govier. Then we went somewhere else and drank coffee, and I’d run out of my favourite coffee this morning, so I bought a pound to bring home.

After I got home, I messengered for a while with my son. He’s forgotten my birthday, but I didn’t feel any need to make him feel bad by reminding him. Talked to my friend on the phone. Then I looked at NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day – here’s the picture, and the link, because it’s way better when it’s as big as the screen, and besides, they tell you something about the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius. How good is that picture for a birthday present? I’ve checked out a few blogs, but it’s late, and I’m going to go to bed soon – I’ll look at the rest tomorrow.

The whole day has been one opportunity after another to see how blessed I am, and how much I’ve been given in life. When I was on the phone a little while ago, I said, “I didn’t know it was possible to have any other kind of life than the one I did. [The one where I was stuck in my own helplessness and unhappiness, and couldn’t see any hope of change.] I never imagined this happiness was possible, let alone that the change could be this fast. I’m SO happy.”

Another Tracy's Mom Update

2008-07-14T17:41:00.000-04:00

Tracy’s Mom has been home from the hospital for a week now. The tumour had shrunk well with the chemo she had before surgery – there was no need for a bowel resection. They believe they got all of it, and they didn’t find any in her stomach or liver. She’s pretty uncomfortable, but she had the chemo and then the surgery … who would be?

Tracy and I are planning an emotional/spiritual recovery day at the beach later this week. Many thanks for the prayer support.

Loud Music

2008-07-14T17:23:00.002-04:00

MadPriest, Pagan Sphinx, PJ, Dennis have all been posting or talking about loud music this week. Dennis SAID he was going to post at his place, but he hasn't yet -- you'll have to read the comments thread at PJ's -- and she answered all his questions in a newer post too. I’ve been listening to a lot of loud music (except NOT what’s at OCICBW) – this week cuz I’m happy. Then I sing it all the time and drive everyone else nuts. Here’s ONE of my favourites this week – there might be more later on.

NOT a Big, Black Dog

2008-07-13T17:08:00.001-04:00

This is Jake. He’s a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. I bet most of you have never even heard of one before!! This is the fourth one I’ve known personally – Dad likes them. First there were Robbie and Charlie, then Sandy, now there’s Jake. They all had much longer, Scottish names.

I spent Wednesday afternoon with Dad and Jake for a while. Jake’s four, and a retriever, and he’s not getting enough exercise cuz Dad’s knee doesn’t allow walking the dog, and his general level of weakness after the crisis at Easter doesn’t let him stand around and throw a ball much. My sister goes up a couple of times a week and does as much as she can.

Wednesday, I threw the ball for half-an-hour. I haven’t played baseball since six years ago. So, I haven’t thrown for that long. My shoulder twinged a little after, and I thought it would hurt like heck the next day, but it didn’t.

And I’ll tell you something. I’ve been thinking about mindfulness. Throwing a ball for a dog is nuthin’ BUT mindful. You focus on how wet and slippery the ball is (it’s not disgusting if you love the dog); and the motion of the throw; and how he finds it when you throw it over that way instead; and how happy he looks bringing it back; and how it’s time for him to stop and drink some water now cuz it’s hot. I TOTALLY recommend it as a practice for staying in the moment and for doing something for someone else.

God and The Tree Frogs and The Heartbeat

2008-07-13T17:02:00.002-04:00

I posted a couple of days ago about quantum theology, and got some help. Thank you, Jan! Later this week, I’ll start reading the book.

There were a couple of conversations that prompted me to ask now. It’s funny how these things start. In one, we were on the phone; he was outside; and I could hear the tiny tree frogs, singing like crazy. When I said so, he said that he’d wondered how they could be so little and so loud, and listened and found that when all the little trees frogs are together, their croaking synchronizes, and you hear one big croak. And I thought, “The Tree Frogs’ Heartbeat.” That there is a place, way down deep inside, where all the tree frogs are part of a larger, collective Tree Frog life or purpose – and it’s that larger Heartbeat that they synchronize to.

Then he said that someone had discovered centuries ago that two pendulum clocks on the same shelf will synchronize their ticking within half-an-hour. That would be vibration through the board, that’s what my ancient physics lessons tell me. But it’s working its way into my thoughts on Heartbeat – clocks have Heartbeat.

I said I know from experience that when women live together, their monthly cycles synchronize, and if they live where they are touched by moonlight regularly, the cycles synchronize and become moon cycles. Another friend said a couple of days later, that was true of her and her college roommate – they’d get their periods at the same time. And the room they lived in was tiny – they would wake up some mornings and find they’d dreamed of the same things.

That friend who lives with the tree frogs did advanced graduate studies in linguistics. He’s told me before – language didn’t develop out of our need to communicate (many species communicate without language); it developed out of semantics. There are huge variants in human language. Most of us are most familiar with languages with a subject-verb-object agreement. The subject performs an action, and the verb agrees with it in gender and number. He was talking about languages that originated in Australia, where the verb agrees with the object of the action. We learn language so early and it is rooted in and reflects and shapes our cultural realities. I am struggling with how to construct a sentence using that kind of structure. The important part is – all human language has certain deep parallels of structure, no matter how different they appear in use.

I was off the intertubes for a few weeks, because I was struggling with my own black dog. There are family issues – Dad’s not in crisis any more; they’re managing the symptoms that were causing the crisis. There were internal issues. Fear. Stubbornness. There was part of my life I thought God wasn’t going to help with, so I was trying to run it myself. (That’s been working out just about as well as you might expect, and was a big part of the arrival of the black dog.) I’ve been praying, thinking, writing and meditating about God – why I’d think I’d HAVE to deal with this on my own. What in my understanding of the God I grew up with led to that? Where I’m just plain wrong, and where I can find passages in the Bible and elsewhere that show me how wrong I am.

I’m back to trying to focus on God as The Singleness, and that we are all necessary and beloved parts of The Singleness. I’d been counseled, in my meditation, to focus on my breathing, and I’ve been doing that. Going inside to the important thing, the basis of life. Trying to listen to it. I've been starting with breath, and moving to my own heartbeat.

What I’ve been trying to listen FOR is The Heartbeat of the Singleness. I believe there is one. The beating of the Sacred Heart of God, God who loves us all. I believe it might be possible to hear it. I believe The Singleness manifests different ways – in the synchronized croaking of the frogs; in the clocks on a shelf; the commonalities of our language; the mysterious synchronization of moon cycles, for example. When I’m listening, I listen for how this that I hear could be a manifestation of The Heartbeat. Where I live, I hear a lot of traffic, and even in that, I listen for The Heartbeat. The world is never silent.

It’s difficult to post this, you know? Difficult to reveal what’s going on inside, to get nekkid in front of strangers who might drop in because they googled “Tree Frogs”. In some ways, more difficult with the not-strangers. But I’ll tell you something – if this is crazy, it still feels better than dealing with that big ol’ black dog.

Canadian Cultural Icon Night -- Ben Heppner

2008-07-11T18:40:00.002-04:00

Ben Heppner is an extraordinary dramatic tenor. His voice is, well, you’ll get to listen to it. Reviewers say his dramatic talent is excellent, and so are his diction, phrasing and interpretation of his roles.

He’s 52 years old now, and was born on the Canadian west coast, and lived in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, and studied music at University of British Columbia. He’s just performed Siegried in Aix-en-Provence last week – Siegried as a lumberjack. The production didn’t get a great review, but he did. If you’re out in lumberjack country, he has concert dates in Seattle, Lethbridge, Vancouver, White Horse, Yellowknife and northern Alberta and Saskatchewan from mid-August through mid-October.

Siegried is one of his signature roles, as are Tristan and Lohengrin, but he doesn't confine himself to Wagner. It would have been easy enough to post a video of one of those, and I probably will, some other day. Tonight, you’re getting one of my favourite arias – “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot. Stunning, stunning. If you already like opera, it’s wonderful. If you don’t think you know or like opera, you’ll probably recognize it. If you really don’t think you like opera, well, it’s only three minutes and eight seconds long … And maybe this will change your mind.

The Effects of Cookies on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

2008-07-11T12:36:00.003-04:00

So many of us women in the blogosphere have been struggling with the way we feel about food, and its effects on our minds and bodies. I’ve read a couple of posts in the last two weeks – Sharecropper and Jan, for sure – whose doctors have told them things they didn’t want to hear, and then there are the comments threads. Food and my weight and resulting health issues have been part of my struggle for the last 40 years.

I’ve been thinking about posting about it for some time. God comes into it. And I’m getting very close to writing that post. In the meantime, I leave you with some expert commentary. I have to say, the first time I heard this was over 20 years ago, and the phrase, “with nooooo- body watching …” rang in me like a gong. That had so often been my pattern – eat for comfort as soon as I was alone and nobody was watching.

Turn the sound up loud!

It's Bedtime -- Dream a Little Dream ...

2008-07-08T23:44:00.001-04:00

It’s a night for love songs. It’s not that there’s anyone to be playing love songs to. I’d consider volunteers though. It’s just one of those nights. It’s beautiful out – hot and we’re not yet having the forecast thunderstorms. And I’m deeply happy tonight. That makes a nice change.

My plan was Frank Sinatra singing “I Took a Trip on a Train (and I Thought About You)”, but there’s no YouTube of it, and I don’t have an mp3 file of it yet either. This is so high up on the list of second-best that it’s practically a tie. Cass Elliott sounds just lovely on this. I’ve never heard anyone sing it better, and I’m not sure I ever heard her sing anything else better. There’s just a still of the album cover by way of video – close your eyes while you listen and dream a little dream of someone special.

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

2008-07-08T23:23:00.002-04:00

I went to read poetry over at After the Bridge, and wound up playing silly, happy blogthings as well. I love this painting. I was visiting friends at L’Arche tonight, and they showed me certificates they’d been given with this on them.

You Are Best Described By...

Petite Fleurs

By Pablo Picasso

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

Happy Birthday!!!

2008-07-08T00:07:00.001-04:00

It’s Dennis’ birthday!!! Since he reminded me, a few months ago, of something I’d loved and lost, I’m posting it again, for a present.

Help Wanted: Quantum Physics Theology

2008-07-08T00:00:00.001-04:00

Sometime last winter, around Christmas when I was holed up in solitude, I started thinking about quantum physics. That makes it sound like I understand something about quantum physics. Just enough to start speculating. The thing I understand best is that a quantum particle affects other quanta. What happens to one, happens to many, somehow, even the ones on the far side of the universe. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand even how scientists believe they’ve proven that. But, I accept it.

I was thinking about God a lot too, and people. Sometime in there, I decided that perhaps it would be helpful for me, for my behaviour (which wasn’t great at the time), if I thought of myself as a single particle in a larger whole. And you as another particle. And a sheep in Australia as another. (I know what you’re all thinking, especially the Mad One …) Plankton in the Antarctic. The third moon of Jupiter. Everything is a particle in a wholeness.

What that would mean is that my behaviour isn’t just my behaviour. It would affect the behaviour and well-being of all those other particles, in some way I don’t understand. And it would affect the entity of which we are all particles. I keep thinking of that entity as The Singleness. God is The Singleness. At least, that’s what I’ve been trying to keep in my mind and my heart. I’ve been trying to align myself with the well-being of The Singleness, and to act and pray in a way that would increase the innate goodness of it. Heaven knows, I’ve sent enough bad action and energy into it, over the years. And will continue to do so. Even Paul said, “I do not do the things I want to do …”

Since the winter, I’ve learned that there are brilliant scientists and theologians who have been writing about quantum theology. (Hah! Maybe I wasn’t just out there in La-La Land!) There are more books than I can read, and I don’t know enough about the field or the authors to be able to separate the sheep from the goats. If anyone’s got any suggestions, please leave them in the comments box.

Canadian Cultural Icon Night -- Jane Siberry, now known as Issa

2008-07-05T00:14:00.004-04:00

This is for Fran, Jan and Pagan Sphinx.

Jane Siberry’s my age, almost. She’s got this sweet, sweet voice, and her songs are as lovely and complicated and interesting as they come. She’s kind of a cult hit.

A couple of years ago, she changed her life radically – sold all her stuff, changed her name to Issa, which she says is a female variant on Isaiah. As Kate Morningstar, I know that reaching 50 and changing my life and name, the new choice is intensely personal.

For today, for this post, I’ve put Jane Siberry, because it’s also her choice that the music she recorded when that was her name be sold with that name.

Love to everyone. Enjoy. And, good night.

Tracy's Mom Update

2008-07-04T23:05:00.000-04:00

Tracy’s Mom had her surgery today – they started at 8 a.m. The news is all good so far. The surgeon said that chemo had shrunk the tumour, so there was no need to resect any of the bowel. And there was no spread to the stomach or liver. Her Mom’s tired and sore, and they were having trouble finding a bed on a ward to put her in. So they’d kept her in recovery, and the family aren’t allowed to visit patients in recovery in that hospital. Frustrating.

She said thank you for all the prayers. And I say so too.

Prayer Help, Please

2008-06-28T21:47:00.001-04:00

I have a friend, Tracy K., who stops in here pretty regularly, and never comments on anything. At least, not HERE. But we’ll talk on the phone or in person, and I’ll say, “How are you?” and she’ll say, “Disappointed.” First time she said it, I asked why, and she said, “Because you haven’t posted anything new on your blog.” We just went out and sat down in the coffee shop, and she said, “How’s your tiger?” The one in the tiger trap when I fell in. So I told her all about it. Then I found out she hadn't watched the hula hoop video.

Tracy’s Mom was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She’s been having chemo, and it’s been very difficult. MaryJane is scheduled for surgery this Friday, on July 4^th. Please keep her, and Tracy, and her Dad and brother, in your prayers. They don’t actually know what Stage the cancer’s in, and won’t til the surgery. Tracy’s praying they’re able to remove all the visible cancer. I pray for “wellness” for other people, and do my best not to tell God what I think that wellness oughtta be.

I know there are some powerhouse pray-ers out there – I’ve felt the effects. Thank you all for helping.

Canadian Cultural Icon -- Anne of Green Gables

2008-06-27T20:45:00.002-04:00

Nobody says the Icon has to be non-fiction. I was over at Ann’s place, reading the RevGalBlogPals’ summer reading meme, and someone mentioned the Anne of Green Gables books. I was at the post office yesterday, and the Anne of Green Gables stamps are out. It’s the 100^th anniversary this year of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. How much more of a Canadian Cultural Icon could THAT be? So, you get a twofer today.

Anne, for those of you who don’t know, is an orphan who is adopted by a brother and sister on Prince Edward Island. They had “ordered” a boy from the orphanage, to help with the farm work … and they got Anne Shirley instead. She transformed their lives, and everyone else’s she touched, and they transformed hers. That’s the way it should be.

Marilla was strict with Anne, and Matthew adored her and was shy. Marilla thought that the current fashions in women’s dresses were ridiculous and wasteful, and when everyone else had huge puffed sleeves, Anne’s were plain.

Part of the reason I picked this episode is that it’s about wanting something very badly, and being loved into joy. And part of it is, the woman at the counter in the store, when the shop clerk goes to the window to get the dress for Matthew. I do believe that’s my former sister-in-law – she and my brother-in-law were extras in the show.

Catching Up on Canadian Cultural Icons -- Passchendaele

2008-06-27T15:16:00.004-04:00

There’s a whole lot of ways this could be a Canadian Cultural Icon post. For one thing, there’s Paul Gross – a Canadian actor/director/producer/writer/singer. (That's not an official website, BTW.) He played Constable Benton Fraser in the television program Due South (also unofficial) for four years in the ‘90’s – a tall, gorgeous, polite Mountie (even the Mounties found him awkward to deal with in his honesty and diligence) who was unhappily posted in Chicago to keep him out of the way. He played the lead Sasha/Alex in the movie Getting Married in Buffalo Jump, and wrote, directed and starred as Chris Cutter in Men With Brooms. He will be an icon in his own right pretty soon, probably as Benton Fraser.

There is the Battle of Passchendaele itself. One of the horrific follies of World War I battles. Passchaendale is the town the English called Wipers. This is what Wiki has to say (I’ve taken out the links, except for the one to the article itself – you can go there and follow any you want to):

The 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres or simply Third Ypres, was one of the major battles of World War I, in which British, ANZAC, Canadian and South African units engaged the Imperial German Army. The battle was fought for control of the village of Passchendaele (Passendale in modern Dutch, now part of the community of Zonnebeke) near the town of Ypres (Ieper in Dutch) in West Flanders, Belgium. The plan was to drive a hole in the German lines, advance to the Belgian coast and capture the German submarine bases there. It was intended to create a decisive corridor in a crucial area of the front, and to take pressure off the French forces. After the Nivelle Offensive the French Army was suffering from extremely low morale, resulting in mutinies and misconduct on a scale that threatened the field-worthiness of entire divisions.

Although the period of the battle saw spells of good weather lasting long enough to dry out the land, Passchendaele has become synonymous with the misery of fighting in thick mud. Most of the battle took place on largely reclaimed marshland, swampy even without rain. The extremely heavy preparatory bombardment by the British tore up the surface of the land, and heavy rain from August onwards produced an impassable terrain of deep "liquid mud", in which an unknown number of soldiers drowned. Even the newly-developed tanks bogged down.

The Germans were well-entrenched, with mutually-supporting pillboxes which the initial bombardment had not destroyed. After three months of fierce fighting the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele on 6 November 1917, ending the battle, but in the meantime the Allied Powers had sustained almost half a million casualties and the Germans just over a quarter of a million. The Allies had captured a mere five miles of new front at a cost of 140,000 lives, a ratio of roughly 2 dead soldiers per inch gained.

Compounding this staggeringly Pyrrhic figure was the fact that the area was not even considered particularly valuable from a strategic standpoint; in March 1918--a mere 4 months later--the Allies abandoned to the Germans every inch of territory gained at such cost at Passchendaele in order to free several divisions to cover more strategically valuable terrain during the German Lys Offensive towards Ypres.

Passchendaele was the last gasp of the "one more push" philosophy which posited that the stalemate of attritional trench warfare could be broken by brute offensive action against fixed positions. The massive and tactically meaningless casualty levels--coupled with the horrendous conditions in which the battle was fought--damaged Field-Marshal Haig's reputation and made it emblematic of the horror of industrialised attrition warfare.

This fall, there will be a movie released about the battle. I’m going to that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, again:

Passchendaele is a 2008 Canadian movie from Alliance Films. The project is spearheaded by Canadian actor and director Paul Gross. The film was shot in Calgary, Alberta, Fort Macleod, Alberta, CFB Suffield, and on location in Belgium, focuses on the experiences of Gross's grandfather, Michael Dunne, a soldier who served in the 10th Battalion, CEF in the First World War at the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres). The film is set to open the Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2008 and is tentatively scheduled to be released on Remembrance Day, November 11, 2008.

And now, I’m posting the trailer to the movie. I don’t do a lot of serious stuff here on Fridays – but I’m pretty passionate about the stupidity of warfare in general, and of some specific decisions, made by people who are supposed to know better. This is one. You can all draw a straight line from here to the things that require our attention and prayer in 2008.

Ooops!

2008-06-27T14:57:00.000-04:00

Geez Lou-Eeze, I been away too long. I get A Prairie Home Companion in my e-mail on Fridays – never thought to link …

Don't blame me ...

2008-06-27T14:50:00.001-04:00

You know why women often seem to be more in touch with God?
Because they ask for directions.

Gee, I wish I’d thought to do that sooner …

Blame Wendy H. of Massillon, OH, who sent it in to “Nothing Like a Good Joke” at A Prairie Home Companion on NPR.

I'm Sorry

2008-06-26T15:38:00.001-04:00

I’ve had e-mails from a couple of you – I owe thanks and some apologies. I kind of fell into a tiger trap (that’s how the bad times feel) and this one already had a live tiger in it when I landed – there were some current family issues, and some difficult anniversaries. I’ve been spending time daily with people who are on the journey with me, in church or walking the spiritual path in other ways. When it was nice out (and boy, that’s been rare) I’ve been getting outside in the heat and the sunshine and walking a lot, or just sitting on the grass. When it’s not been nice, I’ve been getting caught outside, sans umbrella, in thunderstorms (my favourite brown dress seems to be a jinx). And if I’m INSIDE during a thunderstorm, I won’t turn on the computer ...

I promise to have a Canadian Cultural Idol tomorrow, and post something longer than this on the weekend.

I know that some of you have had me in your prayers – I’m more grateful than I know how to tell you right now. Thank you, and even though I’ve been off the intertubes, you’ve been in mine too.

Friday Night Canadian Cultural Icon -- Rick Mercer at the Arctic Winter Games

2008-06-07T02:23:00.003-04:00

Okay – it’s Saturday morning, not Friday night. I went out with friends tonight and saw the 9:20 showing of the Sex and the City movie, which takes two-and-a-half hours. It was Saturday by the time I got home.

Tonight’s Canadian Cultural Icon is Rick Mercer. He’s a political comedian out of Newfoundland. He used to be in a group called CodCo; then most of them started a show called “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” on the CBC. It was a take-off on a news commentary show from the ‘60’s, called “This Hour Has Seven Days”. “22 Minutes” satirizes Canadian life and politics. One of the best segments was Rick Mercer’s Rant. It was so good, he got his own show. It started out as “Rick Mercer’s Monday Report” or RMMR – but now it’s on Tuesdays.

He does more than satire now. There are a lot of different Canadian cultures, and he introduces us to ourselves. In this segment, he’s in Yellowknife, covering the Arctic Winter Games. He doesn’t just show you people doing the sports and cultural activities – they try to teach him how. This is a double-dose of Canadian Cultural stuff tonight – you get the Games and Rick Mercer.

One of the things I really like about living in Canada is that our tax dollars, through the CBC, have always funded really good political satire, and it’s widely heard (on CBC Radio) or viewed. Free speech in action.

PJ's "Song that makes you go Yeah" Meme

2008-06-06T17:45:00.003-04:00

PJ has a stay-at-home meme, the “post a few lines from a song that makes you go yeah” meme. Pray ‘em if you got ‘em for her – she has a birthday party full of seven-year olds and a visit from in-laws in the near future, and an article that’s not been going well.

My 22-year old niece was here today, helping me out with a big stack of clothes that needed sorting through. Basically, this meant I tried things on and she watched YouTube videos and was the talking mirror – yes, keep that; no, that doesn’t do anything for you; no, you must never, ever wear that colour; that’ll work again if we take in the side seams …

She left this video up when she left and I just love it. So I watched it three times, and found the lyrics via Google. Here’s the lyrics:

That life is too short to be unhappy
And since I know what I'm worth there'll be no settling for dirt
Not when what I deserve is gold
If I want diamonds then I can't settle for coal and

Maybe I was just too strong to let go
Maybe I was just too weak to let it show
Maybe I was just too stubborn to say "No"
But whatever the case I can't take it no more

And here’s the video. If anyone had ever told me I’d be posting a video by Fatboy Slim, I’da said, “Who’s Fatboy Slim?” But, VIOLA!!! The video’s really great – pretty girl; happy things going on. Enjoy!

A Gift from a Good Friend

2008-06-06T01:08:00.002-04:00

Oystercard sent me this video, months ago. I had conversation with him tonight – he seems to be suffering from oxygen deprivation of his brain in the Rockies somewhere, and he hasn’t updated his travel blog in QUITE SOME TIME.

Even if he were around, Erin Bode doesn’t quite fall into his mandate, so I’m just going ahead and posting the video and saying thanks to him for it. She’s lovely, she’s got a lovely voice, and it’s one of those kinds of love songs. I think I remember from something else – she’s married to the saxophonist.

Things to Be Grateful For

2008-06-03T00:05:00.003-04:00

It went up to about 24C/80F today, first time, and it was sunny. My mother-in-law’s in a nursing home two or three miles west of here. I haven’t seen her since Mother’s Day, and I had a thank you note in a card with a picture on the front by someone she really likes. So I put on a short denim skirt, a white top with a scoop neck and cap sleeves, and my good training running shoes, and no sunscreen, and walked out to see her.

My mother-in-law’s very special. Drives me nuts sometimes, but really – I was kibitzing with my husband at one point early in our marriage and threatened to go home to my mother. He laughed out loud and said, “Yeah. Right.” So I said, “Then I’ll go home to yours,” and he said, “She’d have you, too.”

She sews most of her own clothes, and she used to design and make costumes for the little theatre. She and my Mum were in little theatre together in the last ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Mum took time off, and went back in the late ‘70’s, and both of them took their children along. My husband and I assumed we met when we were adolescents, but we don’t remember meeting til our early 20’s. We were both seeing other people then, but a year and a half later we were both going at speed through a completely dark hallway backstage – from different directions – and crashed into each other. I don’t remember the physical impact so much as the inner impact – “He’s MALE!” That was in 1979. Two people can hurt each other enough that a light goes out.

My mother-in-law made me maternity clothes, and when the baby was born she put zippers in the front of the jumpers so I could nurse discreetly. I have an eating disorder – I was back-diagnosed as “self-medicating a severe post-partum depression”. I didn’t like it the day I’d got on the scale and seen 285 pounds – so I stopped getting on the scale. When I weighed close to 300 pounds, my mother-in-law was still making me clothes, prettier ones than I could find in a store. I lost almost a hundred pounds 15 to 20 years ago, then stuck for a very long time, and lost the last of my overweight last year. My mother-in-law would still make me clothes, but she had a stroke a few years ago, and doesn’t much anymore.

She got sick last summer and went into hospital, and while she was there, there was a mistake in her medications and she became suicidally depressed. She wouldn’t get out of bed, and the original problem was food poisoning – she simply lost the physical strength to get up and walk. She went from an acute bed in a hospital to a nursing home last October. She got out to my sister-in-law’s for Christmas dinner, but she slipped and cut her leg. She’s 85 now and her circulation’s not good. Her leg’s only just healing. They’re going to send her home to her apartment very soon, when the cut’s sompletely healed.

I hadn’t seen her very much last fall. My Mum had died; my stepmother had died; I’d left my husband and we’d moved him and our son out of our old home; my aunt was in hospital, then hospice … I went to see her twice in hospital, and told my sister-in-law, “I just cant.” She understood. So, I hadn’t seen my mother-in-law in most of the weight-losing process. Until Christmas Day. I walked in the door and into her arms and hugged and kissed her, and she looked at me and said, “Oh! Oh! Your mother would be so proud!” And then we cried like little girls.

I dressed partly to catch some sun today, and partly, because I dress brightly when I go into nursing homes. We talked for an hour-and-a-half before I had to leave. I hugged her and kissed her, and she pushed me away a little after, but held on, so she could get a good look at me. Then she said, “There ought to be crowds of men following you everywhere.” The separation was my decision – I do know my husband would never have left me. There are things I’ve felt I need to be forgiven – I’m pretty certain I have been, some of them, today.

I stopped at the supermarket on the way home, and bought oatmeal and coconut so I could make my Dad’s favourite cookies to take when I go Wednesday to weed his garden and cook supper. I stood there in the bulk food section, trying to decide if it looked like three cups of oatmeal, and wishing they had the other kind that needs cooking longer … and I looked at the scoop of oatmeal in my hands and started to cry. Life just swirls around and around.

It's Good to Have Company

2008-06-03T00:04:00.001-04:00

I’m so glad you all stopped in today, those who did. When I was here this morning, the StatCounter was stuck on 00000666.

P.S.

2008-06-02T01:21:00.001-04:00

Turn up the sound LOUD for the David Wilcox video ….