Well, everything changes all the time, and that includes me. I don't work any more. Except for some things I like doing. That'll change too -- my savings are exhausted. I'm really happy. I have some ideas about what I'm doing next, but it's not time to share them yet.
I don't know whether to continue with this blog. I started it a year ago because I needed to work some things out about what I was doing and living with. I've stopped living with the things that were wrong for me.
I think this is a long leave of absence -- but I'm not sure. I'm sorry -- I don't know what to say.
This is so cool.It is grey, chilly, damp today in southern Ontario.It’s not supposed to be, at the end of May, but it is.And The Weather Network SAID it was 19C today – but it sure didn’t feel like it.I felt about appropriate to the weather, and I took my camera out to walk the South Shore Trail and see if there were any trilliums left.If not, what there is.I didn’t make it to the trail though – when I woke up this morning I got a bad cramp in my left leg, and it took me a while to realize it was still bugging me.All I knew was, walking was uncomfortable.
The only cheerful thing was a house with wisteria.Not the deep purple kind I love best, but wisteria nevertheless.First I’ve seen this year.Somehow, as I walked into the village and back, I started to think of Shug Avery telling Miss Celie in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple that she thinks God just wants to be admired.Then I started to notice how many purple flowers there are today – lilacs, irises, periwinkle, violets, pansies, columbines, wisteria, tulips.I ran out of memory or battery on the camera before I got to the lilacs – got to smell them though.
I started taking pictures of all the ones I could. The woman at the wisteria house came home from work while I was taking pictures – I asked her if she minded, and she said no.She said, they’d never been as good as they are this year, and she doesn’t know why the one branch in particular was so spectacular.The woman at the Brew-Your-Own-Wine-And-Beer store came out and asked if I was a professional photographer, and I said no, just taking the pictures to make myself happy, and did she mind?Nope.She even offered to come and take MY picture in HER garden!
Then a man with a dog stopped to talk, while I was taking pictures of the hidden purple pansies – it wasn’t his house, it was his friend’s.He said her garden is whimsical.He lives around the corner.His wife had passed away last summer, aftermore than 40 years.He’s a photographer, and gave me his card so I could see some of his work online.Wow!He’s a PHOTOGRAPHER.Me – I’m making myself happy and learning how to use my new camera.We talked about living alone after decades of marriage, and the difficulties of cooking and eating alone.He has a very nice dog, too.
Then I came home and SAW my pictures.They made me very happy.I wanted to share more of them than I can easily on the blog, and I wanted them big, on a black ground.There was no help for it – had to be PowerPoint.I hate PowerPoint presentations at seminars, in school, in church …And, I’ve never done one.But I DID today, and I did it myself, without asking for help.Then I wanted to upload it here, and found out that’s not as easy as picking up a video from YouTube.I followed links to several sites that are supposed to help you make your PPT files embeddable – one’s not taking new subscriber’s, one didn’t work, one I’d have to start from scratch …Ugh.But I was happy, excited and persistent, and VIOLA!!!Here they are.Well, some of them.I took about 60 – I’m not making you watch them ALL.I won’t be test-driving this til I’ve published – if the pages advance every five seconds like I set them, it should take about a minute.
So -- I met three new people and one very nice dog. I learned two new things. I not only stopped to admire the colour purple, I went looking for it, and I'm sharing. I don’t think God’s gonna be pissed off with us today.
Margaret Atwood is certainly a Canadian Cultural Icon.She’s been publishing since the early 1960’s – she has a terrific volume of much-honoured public work.When I was in high school in the early 1970’s, we read Surfacing.When I was in college we read Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature and The Edible Woman.Lady Oracle is still one of my favourites, and my sister has every Atwood novel, first edition, hard cover, usually autographed.I’ve been reading poetry this year, and I have Morning in the Burned House and The Door on my bedside table right now.
This is a list, from Wikipedia, of her published novels and books of poetry – there are short stories, anthologies, children’s books and non-fiction also listed.
She’s an activist – a feminist and environmentalist.I tried to find a link to her reading some of her own work – but I found this video instead, and I like it.
This video has all the earmarks of being illegally recorded on a cellphone.The colour and brightness and focus are bad.The sound’s not really great either.The song’s kinda mushy too.
But it’s a totally classic Anne Murray song.One of the best.She has a fabulous voice.She still looks, after all these years, like a phys ed. teacher, in a good way.And face it – if she’d been a phys ed. teacher, she’da been the one you loved.The one you could ASK stuff – even the hard stuff.
This was recorded last month, in Moncton, New Brunswick, which isn’t far from home for Anne.The sound worked a little better for me when I turned it down on the computer, and let the speakers do the work.Enjoy!!!
Last night was one of mine.I got home late and cold, after a too-long day, even though it had really good stuff in it.I hadn’t had supper yet, so I was hungry.I struggle with there not being anybody THERE sometimes – I pray, and there are people I talk to, on the phone or by e-mail – but someone THERE, physically present …I’m still not over living with my son and my niece, and all their friends around all the time.And my present circumstances mean, I don’t have any pets.Something’s gotta change here, and I’ve started shifting something to make the change happen.
I did some of the right things – ate.E-mailed someone else who absolutely loves me, and told how I was feeling.Started looking a little outward at something someone else was struggling with.And – this is hard to admit.Knowing that what I need was time with God and not being willing to take it.Because, I knew if I let go and told God everything I’d cry again, and I just didn’t want to.I was feeling defiant, is maybe the right word.Crying is getting old.
But I did go looking for God.And I found what I needed – funny how that happens, isn’t it?It was the picture that hooked me first.I only skimmed the story a little, intent on going back to the picture.Something about the first paragraph caught me, and I read it carefully, and the whole rest of the article.Then I read it all several times, and rested in the certain knowledge that, no matter how awful and alone I may feel, it is not possible to be in a place or time where God is not.
After that I wrote and thanked the person who pointed me in the direction of this.(I’m keeping her anonymous here, but some of you may recognize the editor of this blog.)Saying thank you is very important – the most important thing we can do.And I e-mailed some more with the person I’d told on myself, got to the point where it was fun, and I felt warm, sweet and happy by the time I fell into bed.God IS good, and always there, and sometimes I’m even willing to find that out.
Family Stuff can be so hard to deal with; and it’s rewarding or heartbreaking; and God’s always in it.A lot of this is family stuff that rose up before and around Mother’s Day.That was a weekend full of listening to people and trying to carry their messages on to others, and there was no time and I was tired, too.I took a course in DivCollege once, called “Group Spiritual Direction”.Every Saturday, 9 – 4, for several months – theory in the morning and small group practicum in the afternoon.We were trying to learn to listen with God’s ears – I thnk last weekend that bore some fruit.It all turned out much better than it could have.I grew, at least, some gratitude and compassion for a couple of people who’d only brought aggravation to me before (and they did last weekend too), and the beginning of cordial relations with one of them.I’m not talking family here – these are people I volunteer with.
Okay, on to the family stuff.Mother’s Day has always been kind of an ache.I spent too many Mother’s Days cleaning the house and cooking so HIS mother could have a nice Mother’s Day, and I didn’t get to see mine, and no-one ever offered to take ME out for brunch or supper or anything …My Sister-in-Law at some point took over hosting Mother’s Day dinners – I think so we could cook on the barbecue for the first time all year.Still – I was THERE – didn’t feel like I got to make choices.It all made sense – that SIL and one niece and one nephew all have birthdays to celebrate in May too – we did ‘em all at once.Now I don’t have a Mum any more, and our son works 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on alternate Friday, Saturday, Sundays – and the alternate was Mother’s Day weekend.
What I do have is these amazing in-laws.Almost two years ago, my husband went and told his only sister that we would be separating, and I’d be the one moving out.She had told me and another SIL years earlier how grateful she was, “that my brothers married the sisters I always wanted to have.”The day after he told her we’d be separating, I talked to her on the phone, and the conversation ended with her saying, “Married to my brother or not, I still love you and you’re still my sister.”We’d already kept another SIL one of her brothers had divorced.And the youngest brother was home from far-away places in September.He was 15 or 16 when I started dating my husband back in 1978.We were sitting alone in the garden in the dark, and he said to me, “I heard about you two.I’ve done it twice, you know.No matter what happens, you’re always my sister-in-law.”My mother-in-law has offered to lend me money, should I need it.Holy mackerel.
I’ve gotta tell you – two years ago, I hated my husband, because that way I could make everything be all his fault.I worked VERY hard on seeing what my part was, and cleaning up my side of the street.Not for his sake – so our son could have what I didn’t – if he ever gets married, both his parents will show up and be polite and friendly with each other.And, it’s hard to show up at your SIL’s place for Christmas dinner if you can’t speak to your ex.
It’s not always easy.I’m the one who made the choices about separation, and I’m the one who left.I feel a lot more “separated” from my husband, internally, than he is from me.So he walks into the room and says Hi to me, and rubs my back or shoulder the way he always has – and I freeze.I haven’t figured out how to say, “Don’t ever touch me!” without sounding awful; and I guess I haven’t moved past some things enough not to want to say it.There was also the really good tickets for an event that someone gave him – something we used to do together – the first person he thought of to ask to go with him was me.(He’s a very good man, better than me in a lot of ways, and I can’t live with him.)I didn’t want, or have, to say, “Don’t ask me to go out and spend six HOURS with you!”I got to say, truthfully, I work all day on that day of the week.
So – I got invited to Mother’s Day dinner at my Mother-in-Law’s apartment, and my niece was cooking, and I went and was happy and grateful to be there.My MIL’s been in hospital or a nursing home since last August – there’s some hope she’ll still be able to go back to her apartment.And the person who was supposed to replace my son at 6 a.m. didn’t, so he stayed til 3 or so, when they got someone there.I expected he’d go sleep, but he went home and showered and changed and came back to be with us.Told me, his Mother’s Day present to me would be. my niece is gonna teach him how to make me a new apron.(My current favourite apron is 15 years old, a little grey down the front, and has at least three holes burnt through it – but the strap frayed off entirely in the last washing, and I thought I’d just replace it – he thinks I’m nuts.)
On the Monday, Dad saw the specialist for his liver.They’ve got him on a regimen of diuretics now that’s keeping the fluid levels in his body down.The crisis in March was that there was so much fluid in his belly cavity, he couldn’t eat or breathe.I talked to him after – he’s got blood work this coming Monday, and an appointment with the specialist a month after that.That means the specialist thinks he’s gonna live at least six weeks.Good.I called my sister after – she SEES Dad more than me – and said, “How is he, really?”Being so ill has left him very tired and weak.Her partner says, “He’s in really good shape for a 97-year-old man.Trouble is, he’s 77.”
Then I said to my sister, “I have something else I have to ask you.”She laughed, and said, “Where’s Mum?”Yup, that was it.When our mother died, they held her ashes in the funeral home, to be interred whenever my stepfather’s were.I hadn’t seen much of my stepfather in 2007, and his memorial service was two weeks after our aunt’s.I couldn’t cope, and didn’t go.I hadn’t realized – I didn’t know what cemetery or where.My sister said, “You know this is my busiest time of the year at work – in June, I’ll take you.”Then she told me where, and that there was a nice view of the wetland – this one, from the other side. My sister and me, that's a relationship that needed some healing too. I'd prayed about it a lot -- there was something that I need to apologize for that I haven't -- and I'm not sure what it is. She says family doesn't need to apologize -- that is, in itself, kind of a heavy weight to carry.
I was missing my Papa too, my Mum's father, this week. He died in 1976, when I was 21. He was the Rock in the family. I always thought I remembered him with rose-coloured glasses on, but all my cousins do too, so it isn't just me. There's some 8mm film around somewhere with him in, although mostly, he was doing the filming. I don't have the films though. So I went looking for people talking about their grandparents, and I found this lovely video. Hope you all enjoy it; and I hope and pray every one of us had a grandparent we feel this way about, and maybe we get to be grandparents someone will feel this way about. And that we have churches that feel like this too -- this whole sermon is full of joy and blessing for me.
I found this at Mimi’s, and SHE said, From Paul, who got it from Padre Mickey, who got it from Caminante, and on and on, but that's as far as I'll go:
It's very hard to remember these things, if you've been reading for decades -- there are some titles on this list here that I looked and looked at, and I can't tell you if I really read them or not ... What would be fun would be to talk about which ones we did and didn't finish reading, or read again, and why.
What we have below is a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Anna Karenina The Brothers Karamazov Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies War and Peace Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife The Iliad (excerpts in school) Emma The Blind Assassin The Kite Runner Mrs. Dalloway Great Expectations
American Gods A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Atlas Shrugged Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books Memoirs of a Geisha Middlesex Quicksilver Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Just because I’m going away doesn’t mean you don’t get a Friday culture pick.Well, this one’s easy.I really wanted to put “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy” up here, a Gordon Lightfoot epic from the 1960’s.It’s beautiful, and I love it, and I have a kind of love-song attachment to it, which I won’t go into here.It takes a long time though.
And this “Song for a Winter’s Night” is just sweet and lovely.MadPriest has a Send In Your Favourite Love Song thing going on now – this is in my Top Five.Haven’t sent him one yet though.
Song For A Winter's Night Lyrics Artist: Gordon Lightfoot (Buy Gordon Lightfoot CDs) Album: The Way I Feel
The lamp is burnin' low upon my table top The snow is softly falling The air is still within the silence of my room I hear your voice softly calling If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love Upon this winter night with you
The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead My glass is almost empty I read again between the lines upon each page The words of love you sent me If I could know within my heart That you were lonely too I would be happy just to hold the hands I love Upon this winter night with you
The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim The shades of night are liftin' The morning light steals across my windowpane Where webs of snow are driftin' If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love Upon this winter night with you And to be once again with with you
