Is it bad form to blog a Christmas message to your loved ones? I don't know and, in a maelstrom of emotion, one loses all perspective. One day you're bumbling along and it's November; the next time you look up the count down to Christmas is dangerously near single digits and the card and donation request pile is blithely undisturbed.
This morning I did that. As I swung my feet to the floor it was the first time in weeks that I did not feel like I was stepping off a roller coaster and I opened my eyes to the good intentions blanketing my dining room table.
2016 was an emotional roller coaster which glided to a peaceful stop this weekend. My 60-year-old brother died after his valiant struggle with stomach/esophagus cancer. He was at home until the last 36 hours, ever positive and witty and enjoying his visitors. I was honoured to spend much quality time with him and his family on that precarious, emotional ride. And, yes, I am glad it is over for him and everyone who loved him.
So Christmas will happen again this year, if a little weary and tattered around the edges. A new year will be rung in and life will go on, as it should.
2016 was also an important year for Peter and I, as we celebrated 40 years of wedded bliss with a European river cruise. It really was worth it. (The trip. The marriage..... just kidding.) We also travelled to Mexico in January, Calgary in May to meet Caitlin's Mom and enjoy the hospitality of Darren and Caitlin in their new home, and moved to the cottage for the extended summer months where we enjoyed visits from many friends and family. Peter got in plenty of snowmobiling last winter and hunting and ATVing in the fall. Mom and I visited Dawn and Mary Anne in Florida in January and I was able to fit in my three weeks of Avoiding November in a Florida Condo with great girlfriends and Jackie. I have also enjoyed many weekends away with ski girlfriends, quilting friends and my sisters.
Jackie and Serge are always welcoming and I take advantage of the mother-in-law suite more often than I probably should. It's just that there is so darned much good entertainment to take in in Toronto. Now that Mary Anne has moved to Barrie, she may tire of my frequent visits but I am really hoping to fit in some skiing at Hardwood Hills some year before she departs for the warmth at New Years. Not this year alas but some day....
She and I are going to fit in a lecture by Ian Brown downtown and The Nutcracker at the Four Season's Centre this week, battling the elements all the way likely. But hey! Life is short and meant to be lived. Bring on the Sugar Plum Fairy in her sparkly tutu and tiara.
I'll be hugging my loved ones a little tighter this year and, if that means doing it through cyberspace, so be it. My one wish is for good health for all. (And maybe a little less bluster from south of the border please?) Merry Christmas, Elaine (and Peter).
Monday, December 12, 2016
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Whoo-Hoo
The sun is shining brilliantly on red, orange and yellow leaves and I am lucky to view them in two directions from my favourite chair. This alone is enough to calm the soul and make one thankful for all we have but the autumn display is also the harbinger of a zen confluence of far greater magnificence. It is hunting season in Northern Ontario and the women-folk have been "abandoned" to their own devices.
Disclaimer: I know women who have bagged all manner of moose, deer and bear. They look forward to hunting season as excitedly as I, for different reasons. These are amazing women and I wish them well out there. I don't understand them but nor do I claim to know why some people like scrapbooking, running marathons or, heaven forbid, playing the bagpipes.
Never mind that hunting widows have been counting sleeps and mentally ticking days off calendars. Every year the weeks of preparatory guy phone calls, assembly point of all things camouflage and lethal and final exodus of trailers full of enough food, ATVs and alcohol to tax the sustainability of those tiny tires fill me with a delightful anticipatory thrum. Every year I find myself writing essentially the same blog about this most wonderful time. I can't help myself. It is my equivalent of the athletic airborne heel-click; the fist pump; the Facebook gush.
And what, you may ask, do I spend those precious days doing alone. In all honesty, not much. Except it is all about me. I get to finish sewing projects uninterrupted, read through mealtimes, watch girlie television (thank-you Netflix) to my heart's content and dine on the culinary delights of smoothies for breakfast, creative salads for lunch, popcorn and ice cream for dinner. I've been known to rip apart an entire room, paint it and get it back together before he gets back home. It is always interesting to see how long it takes him to notice the change in colour.
So wish me well in my solitude. I may be alone but I am never lonely.
Disclaimer: I know women who have bagged all manner of moose, deer and bear. They look forward to hunting season as excitedly as I, for different reasons. These are amazing women and I wish them well out there. I don't understand them but nor do I claim to know why some people like scrapbooking, running marathons or, heaven forbid, playing the bagpipes.
Never mind that hunting widows have been counting sleeps and mentally ticking days off calendars. Every year the weeks of preparatory guy phone calls, assembly point of all things camouflage and lethal and final exodus of trailers full of enough food, ATVs and alcohol to tax the sustainability of those tiny tires fill me with a delightful anticipatory thrum. Every year I find myself writing essentially the same blog about this most wonderful time. I can't help myself. It is my equivalent of the athletic airborne heel-click; the fist pump; the Facebook gush.
And what, you may ask, do I spend those precious days doing alone. In all honesty, not much. Except it is all about me. I get to finish sewing projects uninterrupted, read through mealtimes, watch girlie television (thank-you Netflix) to my heart's content and dine on the culinary delights of smoothies for breakfast, creative salads for lunch, popcorn and ice cream for dinner. I've been known to rip apart an entire room, paint it and get it back together before he gets back home. It is always interesting to see how long it takes him to notice the change in colour.
So wish me well in my solitude. I may be alone but I am never lonely.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Summer Meanderings
Is there anything more bliss-inducing than finding yourself free of obligations with a comfortable chair to nestle into, a stack of interesting-looking books at hand and time to just let your mind wander? Freed of the monotonous soul-sapping thankless drudgery of running a household, the unexpected potentiality is somewhat daunting.
I am contemplating just such a delicious, precarious pile of tomes of eclectic persuasion, gleaned from the basement archives of the Powassan Library, commonly known as the used book store. Into this cool little cave are regularly deposited everything from the contents of Grandma's cottage bookshelf to the detritus of the departing college student. Such has been the largesse of donations lately that library staff had begun to beg anyone who looked like a volunteer and could employ the enviable skill of alphabetizing to please, please have a go at weeding out some of the less saleable material and shelving the rest.
So it was that I recently gamely headed down, only to emerge hours later with the bounty described above, now perching on the side of my desk. The cost of such a treasure is a donation of my own choosing. And while I hope to assist in the basement again I can't imagine it happening any time soon. If I get my nose into any one of my chosen dozen--and my butt into said comfortable deck chair--I fear I will be listed as AWOL by family and Facebook friends and library staff needing a hand.
A stunning, possibly mind-boggling array right? Ahh.
*****
The charms of summer have their ways and I have learned it is best to go with the serendipitousness. If company cancels, one should immediately freeze the planned meal ingredients, check that the supply of hot dogs is bountiful and dive into the nearest book. Thus it was that I found myself on the cottage deck with tears of laughter rolling onto the pages of David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable. It is an autobiographical collection of humorous essays by a former Canadian living in New York.
At one point, he riffs on the matrons who attend the couturier shows during fashion week as only a gay man can. Even though that scene is so far out of my milieu I can envision "those fabulously wealthy Ladies who actually buy and wear the dresses. They are a small group and, as far as I can tell, not related, but it is extraordinary how many of them look as alike as sisters. Perhaps it is their universal whippet thinness, the shared knife-blade noses, or the full, pillowy mouths. Or is it the look of constant surprise in their unnaturally wide, unblinking eyes? The Ladies are an uncanny cluster of genetic coincidence..."
No matter the topic, be it "the indignities of coach class, the torments of low thread count, the never-ending quest for artisanal olive oil and other First World problems", the book's subtitle, he succinctly documents our truths and ridiculousness in an intelligent David Seders-like style.
Sadly my discovery of this author has been tempered by research into his other publishings. They stopped abruptly in 2013 due to his death at 47 from cancer. So even though I have sworn off restocking my recently decluttered book shelves, I may have to make an exception in this case and scour about for all his works. Don't tell my husband.
*******
The other lovely discovery of my summer has been another Canadian author, Robertson Davies. (Also dead but at least he lived into his 80s and left us a bountiful trove of trilogies, novels and plays.) I am happily in the middle of The Cunning Man, enjoying the talent of a true wordsmith as he moves his story through Sioux Lookout and Toronto. I wonder if Canadian Lit students are studying him these days. In a way I hope not. Although he is a treasure I would hate to think of how the joy and artistry would be beaten out of his works in a typical high school novel study. Maybe better to spread free copies of his works around cafes and the internet for young people to discover.
Or convince them to spend some quality time in the new or used sections of a library. Happy reading.
I am contemplating just such a delicious, precarious pile of tomes of eclectic persuasion, gleaned from the basement archives of the Powassan Library, commonly known as the used book store. Into this cool little cave are regularly deposited everything from the contents of Grandma's cottage bookshelf to the detritus of the departing college student. Such has been the largesse of donations lately that library staff had begun to beg anyone who looked like a volunteer and could employ the enviable skill of alphabetizing to please, please have a go at weeding out some of the less saleable material and shelving the rest.
So it was that I recently gamely headed down, only to emerge hours later with the bounty described above, now perching on the side of my desk. The cost of such a treasure is a donation of my own choosing. And while I hope to assist in the basement again I can't imagine it happening any time soon. If I get my nose into any one of my chosen dozen--and my butt into said comfortable deck chair--I fear I will be listed as AWOL by family and Facebook friends and library staff needing a hand.
A stunning, possibly mind-boggling array right? Ahh.
*****
The charms of summer have their ways and I have learned it is best to go with the serendipitousness. If company cancels, one should immediately freeze the planned meal ingredients, check that the supply of hot dogs is bountiful and dive into the nearest book. Thus it was that I found myself on the cottage deck with tears of laughter rolling onto the pages of David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable. It is an autobiographical collection of humorous essays by a former Canadian living in New York.
At one point, he riffs on the matrons who attend the couturier shows during fashion week as only a gay man can. Even though that scene is so far out of my milieu I can envision "those fabulously wealthy Ladies who actually buy and wear the dresses. They are a small group and, as far as I can tell, not related, but it is extraordinary how many of them look as alike as sisters. Perhaps it is their universal whippet thinness, the shared knife-blade noses, or the full, pillowy mouths. Or is it the look of constant surprise in their unnaturally wide, unblinking eyes? The Ladies are an uncanny cluster of genetic coincidence..."
No matter the topic, be it "the indignities of coach class, the torments of low thread count, the never-ending quest for artisanal olive oil and other First World problems", the book's subtitle, he succinctly documents our truths and ridiculousness in an intelligent David Seders-like style.
Sadly my discovery of this author has been tempered by research into his other publishings. They stopped abruptly in 2013 due to his death at 47 from cancer. So even though I have sworn off restocking my recently decluttered book shelves, I may have to make an exception in this case and scour about for all his works. Don't tell my husband.
*******
The other lovely discovery of my summer has been another Canadian author, Robertson Davies. (Also dead but at least he lived into his 80s and left us a bountiful trove of trilogies, novels and plays.) I am happily in the middle of The Cunning Man, enjoying the talent of a true wordsmith as he moves his story through Sioux Lookout and Toronto. I wonder if Canadian Lit students are studying him these days. In a way I hope not. Although he is a treasure I would hate to think of how the joy and artistry would be beaten out of his works in a typical high school novel study. Maybe better to spread free copies of his works around cafes and the internet for young people to discover.
Or convince them to spend some quality time in the new or used sections of a library. Happy reading.
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