Saturday 12 December 2020

resolutions

 It's mid-December and although the days seem to pass so slowly, the weeks fly by.

It's Saturday again and Brian has headed to the Moss Street Market.

I went out early this morning to walk; the second day in a row, following the same urban route that has enough hills to make me feel I've accomplished something. When nearly home, I told myself that I should do this 5 days a week, and that I should stick to it.  

And then my dislike for shoulds and resolutions struck!

Walk...lose weight...cut back on wine consumption...keep away from U.S. political news and, of course, the computer. And on and on.

Resolutions centred on me and my wish to improve and my need to be resolute in keeping to my self-promises.

An online dictionary defines "resolute" as follows:

 "res·o·lute 

admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering. "she was resolute and unswerving" "

To be "unwavering" and unswerving"  is very far from how I wish to proceed in my life.  Where would be the adventure? The chance encounters. The listening to and the embracing of new ideas. 

These personal firm decisions, resolutions waiting to be broken, or at least, bent. And then, of course, disappointment in my failures, disappointment in me.

Someone in the neighbourhood* has a large Gratitude Tree in their front yard with daily messages inspiring appreciation. Borrowing from the Advent tree format, each morning there is new positive action for the day.

                             DAY 3: Be fully present during conversations
  
 
                              DAY 7: Provide encouragement to someone today

These daily messages inspire and motivate us to look beyond ourselves. To look to the greater community and how we can spread kindness and caring beyond ourselves and our circle of friends and family. How, in this time of isolation and restriction, we can still reach out.

We can reach out, and by doing so, we not only support others, but it comes about that we nurture ourselves at the same time.


When I was a child growing up in Montreal, we occasionally traveled to New York City.  We stayed at a hotel and across the street was a restaurant that had a donut-making machine. My sister and I would stand and watch the donuts moving along a special conveyer belt, fascinated. I remember that there were two large cutout images of a man, each one holding a donut and the words beneath them saying, "As you travel through life, my friend, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole". 

If I were to choose a resolution for the new year, that might be it!




*Michael Cunliffe. 

Sunday 22 November 2020

forever




Does it help that I went shopping at the Red Barn at 7:30 and boiled and grated 6 eggs and cut up apples for sauce and cooked a piece of cod for Zara?

 And roasted red peppers to go into the hummus I'm making.

And did a load of laundry.

Does it help?

No, this frantic busyness doesn't help.

It just makes me more exhausted.

Nothing helps my sadness at the passing of my beautiful dear niece. 

Nothing fills the hole in my heart. 

All of our shared texts are still on my phone.

Photographs of her are on my computer screen.

All I can do is breathe. And, to remember.  

And leave all the tasks I started this morning, undone.

And go for a walk to the beach.


Andrea, you live in my heart forever.

May her memory be for a blessing.

Friday 6 November 2020

Zara

 Two weeks ago something happened that is gradually changing my life. More accurately, I am noticing   ways in which I have structured my days, especially during these challenging times, and I'm making subtle changes.

Zara, a nine-year old rescue cat, with her calico coat feeling like silk, was delivered to us in a pet carrier on November 25th.  In a series of happenings, remarkable and auspicious, caring and persistent, she found her way into our home and into our hearts.

We always had cats when we lived in the Cowichan Valley and all of these lived outdoors, spending time with us in our gardens or on the deck. Now we live in Victoria on a busy street.  I have seen cats die as they darted across the street, so Zara needs to remain indoors.


When I sit down, Zara often leaps onto my lap. I am learning to allow myself to sit quietly, stroking her face and neck.  My rushing to do something or other, disappears.  Well, not completely, but the urgency does.

The laundry can rest in the washing machine for 1/2 hour before I transfer it to the dryer. 

 (It's sitting there now!) 

Sitting by the door leading to the basement, Zara waits patiently for Brian to open the door so she can explore a cluttered and varied world. After 10 or 15 minutes she is ready to come upstairs and find a place to rest.  Maybe have a mouthful of food first.

It makes me smile, as gramps used to take our grandkids downstairs to make things and, this year, to play a rowdy game of conkers.  In this game from Brian's youth, each person has a horse chestnut attached to a string and, simply put, the gamers try in turn to destroy their opponents' chestnuts.

After coming upstairs this morning, Zara headed to a warming patch of sunlight streaming through the window onto Brian's bed.  As the light shifts it is likely she will shift as well.

Another learning for me. Twofold really. To look at the urgency I assign to non-urgent matters. The" I must do this today" refrain.  Do I really?  I've got to make my bed first thing in the morning! Do I really have to?

 Instead, I may sit by the fire for a while. Or, sit quietly and meditatively create dry needle-felted rocks  and bowls. 




(As an aside: Zara has come downstairs to sit in a patch of sunlight on the living room floor.)

Animals spend their time "being", not looking ahead. 

Zara doesn't worry about how she appears to others. Yesterday she leapt onto my friend's lap, never assuming that she wouldn't be welcomed. 

Am I that confident of acceptance?  

I'm learning to have around me people whom I trust and care about and to keep the negative chatter in the very deep background. And sometimes I forget. 

And, Zara is here to remind me.

And as her student, I'm reclaiming the joy of self-nourishment. And, when I forget, watching this beautiful calico, reminds me.








Sunday 18 October 2020

words

 


Traditionally, dictionaries added words once a year, as our language evolved and changed. 

Today tech terms slip in and, to Scrabble players' delight, slang seems more prevalent.

We might see "social distancing" among the S's and I wonder if Random House or the Oxford Dictionary might consider capitalizing HOAX?

Of course "Real Dictionaries", the ones made of paper and when opened,  take up an entire shelf, are passé. These dispensers of words are now online. And up-to- date.

"Anti-Vac",  "QAnon", "conspiracy theory" are there.

However, rather than increasing my collection of words, I've been considering instead the words that have fallen out of my own personal dictionary.

"Browse". "Spontaneity". "Visit". "Hug". "Travel".

And "running to the grocery store to pick up a single item for a special dish".  The lemon I have in the fridge will have to substitute for the missing lime's more preferred flavour.

I'm now buying two jugs of milk instead of one jug, if the date is good.

And wondering if London Drugs still has  seniors' early shopping times so I can buy my favourite coffee from Cuba in a mostly empty store.

"Concentration" is another word slipping from my dictionary.

I have a great selection of unread books, collected from a neighbouring church's weekly sales. I have barely moved the bookmark in the novel I've started. 

After 1/2 hour I get up to do the laundry or to go online to see the latest outrage concerning Trump. Then it's time to think about supper.

Oh, first I'll need to check for emails.

And, although I won't soon read the books I have already, I may return to the sale again to reinstate browse into my life. To be with several other masked people who love books and, for the moment at least, become part of an acceptable social gathering.

My mantra: 

Brian & Stella


*Do what brings joy to myself and to others....(we are getting a cat!) 

*Eat well and don't drink too much wine...(and, make sure it's a good wine!)

*Be creative...in the garden, in the studio playing with wool, and with words.

*Say "Thank you" "You're welcome" and "I love you" often.

*Be gentle and kind to others and remember to do the same for myself.



*And, although it seems as if a door has closed during this pandemic, I try to remember to look out the windows.



My computer is dying PLUS my blogger site has been changed so that I'm not able to add photographs as before........I hope I can figure things out for next time!  On my new computer!








Saturday 29 August 2020

obligation

"For almost six months since mid-February, I haven't picked up my camera. Not once. Yes, I needed a break. No, I don’t think to be a “real photographer” you need to pick up the camera every day. I don’t think we owe the camera any obligation at all; it's there for us, not the other way around." 
(from David duChemin vision@craftandvision.com)
                                                                                              
WHAT!  REALLY?!

And then, in his following newsletter,  he continues saying that our passion "for this craft doesn't have to be a roaring bonfire all the time."

WHEW!

But, I'm not reading either. 

I say I'm going to and then I find myself in the den in front of the computer.  It's too often MSNBC or CNN or Mother Jones to keep abreast of the horrors that Trump is lavishly spreading. I make up that it's more disciplined that watching things unfold on television.

I heard an author speaking on NPR this morning saying that she's in a fallow period: neither writing nor reading.  She feels this is because of the pandemic. 

Another symptom to go with coughs and fever.




This morning I made another attempt at clearing off the pile of papers and magazines at the end of our pine dining table. It's large, so it's easy for it to become a sort of ad hoc filing cabinet.

I flipped through a July issue of Boulevard, and was struck by a series of full page images of five professional women. The article was to "highlight gorgeous local fashion and focus on finding silver linings in this unusual and difficult time."

The fashion stylist said that the "silver lining" for her has been that she "has been using this time to re-connect with" herself and her family. Another said it had given her the opportunity "to fall in love with my life - my life as it is." The makeup artist expressed that the slowing down has allowed her to "realign with what really matters."


Nothing terribly original, I thought. And then, one thing struck me.

Not one of the women was smiling!

I realize that this must have been an editor's decision; however, it seemed to show the shadow side of these women's words.

I'm making up that if these same professionals were again interviewed eight or nine months from now, the reconnecting with family line might not appear quite so often.

And, remember, I'm making this up.

Whereas today a QAnon conspiracy protester in Germany carried a sign that read "End the plandemic immediately", inferring that COVID-19 was a hoax, I am under no such illusion.



I have read that the pandemic will be here for almost two years: longer if rules intended to stop the virus from being spread aren't respected.

So, today I'm considering recharging the battery on my camera and deciding whether to read or to walk around my garden.
   



Friday 29 May 2020

change

The question I keep asking myself is will there be change in how we are in the world after the transition from lockdown to full engagement.

Will we translate what we have learned into action?

Will the knowledge that pollution levels have dropped significantly, that marine life has returned to the waters of Venice and the skies are alive with bird song, move us from simply noticing to action?

I fear that memory is short where profit is paramount.

Memory is short when the President of the United States works in partnership with the oil companies and makes the Environmental Protection Agency a joke.

Memory is short when natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados and excessive flooding aren't connected to global warming but rather as a few isolated freak storms.  When fires racing out of control are accepted as the way things are.

I've read that working from home will remain frequent and Zoom, the norm.  But will it be because workers like working in their pajamas or because of the great savings to benefit the company. Less office space needed and meetings that require no travel. No hanging around the water cooler.

I've read recently about a company that provides a system where the Boss can monitor the devices of staff members to see that they are not cruising the net and "wasting time". Employees need to be told that they are being monitored, however they have few options.

I've also read that shopping on line has peaked during the pandemic and that stores will need to woo their customers back.  Already we see large companies closing.

A friend went to The Bay a few days ago, just after it it had reopened. There were signs saying “Touch only what you’re interested in buying” or something similar. She said that it was enough to keep her from flipping through the hangers, especially as she had read that the virus stays longer on hard surfaces.

Looking at all the merchandise, she was struck by its excess. So much "stuff" and so very little of it even remotely necessary. I couldn't but think of my wardrobe, where my "good outfits" of black tops and pants were gathered from Eileen Fisher stores in Phoenix, Az between 2000 and 2010.

Another friend said the owner of a small store emailed that she would meet one-on-one with customers and talked of retail therapy.

And finally, a young woman waited in line for 1 1/2 hours to shop at HomeSense on the first day of its reopening.

WHAT??!

I've noticed a great deal about myself during this time of social distancing directives.

*I realize how much time I spend on my own: walking, photographing and working in my garden.

*And I notice how talking over the fence to my neighbour is important to me.

*And how I spend too much time on the computer and not enough time reading.

*I notice how I miss the spontaneity of racing to the store to pick up an ingredient I'm missing.  And how I can usually do without it.




*I miss touch and a hug.

*And I miss printing with Patrice, sitting side by side, working together on a photograph.


Constraints about travel have greatly affected what is important to me.

*I so want to visit my dear niece and support her during her health struggles, however I can't fly or even cross into the U.S.

*A wonderful celebration on Galiano Island for my daughter's 50th birthday is cancelled because her sister can't come from Israel.

*Will my love of Havana and my beautiful hosts slowly slip away as I won't be traveling to Cuba for the foreseeable future?

These things I can't change. Mourning won't alter their truth.



The Buddha said "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it".

I understand how fortunate I am for having my senses alive to the beauty surrounding me. To notice the shadow designs hosta leaves create in the late afternoon, the small ant moving in the center of a single white peony, and the remarkable way a succulent changes again and again during its life cycle.

To be awake.

To feel deeply, even when it's painful.

And always to connect with people, sometimes in untravelled ways.









Wednesday 22 April 2020

I am fortunate


We are into our second month of near isolation. Two months of keeping at least 6 feet away from friends, grocery store workers and strangers who are out walking as we are.


Two months of hand sanitizer, gloves and wipes. Two months of unsatisfactory Zoom connections and sadness as our family can only communicate through technology.

Two months recognizing again and even more fully how unbelievably fortunate I am: I have a life partner, a home, and the financial ability to care for ourselves and to give to others.

I have two daughters and their families who I love dearly.

I am fortunate:

-a citizen of Canada.
-a resident in Victoria.
    -a gardener.

My garden has always been my sanctuary, my oasis of peace, and never more so than now.  During April,  I repotted plants into larger containers, unfurled the rolled leaves on our apple tree, squishing those black worms hiding there, and then hand-pollinated the white and pink-tinted blossoms with a soft paintbrush.  It seems the bees aren't plentiful again this spring.

I've dug up some plants to share with my neighbour and with other gardeners.  This is like sharing a favourite recipe, giving enjoyment and leaving a legacy.

I've weeded and divided and trimmed back.

I am fortunate:
-a citizen of Canada.
-a resident in Victoria.
-a  gardener.
-a photographer.


I see things more clearly and feel more deeply when partnered with my camera.

Yesterday, I again visited my newfound corner of the Cattle Point area, where rocks meet the sea,  and where striations are reminiscent of magnificent and subtle abstract paintings.

I hurried down as I wanted to photograph while the sun was hidden by clouds.




When I returned home 1 1/2 hours later, I downloaded 250 images to my designated photograph-only computer. During the afternoon and evening I edited these down to 111 and that's only the first run-through!  I will likely weed the photographs saved to 50 later today.



It is not the photographs that are ultimately important, rather, it's the time I spent looking and seeing and being present in the moment.  Fully engaged. In isolation.



As I've heard from others, my lofty plans to tidy my clothes drawers haven't materialized. I organized my socks! A couple of partly-filled bins sit in our t.v. room, waiting to be topped up with more winter clothes and then stored. A bag of spring clothes deemed "good but not for me", were gathered mid-winter to go to a consignment store, now closed. And a table with 2 boxes is laden with goods for my participation in the Oak Bay Garage Sale - Garagellenium XXI, June 13, 2020 - which will most likely be cancelled.

On Monday, I arranged two phone call appointments with friends. While speaking on the phone is not something I relish, it was a real joy to connect.  A joy to listen and talk, with no agenda. I realize that email has nearly erased this pleasure from my life and I need to remember this even when this strange time is over.

Will I?

And, although I am engaging in activities that give me pleasure, I am still lonely.

I can't lean over the fence to chat with my neighbours. And while I've walked with a friend, with her following 6 feet behind me, it feels weird. I can't converse with the staff I've come to know well at For Good Measure, except by email when I order my food to be measured and bagged for me. And it makes me sad that I've chosen to curtail my twice-monthly volunteering at the food bank at St. John the Divine Church. I miss the clients I have worked with over these many years and especially now as the need is so great.

The vulnerable in our communities are always struck the hardest, and this pandemic vividly highlights the inequality in our city.  My donations to the Rapid Relief Fund and for bottled water for the homeless at Topaz Park seem almost like a cruel joke, in their minimal effect. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says every morning "We are here for you" the meaning seems to be that we are here for just some of us.

It is a sad time when a doctor on Victoria's front lines says, on radio, that the the homeless at Topaz Park need the oversight of Doctors Without Borders to be safely cared for.


I am very fortunate, indeed.

As Arundhati Roy wrote in an essay: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans 
to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”



Saturday 4 April 2020

isolation

Covid-19. Three weeks into isolation.  Six feet between people, if,  in fact, you meet anyone on the street or during the restricted hours in stores deemed essential services.

I was at my local supermarket, Pepper's, this morning, 10 minutes before their 7 a.m.opening time for seniors and those who are vulnerable.  I had come to buy  hand sanitizer made in a cooperative venture between a local distillery and a company that makes herbal products. The bottles were right by the door so I was waved in with the warning "shhhh....don't tell anyone!"

Back home, I slipped a CD into my CD player and started folding my laundry. It was a Barbra Streisand CD from 1997 called Higher Ground, that I had purchased from a thrift store many years ago and that I had tucked away and never listened to.

As track 3, At The Same Time, played, I was amazed by the lyrics! "Think of all the hearts beating in the world at the same time" was the main refrain.

Barbra's words in the insert to the CD read:
"I adore the lyrics of this song, which reflects exactly what I think: knowing how fragile the planet is, how fragile souls are, and how desperately we need unity. Look how the world came together after Princess Diana's death.  We all saw how people need to be close, to love each other, to cry together, to feel together.  I wish we could live like that all the time, without having to wait for tragedy to strike."

Yes, knowing how fragile the planet is .... and how desperately we need unity.


Then and now and always.

And, in order to stay as healthy as we can be, and to help others do the same, we must move our physical selves away from one another.  We must have no less than six feet between us. And, we are beginning to cover our faces with protective masks.

Food Bank clients at St John the Divine, must wait outside for their dry food order and for bags of fresh food that are passed out to them.  The vulnerable unsheltered in our community get meals served to them outside of Our Place on Pandora Street and camp out in tents.

Yesterday, a friend gave me a donation of two $20 bills for the Food Bank.  Today, I was chastised for not immediately disinfecting the paper money and then washing my hands for the one- minute hand- washing protocol.

The world has changed drastically and so quickly.

We are in the midst of the phenomenon called physical or social distancing.  While this isn't as restricting as complete self-isolation, it seems just baby-steps away.

The word  "isolate" comes from the Latin word "insula", which means "island", and definitions of isolation include  "separation",  "segregation", and "not connected to other things."

Panama exemplifies these definitions with its new measure to combat the virus. Starting on Wednesday, only women will be able to leave their homes to shop on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The men's days for errands are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The time allowance is limited to two hours.

Everyone must remain home on Sundays.



Solitude is a different thing all together.

Vocabulary.com says about "solitude":
 "'Solitude" is the state of being alone. You might crave solitude after spending the holidays with your big, loud family — you want nothing more than to get away from everyone for a little while...........The word solitude carries the sense that you're enjoying being alone by choice."

Solitude frees the mind from distractions and may enhance creativity.

Supporting this, Abigail Brenner M.D., in her article "The Importance of Being Alone", writes that "spiritually, being alone may bring you closer to your inner being, allowing you to more readily access the creative and intuitive aspects of yourself."





And, Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, referring to solitude writes:
“But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.”




Further explanations infer that solitude is a state of being alone without being lonely, whereas loneliness is a negative state, marked by a sense of isolation.

Okay!! Enough!

The question for me is how I can ease my often painful sense of isolation to a place that more resembles solitude.

Earlier this week, a friend sent me a text to set up a 9 a.m. phone date for the following morning. She told me that she tries to do this every day.  I am definitely not a phone person....so what can I do to move closer to personal engagement?

I was introduced to someone on Facebook who posts a "prompt" on her page every day to engage her friends. She writes a word which might be a colour, a descriptive word like "rise" or, today's choice "wind", and people post their visual interpretations.  I look through my photographs on the computer and choose one to post.

At first I thought I might start something similar on my Facebook page to involve some of my on-line friends, and then I realized that playing on Franny's Facebook page was absolutely perfect!

I'm thinking that a story time "game" might be fun.  I will choose a few willing friends to play what we did as kids and even young adults, where one person started a story and stopped at a crucial place passing the story on to the next person who then added a bit and then passed it on again. An email
game?  Or might it work on Facebook as well?



Either way, it will be engaging.  A connection.  A stretch towards something and out of isolation.








Wednesday 11 March 2020

saying goodbye

I am trying to bring some order to a few shelves in our library and to sort through papers and half-filled notebooks.

Of course, this becomes simply an excuse to look through piles of notes carefully tucked into file folders marked "save".

It is also a time to utter "OH, that's where it is", although the purpose of finding it is long forgotten.

For a short while, when vacationing in Sedona, my friend Nancy and I met to spend a couple of hours together writing.

We followed Natalie Goldberg's model from her 1986 book, Writing Down the Bones. We would choose a word or two as a prompt and then say"Go!", generally spending between 5 and 10  minutes on each exercise.




Keeping the pen moving.  No crossing out.

Then we read our short pieces to each other.

Today I found one of my notebooks from that time.

Warning!  This writing burst from 2001 is entirely unedited!


  * a photograph from 1998

"saying goodbye

The cycle of life - beginnings and endings hellos goodbyes
birth. youth, adulthood, old age and then death.

Holding on doesn't help, really
time is stronger than my fingers,
grasping, tugging.

The hours, the days and the years,
the calendar from 2000 replaced by 2001
to be replaced in a week, it seems, with 2002.

Here I am at a crossroads again
preparing to say goodbye to our life in Sedona.
12 years wintering here among the Red Rocks.

It is time.

It is time to say goodbye with grace, with love, with understanding.

Understanding that my body is old-
older that it was in 2000
My limbs more fragile, more complaining.

Understanding my life is less adaptable
to the coming back and forth into 2 different cities,
two very different existences.

Goodbye, not only to Sedona,
but to my more youthful self, my stronger body.

Saying goodbye to one thing is really an opportunity to welcome a new beginning.

If there is no void, there can be nothing new appearing to fill the space.

Goodbye and Welcome!"


                                        old in 2001?   old at 58?   no way!

Here I am in 2020, having traveled four times this past year to Havana where I gathered images for my 2019 solo photography show, Fragments.

Here I am in 2020, still working hard in the garden while continuing to do small acts of kindness in our community

                yes, "My limbs more fragile, more complaining." but still not old!