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Cheryl Andrews
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Author: carin
things that stuck
What he taught me:
Keep your vice closed at night.
For anyone without a dad-with-a-workshop, a vice is a clamping gizmo attached to the work bench… He obviously had great hopes for my future in carpentry.
Nail biting and driving don’t mix.
The deal was he wouldn’t teach me to drive until I stopped biting my nails. So I stopped. Then he taught me to drive by yelling at me from the passenger seat. This did my nails no favours.
A parking lot is the most dangerous place in the world.
Especially during the holiday season…
Happiness is a warm potato.
I once found him sitting on the stairs between the kitchen and the back door, eating a just-boiled potato with butter and salt. He shared it with me and as I sat there on the floor with him I thought — I knew — it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
Pioneers did too have aluminium foil.
They apparently wrapped their just-caught, so-small-it’s-barely-legal fish in foil then tossed the package into a hole dug behind their rented cabin and lit a bonfire on top, which, by the way does exactly diddly squat as far as cooking fish goes.
Do not answer a question, any question… with just one word.
It’s bloody rude!! he explained. (I think he might have regretted the lesson when I started answering simple questions in paragraphs and chapters.)
Spider!!!!! sounds like Fire!!!!!! when shouted by a small child from her bedroom in the middle of the night.
And when what’s been shouted is clarified, the dad who has rushed into the small child’s bedroom, will say oh for christ sake, is that all but will take the spider outside before going back to bed.
If you get a chain letter and aren’t sure whether to make-ten million-copies as-instructed-or-you’ll-be-hexed… call the library!
Because the library knows everything. This was pre-internet but, still, libraries continue to trump in my books.
♥
He also showed me that sitting can be an art, whether taking a break during or after hard work; it must be done with pleasure and deep contented sighs, coffee or tea, silence or words, alone or in company, and entirely without guilt. And that if you need a thing you haven’t got, see if you can make it before you go out and buy it. Not to save money but for the satisfaction you get from being clever and using stuff that’s just laying around anyway. He taught me about seeing and wondering and imagining impossible things that might just be possible and he showed me how to laugh until my stomach hurt in the best way and that even the strongest, tallest people in the world will cry sometimes.
In the months before he died I sat with him, a sense of pleasure at being in his company, thin contented sighs mixed with something else, often in silence, with tea, reading Emily Carr’s Growing Pains , holding his hand as he slept.
The things that stick.
earth to sanity, come in, sanity…
I read an article this weekend, a piece on something called ‘earthing’. You’ll be forgiven if you don’t know this means walking in your bare feet. Outside.
It talked about how earthing makes us feel connected to the earth and how we instinctively know this is A Good Thing. Researchers (yes, researchers in walking barefoot) have named this knowledge “Unconscious Evolutionary Intelligence”. Because (I’m guessing) researchers like naming things. And if this isn’t exciting enough, it seems that science is now discovering what is happening to us, biochemically, when we earth. Early findings confirm what instinct has long instincted: walking about in nature feels nice.
The article goes on to say more research is needed (naturally!), to more fully understand how earthing works… but what they DO KNOW at this early stage is that, generally, it’s a good thing. (They used bigger words but that’s the gist.)
They cite health benefits and say that being in nature is becoming the new Vitamin N. (N for nature).
Health benefits. From nature. Imagine.
Also… it appears that walking in nature is more relaxing than the same amount of walking on concrete in a crowded city. Significant results in improved mood, for example. Apparently even just looking at nature has some effect (as through a window with a view of trees vs a brick wall; studies show the tree people felt less stress).
Is your mind blown yet?
Or are you thinking: yeah, sure, it sounds good, but how do I do it??
Fortunately, the article ends with an instructional, telling us that if you want to “get grounded with our planet’s surface” all you need to do is (are you ready for this?)… simply sit, walk or play outdoors.
Am I going too fast?
Okay, more slowly this time.
Earthing 101:
Sit.
Walk.
Or play.
Outdoors.
In your bare feet.
But, FYI, if you’d rather not do it in bare feet, you can buy Earthing Shoes with conductive powers. Or if you’d rather not do it outside at all, there are Universal Earthing Pads to put under floor mats. Or Earthing Sheets and Mattresses. Or Earthing Auto Seat Pads if you’d prefer to connect with the earth from the comfort of your Chevy.
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Otherwise, this weekend found me swimming in the rain to Brahms. I’m not sure what that’s called.
Also reading on the living room couch in a house with open windows while afore-mentioned rain continued most of the day and a door somewhere, slightly ajar, kept tap tapping against the frame, which made me remember the house I grew up in where windows were always open and doors often tapped like this. I associate the sound with fresh air. I have no idea if this activity has been named, or even discovered for that matter.
I planted pots of scented things on the patio… valerian and helitrope and meadow sweet and my favourite: apple geranium. All purchased from a grower who does not use neonic’d seeds.
Was I aromatizing? Scentographing? Maxi-fragrancing?
I cut chicory and arugula and kale for a salad lunch, and ate outside. We do have a name for this one; we call it “having lunch outside”.
And when the sun came out I hung laundry in the backyard (sheeting?).
Despite soggy conditions, I earthed while I did it.
the story of my name
Oh, you spell it with a ‘c’…?
And an ‘i’…?
Well isn’t that different.
At which point I usually say yes, I guess so. My dad’s idea. He read it in a book. It was his turn to name the baby. My mum named my sister. Mary.
I was supposed to have a middle name. Lynn. No idea why. Another book probably. He liked the idea of how the two went together Carin Lynn, almost Carolyn but without the commitment.
But he forgot to mention the middle name at my christening or when they did the paperwork. Something.
I’m glad actually. I like having only one name.
Until I was ten or eleven or twelve, I thought that name was Karen. My parents were immigrants and when they enrolled me in school, the school wrote my name as Karen. My parents didn’t want to upset the apple cart with their weird immigrant spelling. They wanted to fit in. And so they let it stand. Never mentioned a thing to anyone, including me.
Until I was ten or eleven or twelve when, for whatever reason, they said Oh, by the way, you know your name is actually spelled with an ‘i’.
It is?? Well I’ll be darned.
So I started spelling it Karin. I still have a few notebooks and report cards that shows this progression.
Then in grade eight or nine I needed my birth certificate for some reason and noticed the Carin spelling.
What’s that about? I’m not sure who I asked. My mother probably.
If she was stirring something at the time she didn’t stop. What do mean?? That’s your name, what do you think it is? Stir, stir…
I suggested it was a little weird, didn’t she think???, that I was just now finding out how it was spelled. She, apparently, did not think it was weird.
That may have been when she told me the story of my name.
Or maybe it was my dad who told it.
Either way, it’s good to know how to spell my name. I’m glad I only have the one. And I’m glad it was my dad’s turn to pick.
My mum said her choice would have been Brunhilda.
wordless wednesday
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Cheryl Andrews
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the sweet blather around us
“So did Japan bomb Pearl Harbour… or Halifax Harbour??”
Discussion among three teenaged schoolgirls, studying together
—Pickering Library (11:35 a.m. to noon):
I was going to buy a notebook [laughs], obvious, like, all this stuff we’ve learned, like, like, Imperialism, tests are easy, I don’t, oh, FaceBook without WiFi, nothing’s working??? click on something, I’m on a profile, wow I can’t go on mine, search, no internet connection, quiet revolution or whatever it is, civil rights, on TV, all I know, page 246, looking over my stuff, didn’t study hard, so nice not having to study, after science, history tomorrow, so simple, whatever, no WiFi, there is WiFi, here, don’t know anything about Nellie McClung, wasn’t she, speaker, fought for women in the kitchen, right to vote, go on page 40, like she was, women’s christian temperance movement, in french, oh, whatever, I thought it was WTCU, or women’s temperance christian union, or is that just the same? Halifax explosion, bombed harbour, only know from going to Halifax, and time of Germany, Hitler came out of nowhere, sided with Japan, U.S. got cheesed off, Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbour, Canada got mad or whatever, Japanese people being treated bad, Pearl Harbour so close to Canada and so are they going to bomb Canada also? No, Halifax Harbour, oh. I think it was an accident, I got confused when she said Pearl Harbour, I kept thinking of Halifax, so Japan bombed Pearl Harbour or Halifax harbour? bombs in water, remember in Finding Nemo they had those chairs? have to know about bombing, I lost a whole section, who were the Bolsheviks? wanted higher salary, revolution in Russia, communism, I found prohibition, WCTU during war, proposed factories, used wheat for food for soldiers and ammunition, 1918, WWI or II? What time period??
wordless wednesday
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Other Wordless Friends—
Cheryl Andrews
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Barbara Lambert
Allyson Latta
Elizabeth Yeoman
i’m nobody’s gardener
I don’t garden.
I plant things and do what I can to keep the weeds at bay. 
But the weeds usually win.
I used to care. Used to fret about weeds winning. It used to be that I couldn’t sit on the patio after working for hours in the garden, fretting and fussing and weeding, couldn’t sit down at last and just say, “Well, that looks good.”
Because I’d notice something askew. Or how the tall blue things were in front of the short yellow things.
I used to care that delphiniums fell over in the rain.
Then one day I got rid of the delphiniums.
And anything else that was a bit precious. Or incapable of weathering the weather.
The yard became less garden and more Place Where Things Grow or Don’t Grow; It’s Up To Them.
Oh, what a happy day when I stopped being a gardener and started being someone who could sit on the patio at the end of the day and say, well isn’t that a lovely sight.
Without fretting about colour combinations and bloom time and height and things keeling over untidily.
Untidy is hardly noticeable in my ungardenly garden. 
So if things are lovely, it has nothing to do with me.
After I stopped being a gardener, I sat on the patio one night and said out loud, “Well, doesn’t everything look wonderful”, and a young girl who was on the patio with me said what a funny thing for an adult to say. “Usually adults complain about things,” she said.
So true.
Because we think we’re in charge.
wordless wednesday
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Other Wordless Friends—
Cheryl Andrews
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Elizabeth Yeoman
how myrl coulter and me are both the same and different when it comes to birthdays
Myrl Coulter’s ‘Those Pesky Natal Days’ (one of the essays in her lovely collection A Year of Days) begins like this:
“The human ritual of marking individual birthdays started with the advent of the calendar, when people began to track time according to the sky, to notice when it got dark, when it got light, when the moon appeared, and when it didn’t.”
She continues with some background to the origins of birthday celebrations, considers the idea of birth and what, exactly, we’re celebrating, then moves into her own personal likes and dislikes about the occasion.
This just happens to be one of my favourite things to discuss and so instead of responding out loud to the pages from a park bench, which only frightens passersby, I decided to bring the conversation here.
Warning: the following might not be suitable reading for traditionalists, or anyone who shops at The Party Store.
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How We’re Slightly Different:
Coulter says she doesn’t like the Happy Birthday song. Calls it grating and trivial with only five words to the lyrics, and a sixth to be added by the singer. “The sentiment is a tedious repetitive demand to be happy.”
Hard to argue. It’s not the greatest piece of music ever written (she tells us the copyright is worth five million dollars), yet I sing it loud and proud to a circle of lucky souls each year. And they do the same for me. And I kind of love it. When I was a kid the song made me cry. I think that had more to do with how my parents liked to go through the whole day pretending they’d forgotten what day it was and then after dinner a cake would come out, a few gifts would appear, and the song would be sung. Tears of relief followed. To be honest I still weep a little, though for different reasons now.
How We’re Very Different:
Coulter enjoys planning parties for friends and family. I don’t like parties. (Could I plan the party and not attend? Because then I could get into it.)
How We’re the Same:
She describes how kids’ parties have changed, how today they have themes and décor and tapenade and rules about everything. She says it used to be simpler and I get the feeling she prefers the simpler.
Me too. Pin the Tail on the Donkey; pound cake with rosettes and a misspelled name; (what’s a loot bag?? kids go home with extra piece of pound cake)
How We’re Different:
Preference for simplicity aside, she says she’s actually impressed with these parties but relieved that her kids are grown and she doesn’t have to throw them.
Me: I am less impressed than cringey at the very idea. I once organized a birthday party for a nine-year old in a bowling alley. Lunch was included. Plus bowling. Plus a few jokes from my repertoire. And I pretended to enjoy myself. (There was lunch, I mentioned that, right?) When the parents arrived to pick up the little darlings, they asked where was the loot bag… I had no idea what they were talking about. Can’t even remember how I answered. But there was a distinct ‘attitude’ as they left. (Hey, there was lunch!!)
How We’re Really Really the Same:
She says she likes other people’s birthdays but not her own, that the thought of it approaching actually tightens her throat.
I know just what she means. And it’s not an age thing. It’s an expectation thing.
She writes:
“To distract myself after that initial birthday thought wanders in, I start thinking about how I want to spend my day. My first idea is always the same: I just want to disappear. No obligations, no hanging around to receive birthday wishes, no smiling when I really fell like roaring into the wind”
I get that. I hate handing my birthday over to someone else (shades of childhood trauma, i.e. late-in-the-day cake?)… I think that’s a lot of pressure on the other person and anyway, it’s my day and I want to be responsible for it. I’ll make the dinner or the reservation or run away somewhere, or take a friend… I’ll give the gifts, I’ll bring home a cake, I’ll light the candles. You can sing if you like…
And Here, More Same than Different:
About gifts, she says:
“I don’t like opening birthday presents, especially in front of the people who have given them to me, who sit in my line of vision smiling with eager anticipation.”
For me, it depends on the circumstance, because some people are a delight to share these moments with. But then there are those others, the ones who have pretty much given the gift for what they get out of your reaction, which better be what they expect.
“When I open gifts in front a large group of people, what falls into my hands is secondary, because I’m hoping that my smile is big enough, that I’m not over-reacting or under-rewarding my donor, that I’m appropriately grateful without resorting to an ‘I’ve always wanted one of these’ gusher statements. I wince when I recall times I have gushed.”
Agree. I would love it if birthdays were a time to give rather than receive.
We’re Different:
She says birthdays ending in zero or five are toughest.
They make no difference to me. Numbers are not my thing.
Yet We’re the Same (Is anyone Different on this one?):
“The frenzy exhausted me. Surrounded by people I love, I looked forward to the moment they all left.”
And this:
“What I do know is that the day after my birthday will be a good day. I will feel normal again, relieved, and somehow refreshed.”
It’s that kind of essay. Sits you down and says, so what about you?
—So what about you?
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A Year of Days is available online at Blue Heron Books. Shop indies! ♥
Matilda Magtree 