muy lindo

bird brain

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

All monkey minded during yoga in this morning’s mugginess.

Cardinal sings at the very top of a skinny birch; it’s hard to focus on my Om so I focus on his.

But my mind is slippery today and the moment it wanders, the bird is gone.

the postman brought all that

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

Here’s what I love:

— that someone went into a shop and chose an image from a rack or a shelf

— that they had to get stamps too

— and a pen

— and then find a mailbox

— the whole process maybe taking a day or two, the postcard in their pocket or bag until they found a place to sit down and write it out… a cafe, no, a trattoria, or a park bench surrounded by pigeons, piccioni… all the while a small connection between sender and sendee—not to mention a trace of Italian sunshine still there in the corner…

I love all that.

Before I even read a word.

So grazie, young travellers, for knowing how much this would make us smile!

define treasure

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A few weeks ago I got an email from Allyson Latta, asking if I’d be interested in participating in her Seven Treasures series, which, she explained would amount to simply listing a few items that, for whatever reason, I couldn’t part with.

I was delighted with the idea of course, honoured to be asked.

At first what came to mind were the obvious things when one hears the word treasures—i.e. pirate loot and pots of gold.

But given that I live in a world of stones collected from the beach, feathers that appear magically at my feet, and a few pieces of art… there’s not a lot of lootish takings to list. And anyway, things that can be bought are never the real treasures, the value attached being purely arbitrary, an abstract created by some vague entity. Not to say that a treasure can’t have monetary value, but I think that quality is incidental, secondary at best.

So next my thoughts went to treasures so valuable they don’t need mentioning—the people and animal ones.

But they don’t need mentioning. (Have I mentioned that?)

Which brought me to the most interesting list of all: treasures I didn’t know were important to me until someone asked.

I was surprised by what surfaced. (The bowl I ate popcorn from as a kid? Are you kidding me? This is what I’m attached to??) But no, of course not the bowl, but what the bowl represents, what I think about every time I see it in my own cupboard and remember its position on the second shelf above the flour and sugar tins, in my mother’s. I remember where I ate that badly burned popcorn, made in a beat-up aluminium pot (used only by me for, um, badly burned popcorn)… what I watched on TV, the pages I turned with buttery fingers; I remember the coolness of the basement, the sound of my dad’s lawnmower through the window, my mother sewing in another room. I can’t remember the bowl being used for much else. Maybe it was, but it felt like mine. How privileged I feel now to have been given this ‘space’ of my own—space the size of a bowl—yet large enough to hold the sound of my mother’s sewing machine.  No one, including me, could have guessed what a gift it was.

It’s always this stuff that matter most, things that connect us to ourselves in ways we hardly know, and that might otherwise be lost.

So this is what the lovely Allyson has so beautifully and thoughtfully presented on her blog.

My seven were first up.

And I see that Rebecca Rosenblum’s seven have just been posted. (Oh that spider plant! Of course. How could she ever get rid of it? It’s like a tiny striped pet!)

Lovely idea, this. And such fun. Both the writing and the reading. And a great question to ask yourself or family and friends. I sent an email to a few friends recently and was amazed with what they wrote back.

Happy excavating!

friday the thirteenth

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

Starts with a massage.

My occasional luxury of choice. (Which really isn’t a luxury at all if you talk to Hippocrates.)

No complaints there. Even though the massage therapist tells me she’s not a morning person. I worry momentarily about cold stiff hands and lethargic moves, yawning from above, but she turns out to be great. Even gives me a couple of tips:

1) buy a timer to remind myself to stand up at my desk now and then, move about, roll my shoulders, breathe, etc.

2) get a new mattress every ten years.

So I go to the dollar store and buy a timer in the shape of a pear and while I’m in line I think about evolution and wonder if humans accidentally stopped evolving a lot sooner than we were meant to. I mean, everything else in the universe seems to have the sense to remember to roll its shoulders without the help of plastic fruit.

The woman ahead of me has two baskets filled with what I recognize as the fixings for loot-bags and I remember the first birthday party I organized for my stepson. He was nine. We did the usual: cake, lunch, games, arts and crafts, then a trip to the bowling alley for some five pin action. At the end of the day, as the parents started arriving to pick up their kids, and as we waved and said bye bye now, you little darlings, one of the kids said: so where are the loot bags? I had no idea what he was talking about. Last kid party I’d attended I was nine myself and the only thing I brought home was a piece of cake wrapped in a soggy serviette.

From there I take my still squishy, flushed, massage face with its massage table indentations to the library where I hope not to frighten small children. I smile the smile of the freshly massaged who have three books waiting to be picked up:

Gould’s Book of Fish: a novel in twelve fish, by Richard Flanagan
Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, by Joan Didion

I wander over to the free-giveaway shelves where I find a bumper crop of Canadian Gardening magazines. It would be selfish to scoop them all so I sit down and flip through each one in order to choose. Then scoop them all. (I paint a rosy cast over this unbecoming behaviour by telling myself I’ll return them to the giveaway shelves once I’ve finished reading them and have become a brilliant gardener; it could be a while…)

There are also a number of French books, including dozens of Harlequins, which remind me of a friend who once told me she learned French by reading stacks of Harlequins while living in Paris. I grab one for her for old times’ sake and one for me, as a learning aid.  Also find a copy of Gabrielle Roy: De quoi t’ennuies-tu, Eveline?  The cover shows a matronly woman in feathered hat and fur collared coat, a snow-covered field and two small houses in the background. I like it already. Er, that is… Je l’aime deja. (BTW, I had to google translate that, which tells you all you need to know about my French; I can only pray the Harlequin will do its magic.)

I should be heading home now but instead find myself entering a little second-hand clothing shop. The woman sitting by the till is covering for her daughter who has pleurisy. She’s taking care of her grandkids also. She looks tired. She lost her husband in February and helping her daughter keeps her mind off things, she says. I tell her she must remember to look after herself as well and she nods, smiles, says no one sails stormy seas forever. When I knock over a display with my shoulder bag she calmly fixes it while I apologize and worry about any teacups in the debris. She says no, nothing breakable, laughs, says it happens all the time. She’s one of those people. I’ll bet it doesn’t happen all the time at all.

I buy a floral print jacket in lime green and pale pink. An odd choice given that I mostly wear black with occasional splashes of white or grey. Never prints. Especially flower shaped ones. (Could it be that I picked up some weird pourquoi pas? c’est printemps! vibe among all those books with their covers of feathery hats, heaving bosoms and holiday themes…?)

By now it’s almost lunchtime so I decide to get some rotis and fish cakes from the Carribean place next door, and a new thing called ‘doubles’—a spicy chick pea wrap.

At home I pick dandelions in the garden, sorrel leaves too, make a salad and watch The Big Bang Theory, which I admit I’ve developed a slight addiction to.

I write.

I hang sheets.

I tidy the yard and make a note to buy more seeds.

Later I will have a glass of chardonnay on the patio and eat grilled salmon and Peter’s double baked potatoes, which we will douse with butter and sprinkle with garlic chives.

We will talk about the day. His, mine.

There will be reading.

Some gossip about the neighbours.

Plans for tomorrow.

And—despite the possiblilty of evolutionary glitches—very big chunks of gratitude.

here is a day

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

It begins with the light.

Different this morning, although not really anything you can single out. The sun comes up, shines; the sky is blue, the trees are naked.

The grass still shivers and the only blooms are the brave-hearted snowdrops. But something has changed.

It’s spring.

No matter what the calendar says, no matter if there’s a blizzard tomorrow—a corner has been turned. The squirrels know it and so do the doves, the neighbourhood stray and the fly that landed on my arm today as I sat reading on the patio. It’s like hair. One day it’s perfectly fine, like it’s been for weeks or months, and the next [and you will never know how this can happen] it’s changed and it needs a cut and it will not be fine again until you cut it.

Spring arrives like that. Overnight. And suddenly everything is different. Regardless of weather, it will not be winter again until the last month of the year.

So we go for a walk on this beautiful spring day, Peter and I.

We walk to the grocery store to buy some baby food for Jake The Cat who’s a bit plugged up with shedding-his-winter-coat hairballs; my cat book recommends a recipe involving a veggie/meat blend along with melted butter, psyllium husks and water.

It’s about twenty minutes, if that, through a ravine and a park where, amongst all that loveliness, somehow people decide to just drop things and carry on.

We carry bags to scoop up the debris.

Back home again, I bake what could be my favourite thing in the world— today I use (local, frozen from summer) cherries.

And while I do, the sun shines in on my beach glass [and sunshine on my beach glass makes me happy…]
I read outside.

And I read inside.

I vacuum downstairs, but not upstairs.

I write a little. Not a lot.
And too soon the sun is on the other side of the house and making those end of day shadows on the guy across the street’s garage door and the wall in the living room and I put chicken wings in the oven and shrimps on the barbie…

— and Peter pours glasses of wine and today’s light will soon be gone but it was here and it was spring light, and before it fades and turns suddenly too cold to sit outside comfortably…

…I sit comfortably.
Happy spring.

Note:  Jake The Cat ate his ‘recipe’ and, later, things cleared up nicely. [In case you were wondering.]

airing my laundry

~ carin ~ 8 Comments

If you, like me, have always thought hanging laundry in winter results in plank-sheets, you, like me, have probably not been leaving them out long enough. 

I first heard the rumour last year, that letting them go beyond the plankified state is the way to get things soft and dry. I heard it from a Saskatchewan woman and why it didn’t sink in, I can’t imagine. Who would know better about the dynamics of wind and air? (I’m sure my mother may have mentioned this also, but I was probably too busy knowing everything at the time to listen…)

Well, seems they were both right. Laundry will dry in below freezing weather as long as the air around it is drier than the laundry itself, as explained here in the Globe and Mail’s ‘Collected Wisdom’. Temperature doesn’t matter; you just have to leave it outside long enough.

If you, like me, get a weird thrill from hanging laundry year-round, this will be happy news.

If, on the other hand, you hate laundry in all forms, read this, from Geist, and feel better about your placement in the freshly scented, fabric softened, evolutionary conga/laundry line of life.

counting my magics

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

This morning a friend told me it was a magic day. It had to do with the fact that it’s Bell Canada’s *Let’s Talk* Day in support of mental health. The friend has mental health issues and deals with them heroically; fortunately, he’s able to. Many would choose to but can’t. Most recently he’s been working at spreading the word about today, encouraging people: friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, passersby on the street—to make a call or tweet for the cause.

That was the first magic, this excitement wrapped in hope that maybe the word is getting out there, that one day mental health issues will NOT be something to brush under carpets. There should be no stigma. There should be much more understanding and assistance. That’s the goal.

And Kudos to Bell.

But something about the idea of a magic day has resonated beyond the initial meaning. I have already danced and sung and hung laundry on the line. I’ve come across a beautiful post this morning and, another, discovered yesterday, I chose to read again because it’s relevant and it makes me happy. I watched a cardinal and a blue jay hunt and peck under the cedar hedge, peacefully and within a foot of each other. I began to think they might be a couple… or should be. A sign that disparate groups perhaps can get along?

My friend’s spirit and determination, and the courage of anyone dealing with the challenges of mental health—yet still finding pleasure in small things—reminds me how much there is to be grateful for.

I’m counting my magics today and will list them on Matilda as the day goes on.

Hoping you’ll count yours also!

–Magically at the last moment remembered to grab a file for a meeting
–Also remembered, also last minute, on-line form for appointment tomorrow
–Saw the most amazing smile, the kind that says: this is what happy looks like
–When I came home this was playing on the radio; I turned it up
–Geese flying in the space between sunset and first star
–A video sent by nieces and nephew
–Beeswax candle (bees!), time to read, and a major problem solved in WIP (the solution of course was spruce trees)

the first time

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

It really doesn’t matter how good or not the first time is—it’s usually memorable and that’s enough. My first was James Michener. Well, not technically the first. There were plenty before him if you want to go back to Dr. Seuss. Then Lucy Maud and those Grimm Brothers, Heidi and Black Beauty, E.B. White, and Nancy Drew—who I used to think actually wrote the books; I was somehow oblivious to Carolyn Keene’s name prominently placed on all the covers. I’d love to know who I thought she was.

There were others, obscure names and stories I’ve long forgotten, picked up at the library or found among the slim pickings on my family’s shelves. But it was James that was the real first, the one I found myself opening and not being able to shut until it was done. The first time I went all the way in one fell swoop.

It happened under a tree.

It was summer. I was twelve. I had a bike. This was in the days before people got driven anywhere; when your parents could have cared less where you were as long as your room was clean, the dishes done, laundry hung, house vacuumed, garbage taken out and you were back in time for supper [‘cuz that table ain’t gonna set itself].

It was also in the days before the invention of plastic. At least in the shape of water bottles. People, everyone really, used to go places, everyplace, without water. It’s a miracle we all survived when you think about it now.

In any case, there I was on my bike in summer and it was hot. Very very hot. I rode across the canal into the country where the orchards lived and swiped a few peaches. And then I took those peaches to a small park—no, it wasn’t a park, more like a place for cars to pull over and check what the hell is making that rattling sound in the trunk. It was a small grassy space; there were trees, shade. Peaches. And James between the covers.

The book was The Fires of Spring. I remember the beginning best, how a little boy and his grandfather lived in a poorhouse, happy but poor, you know the type. The old man, beloved by all, died, leaving the little boy on his own. So he joined the circus, the way you do when your poor, beloved grandfather dies, and saw unspeakably exciting and horrifying things and possibly fell in love or lust or confusion. It gets foggy at this point. In fact, I remember very little and what I do recall may or may not even exist in the book. 

Who cares. The story isn’t the point. The feeling is the point and no one and nothing, including the actual plot, can erase the feeling of laying on that small slice of cool grass on that hot day, illicit peach juice dribbling down my chin onto James’ pages as I turned them one after the other after the next… all afternoon.

It was the book that showed me, in ways I can’t recall, the power and the magic of words. It wasn’t necessarily the best I’d ever read, I just remember it that way.

Recently, when Peter and I spend a weekend in Niagara, we find ourselves near the grassy place. I ask him to pull over, tell him about James…I spare him the details.

He finds my nostalgia quaint, smiles, stays in the car while I walk around. Which tree was it? This one, that one? I study branch formation, proximity to the road, until it occurs to me that where matters as little as the storyline. What matters is I”m suddenly breathing deeply, smiling, shoulders drop and I’m twelve, in yellow denim cutoffs—because I’m the only kid I know who doesn’t own blue jeans—lying tummy down on grass, surrounded by peach pits and so engrossed in a book a whole day goes by without me noticing. Best of all, I am not even slightly aware of how I will remember this day, for possibly ever.