On My Own

This weekend will mark the first time in about six months that I have been on my own. A family crisis has called Rob away and I will be holding down the fort. I put on a brave face and told Rob not to worry I could handle everything. Which is in fact true. There is little I couldn’t manage should it come up and the odds of anything out of the ordinary arising are, as we all know intellectually, amazing small. Still, I am not all that brave or all that resourceful or even all that at ease with being just me and child for a even a couple of days.

The key, of course, is to keep busy and there are plenty of things that need to get done. It’s not that easy at night however. Once my daughter is asleep and it is just me and this computer and all the creaks and groans of an old house out in a rural hamlet. Sounds I normally don’t pay any attention to because they have become so familiar are suddenly unrecognizable and even menacing. I have already fallen back into my old habit of leaving all the hall lights on. I even caved in to my little one (after telling my husband that I wouldn’t) and she is curled up asleep next to me.

Once upon a time, I slept blissfully alone in my own home. No husband or child or cat. What happened to her I wonder?

Soon it will be two years

Last night as I was driving home from town after writing group, I finally realized why I have been having troubles with my stomach again. Troubles reminiscent of last fall and winter when nearly everything I put in the mouth resulted in pain that eventually got so bad I was living off soda crackers and Cream of Wheat. The doctors diagnosed a malfunctioning gallbladder and removed it last November and while that did wonders, it didn't quite rid me of the stomach pains that stress of just about any kind has caused me since I was a teen truthfully. Last year this time was a difficult time in terms of my grieving for my late husband. All the big anniversaries, the first, seem to fall in the last two months leading up to the anniversary of this death. I got through it, just it seems, and since I have seen steady improvement though by no means does this imply that life has always been easy or magically free of the grief or other problems that crop up simply because we are human and live in the real world as opposed to a TV sitcom where troubles manifest and are solved within a 30 minute time frame.

The realization I came to as I drove down the pitch black road to Josephburg that seemed to be running straight into the star dotted night sky on the horizon was that in about 8 weeks my first husband will have been dead for two years. Now, I hadn't forgotten when he died but I had gotten so caught up in my present and planning for the future and loving my husband and caring and worrying for our collective children that I hadn't really been emotionally aware of the significance of some of the anniversaries that have been flying by like so many fence posts on the roadside. It will be two years is what my stomach has been trying to tell me for the past month. Two years.

Rob asked me if it will always be this way. The heightened emotions. The sadness. I think so though I haven't any real examples of this from my own growing up among, what I realize now, was a helluvalot of widowed people. If any of them were laid out by grief periodically every year, I never realized it because they never let it show. I think of my father's mother who despite losing a baby, her husband when still in their sixties and her youngest son who was just 39 when he died, was someone who concentrated all her love and affection on those who meant the most to her and her warmth and friendliness was given freely to just about everyone else. Despite a brief bout with depression a few years after my uncle died, I can't think of an anniversary or holiday that she didn't see as an opportunity to celebrate those she lost and count herself lucky for the love she received and gave in return. And I know this couldn't have been as simply or easy as she made it seem. I know that because I know what I feel myself. Still, it's a better example to work towards in my opinion, and I think I can acknowledge without falling prostrate and rending my garments and smearing dirt upon my face.

The truth is that I love my life and as much as I loved Will, I am more engaged in my now than in my memories of that long ago time when he was well and loved me and we believed that the future was ours. It doesn't mean that it is easy. That anniversaries or holidays or my little girl's struggles with putting her half-remembered memories of her dad in context aren't sometimes hard to bear. It doesn't mean that I don't fell my husband's struggles with his own grief or that I don't worry and hurt for his girls when they struggle. It doesn't meant that new losses, because they are part of life, won't bring up old grief. It does mean that I recognize that there is ebb and flow and on-going negotiations and incorporating and dealing and sometimes tears and I am okay with that.

Soundtracking Your Life

My wife Ann wrote a blog piece a while back about music and its relationship to and description of her life at various points over the, well, course of her life. She called it "Soundtracking My Life". I guess I can relate. Certain music pieces are forever associated with certain events and times in my life too. Sometimes the times were such that listening to those tunes can be a bit painful. Other times, the tunes can call up happy memories.

A couple of fairly recent examples, if I may:

I had started listening to some Coldplay in the last months before Shelley died. A couple of the more oft listened-to tunes were "Green Eyes" and "Warning Sign"; while the lyrics did not exactly fit the situation, I came to relate those songs closely with Shelley. Although I did not really think I would lose her as I did, I think subconsciously I knew it was possible. I listened to those tunes - a lot - in the weeks after Shelley's passing. There were others that became my grieving tunes also: "Gone Away" by the Offspring, "Slipping Away" by Sum41, "Do You Realize?" by the Flaming Lips (thanks to Jordan for that one), "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana, "I Am Mine" by Pearl Jam (thanks to Cory for that one), and a few more from Sum41's "Chuck" album. I actually created a CD entitled "Rob's Melancholy Mix" with these tunes on them. Nowadays, I find it difficult to listen to any of these tunes plus a few others. Mostly because they can catapult me - emotionally - back to that time when Shelley was wasting away and eventually left me alone in this physical plane.

Tool. I had been aware of Tool...well, that Tool existed...since the '90's when my girls - first Farron and then Jordan - became fans. They had tried to "convert" me, but I resisted. At the time I didn't give Tool a chance to prove that the music had redeeming qualities. In spite of the ravings of my then-teenagers. Then came the first Thanksgiving we had following Shelley's passing. The three of us trekked up to my in-laws to spend Thanksgiving with Shelley's family. "10,000 Days" had come out a little before that time and one of the kids had brought along a copy. We were listening to Farron's CD's mostly on the long drive up to the Peace River country and eventually "10,000 Days" made its way into the rotation. The stereo system in the old Avalanche was "pretty good" (6 speaker Bose) and we cranked it up. I liked it. I bought myself a copy of "10,000 Days" and listened to it day in and day out. The CD went with me on my healing road trip through November last year and it got a lot play during that month. When I returned home I went on-line to Amazon.ca and ordered up the rest of the Tool CD releases plus all the releases of A Perfect Circle (Maynard James Keenan's other project).

A Perfect Circle. The girls recommended "Mer de Noms" but I found that I really liked "Thirteenth Step". I listened to that CD a lot in the early months of this year. The time I associate most with these tunes is the weekend I met Ann for the first time in person. That was in Idaho Falls, Idaho during a wintry February weekend. The CD was in the player and we listened to it during the times we drove around during that weekend. I mostly remember the drive out to Menan and back; we went out to Menan to visit my friends Tee and Dee. I wanted Tee, especially, to meet Ann.

And so as it happens I was listening to "Thirteenth Step" this afternoon and in an idle moment I was transported back to those first days with Ann. When we started to really get to know one another. And when we basked in the natural feeling of being together. And feeling that we somehow knew each other. A feeling of being comfortable.

And I was compelled to write it down.

Tasers are the New Tupperware

Yesterday's Globe and Mail featured an article in its Life section on what it dubs "security moms" in the United States holding taser parties. At these festive suburban gatherings, women meet to try out and possibly purchase tasers (available in four designer colours). The company responsible for this scene out of a SNL skit is Taser International which began marketing its C2 model this last summer for a mere $299 and available in say, metallic pink or electric blue. Currently these parties are only being held in Arizona but should be available in all 36 states where tasers are legal for citizen purchase by the end of 2008. Wow. I don't know about anyone else but I feel less safe already. Just when I thought that British Columbian RCMP were the only ones to be wary of receiving a possibly fatal dose of electric shock from, I now need to avoid the well-heeled women of Arizona.

There are have three deaths by taser in the last month here in Canada, all at the hands of the police, and Amnesty International claims that about 200 people have died in the United States since 2001 by taser, which is what I am sure prompted this little article. That and, of course, the somewhat disdainful attitude many Canadians have towards Americans and are inane ways of dealing with issues like personal safety (think guns). Personally the whole taser thing scares me more than a little. People who are most at risk from dying when tased are those with unidentified heart trouble or irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias) which I happen to have. It's harmless. Nothing I need worry about unless I am perhaps tasered, which is unlikely but the Polish man who died at a B.C. airport after being tasered was the victim of an unlikely scenario too.

It's interesting to me to read about my homeland through the filter of another country's cultural mindset. Canadians are not the mild-mannered U.S. wannabe's that our culture makes them out to be. They are more like Europeans, in that they really think there is nothing about the lower 49 worth emulating save perhaps our mindless consumerism (which they don't get at all judging from what I have seen - their malls actually close on weekend days by five or six o'clock).

Tupperware giving way to the Taser Lady is something that should disturb us all regardless.

The Oprah Effect

Oprah is coming to Iowa on December 8th to campaign for Barrack Obama. Some people, I am sure, will be impressed. I like Oprah as much as the next person, providing that person is a double X genetically or spiritually and is okay with the fact that Oprah long ago ceased to be an Everywoman. Really though, why should anyone care that she supports Obama for president? Celebrity endorsements shouldn't carry weight in decisions that have such long reaching impact on what will one day be our history and our legacy to our children and theirs.

Living in a foreign country during the lead up to a presidential election is a little like being Oprah. People here in Canada can be very curious about my take on the campaign. I hate to disappoint so I try to offer as much of a synopsis on the whole things as I can, Truthfully, I don't know much more than what I catch on the Daily Show from John Stewart from time to time and what I read in the Globe and Mail which is definitely not American-minded in its assessment of candidates and who is qualified or not. My hair stylist is particularly interested in what I think about politics, Iraq and the whole dollar thing.

The truth is that I have never cared less about politics, Iraq and the whole dollar thing than I do right now. And, it's not because I am living out of the country, but because during my late husband's illness and my unwanted walk among those who must make use of Medicaid and Social Security, I learned a few important things. Chief among those things is that my government really doesn't care about the people it governs. Sure, there was more than enough evidence to support this finding before my life was turned upside down, but it wasn't until it was and I needed real help of the kind I could only get by accessing programs my government set up to specifically help people like me and my late husband that I could see what a sham it all is. And there is no easy fix. Electing a new president does nothing to change the infrastructure that now exists. It just gives the monster a new face.

Who do I think will be the next president of the United States? Who cares? Oprah? You? Not me. It doesn't matter and here's why, we don't demand anything from the people we elect. We go crazy with Caucus fever and primary fever and Super Tuesday fever and it's all a whirlwind of celebrities like Oprah in Des Moines. We elect people based on their personalities or the personalities who support them and at the end of the day he or she moves into the White House and emerges with a Stepford smile, ready to do the bidding of the beast. Nothing changes.

On Writing: My thoughts on King's Ideas

So, I finished the Stephen King novel, On Writing, last night. A triumph for a number of reasons, the least of which is that this is the first book I have read in such a short span of time in nearly two years. My ability to read like a 14 year old bookworm was a sad casualty of widowhood that I would love to vanquish. I polished this novel off in just under four days. I actually read 60 to 70 pages in a sitting. I am quite proud.

And I learned a few things, one of which is that were I to take Mr. King’s advice as gospel, I should get back to my day job as quickly as the state of Texas will allow me next year. Fortunately for me however, I have read enough Stephen King to not be overly impressed by what he has to say about the craft and the requirements. I have loved a great many of his books (The Stand, The Shining, Salem’s Lot, Firestarter), but I have found an equal number of them to be beyond boring (The Heart of Atlantis, Bag of Bones, Misery) or uneven (It, Deloris Claiborne). For all his success, he is just a guy who writes at the end of the day. His opinions are worth considering but shouldn’t be the last word on the subject of writing.

I liked his advice on reading as much as possible. I read newspapers and Oprah and the occasional non-fiction tome and many, many bedtime stories. But, rarely read fiction and I miss it. Not just the getting lost in the prose part, but wondering how the author did it. Created people and gave them things to do and say and places to go physically, mentally and emotionally. I miss being envious of a really great idea or turn of a phrase. So, I will be reading even if it takes me a month a book.

I also liked the idea of having a writing space, quirks and a set number of pages to complete everyday.

The advice he gave on putting a novel away for six weeks or so after finishing the first draft was good too. Distancing is a good idea after weeks or more of being caught up to the point of a fly in a web. He was also right about just writing and not worrying about whether it is perfect or even good. Just get the first draft down on paper. His ideas on taking up another project in the interim was quite a good idea too.

I like the idea of an Ideal Reader and his thoughts that often it is the person with whom we share our bed. Who after all is more likely to know our best work from our just getting by and will know us well enough to be truthful? He was correct when he suggested not asking for opinions until you are ready to really hear them.

I was surprised that I agreed with his ideas on writing groups and workshops. He felt they run contrary to the idea that writers should write. Reflect. Read and take notes and edit. Share with a select few or one (the IR). And then revise again, or not. Writing groups with the constant sharing and vague (or mean) critiquing is not helpful or really necessary.

In the end I am glad I read it though I will probably still do things my own way most of the time.

Learning to Skate

I got my first pair of skates the Christmas I was seven. It was exactly two weeks to the day I got my very first two wheeler, a Schwinn Stingray - green with a banana seat. When I think about it now, I was hitting developmental milestones right and left as this was shortly after I had started reading on my own and beginning to tell time with a fair amount of accuracy.

Christmas night my dad took me over to the public rink at Flora Park. Just water frozen hard over the parking lot for the swimming pool, but when I was a child it was always packed with skaters of all ages and abilities. There was an old barn that somehow managed to survive the residential explosion and became a quasi community center that doubled as a warming house during the winter as the park was also a favorite for sleigh-riding on the hills near-by. My dad’s skates were those ancient leathery looking things devoid of any ankle support with strings so old they were double-knotted in places where they’d broken but he hadn’t replaced them. The rink was crowded, despite it being Christmas and the parking lot lights illuminated the entire skating area. Rock music blared from speakers up on the warming house. Dad laced up my skates as I seat on the passenger side of the front seat with my long for a first graders’ legs hanging out and then leaned against the hood of the car to put on his own while I wobbled and watched. It was always fascinating to watch my father perform some new skill that still seemed exotically grown-up to me. Though I could tie my own shoes at seven, the thought of lacing up my own skates with the same speed and precision as my dad made the two tasks feel completely unrelated.

My father taught me to catch a baseball by tossing them at me until my glove and the ball accidently found each other. This meant that often the ball hit me. Hard. And even more often it sailed by me and I would have to chase it down and run back to my abandoned post in order to be close enough to throw it back to him. He taught my brother and sisters and I the rosary by death marching the entire family through it every night for the vast majority of our collective childhoods even before my youngest sibling was capable of recitation on the smaller scale of singing her ABC’s. My first and only bike riding lesson in the basement two weeks earlier and consisted of him standing by the stairs in our basement with me on the other end of the room and telling me what I should do before turning and walking back upstairs for a smoke, coffee and to finish the evening newspaper. It shouldn’t surprise anyone then, that when we got to the ice he gave me short verbal instructions and then took off into the crowds, circling around periodically to make sure I hadn’t broken anything. And I hadn’t. I didn’t. By the time we left that evening, I could skate. Badly. But I could do it.

We got Katy her first pair of skates well over a month ago, but today was the first Sunday we actually had time to get over to the free public skate at the ice arena near our home. She seems to have inherited my natural athletic ability and by the end of the hour was pushing herself along with what appeared to be a start of a decent form. Also like me, she is a bit impatient and as we neared the end of public skate she made a few attempts to go it alone. No stand and no hanging on to anyone’s hands.

My horoscope for today told me I need to learn to be more self-sufficient. When I was a little girl, I was out of necessity because that was the way my father, and my mother to a lessen extent, parented. I learned not to ask for or expect help and I carried that lesson with me for better, and sometimes not, until I met my first husband, Will. He was probably the first person I ever leaned on and that time didn’t last long. So, I was not really sure what my stars are trying to tell me until I read the last bit of Stephen King’s advice on writing the evening while Katy was taking her bath. King was expounding on writing groups and classes and work-shopping in general and he basically said that a writer has to write a piece, a novel or short story or whatever, alone. That too much input during the creative stages is a hinderance. And now I get what the universe wanted for me to learn today. I learned it long ago actually from my dad that Christmas night at the skating rink. I saw it in my daughter today.

I really enjoy the time I spend at writing groups. It’s energizing and fun, but I cannot share works in progress or even first drafts that haven’t been read by my IR (ideal reader aka my husband). A story isn’t about the “atta girl’s” or the neat feeling that comes with people telling you that you are a good writer. It’s about telling the story. Just like skating is about getting on the ice and falling down until you don’t anymore.

Start Here

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”
Stephen King from On Writing p.101

Something I needed to hear. Funny how that works.

A Work in Progress

I began reading my novel today. I only tackled a few chapters before I had to put it down and I came to the decision that I need to wait until after the holidays before I continue. There are a few things I can work on between now and then including a continuity chart for this piece of work and the series of short sci-fi pieces that I began in October that will be inter-locking works in much the same way I, Robot is. I always have plans to start submitting at least one off those stories as a stand alone piece. I really need to start building a publishing resume. But the big novel lives too close to my soul to tackle right now with the holidays coming up and work to be done to make our anticipated relocation back to the States this spring a smoother move than it would be without some pre-planning and a bit of elbow grease.

Today I read Stephen King's chaptering on editing in On Writing. He provides a first draft of the story 1408 and the edited version. It follows the Strunk rule of "omit needless words" quite well. I am a needless word person myself but I can be just as ruthless an omitter. I am certain that I can edit my novel but I am equally certain I am not quite up to the task emotionally. It would be a bit like cutting myself literally. That can wait. For a while anyway. But, some stories need to be told and mine has waited, not always patiently, and will only wait a while longer.

On Writing a Novel

I am currently zipping through Stephen King’s book about writing called On Writing. There are two things that make this unusual. The first being that I am zipping through it. Reading anything longer than a news paper article is rare for me these days. If a story runs more than two pages in Oprah:The Magazine, I shudder and steel myself for mental exertion. The second reason my reading of King’s book is unusual is that I generally speaking don’t care how other writers go about the business of writing. Perhaps I should, but I don’t. I write. Sometimes I share it. I like positive feedback. I am annoyed by constructive criticism but once I get past the annoyed part I do take it to heart and use the constructive parts. The reason it annoys me though is because it is rarely information I didn’t already know. I know when my writing isn’t working and having it pointed out to me just makes me crankier than I probably already was. But, I am enjoying the King book. It isn’t really about the process as much as it is about his journey and we all have our own journeys to make as writers. I found what he had to say about the writing of Carrie to be particularly interesting. He said it wasn’t a story that he connected with and that it was hard to write, but he thought it taught him a lot. Among other things it taught him that a writer should quit just because a piece was difficult emotionally or imaginatively. “Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when all it feels like is that you’re managing to shovel shit from a sitting position.” - (p.78 of On Writing by Stephen King).

I kinda feel like that right now with my novel. It has changed direction and style and format to the point where I think I will need to start again. Not toss what I have, but start at the beginning and work my way through to what is passing as the end right now. That is 223 pages worth of reading and revising and thinking and being frustrated. Because I am.

Rob printed off a copy of it for me at his office at work because we don’t have the printer set up in our home office yet. I have been pestering him for a printer since September because I really don’t like having him print things for me at work. Not because I am one of those people who worries overly about things like using the employer’s office supplies for personal business, and I know this makes me a terrible person in some circles, The reason I don’t want Rob printing things is because he will read them, and they are not ready to be read until I say they are ready and even then they might need more work in my opinion. So Rob printed my mess of a novel and asked me where the story was going. Did I know what I wanted to say? Well no actually, thanks for asking. The thing is that I am coming around slowly to the idea that my story is not about Julie the widow but about Julie the woman who watched her husband die. It’s about me in more ways than I am comfortable with and about people I know like family, friends, the men I met online last year in my quest to date again. It’s about chaos. It’s about loneliness. It’s about pain. And it’s about how all these things go on out of sight while people appear to be managing and surviving.

Stephen King is got it about right.

Trains

Why does it seem that the urgency with which one is attempting to get somewhere is directly proportional to the probability that one's way will be blocked by a train at a grade crossing? Today, for instance, I was on my way home at lunch and, having been delayed in a meeting, was a little later than usual. Sure enough, I had to waste more minutes that I didn't really have while a freight train made its lumbering way across the only road I could go.

I work at one of the sites owned by a major chemical manufacturer. Much of the chemical produced on site is shipped via train. And so, the site is virtually criss crossed with railroad tracks. And the more tardy you are in having to be someplace, the greater the likelihood that some train will be drawing across your path, making you even more late.

I hate trains. I understand their significance though. Both from an historical perspective and also in their efficiency for transporting modern day goods, materials and supplies. Yet, it seems that a little more forethought and planning could have been employed in laying out train tracks. It must seem pithy, but it's the little annoyances like this that crop up when one is distracted from the more pressing issues of the day, like global warming, climate change, peak oil, rampant pollution, GMO's, BSE, and the collapse of the world's fisheries.

I live in a little hamlet nestled in one corner of the crossing of two major rural roadways. A CPR track borders the hamlet, bisecting both the east-west and north-south roadways. There are traffic control signals at both crossings. The track at one time served to transport farmers' grain from the grain elevators that used to stand here. Now the trains that move over the track haul primarily the various chemicals and other hydrocarbon derivatives manufactured in the area. These trains go through at all hours of the day and night. The train drivers must blow the engine's whistle at each of the two grade crossings. The more sadistic of train drivers generally start the whistle at one end of town and don't let up until they're through the second crossing at the other end of town. Naturally, this is more likely to occur between the hours of midnight and five am.

I don't where I'm going with this. All I do know for sure is that when we pick out the place to build our next house, it will be a long ways away from any frigging train tracks.

Sesame Street circa 1969

I was probably not quite 6 years old when Sesame Street first aired on PBS. It was created for a specific audience, the inner-city four year old and if you look at the episodes from those first seasons you will notice a decidedly inner city setting, but one that was undoubtedly cleaner and more hopeful than the reality it was pseudo-mimicking. All I remember about the show were muppets and singing and adults who were never too busy or spoke to roughly, so imagine my surprise when I ran across an article today about the recent DVD release of those first episodes and the fact that they carry a warning sticker. Yes, you heard correctly. There is a disclaimer on these Sesame Street DVD’s cautioning parents about allowing their preschoolers to watch it. Apparently the simpler times that so many people refer to lovingly when talking about their childhood eras don’t include the years in which I was actually a child. Late 1960’s and on need not apply for “wonder years’ status after all it seems.

I was not a huge Sesame Street fan as I remember it. I preferred one of the Children’s Television Workshop’s next creations, The Electric Company a lot more. I was a devoted Captain Kangaroo fan. I can still recall the titles of some of the books he read like Mike and the Steam Shovel, Make Way for Ducklings (which I just read my own daughter the other night) and Caps for Sale (which I ran across one day at Barnes and Noble and bought - for myself). Sesame Street’s mission in the earliest days was to expose disadvantaged kids to the idea of life outside the city and instill in them the idea that learning was fun. While the teacher in me cringes at the latter (learning is not always fun but it is necessary), I feel that those early episodes are probably not the politically incorrect minefield of horror and potential psychological trauma that the warning label is meant to invoke. However, I probably won’t rush out and buy it either. Mainly because I doubt that my five year old would sit and watch it for long. She is, unfortunately or not depending on your old world views, like some many of her peers in that she is accustomed to CGIish characters and settings and the frenetic pace of today’s child-oriented productions. In short, she would probably find it boring. I don’t know if this is too bad or not. Bert and Ernie were two unrelated males lived in the basement of a dingy gray concrete building who shared the same bedroom. Cookie Monster was an unrepentant carbohydrate addict. Oscar was mean and morose and in desperate need of medicating and therapy. The grown-ups on the show often approached children who did not know them and offered them food and drink. The montages of rural life didn’t scream warnings about environmental decay via the toxicity of humanity but instead showed rather bland farm scenes that seem antique even for the time period. The running theme of being kind to your neighbors and helpful and learning without the aid of technology runs at odds with today’s neighborhoods of strangers and looking out for yourself and the idea that an education is complete if it isn’t chocked full of relevancy and head-splitting excitement.

On our recent trip to B.C. to visit Rob’s mother, she hauled out a video of old home movies that Rob had transferred from 8mm years ago. They were interesting for several reasons. First they gave me an opportunity to see all the new players in my life, my in-laws, as they were when they were young. It puts much of the current dynamics at work between them into a frame of reference. The tape also allowed me to learn more about Rob. But finally, it made me realize once again how this world is really about adults. It was built by us and for us, and children are, and have always been not much more than flesh and blood versions of vanity plates and the consequences of our adult needs. And I am not saying this makes all of us bad parents or that the majority of us don’t love our children. While I will never be totally convinced that everyone has the right to be a parent (the right, not the physical ability to breed), I think most of us are conscientious about our responsibilities. I do believe though that in our current efforts to child-proof the world, we are forgetting that children today are not more fragile than we ourselves were back in 1969. That glimpse into the inner city probably did me as much good as the pastoral scenes did those tenement dwelling preschoolers. Which is to say, a lot and that allowing our little ones today those same peeks into the past will probably not have much different of an impact.

Raising the Gas Tax

The Iowa Legislature is considering applying an additional 4 cents on the state's gas tax. The reason for this is to raise additional funds for road projects. Predictably this has angered people and brought out the usual outraged responses such as this tax: 1) gouges consumers in the same manner as oil companies do; 2) hurts the lower socio-economic classes and 3) t won't stop global warming anyway.

Taxes generally outrage people almost as a matter of principle. The citizenery of this country (or any country really) expect, demand even, a lot of services from their government and somehow think this should be accomplished with as little monetrary contribution from them as possible. I am not going to argue the fact that governments can and do waste resources and that includes tax dollars, but many big businesses have the same problem when there are so many divisions and people that even the most vigilant system cannot always keep track of the left and the right hand's actions at the same time. Governments are imperfect because they are run by imperfect people who not coincidently are elected by imperfect people. But that is a debate for another day. Today we have people mad because they don't want to pay another 4 cents per gallon of gas despite the fact that gas here is cheaper than nearly anywhere else on the planet and per person, we use more than our worldly fair share. Americans are spoiled.

But let's look at the arguments I have seen against raising the tax. The first one was that the oil companies gouge us and then the state joins the party. My husband has spent many hours explaining the ins and outs of gasoline prices to me. He spent time in the oil business at the refinery end, so he has a fairly good grasp of supply/demand and market theory. Basically gas prices based on supply and demand. In the U.S., or any car dependent society, cars are not luxuries for the majority of people. Our penchant for sprawling communities and cities means that few of us live, work and shop within walking distance of our homes. Even with the limited mass transit systems that most people are accustomed to outside of the very large cites (which might have better and more adequate systems), we still need individual vehicles to get to the places we need to go. So, there is always demand which ebbs and flows based on seasons and holidays and on our ability to buy. When prices get too high, people cut back and prices come down again. And yes, I know this doesn't effect the tax which remains the same. The tax is a separate issue. Gas taxes are used to maitain and build new roads primarily. I wonder if anyone else sees the irony in Iowa raising more money for more roads? The state has an abundance of roads including a veritable surplus of 4 lane highways that are near empty and go nowhere the majority of the state's inhabitants need to go. Where I live in western Canada, people talk about the new bypass (the only one actually) that scoots by the Alberta capital of Edmonton, as though it were some fabulous breakthrough in travel. They number highways up here in the single digits and even though they live in the heart of oil country (much of which gets sent to the U.S.), they pay prices at the pump which make a 4 cent state tax look laughable.

But what about the poor? Well, what about them? They are hit hard by every use tax there is and no one seems to mind unless we are talking about gasoline. When that happens the poor become wonderful arguments in our war to not have to find ways to reduce our own comsumption. The poor are handy like that.

And finally, the idea that global warming can't be stopped by the reductions in comsumption. I agree with that but only because global warming can't be stopped now at all. We are no longer in the "cause" phase of global warming but the "effect" stage where the best we can hope for is to manage as many of the awful things that are here and are coming. I don't agree with idea that reduce our consumption is a waste of time or that the upper classes are such hedonists that rising prices don't cause them to change their driving habits at some point.

The Chevy Malibu I owned before leaving Iowa held about 14 gallons of gas, according to my husband, and an additional 4 cents per gallon is about 56 cents. I watched my students at Hoover High School spend ten times that much money in the snack machines alone on a daily basis. I spent more than that at the Starbuck's on my way to work and most people throw away far more money on their junk food habits or weekend Target fixes. What's interesting to me is that we readily dispose of our cash on the non-essentials without so much as first thought, but when it comes to gas for the car, we cry foul whenever the price goes up a few pennies or the government requires more payment for services.

Just Say No to Immigration Raids?

Apparently the city council of Des Moines, Iowa is considering issuing an order to the city's police force that will allow them to not cooperate with federal immigrations authorities during raids the latter might stage in the city to snare illegals. An interesting approach that ultimately does nothing to solve the current dilemma being caused by people who are, and in some cases have been for a long while, living in the United States without the proper Visa or permanent residency papers. Obstructing justice will not bring any sanity to an already insane issue.

Justice, you ask? Where is the justice in rounding up people, many of whom are hard-working citizens, good neighbors and family members and shipping them back to their countries of legal origin? Well, simply put, they broke the rules and when that happens, and you are caught, consequences ensue. It's not about fair, but if that is the going to be the argument on which leniency or even clemency is going to be granted then think about it another way. What about all those people who are patiently waiting for entrance to this country, spouses and children, who filled out the mountain of paperwork, paid the fees, submitted to the police checks and medical exams, essentially did everything the rules asked? What about them? How is it fair that they did the right thing and have to wait their turn but those who did it illegally are now the recipients of calls for rule changes?

I will not argue in favor of the current system. The wait times are ridiculous and it does not take into account that the U.S. does need unskilled labor (though some would argue that this is the current job of our education system). I do think that the solutions have to be applied farther up the food chain then the current hunting down and deporting of illegals and can only conclude that the current system continues in its broken state because it benefits someone.

My First Public Reading as a Writer

The Fort Saskatchewan writing group I belong to, the Paragraffers, held a public reading for it’s members Sunday at Shell Theatre located at the Dow Centennial Center. Any member who wished to was able to participate and our leader, Kathie, even invited the nearby Strathcona group to participate if they were inclined. I decided early on that I would be reading from the novel I am working on and chose a shorter chapter that I shared not only with the Fort group but with my writing group, WOW back in Des Moines. It was one of the first scenes I wrote for the novel and it might not survive to the final draft, but I like the flow and the way it advances character and plot and I love the dialogue.

I admit to a little bit of nervousness when I was introduced by Dick Easton, one of the Fort members who is also the editor of the group’s newsletter, but as soon as I began speaking, and then reading, I felt right at home. It was a feeling almost akin to the one I had when I did my practicum for teaching, which is the first class they have prospective education majors take to give them a bit of a taste of what it is like in a real classroom with real kids. The first time I stepped foot in a seventh grade language arts class, I knew I was right where I belonged. That I could do this. Teach. Manage large groups of kids. And that I could do it really well. Reading my piece today in front of an audience, that was small - between 15 and 20 - I knew I could do this part of the writing. The author thing. I love writing, and oddly, for me, I love reading my stuff to people and talking about the process. I say oddly because I am a very shy person. I don’t like the spotlight. But, when it comes to writing, as with teaching, that shy part of me evaporates as though it was never there.

Rob and Katy came to hear me and the others. Rob shot a digital video of my segment and took pictures of the other participants as there was no one else there taking photos. I am going to write up a short piece for the local paper and send it along with a few of Rob’s photos (he is kinda thrilled about the prospect of having one of his photos in the paper with a credit).

All in all, a perfectly lovely afternoon. I still feel wonderful about how it went and my performance. Another step on the road to writing for a living.

Beowulf

I neglected blogging yesterday in favor of working out, a writing workshop with a local author at the public library and a date with my husband. We discovered a charming Greek place for dinner complete with belly dancer and smashing plates and then took in the late showing in the new Beowulf movie at what passes for a movie theater in the Fort. And I guess you could call it a movie though the characters and setting were completely CGI it wasn't exactly Shrek or any of the animated DVD selections that my daughter watches. The characters were not only voiced by real actors but their characters were created to look like the actor in question as well - with enhancements, of course.

I had to read an old English version of Beowulf during my senior year of high school back at Walhert High School in Dubuque, Iowa. The teacher was young. A wrestling coach with a Neandrathal forehead and a really thick neck and a surprising passion for English literature. I can't recall anything about that particular foray into Beowulf beyond an LP (yes, I am that old) Mr.Wojan played for us of some reading a passage from the story in an even older version of what would someday be the language my friends and I slaughtered on a daily basis. The first time I really looked at the story of Beowulf was when I discovered a set of the Robert Nye version. I was teaching 7th grade and Nye's version was visually stimulating with all sorts of gruesome and quite disgusting images that I was certain 12 and 13 year olds would love. It was a monster story in poem form, and my students plowed through it with gusto. As an added bonus I threw in some Norse Mythology and a bit of Viking history. Beowulf ranks right up there with Greek Mythology, folk tales and Hamlet as my most successful teaching units. So, I was curious to see the Robert Zemeckis version, and I was disappointed. The story is well-told if not exactly the way I remember it.

Beowulf is the story of a hero by that same name who travels from Geat to the kingdom of Hrothgar to kill a monster who is plaguing the King and his people. The monster, Grendel, is suitably grotesque and a somewhat sympathetic character. When Beowulf finally dispatches it by pounding a hole in its head and ripping and arm from its body so that it slowly bleeds to death as it makes its way back to the lair of its mother, you almost feel sorry for it. Grendel's mother is a sea demon who it turns out had seduced King Hrothgar because she wanted a son, Grendel, and in return gave Hrothgar power, riches and personal invincibility. When Beowulf goes to the lair to kill her, after she has attacked Beowulf's men seeking justice, she offers Beowulf the same deal and he takes it. A bit of a twist on the "selling your soul to the devil" and "doing the right thing" message that is interesting because the film makes it clear that Christianity was still in its infancy in the part of the world where the story is set. I like the old epics and myths that remind us that the world was not just a pagan free-for-all until Christianity came along to save us.

Visually, the CGI is faintly reminiscent of a video game, albeit a really good one, but that doesn't detract from action or the story though I wonder a bit how much more interesting it might have been to watch had the actors been live.

Sealed Adoption Records from an Adoptee's View

Recently there was an editorial piece about the need for open records for all adoptees in the state of Iowa. The piece went on to describe the current system that is in place for adult adoptees who wish to access their original birth certificates or medical information and pronounced it a hit and miss hodgepodge that really doesn't allow people easy access to the same information that the non-adopted have unfettered access. Interestingly here in Canada, the provincial government of Ontario was forced by the courts to rework a law that would have opened up adoption records for all adoptees, past and present. The law in its original form was retroactive to sealed adoptions even and caused quite an uproar among those who believe that birth parents have rights that supersede those of the now adult children they relinquished.

I find the debate interesting from a personal standpoint as I was adopted as an infant almost 44 years ago now in Dubuque county. The agency that handled my adoption, Catholic Charities, had long had a policy of supplying non-identifying information and medical histories, if that information exists, to adult adoptees. As I result, I know quite a bit about my birth parents who were in there later teens when I was born. I know I am of Swedish/Irish extraction and my birth mother was a classic blue-eyed, strawberry blond Irish Catholic girl. I know that both my parents came from broken homes, hardly the norm in 1963. According to the information in my file, there were no known medical conditions that I need to worry about but since we are talking about an era when medical histories were not really deemed as important as they are today, I am not certain I trust this particular revelation. I can tell you the height and weight of both my birth parents. There religions of record. The number of siblings each had and that my birth father worked at a gas station and my birth mother was anxious that I should be in a home before Christmas. Still, for all I do know, I don't know who these two people are and if it is from them I inherited my athletic ability or my gift for writing? Is it her or him that I look like or like my own daughter, am I an even mix? 
People who grew up in biological families can't know how it is to be related to no one. To look in the mirror and not see anyone but yourself. Until the birth of my own child, there wasn't a soul on the planet who I shared genetic ties with that I personally knew. I am not an advocate of the red-neck position that is prevalent these days that biological ties trump all. I can recall far too many conversations with my students in various Des Moines schools about how awful people must be to give away their flesh and blood. Perhaps this new, if it is really, attitude accounts for the decreasing numbers of babies available for adoption these days and the increasing number of unprepared teens raising babies who will likely fare no better in life than their own parents did.

Do I have a right to my original birth certificate? Yes, I do. I am an adult and I should have the same right to that piece of paper as any other adult in the state of Iowa or elsewhere. The contract (because that is what an adoption is) that was brokered (because that is what adoption agencies and lawyers do) between my birth parents and my parents was between them. As an infant, my opinion and rights weren't an issue, but I am not an infant now.
Birth parents and some adoptees will tout privacy issues as the main reason for keeping records, especially older ones, sealed. That's not a good enough reason. There are consequences and responsibilities that go along with bringing a life into this world, signing and sealing adoption papers doesn't relieve birth parents of that no matter what they were told or still believe. They have an obligation to the children they created and this includes providing information to their birth children about who they are, where they came from and, of course, medical information which can change drastically from one's teens to one's middle age or later. As an example, my first husband died as a result of an inherited metabolic disease that no one in his family even knew they carried the effected gene for until he got sick. A medical history is on-going and not the finite thing that adoption agencies would have us believe.

One of my younger sisters searched out her birth parents and found a mother who she is still in touch with though her birth father rejected her utterly. Her search was time consuming and in the end turned out to be a mixed bag though she did discover some health information that was not included in her original adoption files.  
Personally, I have no interest in knowing my birth parents on anything other than paper. I am curious to know the circumstances surrounding my conception naturally and what they might look like. I would like to know that they are in continued good health and that no illnesses that I should worry about cropped up as they aged. I would like to know how I got the awful name of Yvette. Was I named for the actress? Or was it a family thing? But beyond that, I have a family who might not be perfect but are broken in and comfortable to me. 

The Best

Here in Alberta licensing is out-sourced. The provincial governments allow private businesses, like insurance companies, to set up outlets in towns and cities and they handle the paperwork and fees. These businesses handle all types of licensing from marriage to driver’s to hunting/fishing to animals. Because of this, there is often quite a lengthy wait when applying for whatever type of license you might need. Last week I was finally able to get the GDL designation taken off my driver’s license as I had recently received my proof of licensing from the state of Iowa. It took over a large chunk of my afternoon between standing in line and waiting for approval from the provincial authorities who needed to see a faxed copy of my paperwork before giving the okay for the change.

During my second stint in line, I noticed a couple at the counter who were obviously getting a marriage license. I must say I love the rituals associated with marriage in the Alberta province. If you ever have need of writing marriage vows, I urge you to check out the Alberta official ceremony. It even impressed my staunchly Catholic mother and aunt and that is significant. At one point in application process, both parties are required to raise their right hands and swear that the information they have given for their application is valid. I think it’s neat, the seriousness of the application process and the ceremony after all this is a country were people don’t have to marry. There is a common-law option. I watched the couple thinking what most people would think “Isn’t this sweet? Two people starting life together as a committed pair.”

When they were finished, they had to walk right by me to leave. The woman was young but still a bit older than Rob’s oldest daughter by my estimation and the man about thirty, give or take. She was smiling in a dreamy sort of way, and he was putting his credit card back into his wallet (a marriage license is about $77 dollars) with a disgusted look on his face and he muttered loud enough for nearly all about to hear, “Well, that was a waste of money.” I was a bit stunned and I wanted to chase the woman down a few minutes later and tell her to run, far and fast, but I chose to stay in line because you can’t really know what is going on inside a relationship from bits and snippets. Although as I told Rob recently that what you see is generally what you get in terms of how people’s public behavior is usually not far off their private persona. As my old English supervisor, Jerry Wadden, was fond of reminding us at the start of each school year, “These parents are not keeping the good children home and hiding them in closets. They are sending you the best they have.” And so it follows that it is the same with adults. They aren’t saying their best for a stand-up routine in front of the mirror each morning as they brush their teeth. They are giving the world the best they’ve got. I think though, as in the case of this young couple I observed, that sometimes people tend to settle for less than the best they deserve.

Let's Talk About Time

I’m running the risk of sounding whiny by broaching the topic of my lack of time again, but it has been eating at me all day. I had nothing on my schedule today but an appointment for a haircut at 1PM. Everything else was optional but for finding some time to go to the gym, buying cat food and getting over to the bookmobile at 7Pm. And yet somehow, my day completely slid away from me to the point where even though I did get quite a bit accomplished - for example: the laundry is near done; the kitchen is clean; I made a crock pot of homemade chicken veggie soup and a wholesome lunch and supper for husband and child; I got over to Sherwood Park to the pet store for food, the Starbucks to replenish tea supplies and hit the grocery store - whew! Right? But, I still feel like I got so very little done. Here it is nearly 7:30 in the evening and I am only just getting to my blog, and I haven’t touched my novel more than a handful of times since last Friday between traveling, helping Rob’s mom and child-minding. Valuable things all too. Don’t get me wrong. And perhaps I am just insanely selfish. Do I really need to work-out for an hour and a half every day? Do I need to blog daily? Is the novel something that has to be done by the end of the month, so I can spend December editing?

Sadly, I still have the widow tendency to putz around and waste time. However, is reading the newspaper daily(okay, two newspapers) a waste of time? Am I wasting time reading and responding to others’ blogs? When I choose to write this blog instead of going to writing group, is that being as productive as I could be?

Rob says it’s a matter of prioritizing, but the trouble is that what is most important seems to vary from week to week. Last week my deep water exercise class went by the wayside because Rob was working on finishing the roof - which is a matter of some urgency with winter basically upon us here in Alberta. Tonight both water aerobics and writing group bit the dust because I needed to write. I just needed to and I can’t explain the importance of this need any more clearly than it is like an athlete who misses too many training days in a row due to an injury. After a certain point your body just cries out to move and sweat and be allowed to do that which it was trained to do. The same is true of writing. My mind just screams to be unleashed on the keyboard. I need to write almost like I am beginning to really need to run and lift weights. I don’t feel like myself otherwise, and it has been so long since I have felt like me that I am afraid to take even the tiniest break lest I fall back into the dark times when writing and movement were luxuries.

I don’t know. The scheduling thing is still eluding me, and I can rationalize that there are more important things that come up because that is the nature of life, but the truth is much simpler. I am still not using my time wisely. I still surf the net aimlessly when I can’t string words together instead of using that “think time” to do something productive. In the old days when I wasn’t writing, I was reading. Really reading. Novels. I sadly don’t have the attention span for that yet, but the Internet is hardly the place to pump mental iron. And I could be getting up earlier. I have shamelessly luxuriated in my timelessness these last months. I don’t wear a watch or set an alarm clock at bed, but those days need to end mostly.

I know there are probably many writers who dink about and write here and there, but I don’t think many of them are published much less successful. To be good requires commitment and discipline and probably sacrifice. And, I just cannot do all the things I would like to do and still spend time with Rob and Katy, and whatever my aspirations, they come first.

I guess it is back to the drawing board for a little more scheduling and organizational fine tuning, remembering always that they are just details.

Traveling to B.C.

Friday night after ballet, we drove down to Calgary to get a jump on the long drive to Penticton which is in the Okanagan in British Columbia. Rob’s younger sister and her family live just outside of Calgary and we spent the night there and left just before lunch for B.C. Rob’s mother relocated to Penticton recently.

Calgary is a big city. About one million and it’s probably the biggest city per square mile in North America. It took a while to drive through. Rob, Shelley and the girls lived there for about eight years. First while he was in engineering school and then when he was working at a refinery nearby. Rob’s younger sister, Sheila and her husband and their girls live here now and Rob’s younger brother and his family do as well. We had a nice time at Sheila and Kevin’s, but we didn’t see Ryan and his wife, Natalie.

The mountains can be seen from Calgary without any problem. They are about an hour from the city with nothing but prairie leading up to them. Once in the mountains, they rise and fall alongside, disappearing up into the clouds, falling down to disappear into tree thick valleys.

Our first stop after leaving Calgary was Canmore which is just outside the Jasper National Park. Rob told me to take a good look around. Canmore is an example of what happens to mountain towns that lie outside national park land. Overgrowth without restriction. Some would argue that it allows people an opportunity to live in beautiful areas like the Rockies and that government regulation hampers growth, but the truth is that towns that like Canmore are blights that are no different than the mountain pine beetle that is ravaging the old forest growth in B.C. There are some that go as far as to argue that man is an infestation on the planet and when you contrast the ugliness of a place like Canmore, you might be inclined to agree.

At the first high pass beyond Canmore, we encountered snow. Real snow. Heavy wet flakes driven at the speed of sound by the wind, they looked like giant moths caught in a wind tunnel.

White knuckle driving. I know this because Rob let go of my hand to take the steering wheel with both hands. He always holds my hand while driving, so when he lets go and takes the wheel, it’s bad.

As quickly as it came up, we were coming down and the skies began to clear.

We stopped again in Golden after crossing this bridge, but not before encountering wildlife.

Mountain settlements slow travel in addition to not being as picturesque as they lay claim to being. Sometime well after dark we finally reached Kelowna, and I am glad it was dark. As I told Rob, I wouldn’t want to be able to see the mountains around. The city is obscene enough in the dark. Spreading out and out like a retail Vegas with every chain name you can imagine. It wasn’t even pretending to be quaint and scenic.

Penticton has turned out to be a little nicer but still, a city is a city and there is a natural opposition between civilization and the wild with the former not bending much to accommodate.

1000 Days

It’s interesting the significance that people place on the dates and anniversaries of their deceased loved ones and on keeping track of the exact passage of time. A fellow widow blogger noted recently that she was approaching the 1000th day since her husband’s death. Out of curiosity I found a site that will calculate time elapsed between two dates, so I played with it a bit and discovered the following:

It’s been 654 days since my late husband died. That’s 1 year, 9 months and 16 days.
It’s been 807 days since he went into hospice or 2 years, 2 months and 16 days.
I had to put him in a nursing home on October 6th of 2004 which is 1189 days or 3 years, 3 months and 2 days ago.
1311 days ago I started taking him to daycare while I worked and he began to wear diapers full-time. That comes out to 3 years, 7 months and 2 days.
He finally succumbed to the full effect of his illness the same week we bought our first home together. That was the 4th of July weekend of 2003, 1588 days ago, which is 4 years 4 months and 4 days. He was a complete stranger to me from then on.
The last time we made love? 1629 days ago or 4 years 5 months and 15 days.
The day it was clear to me that he was ill, although it wasn’t obvious to anyone else and should have been. That was the day of his 10 year high school reunion on June 1, 2002. 1986 days or 5 years, 5 months and 7 days past.

And what does all this add up to, really? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know why people count days and I don’t. I know why I remember these dates, and they certainly aren’t the only ones - just the highlights. They are significant to the demise of something I never thought would end as quickly as it did. Almost as quickly as it began. Each of these dates mark me in a way that no scar ever could, although they cut deep and the ache is never too far from my memory.

I am not sure that you honor a person’s memory by dwelling more on the time that they have been dead rather than the time that they spent living on this earth. Next week will mark what would have been my late husband’s 34th birthday and Rob suggested to Katy and I that we have a cake to celebrate. We didn’t celebrate his birthday last year. I didn’t even mention it to Katy at all. Maybe I should have because it doesn’t really matter how long he has been gone. What matters is that he lived.

Do You Want Until a Song is Over?

On my way to the gym yesterday morning I was listening to the XM 70’s station and it played song after song that I remembered and could sing along with. Just as I was pulling up to the intersection where I turn off the Carpenter’s Top of the World came on. Like most pop tunes from that era, it is of rather short duration but it wasn’t quite finished as I pulled into the parking lot and into a spot, so I sat in my vehicle, head bopping and singing along until the song was through before getting out. And I wondered, how many people sit and listen through to the end of the song before exiting their vehicles? I know it probably depends on the day and whether or not a person is crunched for time, but since I am chronically not on time anyway and have really no earth shattering obligations beyond my husband and our family, I usually sit and wait for the song to end.

It was a good song too. Happy and upbeat. Anyone who might have been watching me could have well wondered what I had in my tea at breakfast. (A bit of honey and vanilla rice milk, actually) Although Rob would be horrified, the lyrics suited the two of us in a way, and it felt good to be able to identify with them.

I remember once back when I was teaching middle school we had a student teacher, I think, who would often sit in her car for a while after she arrived in the morning. When someone finally asked her what she was doing, she replied that she was singing along with a song that hadn’t quite finished and that sometimes she would even “play” the drum part on the steering wheel and even if she was running late, she always waited for the song to end. At the time I thought, how totally cool to be so young and to have such good priorities. For a while after I made it a point to sit and listen to songs I liked. But then, life got busy and sad and I stopped. I had forgotten about her until today. I am going to try not to forget again.

Writing: The Problem with Digging Deep

Eric Clapton’s autobiography recently came out and it’s been praised widely for, among other things, its frankness. Mr. Clapton’s colorful past manages to be honest without injecting drama that isn’t there. But the chapter dealing with the death of his four year old son has a different tone than the rest of the book. There is a distance to the narrative that alarmed his publishers to the point that they asked him to consider rewriting it. He declined and explained that his child’s tragic accident was not something he could write any other way. That time and those circumstances were not places he could go emotionally anymore. He could talk about them. Sing the song he wrote for his boy. But to write the event from the perspective of the grieving father wasn’t possible. He just couldn’t do it.

In writing my novel I have discovered that while I can fictionalize much of the events surrounding my first husband’s illness and death and that I can write about the year that followed in a fashion, I can’t dive in to those emotions anymore. I am too far removed and just don’t want to. I wondered for a while if this was the denial I have been accused of in the past and decided it wasn’t. I am normal and what I am experiencing is normal. Grief doesn’t go anywhere really but you do reach a point where it is someplace you don’t go much, if at all. And that’s more than okay. It’s a good thing.

So, I am mining my past and my pain for the time being as I go back over the latter half of last year and when the book is finished, I won’t be revisiting that in my fiction again. I have other projects. Two of which I have already started actually. Still, “going there” as Gary Paulson would say, isn’t entirely without its redeeming factors because I think I am writing a pretty darn good book.

Towels

If you’d been peeking into my backyard the other night about 10PM you would have been treated to the sight of my husband not once but twice running out to retrieve and put away tools he’d been using on the roof reno earlier that evening. The treat part, well maybe just for me, was that he was in his towel. Actually, towels could almost be considered part of his wardrobe. I laughed when I realized he’d been out like that. He didn’t see anything wrong in it. It was dark after all, and it isn’t as if our neighbors have much of a view of our backyard. Out where we live most yards and houses are sheltered by trees and shrubs, not to mention the garages and privacy fences and RV’s that are typical of the back yard parking areas that connect to the alley. I think the real reason that I laugh is that it’s interesting that I should have found and married a man who is more casual than I am about running about in towels or less. My habits stem from years on my own, but his I chalk up to his exotic Canadian roots. Canadians drop drawers for outdoor tinkling without much thought really, so it stands to reason that running about in towels isn’t any big deal to them.

Of perhaps his lack of modesty is a male thing? In the locker room at the gym the other morning I was drawn into a conversation on nudity etiquette. It began with a woman fresh from the shower and trying to pull on her panties before dropping her towel, which is something I do to if there are a lot of other women around and the quarters are tight. When I have elbow room and there women are familiar to me, I just drop the towel and dress. Though I have to admit I sometimes do this just to make people uncomfortable when I get the feeling they disapprove of my changing out in the open as opposed to gathering up all my things and heading to the draped cubicles. The conversation covered a range of topics within the larger context, but we reached the unanimous conclusion that age and experience and above all comfortable confidence in your body that the aforementioned bring to many women eventually are the chief reasons that we eventually drop the modest act and just get dressed.

I have told Rob that if we ever get to the timeshare in St. Martin, I want to try the nude side of the beach. Not that I have anything spectacular to share with the world. It’s not about the world. It’s about being comfortable and confident in me. That is something I see in Rob that I find incredibly attractive, and I think his influence has helped further my own ease with myself. So, I guess it’s not really about towels or “neckidness”, is it.

Meanderings of Writer's Block

One of my favorite authors is a man named Gary Paulson. If you are a middle school teacher, you probably are quite familiar with his work. He is a phenomenal talent who writes accessible fiction that promotes thinking without being preachy. I was thinking about him the other day when I read yet another newspaper article about how brave the author of the Harry Potter series was to “out” one of her main characters. I was and still am unimpressed by her after the fact revelation. Had she written the character as a man who happened to be gay in addition to being the head master of a school for wizards that would have been worthy of praise. As it was, she opted for the cheap politically correct option of telling her readers she imagined that the character was gay as she wrote about him......not being gay. Not that it matters. Orientation is not the sole defining characteristic of any person and that should have been the point. It reminded me of Paulson because in his novel The Car, one of the man characters is a gay man. As readers we learn about this through yet another main character as he reveals the fact in passing during a conversation. Paulson never mentions the fact again in the course of the novel because it’s not relevant to the story, but he mentions it upfront and not as an aside in an interview later on. So why do I bring up Paulson at all? Was it to discuss the Rowlings revelation? No, actually I wanted to talk about his theory on writing. I may have mentioned it at some point in my blogging but it bears repeating. He feels that writers have to be willing to “go there” in other words, dig deep into the rubble pile that is the sum of all our bad experiences in life and be willing to put ourselves back in those circumstances and draw on the rawness to fuel artistic endeavors. And no, it’s not much more fun that it sounds. I know because I have been reading back through the first six months of my blogging from July through December of 2006. Not fun times. Although not as dark as times that preceded it in 2005 or 2004 or even earlier. When I truly think about, life has been a struggle since early spring of 2002. That’s when Will first began to be obviously not right in so many ways. That’s a long time to struggle. And sometimes I would like to forget about those times completely. Why not? There is no reason to go back there and agonize, second guess or berate myself. Except that those times made me who I am in the same way that my father’s alcoholism shaped me or my long, lonely single years laid the foundation I built upon when Will was sick and it was just me and Katy, just as examples. How do you integrate and use those lessons, for lack of a better word, and forget the circumstances at the same time. In retrospect, I am a lucky person because I know there are people who lives have been beset with far more tragedy than my own and for whom there never seems to be much, if any respite. Though most of these people are strong, resourceful and able to hang onto those wonders and joys of life that see them through and give them hope; no one is able to hold up the world day in and day out when it seems intent on rolling off their shoulders or becomes to heavy a burden alone. Those times when I felt that life was little more than an endless battle against the bad things; I hung onto the fact that I would be happy again. Even when I wasn’t sure if that was really true, I clung to it stubbornly and it saw me through to where I am now. Today I was reading one of the many widow blogs I peruse. It’s author, Alicia, called to mind the endurance that is necessary to sustain oneself when the forces beyond our control have us tightly boxed and seemingly in their grip. Her poem reminded me of the power within us all to dig within ourselves and express our need for strength and empathy and a glimpse of that elusive and lit tunnel exit sign.

Iowa, B.C., Texas and the Kingdom of Saud

When we were back in Iowa visiting with my family a few weeks back, we spent an afternoon out in the rural area that my dad’s family helped settle well over a hundred years ago. The old homestead is the house I remember from my childhood and visiting my Grandma and Uncle Jimmy, who was farming it at the time. It was a house that my great-grandfather built and all but his oldest son was born there. In fact the trees that run along the driveway were planted the day my grandmother was born back in March of 1894. The house is still livable but no one has lived there for several years and it shows. One of the McCarthy boys, Phil, owns it now. He is my third cousin on my grandmother’s side. At least I think that is the degree of our relationship. I have trouble with the whole cousin rating system once I am past second cousins. Phil’s great-grandmother and my great-grandfather were siblings is all I know. And even that might not be entirely accurate. Phil wants to sell the acreage the homestead is on, preferably to family. My sister and her husband looked at the place over the summer but decided against it as the house needs too much work. After we visited the place with my dad and Katy and my nephew, Luke, Rob surprised me by commenting that he could see himself living on a place like that in future and that he found my hometown a fairly nice area to live. Interestingly, I had thought about buying the homestead on different occasions in my live but it was never for sale until recently.

I bring this up only because Rob and I have been talking about where we want to retire. A bit premature you say? Well, not really. We are both of the mindset that “retirement” in its current form is a fantasy for the majority of people our age (40’s). The social structure will be bent to the breaking point by the older boomers and won’t exist in its present form for us. Unless we win the lottery (and apparently you have to play in order to win) or I really do write that Oprah Book Club masterpiece some day soon, we are going to be working in some form or another all of our lives. What we need to do is settle upon careers that we enjoy and that can be done anywhere. And we need an anywhere to do it.

So, now we have one possible anywhere. My family’s homestead. Next week we are heading to B.C. (British Columbia) to visit Rob’s mom in her new digs. It’s in the mountain valley area and it’s apparently very beautiful there. That might end up being another “where” possibility.

Rob mentioned the Iowa retirement option to both his daughters in an email he sent to them recently updating them on things going on around here, not the least of which is a possible job offer that could take us back to the states very soon. Jordan, the younger, thought that Iowa was about me and my wanting to be close to my family. Rob asked me about that too when we were discussing it. Probably because when we first met, I was under some pressure from my mother and sister to move back to my hometown and I was resisting it. My reasons then where that though it would be good for Katy in some ways to be nearer my family; it would not have been good for me. Not then with my life being what it was. I told Rob that now was different simply because I am different. My circumstances are different. Things do change. Iowa would still be good for Katy because she would grow up around extended family and as an only child with older parents, it would be good for her to have connections beyond us. It would be okay for me too now because I wouldn’t be in danger of being sucked into some of my family’s dysfunctional ways the way I would have been had it been just Katy and I.

However, for the immediate future there is what a move to Houston and then quite probably Saudi Arabia would mean for all us. Iowa or B.C. is food for thought and a later date to ponder and act upon.

Time Flies

Not literally and yet literally, time flies. And it’s not about fun either. I am not always having fun. The dishes, the laundry, the child, the cat, the groceries, the miscellaneous errands. The care and maintenance that goes into the all of the aforementioned can run a considerable range up and down and around the old fun meter. There are my various physical activities (running and swimming) and mental activities (my novel, the blog, attempting to keep up with the world of literature and the news of the day - although sometimes I don’t get to today’s news until tomorrow). I have written about this before but I just run out of time, nearly every day it seems.

As I sit and type this, I can hear and feel the roof shuddering because Rob is out back in the pitch dark building a new gable over the kitchen window box because the roof is leaking and it’s pretty much winter here now. And he hasn’t time either and I don’t need to wonder why or how this happened. We merged our lives and doubled everything essentially but the time we are alloted.

So, the novel is over 31,ooo words and 108 pages and I am certain I will hit the 50,000 within a week but I will likely not be done. More like 3/4ths done. I have discovered however my novel writing style, which as I suspected it would be, is not a start at the beginning and write to the end; but more of a have a good idea where things go and write as the ideas germinate whether that is starting in the middle or rearranging chapter order as you discover that you wrote chapter 11 when it should be chapter 2. My writing is more and more consuming time. I am becoming of those people who sit in waiting rooms with their laptops open and pounding away.

Tomorrow I promise to blog more topically but tonight I am tired and there is a novel calling and a hay fever attack subsiding and my husband is back inside to be snuggled up to. Time just continues to fly by.

First Snow of Winter

The snow was falling even before we went to bed last night. Not flurries either but the wet, heavy flakes that fall straight down like missiles, sticking to the cold surfaces and piling up like cord wood. From a distance they look like tiny snowballs and up close they clump on face, getting stuck in your eyelashes and bangs before melting into tiny slush pools that dribble slowly down you face and off your chin like drool.

Although it was much colder this morning, the snow clung to most surfaces save the roads. They are still a bit too warm and with the help of the sun, shook off the white stuff this time. Next time will likely be a different matter. Snow in early November is something I can’t recall in the last several years. The last really snowy winter I remember was 1998 when Will and I were first living together. It seemed as though it did nothing but snow that winter. I think we had nearly a week’s worth of school to make up that following June because of the snow days. Here, according to Rob, the snow fell and stayed, foot after foot of it, just before Halloween. I don’t recall snow on Halloween ever but I remember plenty of snowy Novembers growing up and even through my young adulthood. Weather patterns have changed a lot though because of the global warming in the last decade and a bit more. In Iowa winter snows fall around and more often after Christmas and in the southern part of the state significant and lasting snowfall is over by late February or very early March. By late April the warm weather returns and it can be very warm and humid by mid-May and stay that way through to mid-October. Here the snow falls and stays until May.

Everyone is concerned about how I will handle a Canadian winter, but I only just put my long johns on today whereas Rob has been wearing his for weeks already. It’s just snow and cold. The sun being perpetually on the horizon, not that we have fallen back to standard time, is more bothersome. On the way into town today, Rob has me try to picture what it will be like with feets high snow banks on either side of the road and weather so cold that the car exhaust builds up into a fog at the intersections from the waiting vehicles. Not hard to picture the latter at all as I have been paying attention to the smokestacks at the plants around here and the smoky pollution that comes out. It’s thicker and moves languidly up and across the sky. Manufactured clouds of steely gray snaking away for what seems like miles. Rob isn’t far off when he asserts that the cold is visible up here. I used to try and picture the Fort and the road to Josephburg before we moved up from his descriptions. I tried to visualize the layout of the yard and the house. He had shown me how to get to the aerial shot on Goggle Earth once and that helped a bit, but it wasn’t until I got here that it all made sense. Of course, even in the beginning, nothing seemed concrete in the same way life in Des Moines did. Now the Fort is my mailing address and Josephburg is where I live, and this house, is our home in a way that the old place on 53rd Place never was.

Winter has arrived. And so have I.

Two Miles, Two Thousands Words and Whatever Comes Next

Last fall I couldn’t run a mile. As a matter of fact, I had lost so much weight because of gallbladder issues that by the time it was removed, a year ago today, I could barely manage a half hour of walking. A good deal of the weight I lost by that point was muscle and I couldn’t see how I would ever regain the fitness ground I had lost in the few short months since the summer when I had put time and effort into regaining that ground. I also couldn’t write. Stringing more than a few sentences together, and on rare occasions a paragraph or two, was taxing. I had started to blog but my effort was sporadic even though I began blogging in the hope that I could jump-start my long dormant inner-writer. And as for what was coming next in my life, I hadn’t a clue.

Today I can easily run two miles and walk another mile or two besides. I lift weights again. I have regained muscle and even though that has pushed up the number on the scale and put me back in a size ten, it is were I was at my fittest ten years ago. Tone and level of fitness are what has always mattered. I can’t say there wasn’t a secret thrill in weighing in at 138 lbs, which I did at one point, but on my almost 5’10’’ frame it was alarmingly thin. And I didn’t like not being strong. Or able to run or swim. It just wasn’t me. I am 44 in just a bit over a month, and these are the years that truly can decide what one’s senior and elderly years might possibly look like. There are some things that proper nutrition and exercise can’t protect us against but they can help determine whether how active we will be able to be. I don’t want to be one of those 60 year olds hobbling about with too much weight on them, plagued with all sorts of preventable maladies and unable to participate in life to the fullest.

I am also able to write again. A great joy that I don’t think I can find the words, ironically, to really express. There is a line in the children’s novel, Harriet, the Spy, that talks about Harriet’s thoughts “limping along like crippled children” because she has been forbidden to journal in her notebook after it causes an incident at her school. That line about sums up my feelings about being unable to really write. I can fairly easily knock out 1500 to 2000 words at a sitting now. I blog daily for the most part, and thanks to the inspiration of Nanowrimo (National November Write a Novel Month), I am almost half-way through a complete first draft of my novel. I am really very proud of myself. Back in the dark days last fall, I knew that I wanted to take my experiences and generate a fiction novel from them. I hadn’t a clue where to begin though I did write a few short pieces that I am now expanding on or incorporating into my present work. Caregiving and then widowhood have been such growth experiences, and I know that other widowed people would find it appalling that I appreciate what I have gleaned from both, but I think that most people would acknowledge that even when you wouldn’t choose to experience tragedy on any level in your life, these experiences can change you for the better. They can provide you with insight and the basis on which to hopefully be a better person.

Finally, there is what comes next and who knows what that might be. My horoscope for yesterday told me that it is time for me to confront my fears, many of which have no rational basis, and get ready for the future. I don’t know how prepared a person can be for the unknowable future but planning and being open to all the possibilities is near always an excellent place to start. A lot of good people and things have come my way this last year. I am more grateful for them then I will ever be able to express. More things are coming, I believe, and I am going to strive to take them one at a time and be more appreciative than freaked out (which is my wont when I am feeling overwhelmed at the light speed my life seems to travel at anymore).

Whatever comes next. A Canadian winter. Houston in the New Year perhaps or a publishable novel that someone might really want to read. I am ready.

Bliss

ob sent me Mark Morford’s SFGate column on Bliss the other day. He would like to start a “Bliss List” in response to the Bush Administrations “Terror List” or whatever it is called. It’s the list that the U.S. government has, and is still, compiling that names people who could have terrorist ties. Of a frightening length now, it targets people seemingly at random and does more for forwarding Naomi Wolfe’s argument that America is well on its way to becoming a totalitarian regime than most people care to think about. Anyway, Morford’s idea was to fight against the “darkness” by creating a list of people who live blissfully. He had a long list of criteria that could qualify a person for this list but the following paragraph caught my attention:

"Is there someone in your life who engages the world and thrives on books
and media, who works to understand the woes of the world and the yank of
politics and the guilty pleasures of pop culture, right along with the
sadness of war and cancer and divorce and yet still, somehow, manages to
wear really cute underwear and shrugs at contradiction and orgasms with
their mouth open?" (M. Morford)

Normally, I wouldn’t consider myself a blissful person, but the cute underwear and the shrugging sound a bit like me. I can’t vouch for the open-mouthed orgasms though only because there would have to be a mirror on the ceiling and that is just creepy. But I like the idea of a anti-list of those of us who are struggling to stay up in a down world. Doing our tiny bits to help ensure that the whole of existence is swamped by those whose sole focus in life is looking for reasons to be fearful and negative and to spread that fear and negativity to others. Which, I suppose, bring me around to attitude and optimism. Blissful people would say that a positive outlook is tremendously important in staying afloat in life. Those opposed would counter that sometimes life deals a hand too crappy for good attitude and rosy-tinted glassed to overcome. And while it is true that there are people who live sad and difficult lives, my experience leads me to conclude that while somethings in life cannot be avoided, many of the awful circumstances people find themselves in can be traced to decisions they made or avoided making at some earlier point in their lives. Much as one would like to say that people are sometimes victims of fate, it’s just not true the vast majority of the time. Using myself as an example, there was no life insurance money when my late husband died. The reason being simply that at the time we looked into it, we were in the midst of fertility treatments and though we could have come up with the extra cash, it would have tightened our budget quite a bit. My late husband talked me into waiting on the life insurance and by giving in I helped create the situation I found myself in when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness not quite two years later. Life insurance premiums are expensive, but probably less per year than what most people spend on their cell phone or cable TV bill. Neither of which is the necessity that life insurance is. Of course I am not an extreme example. As a teacher I saw single mothers who were living those quiet lives of desperation we so often hear about and it wasn’t hard to feel sorry for them. Yet, the majority of them had landed where they were by not finishing high school, for no reason other than they didn’t like school and thought it would be nothing at all to find a husband to support them in the future. Of course, life isn’t like that. Drop outs associate primarily with other drop-outs. They engage in behaviors that usually end up getting them in trouble with their parents, employers and possibly the police. These women ended up pregnant, a lot of times intentionally, thinking that it would net them life-long partners. But it didn’t. They were usually working multiple jobs and on some form of public assistance and wringing their hands trying to figure out why their children weren’t doing well in school and always getting into trouble. Probably an extreme example, but perhaps you see where I am going with this. Our lives are our responsibility. Bad things, and good things, happen throughout but it is our response to them that makes the difference. Optimistic people see where their choices are taking them. They accept that sometimes they will struggle but are confident that struggle is worthwhile and is taking them somewhere better. Pessimistic people see only the past and the now that their past has created.

All my life I have been a dreamer. As Yoda once said of Luke Skywalker “Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing.” That could be said of me. Hopefully I am a bit more mindful of my now than I was twenty or thirty years ago. And hopefully if I keep reading and reaching and dreaming (and wearing really cute underwear), I will one day be worthy of a mention on the Bliss List.

Lost in the Translation

The cat had a follow up appointment with the vet today at the clinic in Uncas, which is not far from where we live. I have been there and wasn’t worried about getting back, but I did clarify directions with my husband this morning, just to make sure we would get there on time.

“So, I take the road just past Carlie’s (our babysitter) and follow it ‘til just past the school and take the first left.”

Having received an affirmative from Rob, that is exactly the way I went. I took the first road past the road where we turn to go to the sitter’s house and followed it. Until I hit the wilderness centre and realized I was not where I should be. Thus the message on Rob’s work voicemail. When I did get a hold of him, he managed to confirm that my guess about where to go to get back on the right road was correct, and when we spoke after the vet appointment, he pointed out that what he had heard me ask was not what I was actually saying. He thought I meant “should I take the road that goes right past Carlie’s actual home”. Funny, because I thought we both spoke English. There are just enough differences in the way we use words whether the meaning or the pronunciation that can still cause miscommunication for time to time.

Rob remarked that my message to him sounded “tense” which is his understated way of saying I was just short of blowing and was fairly pissed off. And I was. I hate to be lost almost as much as I hate being hugged by total strangers or people I dislike or, frankly, anyone if I haven’t made any moves to initiate or reciprocate. I have always been able to find places again once I have been there but I am a landmarks person and honestly, when you live in a rural area landmarks can literally look the same from one range road to the next. I am not an expert on trees and such. One group of them looks pretty much like another. This is where my husband would wax poetically about the supremacy of road signs and maps. He is the ultimate Virgo.

So today’s “let that be a lesson to us all” is not to assume you are understood. And, of course, not to freak out when you are not.