The Jab

Easter eggs and memories of many Easters gone by have filled the quiet of my home tonight. As children we celebrated the Christian religious rites in the United church. A member of the Junior and Senior choirs there was always an appropriate and uplifting anthem to sing for the congregation. Many a faithful community woman at the organ, our choir gowns crisp and ironed, we sung our hearts out. At home, we had our Easter baskets with the grass green paper strips nestling coloured candy eggs. Before Easter Sunday we dyed eggs for Easter. Not terribly intricate, but Easter eggs nonetheless. As with many of my memories, finer details have vanished in the frayed edges of these pictures. I do remember the fun of seeing the white shell of an egg turn red, or pink, blue or purple. Purple - now that was fun. Mixing up the colours. Sometimes mixing them too much and just getting a muddy yucky colour was always disappointing. 

This Easter, I am not singing in a choir, nor do I have an Easter basket. I am considering dying some eggs tomorrow in honour of the day and times gone by. Today, it was a different sort of throng I joined. Not a church congregation dressed in their Sunday best. I really do miss the fancy hats and snappy fedoras of the time. Today it was not a church, or even a community hall. There were no choirs singing, no bands playing. In one door and out another. Greeted by a cheerful ‘Top of the mornin’ to you’, the security guard directed me to follow the arrows into a rather cavernous building. My goal was not a chocolate bunny or a community meal. I came prepared with my Saskatchewan Health Card in hand, my mask and wore a short sleeved shirt - for ease of ‘the jab’. When I arrived at the reception desk, I could see I was merely one of a community of seekers of vaccination against our nemesis, the deadly Covid19 virus. New clean masks were provided us by delightful volunteers when we arrived at the reception desk. We maintained recommended distancing with reminders by big orange dots on the floor. As the line I joined moved steadily toward our end goals, men chatted about hockey games, women about children or grandchildren. The time in the lineup was probably five minutes.

White plastic chairs, small tables with all the supplies each nurse would need were set well apart from each other. At each table a registered nurse presided over immunization cards, stickers, needles and syringes, alcohol swabs and of course the vaccines. More cheerful and informative volunteers! That whole process - including the pleasantries we shared - took another five minutes. Then it was following the arrows to a waiting area with chairs properly distanced and the area staffed by more charming volunteers. We were directed to sit quietly for about 15 minutes to ensure no sudden side and untoward effects. When finished, we turned our chair to the side to indicate it needed cleaning. 

This whole Easter time event took less than thirty minutes. But, what about chocolate. There had been no candy eggs, no chocolate bunnies and we were not even given a lollypop after our ‘jab’! So it was home without a treat. But I had a solution to share with my good friend. At my kitchen table, we ate chocolate brownie pudding with ice cream, good hot coffee and topped it off with a good visit full of laughter, cell phone pictures and memories.

“If anyone or anything tries to curse or kill 

the Goodness at the Center of all things, 

it will just keep coming back to life. 

Forever Easter.”

~ David Housholder, The Blackberry Bush

 

Ducks, Geese and Daffodils

Ducks, geese and daffodils each have their own special meanings to me. Growing up on a grain farm in the middle of a sometimes unruly lot of siblings, our parents tried desperately to show us a more orderly way of life. I knew nothing of the financial struggle of raising nine children and suspect it would only have been boring. But, when my dad told us his story of the first day of hunting season growing up in the United States, it was anything but boring. Not because I was interested in hunting, but because of the excitement stirred by the men gathering, dogs barking, guns cleaned and oiled. Personally, I don’t care for guns at all but it was my dad’s storied experience so it was good. On our prairie farm, on the occasions when dad was free from field work, he did go hunting. Was there an echo of that youthful excitement? I would like to think so. On a successful hunt, he did bring home ducks, pheasants and, I think, quail - never geese, but that’s another story. Very young at the time I do not recall all the unpleasantness of the plucking and butchering, nor do I remember the taste of the meat or how my mother cooked it. One vague memory is that the duck meat was dry, quail and pheasant didn’t have much meat on them. The story of the geese is two fold. My dad loved the sound and flight of geese in the fall. But as an eating bird, they were ‘too greasy’. One fall, he and my stepmother were visiting me in Texas. I was in my bedroom when I heard him excitedly calling my name ‘Suzie! Suzie! Get out here!” I rushed to the sound of his voice - he was in the back yard looking up at the sky as a low flying flock of geese winged over my neighborhood. There was that same excitement  in his voice. It drew me then as an adult as it had in our farmhouse on the Saskatchewan prairies. Years later, when my dad was gone from this earth, I visited my sons in Victoria, B.C. The first time I saw the amazing swaths of daffodils cascading down a slope across the road from the Dallas Road dog park, I felt what I believe my dad felt at the opening of hunting season: joy and delight. Would he use those words?  I really doubt that, but in my girly mind they fit. 

In a few more years, I would be walking regularly with a new group of friends or with my sons and their dogs. I have returned home to live on the prairies, missing not only my good friends but the swaths of daffodils and the shyer ones that peek out from the bushes along the Dallas Road. The brazen geese and more sedate ducks have returned to the waters of the Wascana lake. When I hear the geese honking, ducks quacking or the whoosh of their wings taking flight, I hear my dad calling me to come outside.

“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. 

There isn’t a stronger connection between people than story telling.”

~ Jimmy Neil Smith, Director of the International Storytelling Center

It's Delightful!

Intention was a bit of a heavy theme last month. Not easy to find that in each of my little offerings - sometimes even for me. So this month I’ve decided to lighten things up - to find the delight in life.

Ducks, geese and daffodils……..

Easter eggs and the memories……

Light at the end of the tunnel…..

Intimidated by a business…….

Glad handing……..

Halo’s are seldom ……

The joys of…….

Fair is as fair does……

Unicorns and fairy godmothers

Leaping lizards!

“It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, 

when I hear something coming out of my guitar 

and out of my mouth that wasn’t there before.”

~ James Taylor

Chapter Two, Episode Twenty Seven - A Second Honeymoon - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

Reading A Second Honeymoon twice, aloud and then silently, I had to really think! I missed pluralizing one word and had double spaced in a couple of places. But after my third review, I cleaned up sentence structure in the dialogue for both James and Martha. 

A Second Honeymoon

Those frightening couple of days for James Digby had thankfully passed. His wife had fallen ill on the eve of a party they had planned. Watching over her, he had listened to a jumble of their own wedding and the Crawfords’ elopement. Her hair damp, she would fall asleep only to mumble about her grandchildren Ben and Abby and their mother Joanie. When the antibiotic took hold, all the delirium disappeared. Martha was worn out as though she had worked steadily without sleep for days. Their physician had reported their Covid tests were negative. He reminded James to make certain she took the full regimen of antibiotics and to make sure she drank lots of fluids. As she improved, Martha would come to the kitchen in her pink fleece housecoat and matching bunny slippers. Trying to help James with some little task she would soon tire. “Have you seen anyone besides your old sick wife, James dear?” 

“No, Martha, we’ve had to isolate here. Except for deliveries of groceries, I’ve not seen anyone. Not even Elizabeth. She's been isolated as well. Miss Emelina and Dr. Jeremy have had to fend for themselves. I’ve kept in touch, and they seem to be still on their honeymoon without our interference.” He had a tray with hot teapot,  mugs and shortbread. “Today we're going out on the porch to have our tea. It’s a lovely day.” Blankets were folded and ready at the back door. “But James, I’m not dressed properly to even go out on our porch!” Martha was already patting her hair into place and smoothing the already smooth, soft pink fleece. “I’ll just change.” James turned her towards the back door.

“Martha dear, there is no need to fuss. No one is coming around to see either of us. See, I have blankets all ready to tuck around you. Come, dear, you need some fresh air. The rain has let up and the clouds are breaking. It’s lovely and warm. You can take a deep breath of spring - it’s gotten far too stuffy in here.”

~~~~~

Cuddled up in blankets in the big wooden rocking chair on the porch, Martha finished a second cup of tea. She and James had been quiet, just listening to spring songbirds and enjoying nodding snowdrops with daffodils breaking through the ground. Setting her teacup on the little side table, Martha said “I surely put the kibosh on our party for Miss Emelina and that handsome Dr. Jeremy.” The contented smile had left her face, a tear trickling from one eye. She brushed it away before James could see, but wasn’t fast enough.

“Martha - everyone understood. They were all just concerned that you were ok. We're all keeping the secret. You have time to plan a new party; it will still be a surprise. In fact, it may be more of a surprise, dear.” James had expected that, as she was feeling better, Martha would feel overly responsible for the missed reception. “Well, my thanks to you and everyone for being so understanding and patient with me. I’ll get started on a new plan in the morning.”

“No planning until you are much better, Martha dear. Tomorrow, we’ll start walking each day to build up your strength. We’ll just have our own little honeymoon for the next several days.” James reached out and squeezed her hand. 

“Oh, heavens, James. We’ve had our honeymoon right after we married. We can’t have another one. That would be silly. I do look forward to walking with you though.”  Behind her words, Martha was already sorting through ideas for Miss Emelina’s belated wedding reception.

“Well, Mrs. Digby, we owe ourselves a second honeymoon and we have the time and quiet to make it what we want. We could take one of our walks over to see Elizabeth. Right now our time is our own.”

“The honeymoon is not actually over until we cease 

to stifle our sighs and begin to stifle our yawns.”

~ Helen Rowland

Spider on the Lake

A twig

frozen into the lake

crawled out

on spindly legs

to become

a spider.

“Transformation literally means going beyond your form.”

~ Wayne Dyer

The Mad Artist

furious winds slash snow 

across this gilded slope ~

bush and tree holding tightly

to tender buds of spring

“When it comes to art, it’s important not to hide the madness.”

~ Atticus

 

Old Echoes

I’ve always been hesitant 

about taking control 

when wrested from me by 

voices from the past

backed into the spinning corners of time 

~ time to complete something, 

~ time to turn the lights out, 

~ time to go to school, homework not done, 

~ time to stop colouring and set the table. 

Taking control of old echoes 

calms me. 

~~~~~

The Serenity Prayer says: ‘change the things you can’ 

~ doesn’t work for an ego maniac or 

someone just terrified that the results will be bad.

‘accept the things I cannot change’ 

needs a good deal of soul searching

with a liberal dose of humility - 

or should it read a soupçon of humility 

or a dusting of humility? 

then there is 

‘the wisdom to know the difference’ 

I am not one of the old souls 

with the wisdom of a thousand years, 

only the ability to acquire, to learn. 

deep breath ~ take control ~ 

hands on the wheel before the car 

~ that would be me ~

veers off the road. 

“My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.”

~ Coco Chanel