Growing Into

Growing Into 

It was the day after. Always on the day after Christmas there was a lovely quiet. Some people went to the mall for the great Boxing Day sales. A repeat of the Christmas shopping madness and yet a screeching reverse.  Bobby hated it. She had vowed five Christmas’s ago to not participate in either. Why five? Because it was the year that she graduated from high school, got her first job and her first apartment. In the fall when people gearing up for Christmas she decided that her holiday season was going to be exactly that - a holiday season. The shopping trips that her mother had insisted on were going to stop. 

Bobby loved decorating her apartment in reds and greens, gold and silver, bells and angels. She and her girlfriends had made parties out of decorating each other’s apartments. Oh, they did go shopping. But Bobby, and her friend Emelda, always was finished before the others. They would go to lunch, take their finds home and spent the rest of their afternooons wrapping their gifts. That first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning, in her quiet apartment, it had totally felt weird. She didn’t stay home long. She ripped open one of her presents, put all the rest of them in a glossy red and white shopping bag, and jumped in the shower. All showered and dressed in a brand new Christmas outfit she drove quickly across town to her parents home where she spent the day unwrapping and squealing over her gifts, as though she were still a teenager.

That first Boxing Day was when she felt the quiet. Her adult life was taking shape. She had slept in, as she planned. Made a special breakfast of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream for herself, as planned. Then in her pyjamas, with a cup of tea, she curled up on her her ratty old sofa with a new book and her old quilt from home. James Taylor on the stereo and sunshine in the window, she dozed. She had planned to go the Boxing Day sales, but cozy warmth enveloping her held her fast. Her phone played a bit of jazz. A text message from Emelda and Rheina calling her for a movie was the only thing that stirred her. At the end of that first day, including the movie, her perceptions about how to ‘do’ Christmas began to change. Since that time, the Christmas season was still exciting and fun. She went to church with her parents for services on Christmas Eve and felt at peace. Boxing Day had become her own special day to revel in ~ without sales and frenzied, crowded malls. Reading a new Christmas book, walking in crisp winter air, a movie with friends, learning what it was to grow into her own life.

“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”

~ Louisa May Alcott,  Little Women

Heartfelt ~ 2

Well I do want to write a little piece tonight.

My perception of ‘little’ is shadowed by my perception of nothingness.

Nothingness in my frontal, parietal and cerebral lobes.

Good thing my heart is full!

Merry Christmas!

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments 

when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

~ Thornton Wilder

Unlike All the Rest

One Christmas Eve

unlike all the rest

save for twinkling lights and greenery

Christmas music and movies

turkey dinners with all the trimmings

The perception ~

Christmas will come and go with the same old nonsense

    And only one stocking hung by the chimney with care

Some have no stockings for their feet, 
     let alone for the chimney

Music spins and wafts in malls, 
      from street corners and homes

Movies may be from the hospitality of friends

Turkey and trimmings are in 
    story, 
      memory or 
         shelters

Christmas decor is on the houses and behind the windows.

One Christmas Eve under the full moon

Is unlike all the rest.

“ A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, 

like a thunderstorm, and we all go together.”

~ Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

The Next Part of the Story

The Next Part of the Story

*“ I wish I could believe like you.” It was a line from a movie. Chantelle had watched her mother continue her life after her father died. There was still too much fanciful thinking in the way she approached most things, especially Christmas. She still played dance music, made her trips to the shelters and the nursing homes. Chose partners from the gatherings that could barely stand up let alone glide and spin like her mom and dad had done. Her twin, Tanya, just told her to let their mom alone with her belief in the magic of Christmas. Her perception of Christmas was hers alone. Chantelle could have her own. Tanya and her brothers had not arrived yet. Chantelle, not in any relationship, had arrived early and would be staying on with her mother past the New Year. It seemed so very sad sometimes that her mother believed in the magic of the dance at Christmas. Couldn’t she just face that her beloved Oliver was gone, and for many years, and she didn’t have to keep living everything from the past.

Chantelle heard the door. Her mother called out "Chantelle are you home? Come here I have someone I want you to meet.” Chantelle rolled her eyes. Not one of those people from the shelter. Her mother insisted on bringing home people, feeding them, letting them bathe and there was one woman and her little one that she let stay all one Christmas Eve.

Chantelle had been curled up on the couch reading a mystery novel, already in her bathrobe and pyjama’s. She was hardly prepared to play host. It was to be an evening of quiet in front of the fireplace. Christmas lights and a reading lamp the only other lights in the living room. And now this.

"Chantelle. This is Howard." Chantelle looked up and blushed. Her mother was introducing a very handsome, well dressed man who smiled broadly, his blue eyes bright and kind. She stuttered out something polite and ran quickly upstairs. In a loud whisper, she called down from the landing "Mother. Get up here! Who is this guy?’

“Excuse me Howard. My daughter is calling. Go ahead and put the kettle on for tea. I’ll be right down.”

Isobel ran lightly up stairs as though she was still dancing. She sat down with her daughter, her own kind grey eyes lit up like they hadn’t been for years. “Howard and I have been working together at volunteer work for many years." She twirled and sat on the bed. "Tonight we went walking in the crisp winter air, snow crunching beneath our feet and stars twinkling above. Just like your father and I, and just like Howard and his wife did." With a shy smile she said "I have had to teach him how to dance. He's coming along but we’ll just keep practicing.”

“To believe in something and not to live it, is dishonest.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

*From Random First Lines: writingexercises.co.uk

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

Only Part of the Story

Only Part of the Story

The final days before Christmas were always a favourite time for Isobel. She had been on her own for many years. Her husband and childhood sweetheart, Oliver, had ‘closed his book’ eleven years previously the week before Christmas. He had always called death ‘closing a book’. Isabel thought it was kind of corny, but he believed that everyone’s life was a book. You could either slam the cover and throw the book away. Or, you could read each page, making notes along the margins, savouring each chapter. When he was asked how he liked the chapters with trauma or tragedy, he would just sit back and, tapping his pipe in the palm of his hand, he spoke. Then, as though he’d been preparing his answer just for this particular day, he would say: “Well, you know it’s like this. Those chapters that you call bad are not really bad. They’re just part of the story. Any good story has good and bad in it. Too much good and it’s just all syrupy sweet. Anything too sweet makes my face twist up. And then there’s too much bad. Too much bad and everybody wants to run the other direction. Toss the book away in a garbage heap. And that’s the way I see it.” Oliver would fill his pipe, tamp it down, light it and take a deep draw.

It was several years before Oliver had closed his book. The week before Christmas had become a special time. Isobel and Oliver had raised their family, three boys and twin girls, made sure they all went off to Universities and were safely on their way into their own stories. Then they made plans for how to live their lives in the now very quiet house. They did love their home and garden and had no plans to leave it as so many of their friends had. Their perception of retirement was very different from even what their children's perception. They took short trips, they had hobbies, they volunteered. They saw the world outside and the world inside their small town. But their very special time was the week before Christmas.

It began with decorating the whole house, complete with an eight foot Christmas tree that had been carefully selected at a shelter in the city. Each night, they went dancing. Dancing in the city, in their living room, at the homeless shelter, in nursing homes. As childhood sweethearts they had begun dancing together. They moved as one to all waltzes, tangos, even jive!  They had learned the Charleston and clog dancing. And they had the costumes to go with each dance. When they got  home, they went walking in the glittering white snow under starry skies.

Oliver closed his chapter early on one of those nights - oh not suicide - he just drifted away like the smoke from his pipe into night air. They had sat on the porch swing before going into the house, holding hands. Oliver had said he was tired and hadn’t danced with energy that night. Isobel looked up into the sky and saw a shooting star. When she turned to Oliver, he was gone. She sat with him like that for a while, a tear rolling down her cheek. With a quiet sob, she called the ambulance.

Her children came and stayed with her that week. Her sons danced with her in the living room. They all, sons, daughters and Isobel, made the rounds to the homeless shelter and the nursing homes where they danced with residents and those coming in from the cold. Now Isobel was on her own, her children scattered around the globe, like Oliver's books she was packing away. She continued with all that she and Oliver had done. The tree was smaller, the decorations were not as extravagant and she missed her dance partner. Dance music still played. There was a quiet walk in the crisp night and a tear still fell. Isobel smiled and still loved the final days before Christmas.

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

~ Mitch Albom

Early Christmas Past

Sushi Noku E. Broadway, Vancouver

Home again after a wonderful early Christmas with my sons Jeff, Jason and grand-dogs over the weekend. Last evening, an impromptu family Christmas supper of sushi and green tea with Jeff, Jason and niece Daisy and nephew Max replaced home with turkey and all the trimmings. We cleared an impressive amount of sushi dishes, chopsticks flying! I’ll worry about turkey another day. Any perception that I have of Christmas, although often accompanied by lights and glitter, is really sharing a meal, much laughter and lots of love with family.

“The Christmas memories you make this year 

will be the ones you remember in the years to come.”

~ Toni Sorenson

Protected or A Pillow

Two big dogs on either side may feel like great protection ~ but when they are sleeping soundly the perception could be that I am merely a pillow after another long day.

“When tough times come, it is particularly important 

to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.”

~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Victoria to Vancouver

 Early morning at the Bus Depot, the Parliament buildings brightening the sky, the morning held promise that the weather would hold for my ferry ride to see my sons and my grand-dogs. The water was relatively calm, the skies only a bit cloudy and the ferry was filled with pre-Christmas travellers.

I rather like bus rides! I crocheted more kitchen towels while checking the scenery I seldom see when I do the driving. And Pacific Coach Lines (PCL) has wifi so checking my email on my iPhone was quite convenient. Getting to the Pacific Buffet is faster.

Jason and my grand-dog Eva met me at the bus. Lunch was in order. We met Jeff at Bentei Sushi on Cambie and Broadway (Percy, my other grand-dog, stayed with Eva). So good to be with my sons! From there it was to a dog park, the SPCA, to Jeff’s for more visiting, to Jason’s for a bit and then……more sushi. This time at Sushi Loku. Both meals were delicious but for a return, my perception is that Sushi Loku at 592 East Broadway has the nicest presentation, flavour, crisp fresh salad, green tea/brown rice tea served with the meal and a cosy atmosphere.

Tuna and Avocado Salad with Garlic Chips at Sushi Loku

“I don’t discriminate against sushi. It’s all good in my book.”

~ Billy Horschel