IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

This afternoon, I went for a stomp around the property.

I went down to the island, and instantly was transported to May of 2019. I mean, you couldn't walk three steps on the island in 2019 without being hit in the face by overgrown brush. Then there was the time, a few weeks later, when my dear friends Jim and Annette had come up from Toronto for a visit. I was giving them a tour, so we walked down the hill, to the bridge to the island. I had cleared a bit of overgrowth already. I leaned my hand against a tree trunk while I turned to say something to them...and the tree promptly fell over. I tried to make it look as though this had been my intention all along. It didn't fool them one iota. The island has been a microcosm of my life here: a lot of brute labour, a dearth of expertise. But slowly, slowly, it has borne fruit. I can now walk across the island unimpeded. As long as I've got my eyes glued to the ground, I'm safe on the island. 

Exactly five years ago today, where was I? It was my final day in the shop, Atelier Ivaan, and I was excited about winding down my stint as jeweller-in-residence, and even more excited about what was yet to come. I had no idea what I'd be doing next, but after seven years of doing the impossible and making it look like no big deal, I was ready for action. I often say my building was so compact, I could fit it into my swimming pool. That's no exaggeration. I worked there, I lived there, I saw clients in there, and I gardened on the roof deck. I so badly wanted some fresh air and some space around me that didn't include clients wanting something from me. I felt occasional pangs of guilt about abandoning Ivaan, but I'd spent more than a decade grieving him. It wasn't so much his death I was grieving; it was his life. I was dimly aware that in grieving the foreshortening of his life, I was also foreshortening mine. I was now older than he had ever been. I don't know what's going to happen next. I never know. But I guess I'll know it when I see it. 

Happy New Year's Eve 2023.

TRA DUE SEDIE

Climate Change Christmas is upon us. It's time to participate in some new ancient traditions: waterskiing, pumping water out of the basement, and bemoaning the various wildlife species we're about to eliminate. A friend told me of a pair of geese and their newly hatched goslings on a pond in London, Ontario on Christmas Day. Here, I've noticed squirrels the size of small rabbits, awake and foraging when they should be hibernating, and giant crows, with unshelled peanuts in their beaks. I didn't even know crows ate peanuts, but there you go. They adapt, or die. However refreshing it is to see green outside, instead of unending white, I wonder whether we'll be taking a raincheck on really cold weather, and we 'll find snow on the ground in June. This is one of the drawbacks of rural living. When there's snow in the yard, it's acres of snow, for months. A couple of years ago, I halfheartedly embraced the idea that it's not the winter, it's our response to it that matters. We just have to wear layers, or goose down, or Goretex, or whatever they're selling this season. I call baloney on that. If the snow is ubiquitous enough, it's also deep. Thigh high, at least. This property is hilly; that's one of its charms. Walking in deep snow is exhausting and dangerous. Snowshoes? - I can just hear you now. No thanks. Not on hills. I don't want to be found by my relatives next spring (in, say, September). That's not the hill I want to die on. So I'm (as the Italians say) tra due sedie: between two chairs, neither here nor there. In short, I'm indoors. On one side of the dining room, I have this semi-tropical region: I call it the State of Florida.

Whatever I could say about the building of this house's old wing, I can't fault the siting of the building. It's brilliant. It takes full advantage of the morning sun, and that makes mornings here a joy. That won't change with Climate Change. I don't have curtains on the windows, because I don't need them. Yet the sun is so strong, I marvel that the carpet here hasn't faded. It's like travelling by plane, without any of the associated guilt, delays, cancellations, or announcements from your Captain. If I have to be tra due sedie in 2024, I will gladly take this seat. It probably comes with peanuts as a mid-flight snack. Served by crows.

BEWARE OF FALSE PROFITS (see what I did there?)

I guess it's better than being female, of a certain age, and broke.

“It”, in this case, is being female, of a certain age, self-sufficient, and not broke. I am the target audience for all kinds of males whose means aren't proportional to their wants. Notice I don't say "men", because these guys aren't men. They're biologically similar to men, but they're so emotionally stunted that they're positive they're just what I needed. Their names are monosyllabic. Their goals are simple. Their modus operandi is strangely familiar. They're a friend-of-a-friend. Or a former acquaintance of Ivaan's. But not a friend, because he was acquainted with a boatload of people, yet counted his friends on his fingers. They come namaste-ing their way up to Ivaan's portrait...and my pocketbook. 

Right after Ivaan died, a decent cross-section of "lifelong bachelors" began showing up, bearing chocolates, wine, flowers, and in one case homemade hummus...all intent on one thing: to "comfort the afflicted". My Dad was the first one to burst my balloon. When the first bachelor gamely tried out his courting ritual (at the actual funeral), Dad summed it up eloquently. "He probably thinks you're good at looking after people. That must be the attraction", opined Dad. I mean, why bother with niceties when you can convey precisely what you mean AND flatten the romantic aspirations of a newly-bereaved widow at the same time? Just kidding. All I really wanted was to go home, and climb into bed. Alone. And sleep for about two months straight. But Dad is a male too, and he was once widowed and solvent. As I recall, the first candidate for the role of Wicked Stepmother arrived at our family's door soon after our mother's death, without fanfare, but with luggage, which Dad promptly threw out said door.

 So, back to the issue at hand. I have summarily rejected all applicants for the job of whatever you call a male hanger-on of a woman of mature years and adequate means, regardless of their self-proclaimed attractions, and will continue to do so for, I hope, many years to come. So you can take that, Mack, Mick, Mark, Mike, or whatever monosyllable you are currently going by, and go fishing with it in the shallower end of the genetic pool than the one in which you currently stand. The one with the leeches. FIN.