A letter is worth its weight in gold

I don’t know what it is lately, but I’m craving an old-fashioned life. 

Maybe it’s the rabbit race and pace of working so much in order to make ends meet that is the red flag for me. 

Perhaps it’s the impending materialistic-driven holiday season and my sense of not wanting involvement in it that is sending me backwards in time. 

Maybe it was a recent mid-November retreat to the bush living in a wall tent, where the only sound was the crackling fire in the wood stove, and the sound of my whittling knife on cottonwood. Simple pleasures.

Whatever the catalyst, I’m craving an old-fashioned way of doing things and it’s got me to thinking about how I could get me some of that.

First off there’s the toe-tapping song, “Old, Old Fashioned” by the Scottish Indie band ‘Frightened Rabbit.’ 

The lyrics ring true. “Turn off the TV, it’s killing us we never speak. There’s a radio in the corner, it’s dying to make us see. Give me soft, soft static with a human voice underneath.”  Uh huh.

While looking for an old diary recently, I came upon some old handwritten letters. I can’t remember the last time I handwrote a letter to anyone. That makes me sad.

In fact I don’t remember the last time I received one either but I do remember what it felt like when I did—the glee in seeing that identifiable backstroke scribble or flowing signature flair on an envelope meant just for me.

The thick pile of handwritten letters I’d found were secured with a stiff rubber band that broke when I flexed it. 

There on top was a letter addressed to me from an old friend, Norrie Godin. I could have picked his handwriting out of a line up. He was a gem of a man. We met in 1979 when I was home from college working for the summer. We were coffee-time pals. He was in his 80s. I was 19 years old. He wrote me faithfully for years.

Under Norrie’s letters were those from Grandma Drennan written to me in the mid-80s when I lived in Thunder Bay. I was a young unknowing new mother with so much to learn and she knew it. Her handwritten paragraphs, thick with advice and family happenings, made me feel like I just might be able to do the parenting thing after all.

My Grampa Caldwell, was a very special man to me. He lived in eastern Ontario and wrote me letters as I was growing up. 

The one I treasure most he wrote in 1960 when I was born. Grampa wrote of the wonderful world I had come into and how much better a place it was because I was here. No matter how many times I read it I feel so loved, with a sense of deep gratitude for the time he took to give me the gift of those words immortalized at his own hand. He died when I was just 14 years old. 

In 2006 I received two very old greeting card boxes filled with letters dating back to the early 1920s that Grampa Caldwell had written to his fiancée Pearl Davis, my grandmother. 

The letters, still in their original stamped envelopes, are filled with the days of their then young lives, future hopes, their love; my history. Many of the letters still contain the pressed flowers Grampa slipped inside.

I’m going to do my best to write more letters by hand and mail them. I have six grandchildren. Who better to share some “old fashioned” richness with than my little peppers.

Lynn Nicholas was on the mark. “Handwritten notes become treasures. Emails get deleted.”

Turn off that computer and pick up the phone. Write a letter.

I think I just found myself a good old-fashioned winter project. Insert smile here. 

Rodents have no shelf life here

My finger tips throbbed as if I’d just plunged them into a bucket of ice, kept them there long enough to start hyperventilating, and then pulled them out and hit each of them with a hammer.

That’s what I get for taking the gloves off on a frigid cold day.

And if it hadn’t been for my heat of the moment temper that ignited my insides when I found my winter boot insoles shredded as ingredients for a squirrel’s nest I think my ice-cold fingers would have broken off and fallen to the garage floor.

I stood frozen and watched as the beady-eyed varmint poked its head out of the wicker basket it was stuffing my boot fur into and gave me a “What the?” stare after I’d thrown a small empty milk carton at the basket because I was too chicken to get any closer. 

I’d come face to face with a rogue squirrel before.

The last time I’d met up with such a rodent in the confines of my garage it had sprung from the shelving unit on to the top of my car and I was suddenly aware that I was blocking the escape route.

His beady and wild eyes met mine and in a move straight out of the “Matrix” movie my upper body leaned back as the squirrel flew by me and out the open door.

I wasn’t going to have a repeat of that epic battle, but the squirrel of the moment had to go.

I started to reason with the little bugger in a language I thought it could understand.

I said in no uncertain terms that if it understood English it would be wise to heed my warning to be gone by the time I got back from work.

“The laws of physics and chemistry are not negotiable,” I said. “Neither is having a dog inside my new car or a squirrel living in my garage.”

And with that, I backed the car out, and as I lowered the garage door I caught a glimpse of grey running across the shelving unit and back into the wicker basket with what looked vaguely familiar as blue flannel from my sleeping bag.

I fumed about the squirrel all day while at work; about ways to sneak up on it, traps I could set for it, and how I could repatriate the fur ball to the other side of the creek with my slingshot. 

My dad made me that slingshot out of wood and rubber when I was 12 years old. It still has Olympic potential.

It took everything I had not to race home at the end of my workday, my obsession to thwart the garage intruder foremost in my mind, but of course I live on a lousily maintained road just outside of town that is not fit for an ambulance patient, let alone a brand new car. It’s always a turtle’s pace drive.

I parked the car in the yard and walked over to the garage and lifted the door, turned on the lights, stopped, watched, and listened. The wicker basket was vibrating with activity. The scratching and ruffling noise was ceaseless. 

I suddenly missed my canine capers very much and especially “Dot, who could clean the clock of any varmint I set her upon.

I had so many better things to do than have a face-off with the squirrel and in that moment I would have traded dealing with it for cleaning up copious amounts of cat barf and big, hairy spiders.

I walked towards the wicker basket and yelled in my big pants voice at the squirrel, expecting it to leap out and land on my face. 

Instead, it bolted down the shelf and darted up the wall to the garage ceiling where it scuttled along upside down above my head, like the spider walk scene from “The Exorcist” movie. 

Before I knew it the squirrel was making a run for it out the open door with me in chase, but by the time I turned the corner outside, all I could see was its grey carcass making a mad dash for it down the driveway with a black cat in hot pursuit.

“Millie” you rock.

My life takes the cake

I just turned 53 years old. Where has the time gone? Where have I been all my life? How did I get here?

Turn around and I was 10. Turn around and I was 21. Turn around and I was 40. Turn around and here I am, not yet on the high side of 50 and yet feeling as if haven’t yet begun to know who I am.

I was born the day before Halloween and as a kid; my birthdays always were full of spooky celebrations with my girlfriends. 

We would sit in the dark and pass around bowls of cold spaghetti, peeled grapes, jiggle Jell-O, and all manner of other pseudo body parts that my mom had cooked up and prepared for us giggly sorts to sink our fingers into and tell ghost stories about until we were creeped out.  It was gross. It was so much fun.

Then, my mom would top it all off with a birthday cake that to this day, is bar none my favorite of all time. I saw it on my birthday ever year as a child from as far back as I can remember until I was probably 12 years old.  

Those same birthday cakes each year rate above the super awesome “death by chocolate” birthday cake my mom makes for me today—and not because they tasted better. Believe me, the “death by chocolate” birthday cake is among my version of chocolate principles to live by.

It had a new Barbie doll standing in the middle of an inverted sponge cake that billowed outward and was decorated like Barbie’s party dress. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and best of all; the Barbie was mine when all the cake was gone.

Inside the cake, my mom had hidden ten-cent pieces wrapped in wax paper. Magically we all managed to find a dime in our piece of cake. It was amazing and I, for one, felt rich.

When I was growing up I heard stories of how when I was one year old, I put my face in my birthday cake. Plunk. Just like that. Oh, the undeniable free spirit of the young at heart.

When I turned 18, while sitting around the dining table with my family and friends celebrating my day . . . Plunk. Just like that. Now that was funny.

Between my 24^th and 30^th birthday (the “having kids” years) my birthdays were usurped by diapers and drool. I had made a plan to have all my children born before my 30^th birthday. I just made it. Daughter #3 was born seven days before I turned 30. Whew.

Then suddenly it was 2000, I was turning 40, and I wanted to stop the world and celebrate what was sure to be my best year yet. I don’t have to look very far to see a bald reminder of that Halloween birthday party. One of my friends shaved his head for his “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson costume and has never since grown it back.

And then suddenly it is 2013 and I’m 53. Where has the time gone? Where have I been all my life? How did I get here?

I still have my Barbie dolls in a box. I still love birthday cake, especially “death by chocolate” cake.

And yet I wonder where am I going and what does my future hold as I wake up each morning to be this woman who is learning new things about herself every day? 

Some of it I like. Some of it I don’t.

But what the heck.

I think I will make my life my cake and jump in. Plunk. Just like that.

Life is a grand traverse

I’ve been away from the page. I’d love to say it was because I was in the places of my heart like the Grand Canyon or the magnificent mountain territory of Wyoming or on a long highway under the wild Montana skies. 

Nope. Those away destinations remain in my shoebox full of dreams called a bucket list.

I’ve been away from the page because inner nemeses I haven’t seen or felt in my life in a long, long time sideswiped me. They showed up unannounced, and overstayed their unwelcome. They skulked around in my neck of the woods, stole my sense of things and buried it in the manure pile behind the barn.

And the biggest mistake I made was trying to deal with these buggers all on my own. I kept my mouth shut and my head down and I got sideswiped and all I did for a long while was focus on the obstacles in my life instead of the magic.

I can only describe my recent away by falling back to writings of how I felt about 20 months ago. There’s no sense trying to reinvent the wheel.

In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Bruce Springsteen said, “I have a metaphor [for life.] “I say, ‘You're in a car. Your new selves can get in, but your old selves can't get out. You can bring new vision and guidance into your life, but you can't lose or forget who you've been or what you've seen.’”

Springsteen is right on the mark.

A well-meaning friend said I was a “hurdler.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Am I the type who meets life’s challenges with fortitude or am I the poor sap who despite best efforts is constantly faced with challenging obstacles. Hmmm. Maybe I’m both.

Recently though I felt like the latter.

I was wearing that long, flowing black cape again. It’s at least two city blocks long and it was there all the time, double-knotted around my neck and complete with arm sleeves that prevented it from being mislaid.

My cape was there with me in the shower, it covered my pajamas at night, and lay around my feet at the kitchen table each morning during breakfast.

Even when I was driving in my car my cape followed behind me billowing in the wind and as soon as I slowed down it snapped to a stop and fell in around me.

I know this black cape to be one of the many faces of grief and regret and as much as I wanted to rip it off, soak it in gasoline and burn it; I still have much to learn from this unexpected bounty hunter.

Self care is something I thought I knew about. I don’t use white sugar or salt, nor for the most part do I eat processed or fast foods. I have good sleep habits and I wear sunscreen.

But there is so much more to self-care that I still have yet to learn—like slowing down in life and giving myself more attention than the me, who is the caregiver of others, thinks I should.

Self-care also is asking for help, seeing a counselor, or calling a friend when I’m lonely or sad.

Self-care is about stopping everything I’m doing for everyone else and sitting down and taking off my mask and having a good cry.

Self-care is clearly about giving up control and allowing life to teach me what I need to learn. This unfolding Universe is showing me that over and over again.

I wonder why it is that those of us dealing with loss put ourselves on the back burner when we need help and recovery from grief. To continue to recover from loss shouldn’t be any different or delayed than getting a car windshield repaired after a rock splits it.

You need that car to get you where you need to go the same as you need your mind and your body and your spirit to get you where you need to go.

I was mouth shut, head down.

And then someone—a perspective changer of sorts—with a keen and wise sense of things asked me how I’ve been feeling lately.

Every story starts with that first word, maybe three.

I’ve been away.

A salute to sailing and connections

One year ago I wrote a column about the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s annual fall cruise and ended it with “Hurry up Spring 2013 so we can go sailing again.”

Here I am, fresh off the lake from the 2013 fall cruise and dumbfounded by the rushing river of time that has swept another season’s worth of sailing adventures—over a very short summer—into the history books.

On my way to the sailboat on Friday afternoon I had a skip in my step. I whistled a tune from ‘Great Big Sea’ and synced my soon-to-be boat legs to the beat of the music.

And then I caught a glimpse of the white caps boiling on Sand Bay and a strange chill of déjà vu “shivered in me timbers.”

Mother Nature had thrown a cold, windy party for my inaugural fall cruise last year. I had watched the temperature slide into the belly of winter, I had grown an extra layer of hair on my legs and strapped on some brave counsel to ready myself for the trip I expected would rival the Franklin expedition.

Surely the big mama of daily forecasts wasn’t about to repeat that scenario and make me think I was off my rocker for the second time.

It’s amazing what a handsome man can do to my resolve. I took one look at him standing there on the boat smiling at me, and I didn’t care if the seas were rolling.

So there I was sailing away from shore, loving every minute of it, bobbing up and down like a duck, clad in the same pathetic mismatched little rain suit as last year that I’d found hanging in the barn where it had been collecting pigeon feathers since 2006.

By the time we reached the first anchorage of the weekend, the wind had flipped my hair into the upward bouffant of a vintage Russ Troll Doll, and I was cold, but hey, I was in the sea of no cares.

Insert smile here.

Once again, Robert Service came to life around the mighty campfire through the magnificent voice of a fellow sailor. The recital of “The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill” filled us up and laid open the importance of the old traditions of reading really good poetry from books out loud among adults. Awesome.

I did not however kick Mother Nature’s booty this year and go for a late September swim in a cold lake. But I did try the whiskey. Oh Lord. Whose idea was that anyway? My head still hurts.

Insert jolly roving laughter here.

I also got the chance to test my budding helmsman skills when I managed to carry the sailboat along at over 6 knots, heeled over and “Hold on Tight!”

I have a very good nautical teacher. But then again, I do come from the sea-faring stock of the Davis clan from Newfoundland. Insert ancestral pride here.

Thank you sailors for enriching my summer. Thank you for this day and that, and the want to do it all again next year.

Melody Beattie says we should revere our connections. “We are dependant on much around us, not just for our survival, but for our joy. We need food, water and the company of our fellow travelers on this great journey.”

I continue to grow into a better woman through all the friends who are connected to my world, be you a roving tar or not. All, and especially you, sir, make the journey a thankful one.

Life is so very much better when it’s shared. This I know for sure.

Life is a Fiesta

 I own a brand new car and I made that dream come true all on my own.

I wrote the above sentence with some reluctance because I didn’t want to toot my own horn.

But what the heck.

I deserved 110%, the shiny new wheels filled with nitrogen, the new car smell, the voice recognition software, and the lickety split zoom zoom!

Heaven knows I’ve had my share of things in life that I don’t think I deserved. Something tells me I’ll be working on accepting acceptance of those crummy things for a long time to come.

But let’s get back to the car. That little gem is my self-gifting reward for working hard and keeping my accounts payable paid.

I will admit, though, that I played dodge ball umpteen times with the dream-stealing side of my conscious about buying a new vehicle.

That inner dream stealer has been known to shame me into denying myself some of life’s greatest pleasures—most of them much simpler and more affordable than a new car.

I think the dream stealing shadow is up for counseling alongside accepting acceptance of crummy things.

But let’s back to the car. I have affectionately and—yes—somewhat geeky, named her “Lola,” and she is the epitome of what I always imagined my personal entertainment chauffeur would be. I talk; “Lola” listens, and I get hands-free technology. Voila. 

After I bought “Lola” and showed her to my parents, my mother said, “I think that car was made for someone like you.” Yes Mother it was.

I clearly remember as a kid wishing my future would include music that could be triggered by voice commands.

In fact, I’m quite sure I invented the idea long before techno-genius and American business magnate Bill Gates got into the computer business, but I can’t prove it—sort of like that big fish I caught in 1979 that no one saw but me.

   

But let’s get back to the car. “Lola” came into the picture on the heels of a really great gal called “Old Buick,” whose time was limited by crusty rust and body parts that were starting to fall off.

“Old Buick” had had a motor replacement last fall and although she still ran the highway like a charmer, the choking and hesitant cough of her daily turn over was a sure predictor of a functional seizing stroke on an imminently cold and bitter January day.

I was driving “Old Buick” home after I’d given the nod to the car dealer to draw up papers to buy “Lola,” and I was clouded over by a true and genuine sadness at the thought of passing “Old Buick” on to an unknown future as part of my trade-in. I was going to miss the old girl.

“Old Buick” had carried my limping soul through those really crummy times of my life. She had been the “go to” when I just needed to drive and cry. She had seen me through those times and got me safely home again.  

I also was driving “Old Buick” when new visions of better times started to peak through. “Old Buick” drove me down the road to new chapters and a new beginning. 

I felt really sad about letting her go.

It’s a funny thing to get so attached to an inanimate object like that. The wherefore and the why of it is a long case study in what makes me who I am. That education class is never ending.

No word of a lie, before I turned her in at the dealer I told “Old Buick” out loud what she had meant to me and how much influence she had had on me and I thanked her for carrying me through. And then I let her go.

And when I drove “Lola” off the car lot that day, all I could think about was how much possibility lie ahead of me—and then I said out loud—“Play Bruce Springsteen.”

Glory days indeed.

I am Beth the Brave

“Yes is for young people, Yes is for young people,” I chanted reassuringly to myself in the bathroom mirror as the hair dye oozed through my plastic-gloved fingertips.

A lumpy trail of Vaseline jelly was layered across my forehead at the hairline and down around my ears to save my skin from turning the color of cinnamon sticks.

My hair looked like a science experiment. I prayed no one came knocking at the door.

“There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear,” I said to the me who wasn’t so sure this “at home” follicle re-pigmentation project was a good idea.

The instructions said to leave the goop in for 10 minutes. Did that include the 10 minutes it took me to work the stuff into my extra thick long hair? And what about the intolerable wiry grey I wanted to get rid of?

I read the instructions again.

“For resistant grey hair, you may need to leave colour on for an additional 5 minutes, or longer than a total of 15 minutes.”

Little did I know at that moment that I misread the instructions and had just invited remorse into the room.

 “for no longer than a total of 15 minutes,” was a crucial part of the recipe.

It was a misread, misinterpreted, misjudged, mistakened, missed by a long shot, BIG MISTAKE!!

After 25 minutes I peeled the plastic bag off my head, leaned over the tub and rinsed out the leftover dye with the shower hose.

The warm water felt so good on my tender scalp rudely marinated in wordy ingredients I could hardly pronounce—‘Methylresorcinol’, ‘Soytrimonium’ and ‘Ethoxydiglycol’ to name three of the some 20 chemicals listed on the box.

“And what are ‘Oleth 2’ and ‘Oleth 5’? Movie sequels?” I queried out loud.

I should have kept my eyes shut as I washed the dye from my hair, but I didn’t.

I opened my eyes--and then opened them wider--as I watched the rinse water flow off my head in a fiery red color and promptly stain the bottom of my tub before swirling down the drain.

It felt like a lifetime passed before the water ran clear. As I waited I chanted to myself the score of positive thinking I’d preached from last week’s column.

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

I wrapped my long head of hair in a towel and squeezed. I prayed. I closed my eyes and fumbled my way over to the bathroom mirror; stood there and said, “Go forward. Finish what you start. Don’t look back.”

I took the towel off my hair and peaked out of one squinty eyeball. At first glance it was like one of my old Scottish ancestors was staring back at me.

I thank my lucky stars, the spirits of King Fergus and Queen Elinor, and the clan of Caldwell that my captain was away on an ocean sailing adventure for three whole weeks.

Oh Lordy. I was the spitting image of “Merida” from the Disney movie, ‘Brave.’ All I needed was a long bow and a green velvet dress.

In the meantime I had to figure out how to get in and out of the hair dye aisle for a “browner shade of something” without being recognized and swarmed for autographs.

But that’s another story. 

Healing thoughts never lose their way

I ended last week’s column with “I am the luckiest girl I know,” and yet when I saw that in writing after the newspaper was printed I thought, no, I’m not lucky. Luck is for lottery ticket winners.

I believe I deserve to have a happy life and I live for that goal and I am rewarded in my hard work to get it.

I practice acceptance. I practice reassurance. I practice believing that I have more than once chance in this world to get things right and when I doubt my timing—and I do doubt my timing a lot—I always come back to believing I am right where I’m supposed to be. I believe everybody else is too.

I’m writing today’s column at 5 a.m., before the sun shines and the day takes on its “have to do” hue.

This is my favorite time of day. I can enjoy the virgin-like atmosphere of a day on the leading edge of its history not yet touched by anything but the rising sun.

I have a ritual every morning where I stand outside on my porch facing east as the sun peaks over the horizon and I slowly bow three times and say out loud, “Thank you for this day.”

I try never to miss the opportunity to practice this ritual and to be thankful not only for being alive to see the sun rise, but also to be accepting of whatever the day has in store for me before it happens.

I’m sticking to my guns about believing I am where I’m supposed to be all the time.

I started this bowing ritual at the beginning of the summer. It has changed my attitude and my gratitude level, and keeps me grounded in present-moment living.

I haven’t written a column at 5 a.m. in a very long time. It is my “me” time and not traditionally my “creative” time. 

However, if anybody can change his or her thoughts on a thing, it’s me.

The following is a smattering of the stuff I read about every morning—a fraction of the stash of healing thoughts that I dwell on as I edge nearer to the cusp of the old “9-5” routine and beyond. I didn’t write any of it. Thanks to the geniuses who did.

“Go forward. Finish what you start. Don’t look back.”

"There is magic in what we believe. Our beliefs tell our future better than any crystal ball or psychic can. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ says one holy book. Be mindful of your thoughts and beliefs. What you think and believe today, whether it's ‘I can't’ or ‘I can,’ is what you will manifest tomorrow.

Do you have any beliefs right now that are holding you back? What are your ‘I can’s’ and ‘I can'ts’. Take a moment. Look into your heart. Examine what you believe to be true. Is there an area in your life that could be benefited by thinking and believing something else? If you are going to use the power of your mind, use it to form a positive belief.”

"Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... remember that the lives of others are not your business... They are God's business... Leave it to God... Unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy..."

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

“Practice self-care. Pay attention to the one you care about. Listen when they speak. Respond with kindness and understanding. Hug every day. Kiss often, and repeat.”

“There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear.”

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say Yes.”

Yes.