Early morning walk

Walk looking down
Sidewalk surface a painting
Splattered pigeon poop.

Defeatism in practice

Start every New Year

With promises to write more

Why don't I last long?

Cognitive dissonance

Steaming ginger tea
Burning the back of my throat
Cold winter nose shines.

Can or should I look away?

Outside my window
Someone without a home sleeps

New neighbour of sorts.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)  

Reneging on a dinner invitation

Blah... rain, hail, snow
I cannot make up my mind
Fickle friend tonight. 

Where is my will power

A whiff of French fries
Slowly walking home from work
Bugger temptation.

Morning walk

Barefoot shoes slipping

On icy dicey sidewalks

Pigeons watch, laughing.

Chuckle of the day

Tiny child walking

Holding rainbow umbrella

Wind tips them over. 

For my brave dear sister

Whenever I watch the Wizard of Oz film, I think of Karen as the lion. She might not have always felt strong, yet she was brave from the top to the bottom of her being. She was brave to have lived her life as she did. She was brave enough to live as long as she chose to and no longer.

Karen and I have a varied sisterly kinship. I knew her well until we were teenagers. Not so much once we were adults. Thankfully, fatefully, we became part of each other’s lives once again in the last eight or nine years. So please forgive the jump in my storytelling.

I knew Karen as an artist. When she was 18, and I was 15, we both left home. She rented this “small house” (slash derelict summer cottage) in Hudson. I moved into a “small apartment” (slash mould-ridden basement hovel) in Montreal. Karen was passionately interested in weaving. She was given a chance to work under the tutelage of a great local weaver, interning with her over the summer. She even bought herself a loom, which took up most of the tiny space she had in her house. She invited me to visit for a few days. We pretended to be adults, but we were still very naïve.

What I remember the most about that visit was the light shining out of her eyes. She loved weaving. She loved her day-to-day life, which was so different from the life of suburbia she wanted to move away from. She wanted to live the life of an artist.

Looking back over the last forty years since that visit with her, I believe she stayed true to her dreams. Even if you take into consideration all the constraints she experienced through her personal circumstances, or those posed upon her through the social norms she was born into, and particularly those that her illness fated, she always was an artist in the way she saw the world and how she used her hands. This is truly inspiring. It is a part of her legacy.

And then, about eight or nine years ago, Karen put together what we called the Hadley Family Council. Daniel, Kim, Karen and I would get together every few weeks to share stories from our childhoods or even present lives or seek advice on how to overcome any current crises we were experiencing. But mostly, we would pontificate on the marvels of our children and our children’s children and how their very existence brought pride and joy to our hearts.

We met not as quibbling siblings but as grown adults without any residue of past resentments. We gathered as adults with varied but shared histories. It is hard for me to describe to you the amount of love and kindness that was ever present in that space we created. All of that happened because Karen persistently sent out monthly invitations. It was clear that those times together meant much to her. Because of this, we showed up whenever she sent us an invitation.

Those times meant the world to me too. Kim, Daniel, and I continue to meet every few weeks. We light our candles so that Karen can take part as well. Salut, my dearest sister. May you be free and at peace.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Morning musing

Raindrops sting the windowpane of our living room. A lone Christmas tree rolls off the sidewalk, propelled by the winds. Buses waver around the moving object onto the other side of the street. A few teenagers pass by with too-cool-to-notice detachment oozing out of their steps.

 
It doesn't take long for a father taking his two children to school to prop his bicycle on a streetlamp and wrangle the tree back to its proper place with the other discarded trees waiting to be picked up by the Stadtwerk.

 
The man's two children stand bored by their bikes, watching their father listlessly while rain drips down from their helmets onto their noses.

To those who cannot face winter

 

Early morning tea

Gazing at my neighbour's place

Christmas lights still shine.

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

Short winter days

Curtain of darkness
The streetlight pierces its mantle
Off to work I go.

A great and gentle man

Gerhard (1925-2022)

In love and gratefulness.

Gerhard was a great and gentle man

A gentleman. Someone who spent

His life... and what a life... all

Ninety-seven years of it as an explorer

Of literature, an educator, a genius

Of wordplay and puns, an Anglophile,

The reciter of Goethe's works, and,

Most definitely a family man and

Loving husband. 

A man much loved. Marianne met 

Him 73 years ago, was married 

To him for 69 years and loved him

Until the very last day of his life.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Promise to myself

So looking forward

To six weeks of travelling
I will move slowly.

Photo by Sergio Sala on Unsplash

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

The end of a short, but lovely vacation

One more night to sleep...
Before I go back to work.
Sunset in blue skies.

Trying to talk about my privilege (4/4)

 How would I describe myself?

"well-tattered resilient kindred spirit"

Taking count...

The only grace I ever felt was dancing on my pointe shoes a pas de deux with Phillipe Tallard over half a century ago in Cannes, France. That was magic. Now there are some infinitely small breaths of stretching during my yoga that sing. The rest of my day-to-day movements tatter and tear at my body in many new ways.

What counts though is what is inside, right? There, there are occasional moments of grandness.

It is the kindredness of friends, the bond with my siblings, the kindness of my Giui, the generousness of Sara's heart, and the patience of Julien's being that make this life precious.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Trying to talk about my privilege (3/4)

How would I describe myself?

"gentle gracious elder"

To myself...

To all those years of prickliness... 

Deep cuts in my heart caused by

Caustic words spoken unmeaningly

By distant family and quasi-friends...

Or, in tabloid newspapers headlines,

Read by colleagues in our break room,

Such nastiness washing down the

Last of their breakfast sandwiches...

Or, the slaps of profanity of strangers, 

Yelling and minding my business

When it was not theirs to comment upon...

I was often hurt, certainly angry,

Sometimes I still even rant, but

Mostly, because of you, my dear

Family and friends, I survived and 

Still feel endless gratitude for the

Coming of every dawn.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Trying to talk about my privilege (2/4)

How would I describe myself?

"old foreign woman"

OLD: Old comes with wisdom, of sorts.

For some my being old is irritating

They tend to condescend and become rude

My voice is reedy, transparent, and 

Passes through their minds unnoticed.

FOREIGN: Foreign can pique interest, open

Doors for conversations and confessions

Allowing unusual perspectives to explore

The mundane day-to-day going-on of their lives.

Yet, always, always, there are those moments

Of the acute hurtful realisation that I do not belong.   

WOMAN: So deeply what I am and yet, 

Days go by without my thinking at all about this

This is paradoxical because so much of what

I do, think, how I speak, who I love, finds its

Being through my womanhood. Also, so much

Of social dis-ease, psychological disorder, even

Many personal interactions are burdened by this.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.) 

Trying to talk about my privilege (1/4)

How would I describe myself?

"curious, open-minded geek"

The words I use can be seen through the lens of privilege. Starting with "curious, open-minded geek"; I became so through the privilege of education. I attended good primary and secondary schools. 

I was able to go to a co-op university, where I could earn enough during work terms to pay for tuition, room and board during our study semesters. I did not have to take out student loans. 

Generally, during this time in the 1970s, the tuitions in Canadian universities were not exorbitant. I recently came across a document from that time where it stated the tuition for one semester was around 700 dollars. Still, because of my middle-class upbringing, I could go to university without financial worry.  

My family environment also played a big role. My father and grandfather were very hands-on engineers, and they instilled in me a love of technology. My mother, though a technophobe, was a veracious reader, and she fed my love of books and helped me always to explore other worlds.

Lastly, I have spent all my adult life having access to various technology from the moment they were invented. I could not always afford the technology, but I found ways to use open-source technology and buy more generic devices that were not high-brand.

Is there any way to describe oneself that does not leave some aspect of privilege aside?

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)   

Same place, different worlds (trip to the beach outside of Copenhagen)

Nude bodies sunbathing
Fleece jacket and windbreaker

Are my loyal friends.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)