Month: April 2023

The front page of the paper today had a picture of a newborn, close up, tiny baby face, father’s hands stroking the cheek. To do with the story on a hospital nursery. Oh what a welcome change from disaster photos of all sorts. This, too, is real life.

Made me think of the poem I wrote many years ago, inspired by a story of Pierre Berton.

INCUBATOR

Eskimo baby
Born too soon
Sewn in a bird skin
Turned inside out, 
Swings until earth done
In a feathered cocoon,
Wonders a lifetime
Where his wings are, no doubt. *

* from Moon Madness and Other Skywritings

The basket was too full for the lady in the Bagel Factory to hump it over to the counter and let me choose my own, close up, so we were both standing and staring at the bagels trying to decide which was the fluffiest, still, inside. Compacted bagels – from being hours out of the oven and one of a crowd in the basket – are fine if you take them home and toast them, become almost oven-fresh, but I eat my offering right away so I am picky. (Peanut butter on a cinnamon-raisin bagel is a wonderful breakfast).

“What we need are bagels that call out, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’” I suggested. “Too bad you are not a ventriloquist.”

Now, if this were fiction and not real life I would report that the basket of bagels did indeed suddenly shout out many “Pick me!’s” – no, not because she was a ventriloquist: I’d need a surprise reason – but in real life we had a chat about how one’s voice is not really ‘thrown’ but the scene is set where the audience expects the dummy to speak because its’ lips are moving.

I had to imagine one of the lipless bagels was trying to attract my attention. Turns out it wasn’t a bad choice.

A collection of mis-readings because of the increasing need for glasses would be funny and (thus) worthwhile, I am thinking. Wonder if anyone is undertaking such an adventure. I would be happy to contribute.

F’r’instance, I was buying an infrequent item now that all the kids are grown and gone – bandaids – and discovered shelves of them in the drugstore. I can remember when there was one kind, one choice. I can also remember when they appeared with names (boo boo strips, if memory serves – my boys politely declined to cover their wounds with such) and then pictures. Yesterday I gazed with wonder at fabric and easy-off and sizes to protect from a blackhead to a knife puncture. Then my eyes shot open and eyebrows upward. Lactose free???!!!! Oh. Latex free. Oh.

Several years ago I became the owner of an interesting-looking chair. It had been sulking in a dusty corner of the basement in a huge old house where I was renting a suite. After several months I inquired as to who owned it and property manager allowed that no one did and did I want it. Why, sure.

It was black leather and chrome and not quite (okay, not at all) my style but it was comfortable so it sat with me for awhile. Then it got passed on to one of my sons who was renting an even more delightful suite in an even more heritage’al house. The chair matched his black table and zebra place mats.

The other day, for some reason, that chair popped into my mind and by chance I was speaking to that kid. He’s moved several times since he acquired the chair, teamed up with a lovely lady, got married, combined households, simplified, recombined etc. So I asked him about the chair wondering if it had leapfrogged along with them. No, it hadn’t.

Seems during their last major move they had a garage sale but chair did not sell. (This in a part of California where all the neighbours – sorry, neighbors – likely have SETS of that chair: wait on the explanation.) So son, in his creative and fun-loving way, remembered that he had seen a chair just like this one in the lobby of a funky theatre in their town.

He went to the theatre and pointed and said, “Hey, see that chair.” Owners nodded. “Want another one just like it?” asked son. Owners gave a bit of a hesitant pause while they considered the possible implications of replying but son’s Canadian accent was likely the factor that swayed their decision to sigh and risk a, “Okay.” So my kid went and got the chair from the car and set it up opposite the chair already in that lobby. I plan to discreetly visit it when I next visit.

Now that is a nice enough completion to the story, don’t you think? But there is more.

The day after son told me what had happened to the chair, I saw one, just like it, in a store downtown, the kind of store that, if it were a restaurant, would NOT have the prices on the menu.

Of course I had to go in and visit it as well. Turns out it is a Wassilly chair, designed by a Marcel Breuer in 1929. Has a price tag near $1,000.

This finishing touch has changed it from a mere story to a legend.

Am continuing to experiment with the aspects of time rushing by, plodding by, or passing by in a satisfying, purposeful, wouldn’t-change-it- a-bit way.

Today is the latter so I take note with renewed interest and focus.

Seems the factors are both external and internal. A good night’s sleep (in spite of some major stresses which shows that we can ‘wear’ circumstances, they don’t have to ‘wear’ us: but that is for discussion some other time), a sunny day with bouts of the finest of mist to keep nudging awareness, ‘doors and windows wide’ – both temperature and attitude (and it’s January, and it’s Canada), a focus on intent of observing just what feels ‘right’ and to flow with it. Like writing this web log when I could be working on the column for the newspaper. Risking that if I do the ‘could’ instead of the ‘should’ the ‘should’ will fall into its proper spot and get done. I’ve done it before with success. Why the doubt, hesitation now? Slow learner, perhaps. And there’s tea with a friend later on to look forward to. A nice lunch planned before that. Two knitting adventures in the ready-set stage waiting on my – go. And always the novels ready to respond to pencil or keyboard. Seems like it’s the ingredients in some sort of amiable mixture or connectedness. Whatever it is – whew and wow and hooray!

My eye ambles over to the clock – time continues to suit. A few minutes have gone by. Not the half hour or more of a galloping day. Not the few seconds of a vacuum-empty day. There is still time……… I am having fun in the playing with it.

A bunch of kids in the Fifties. Joshua and His Gang. First chapter can be read here.

Aren’t Rainy Day Walks a wonderful and worthwhile idea. Not surprising that they were originally started by a ‘kid’ anxious and determined not to grow up and out of such a delight, not to waste so much of life on the inside looking out, not to go along with a gloomy forecast and close down to adventure.

The practice is spreading. Manufacturers of Wellington boots are ordering more order books. Names like Splash and Dewdre and Mistelle are appearing in Birth Announcements. Puddle stomping contests are becoming common and irrigation experts are having light bulbs appear above their heads. The sale of water-collecting umbrellas is bumbershooting upward in areas of water restriction. Complexions are becoming dewy and inspiring dewy gazes. Some people have been heard to say, “Drat, a sunny day.”

The sparrows that come daily to the seeds I scatter on the Deli patio, breakfast in a wave pattern, forming a semi-circle and moving forward thusly. A natural survival configuration, wouldn’t you think. Phalanx comes to mind for some reason.

This gets me wondering what else in life ‘performs’ so satisfactorily (at least for this curious observer). Breath, perhaps, in ripples in lungs?
Blood, released from those go-this-way vessels, puddles: two semi-circles. Does vehicular traffic, viewed from enough distance with enough perspective, mimic the birds’ behavior? Does life? And, if so, am I inspired to say – hey, it’s only breakfast, there are lots of seeds, and the maverick who breaks rank may be whisked away by the neighborhood cooper’s hawk and be soon forgotten, or become a legend.

Seems only fitting that a lifelong passion should shout first to these new horizons.

I’ve had an epiphany that the sweaters/garments, which appear so readily and joyfully on the screen of my mind, could spread further if I involve more people in their appearance. I ‘tell’ designs as well as sketch them. Each ‘creation’ (grand word!) evolves circuitously, intuitively. It seems what I have to offer is not so much a finished product as a tool, a challenge, an encouragement for others’ creativity.

I roll out this ‘yarn’ for sharing, wait and wonder.

Have been offered a mountaintop. 

Am shuffling around getting used to the potential of the view. Taming all aspects of the ‘peak’. Seeking intent of purposeful expression with all that entails. Factoring in – hugely – fun. Choosing a voice and a topic.