Monthly Archives: February 2021

Annette

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Last week was the first anniversary of the passing of Annette, my close friend here in Qualicum Beach, who lived on the next street over. So now it’s a year later and I ask is this a short time or a long time? I’ve come to the conclusion that I feel the same now as I did then, and it feels like no time. No time. I said back then “I don’t really know what to do. So I guess I’ll just keep talking to her”.

And I do.

Everyone who leaves your life opens a subtle trail of loss that still connects you with that person. When you think of these people, miss them, and want to be with them, your heart journeys out along that trail to where they now are. – John O’Donohue

Shortly after we moved here, over 9 years ago, I was out for a walk in the neighbourhood and passed a couple walking their little dog. We greeted each other and the woman shone her wide smile at me and complimented me on the deep blue jacket I was wearing. We chatted for awhile, joked and laughed. There was something about her that attracted…some sense of joyousness and light that I have only recognized in a few. The next time we met and stopped to chat I blurted out “Do you want to go for coffee?”, and she said “Yes!”. It reminds me of how little kids are so quick to walk up to a new child and say “Do you want to play?” and they’re off and away. It doesn’t usually happen quite so fast with “grown ups”.

Well we too were off and away, and play we did. That was Annette.

Together we went on countless walks (the walkie talkies), sharing stories and talking about life’s challenges and pleasures. We visited at a favourite cafe in town, checked out the galleries and shops, explored our surroundings, drank endless cups of tea and got to know each other well. We shared books and garden flowers. Over the years we became close. We also got together a lot as couples, along with Scott and Kelly, neighbours from down the road. The six of us would gather for summer dinners in one of our gardens for great food, great conversation, great company, and lots of laughter. There were bigger parties for other neighbours and there were always lots of excuses to celebrate. Birthdays were a big deal, as were Solstice parties, Royal Wedding viewing, a New Year’s Eve party designed to get us all to bed by 10:00 (we celebrated New Year’s in Rio, a more reasonable time zone). For many years Annette and Graham would take their motor home up the coast and park it at the beach for the month of June and/or September. Close enough for what became a ritual day trip to go up and join them for a barbeque and beach hang out. There are so many happy memories.

How to describe Annette? As well as being the warm, fun-loving hostess or party guest, she was also a good friend to many people. Her circle of family and friends was large and she paid attention to and nurtured those relationships.

Watching her with others, whether friends or strangers, was like watching joy in motion. She brought light to others through a smile and genuine engagement. I noticed the way she would talk to people easily and with real attention. She seemed to know every shopkeeper in town and often stopped for a few words with people we’d pass on the walkways in town, the beach or the forest. People’s faces lit up as they responded to her warmth and words of kindness and encouragement, reflecting back that dazzling smile.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about why she had that affect on people but the simple answer is she just made you feel good! The light and joy that made a small part of this world better and happier, did not mean that she did not have her own struggles and challenges – not at all. She had experienced it all over the years, as we all do – the joy and the sorrow – and she was wise.

A friend described her, “She is…full of grace…tremendous grace”.

In December 2018, as Christmas approached, Annette became sick and all plans for Christmas were cancelled as she tried to recover. Right after the new year, she went for tests, saying, “I’m scheduled for tests on January 2, looking forward to the all clear – and then I can forge ahead into 2019 – I’m ready”.

So what happens when there is no “all clear”? Life changed for all time.

She was sick with cancer for 13 months, and she used to say “my cancer has been teaching me”. I’d respond with “your cancer is teaching me too”, and that’s true, my life also was transformed in all ways. Her lifelong spiritual path served her well as she became “palliative”, meaning medicine had nothing more, and she looked elsewhere for what would help her on the journey to the end. On our last visit I could see that she was totally ready to go, her body was done and she had come to the point where she was at peace with leaving this earth. We talked about that and said our good byes. Whatever happens next was beckoning.

She died on the morning of February 6th, 2020 at home surrounded by her children, two grown grandchildren and Graham, her husband of 30 years.

I was quiet in the Bunkie Studio at the time, one street away. I didn’t ask her for this, but yes I did see the signs before and at the moment of her passing, the second time this has happened in my life (see My Father), and I know that all is well.

She was with me for 8 years; we walked together for as long as she was meant to. We’re all just walking each other home, as Ram Das said. Eight years of living that friendship was a gift. A very precious gift in my life that I cherish forever.

We’re all just walking each other home – Ram Das

How to Travel During a Pandemic

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Who’s counting? A sign in the neighbourhood.

At the same time that travel restrictions got even tighter this week, in Canada and other countries, I hear that friends of a friend have just booked travel to southeast Asia in the fall. I really had to stop and think about that; is that a short time or a long time away from now? What will change between now and then?

I find it almost impossible to imagine travel in the future right now. My imagination isn’t working that way these days, it’s too busy amusing me in the present I guess. It may also be part of the wider time warping phenomenon I’ve found all through this past year. Time has become a fluid, shifting experience – I can’t remember whether something occurred a week ago, a month ago, or 3 months ago. And future time didn’t work out so well either, when everything I had looked forward to never happened. For me, thinking of a time in the future means I have to imagine that future, and I can’t. So I don’t. At the same time, I have never thought of “getting back to normal”, as wherever it is we’re headed, that’s not it.

Like a lot of people living in the middle of global pandemic there are things I miss doing, like getting together with friends and family, near and far, and traveling for a change of scenery both locally and abroad, but I don’t think much about where I’ll go when some day it would be possible again. Because I can’t see that far away.

So instead of thinking about future travel, I’m amusing myself by second hand travel, in the here and now. Turns out I’m traveling to all kind of places. Video.

For example, if I had a bucket list, Scotland would be on it. Last fall local public television was showcasing Scotland in their programming for a couple of months and aired a wide variety of shows – travel, arts, history, natural world – and I watched a lot of it, roaming the country on my screen, letting someone else do the driving (and drone filming), and act as tour guide, allowing access to places you’d never see even if you were there in person. I have never been to the country of my father’s birthplace but this has to be the next best thing so I traveled vicariously. Travel shows are keeping me going.

The real fun began when I came across a You Tube channel of a woman who lives in Italy, on the Amalfi Coast in a town called Positano. Originally from the U.K. she lives there with her Italian husband and teenage daughter and films scenes from her everyday life, posting a weekly video about this and that – selected scenes from life – making pasta, gardening, having lunch with friends and family, walking the dog, kayaking, taking a boat trip to Capri for the day, and visiting other towns along the coast. The real star of the show is the gorgeous scenery that she captures beautifully in every episode – or maybe it captures her.

Now Positano has featured very large in my imagination and memory, going back a long, long time. When I was a teenager, I happened to read an article in Gourmet magazine at my Aunt’s house about the town of Positano and the famous San Pietro Hotel, carved into a cliffside and was completely enchanted by it. (I still have that magazine and rereading that article elicits those same feelings of longing). It became a dream of mine to visit someday, to walk the steps of the town and see for myself those bougainvillea and Mediterranean views.

Years later my dream came true. More than 20 years ago, Howard was working in international finance and mentioned to his Italian counterpart my long-time dream of visiting Positano. The next meeting the group was having was scheduled to be hosted by Italy. “I’ll see what I can do,” said Lorenzo. And he did, he went the distance for me in planning the meeting location. “My apologies, it can’t be in Positano, the town is too small for this kind of meeting, but we’ve arranged for it to be held on the island of Ischia, in the Bay of Naples, which is close enough for you to easily spend time in Positano after the meetings. ” And so, there I was, tagging along to southern Italy. Thank you Lorenzo.

Ischia was a dream. I remember the sheer beauty of the buildings, the stone walls and gardens under the Mediterranean sun, exploring by motorbike, enchanted by the vegetation and flowers. I found out for the first time what a real lemon was (as opposed to what we buy in our supermarkets) when we walked past a low-walled garden filled with lemon trees and struck up a conversation with the owner/gardener, who as it turned out had lived for some years in Toronto. He gave me a lemon from the garden. Its smell was so extraordinary that I carried it around for three days, constantly sniffing it and sighing loudly. If anybody noticed, it wouldn’t have been the first time to raise eyebrows among the locals. There was also the time I went into a small shop selling produce and, valiantly trying to put together a sentence in Italian, I ended up asking the woman for “a kilometre of cherries”! Laughed and laughed (still do). Speaking of three days, that’s how long it took for the airline that misplaced my luggage to get it to me on the isIand. I wore the same clothes for three days and couldn’t have cared less. I was so happy in Ischia.

That was the appetizer. Then we got on a boat and sailed across the Bay of Naples, passed the island of Capri, continued down the coast a bit, turned the corner and there it was. The town of my dreams.

We were there only a short time, just a taste, but it was wonderful. We stayed in a sister hotel to San Pietro in town, the Miramare, with its balconies and terraces covered in bougainvilleas. Cliffside buildings were all shades of cream, yellow, peach and coral. Purple wisteria was in bloom – I had never before seen these over-the-top dripping blossoms, making gorgeous messes of violet petals on patio floors. Pots of flowers were everywhere, in front of every door, on every wall, windowsill, lining pathways and steps. And, always in view, was the sun shining on the glistening Mediterranean. Sigh.

So now, I’m having a great time binge watching someone filming her surroundings as she lives and hangs out in Positano and the surrounding Amalfi Coast, traveling around with her and rekindling my own memories and imagination. Oh, and there’s a huge upside to this kind of visit to Positano. There is also the issue of the defining feature of this gorgeous town. Stairs!!

There are only a few roads that run through the town from the Amalfi Coast highway above so access to most of the buildings in this town is by foot. And because it’s built into a steep hillside that means walkways and lots of stairs between the buildings and garden walls. Anywhere you want to go in town will be 500 steps. And back. I know this very well. Our hotel was only accessible on foot, some guy carried our luggage on his back down (and up) from the road, and we walked and climbed and climbed and walked the entire time. I thought those stairs were killers then and that was over 20 years ago! So now it suits me just fine, to have my YouTube Positano host do all the climbing and walking as she films the scenery, or takes me with her on the back seat of a motorbike, watching the landscape pass through her IPhone. I’m leaving all that climbing to someone younger.

One day the time will no doubt come when I can dream about a future of travel plans to somewhere but not just yet. For now I’m traveling through memory, imagination and video – the next destination, who knows where, but only a click away.

Meanwhile, back in this time zone, in this decade, I took my camera for a walk at the beach the other day at high tide. It was cold, cloudy and damp. 4C degrees. That morning it had even snowed a little but that melted in short order. I had on three layers under my jacket plus a large scarf, hat, jacket hood, 2 pairs of gloves. This is what I found, painful to watch. You will never find me swimming in the ocean on the coast of B.C. in January – never. I have known that some do swim all year ’round in all weather, so there must be something about it that fulfills something. But my imagination doesn’t stretch quite that far.