63 Year Old Mama

Posted on November 5, 2016 by JeanEB

How can it be that life just keeps getting better and better?

odometer

Last week Number One Son Steve piled his possessions into his van, and along with Rosie the Dog and his brother Mike as co-pilot, made the epic 4534.9 km cross-country trip from Ottawa to Vancouver Island, where he is returning to a BC life based in Victoria. For the first time in many many years we are all together now in the same time zone (for awhile anyway, until Mike heads off back to the Arctic – to return in December to spend a month in The Bunkie writing his thesis).

mike-rosie-steve-at-lake-louise

Six or 7 years ago, Steve was living in British Columbia and went back to Ottawa for a visit. Once there he got, shall we say, majorly distracted, and it’s taken all this time for him to make his way back, to stay for good.

So this year’s birthday present to me on this day, November 5th, is the fact that Steve is now only a 2 hour drive away. I couldn’t be happier.

Well yes I could. That would be if Mike moved out to this time zone as well. Who knows, stranger things have happened.

The birthday song du jour this year is courtesy of the late, great, Koko Taylor. Rock on 63 Year Old Mama. The best birthday ever.

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Keep Looking Up

Posted on August 21, 2016 by JeanEB

One night last week I did something I hadn’t done in something like 50 years. At 1:00 am, after the half moon had set off to the west, leaving the sky to darkness, I got my supplies together and headed out to the backyard. I spread a tarp on the ground, laid out a lounge chair cushion to serve as a mattress, unrolled my sleeping bag, fluffed my pillow and settled in to a night of sleeping under the stars.

I was out to find the Perseid meteor showers on this perfect night. These ancient pieces of comet debris, after traveling billions of miles through space, would hit the earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in long flashes of light, clearly visible to anyone able to access a dark sky. The scientists were saying that this year’s show would be particularly spectacular.

Our days have been sunny and hot without a cloud in sight, so the night view from my pillow was clear and unobstructed. Perfect. A gazillion stars and the Milky Way revealed themselves as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I scanned the skies looking for the streaks of light from falling meteors. “Oh there’s one!”. Then it vanished, to be replaced by another. I stopped counting at 40.

A long ago memory returned in those long hours under the stars. I remembered being 10 and doing the exact same thing on a summer night in the back forty of Lori’s country house. Shooting stars we called them.

This time, I didn’t last the night outside, and by 3:30 or so went back inside to a warm, dry bed. I was starting to feel the damp of the dew but it wasn’t just that which drove me back in. The truth is lying alone in the dark under that enormous star-filled sky became overwhelming. We feel we are the center of the universe, either individually or collectively. Not the case after all. Talk about feeling insignificant. And humble.

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
back to the garden

Joni Mitchell – Woodstock

Postscript: Back in the day, Lori and I got up the next morning before dawn and went for a long bike ride along the tree-lined, quiet country roads, watching the sun come up and stopping at the turkey farm to harass the turkeys out in the field beside the road. Does everyone know how to do that? You stand there and give a yell, there is a brief pause, and then the turkeys (hundreds of them) respond in kind, until a huge wave of noise spreads over the land. Gradually it dies down, until just a few clucks remain. Then you do it again. I’m surprised, and not a little grateful, that the farmer didn’t shoot us on the spot.

Fifty years later, I could barely drag myself out of bed at 10:00 am (unusual) and then had to have a nap later in the day (unheard of). I was completely wrecked the entire day after my nocturnal adventures. Oh well, some things change, but maybe not that much.

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Night sky photo from NASA/Fred Bruenjes

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The Americans Are Coming!

Posted on August 1, 2016 by JeanEB

A strange sight in our town this week. In addition to the summer people with their foreign (Alberta) license plates taking all the parking spaces and causing line-ups at the recycling depot with truckloads of empty beer cans and wine bottles, a different kind of invader has arrived. On top of our uber-cute Chamber of Commerce building flies an American flag, replacing our own cheery Maple Leaf.

They are filming a movie here and have turned Qualicum Beach into the fictional town of Chesapeake Shores. The Chamber has been converted into a bogus cafe (great idea), they have repainted and decorated the previously nondescript Canton House restaurant across the street into a thing of beauty and if you look closely, an arbor on the sidewalk is now lush with, yes, plastic leaves and yellow roses. A bit of an insult, I’d say, to this award-winning Canada Blooms town already awash with flower-filled planters and hanging baskets.

The day I was there they were filming and the street was filled with crew and onlookers. As I was photographing the flag a young gal with walkie-talkie working crowd control gently suggested they were discouraging picture taking. No problem – after I get my “Americans Are Coming” shot. “A good Facebook title” she said. “Especially with all the Americans who want to move to Canada now, because of Donald Trump and all that.”

Let’s not talk about Donald Trump. No, let’s not.

Going Postal

Earlier. It turned out to be a bad day. What can I say. I snapped. I didn’t actually kill anybody but I sure ruined a few people’s peace of mind, mine included.

I was sitting across the desk from the bank person, watching the painfully slow process of her doing data entry. Asking me a question, entering the answer on the screen, making a mistake, backing up, making a comment about “the (computer) system”, asking another question, same slow retarded process. What I had thought was supposed to be a simple transaction was becoming a nightmare. I could feel my frustration of being trapped, wasting time, in this little windowless office with this person, rise. And rise. Starting to boil. So when finally, one stupid question later I couldn’t help myself (well yes I could have) and let her have it. Walked out. I should have walked out before I lost my temper but there you have it.

Later, feeling crappy (losing your temper only hurts yourself), I was thinking about how generally unsettled and irritable and uncharitable I’ve been feeling lately.

I’ve been focusing on the wrong things. The world seems to have gone crazy, I think. How do I live in this world when fear and loathing spreads and I have nothing but contempt for my fellow man? Love thy neighbour? Ha! How do I find my peace when I despair that hatred and racism and violence and murder is the norm not the exception? How do I turn off this madness?

One answer appears.

Just turn it off.

It is time for another news blackout, something that has worked for me in the past. Things are going to get ugly – be afraid, be very afraid. I don’t intend to bear witness through the lense of a now 24 hour news cycle. My joy comes from the natural world, the creative and Mary Oliver, who says, although I don’t think she really believes it, that “Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually”.

I’m also planning a return trip to New Zealand. Now how far away can I actually get from North America and Europe and Middle East…? Hmm. I look at the map. How about Stewart Island? When you get there, the only next stop further is Antarctica!

When the world feels like one big hornet’s nest, best to just focus on my own backyard. With apologies to the hornets for the comparison.