Prompt # 62 – Blood and Water

Prompt # 62 – Blood and Water

My parents are dead, I have no children, and my brothers live thousands of kilometres away in Manitoba and Florida. My nearest relatives live two or three hours away and I see them once a year if I am lucky. I have more than 50 first cousins. One cousin, Marge, has become closer in the last few years. We keep in touch by notes, e-mail, FB, and visits. Our parents were close. Also a cousin, Wilma (really a cousin of my father's, but my age) sought me out and we keep in touch over the phone, and maybe meet for coffee or lunch once a year. I guess one of the joys about relatives is that we get to know these people who we would otherwise never meet, we live such different lives.

Friends are precious and I've never had a large number at any one time. However, as the years accumulate, so do old friends. My best friend from high school lives in Calgary and we talk about twice a year (birthdays) and visit much less frequently. My best friend from work forty years ago still lives in Winnipeg and we write or call once or twice a year. I still have contact with several people I socialized with in other lives - university, work, even former students, and former homestay students, on FB, which is good as otherwise I would never know where they are or what they are doing. Locally my friends have mostly been from groups I've attended – writing, art, genealogy, photography, Scrabble. Which I guess means we share interests and passions. Two of these friends moved away, Marilyn to Port Moody, Leina to Salt Spring Island, but we still keep in touch. They have both visited me here since they left.

I appreciate friends and I realize that I am poorly skilled at seeking out friendships or even at maintaining regular contact. So I have to rely on friends being more aggressive than I am at keeping in touch. I am blessed.

Leina

Marilyn 

Carol 

Prompt # 61 - Success

Prompt # 61 - Success

To me, success means happiness. I wrote about it as a first assignment for Mr. Murray in Grade Nine and got a poor mark for an uninspired / uninspiring response. Now fifty years later, I still feel the same. You know that old joke. What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Answer: Just lucky, I guess. In other words, happiness is simply choosing to look at things in a positive way.

I consider myself to be successful because I have the luxury of living where I choose and doing what I want. I spend my hours each day doing only what I want - writing, creating, reading, socializing. If I wanted a different kind of life, I would act to get what I want. I live in my dream house, in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Surrounded by a symphony of flowers. To me, flowers = happiness = success.

Prompt # 60 - Family Traits

Prompt # 60 - Family Traits

My Dad always said we were “long-headed” which meant, he said, that we thought ahead, long ahead, made plans, and worked to achieve goals. I think I'm like him that way. I look like him, and his father. From my maternal grandmother and from my father, I inherited a love of reading and learning. From my mother I probably got my love of nature and the outdoors, although she was sporty and active which I am not. I read and write about and take pictures of nature. From all my relatives I suspect I inherited a tendency towards an inappropriate sense of humour. And again from my Dad, his motto: Trust everyone, but always cut the cards. 

Leaves from the family tree.

Prompt # 59 - Tasks

Prompt # 59 - Tasks

I get out of bed, turn off the tv, use the toilet and flush, wash face, dress in long skirt or jeans, loose T-shirt, fleece, no bra unless I have company. I go downstairs, turn off nightlight, turn on radio to CBC, open curtains on picture window and french door. I go to the sink, fill coffee carafe with six cups cold water, pour into machine, struggle with filter, add three T of ground coffee, push the button On. Eat a bowl of something, or a homemade muffin, and sit either on couch at picture window or in television room which is warmer, and drink coffee, two large mugs. Then, I'm ready to start my day. Work at computer. Make bed. Make lunch, usually a bowl of homemade soup or a sandwich. Omelet on Sunday. Work at computer or read. Walk either at 3 or 5 pm. 4 pm watch Murder She Wrote, with cup of instant coffee and one cookie. Make supper. Close curtains. Tidy kitchen, washing pots, loading dishwasher. Watch tv. Play Spider Solitaire or Scrabble on laptop at the same time, checking Facebook and playing Scrabble with friends there. Eleven pm. Turn off lights, except nightlight. Upstairs to bed. If I go up town, to shop for groceries, check mail, meet for coffee at the Blue Moose every Wednesday, play scrabble at the Lodge every Thursday, go to library, it is afternoon. Except I go to garage sales every Saturday morning. Every Sunday morning I watch the Coronation Street marathon.

I could add more detail, but I know you are already asleep.

When my grandmother Winifred was my age, she lived alone in a little yellow house in a small town in British Columbia. We lived on a farm in Manitoba, two thousand kilometres away. She had diabetes and went blind, so her routine changed. She had running water and flush toilet in town but not on the ranch where she had lived for 40 years. She would have had tea for breakfast, made from loose tea, probably Nabob, which she strained through a strainer to keep the leaves out of the cup. She would insist on a cup and saucer. Mugs were for truck drivers. She made toast which she stood up in a toast rack and ate cold, as they do in England. I do not know what she preferred to eat, but she was always short (under 5 feet) and stout. I know she liked fish, sole. Once she made us tomato aspic with canned shrimp in it. That seemed so exotic to me. My mother often said that the only meal Grandma ever knew how to cook was curry. Let's just say domestic skills were not her forte.

I never saw her wear anything other than dresses and shoes which she called “slippers,” because you slipped your foot in, without laces. She also had real fluffy slippers as well. She wore a large flesh pink contraption underneath her dresses, a sort of combination girdle with stays and bustier, with garters. I don't know how she got it done up without help. She was used to having help. As a child in England, there would have been helpers and servants in the house. When she was married with children at home, her daughters did most of the house work including cooking, dishes, cleaning, garden, and laundry. For most of her life, she would have been happy reading for 16 hours a day. After she went blind, she borrowed recorded books from the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind). I used to love visiting at her house. It had no wallpaper. Every wall was bookshelves, filled with books which I would volunteer to dust. Grandma enjoyed socializing, especially meeting women friends for tea. She went to church three times every Sunday. I'm really not sure how she managed for those 9 years she lived alone. I know she relied very heavily on her daughter-in-law and the 2 granddaughters who lived nearby. 

Prompt # 58 - Goblet

Prompt # 58 - Goblet

I think of myself as always a “glass half full” type. But really, I see that glass and I think “Lots of room left for more.” Maybe it is a question of: Are you filling it up, or drinking it down? Are you adding or subtracting, giving or taking. I still insist that I am adding - to that water goblet of the world.

Prompt # 57 - Chapters

Prompt # 57 - Chapters

“My life closed twice,” the great Emily Dickinson says. As if it were two books, rather than two chapters. “People, places, events?” the prompt asks. I think the most revealing to me is: 22 years as a student (birth to university, but not continuous). 22 working for others. 22 working on my own, freelance, contracts, my own creative endeavours. The last is the best, probably because it is best suited to my needs, skills (or lack of), and talents. Although I do realize that in all the years I was working in education, social services, corrections, I was collecting stories. My interest in humanity has never dwindled.

Prompt # 56 - Groups

Prompt # 56 – Groups

My group participation has dwindled to two groups, both informal. Every Wednesday several of us meet at a local coffee shop called the Blue Moose and talk. Originally, we were an off-shoot of the defunct Philosopher's Cafe. We joke that the ticket to admission is that you have to use the word “art” at least once in your conversation. As we are all rather “artsie” – writers, painters, sculptors – this is not a hardship, and allows us to delude ourselves that what we are doing is more than gossip.

Every Thursday, a group of us meet to play Scrabble. We used to go to Molly's house because she could not get out. Now that she is in extended care, we go to the Lodge and play there. If we have more than four players, we set up two boards.

I have belonged to other groups. Our photography club and our genealogy club both folded. At one time, I was a member of the local art guild which runs the art gallery. I quit mainly because I hate going to meetings, especially at night. I also used to attend the local book club at the library. I love books and reading and I confess that I find the excess of negativity in such groups really offensive. There is too much focus on 'I don't like' and 'the writer should have . . . ' whereas I feel that when I read I am trying to figure out the writer's purpose, goal, and the choices made to achieve those goals. Rather than sit there feeling angry or letting the negativity of others darken my own experience of the book, I decided to not go. I recently read an account of a writer's experience when being attacked by a reader and I recognized that she was describing exactly how I used to feel at book club. http://brocktonwritersseries.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/bws-05-03-14-angie-abdou/ Thanks to Lauren Carter for this link to Angie Abdou's article.

Recently since I've had the luxury of more time, I manage to read about one book a week, which I report on Twitter @earthabridge instead of posting photos of my latest lunch. Although when I'm writing I find I don't read much. I do not want to switch from one world to another.