Category Archives: ageing

The Reality Hotel: latter days

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balcony hotelA snail climbed on the back of a turtle.
What did it say?
“Wheeeee!”

The house sale is moving at the same speed. When it finally closes, Clara and I can bust out of the Reality Hotel. Today it inches forward as the money from the sale of the Vegas house finally hits the bank account of the vendor of the house in Pine Mountain. Meanwhile Clara and I have been living in the second floor of this three roomed hotel since early July.

We have large airy rooms with excellent showers and a kitchenette in Clara’s room, but no phones or internet, no stove or hot plate, only a microwave and a toaster oven, in a town where restaurants keep mountain hours and Wednesdays they all close. Of course there is a general store next door where you can buy almost anything, including good French champagne, which I bought to celebrate getting the keys. Trouble was we trooped over to see the house that was almost Clara’s and the keys didn’t work. Turns out the key which over-rides the code was in the house and we didn’t have the code. We drank the champagne to make us feel better.

Now that little problem is solved. All we have to wait for is the house to be cleaned and the pod with the furniture to arrive from Las Vegas. Possibly not next week, say the pod people. Not to worry. There is a storage unit at the foot of the mountain with furniture in it, including the mats that Clara slept on in the last days in Vegas. I long to lie my ancient bones down on the floor. I dreamed last night that I was going from house to house looking for a bed to sleep on. I was still looking when I woke up.

But life here in the old Reality Hotel (Realty really, but it is all so surreal ) got better by the addition of two items.

hot potA $13 Proctor Silas plastic hot pot, which boils water for tea and cooks porridge.

hot wireNo not the Mac Air book, the gizmo beside it, a hot wire that magically allows me to get the WiFi signal from the house in the pines. It had been lying in a drawer in that house, completely unrecognized for the miracle it is.

Now I can get on-line of course and that is good for a blogger, but the best thing, the very best thing, is that I can use Skype to make phone calls. Out-going at least. I haven’t convinced others to sign up for Skype so they can call me. Except my Brussels brother.

Previously I have had to rouse Clara and borrow her cell phone. (My phone is AT&T and gets no service at all on the mountain.) Because Clara’s hearing seems to be worse up here at altitude, getting her phone can be trying. Up to now, on occasion, I have just jumped on the golf cart and gone to knock on a door.

But here I am with a morning off so far as I know. The sun is shining in the balcony door. The breeze is swelling the curtain. The Stellars jays are calling. The ventilator over the store is humming away. No, no, Joyce, positive stuff. The mountains are embracing the village on every side. And the possibility of living in a home is inching ever closer.

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills/ from whence cometh my help”

view from hotel

Reality Hotel: Kern County, CA

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golf cart drawingWe are universally addressed as girls, although the universe here is miniscule. We don’t actually play golf, so our storage area holds just our purses. In the two weeks since I learned to drive a golf cart, I have become a go-cart cowboy.

We are actually girls despite our combined years – 163. So, by the way, is your aged mother/aunt/ grandma. My grandma remained one until she was over 90.

The golf cart we take to whatever restaurant we can find open in this sleepy mountain village is only half the fun. Which is saying a lot. Taking a left turn on a steep downgrade is as exciting as Magic Mountain.

The other half of the fun is living in the Reality Hotel, so nicknamed by my sister, Georgia,who willfully misread my email telling her that I had moved to the PMC Realty Hotel. It suited our theatre of the absurd experience here.

The Reality Hotel is comprised of three second-floor rooms linked by a balcony and situated above the realty office. My friend Clara, who lives next door, is waiting for a house deal to close in Las Vegas prior to taking possession of a new home here. Did you know that house deals can fall through on closing day? Well at least they can if they involve reservists and Veterans’ Affairs. There is a new deal but … One way or another, Clara’s new home will not be hers until August 30th. Neither will the spare room with my name on it.

Clara has the best room in the Reality Hotel. It has a kitchenette with a little wet bar sink, a microwave and a tiny fridge. She and her cat also have a private bedroom and a flat screen television with a DVD player.

My room next door has no such amenities, but it is large, and well carpeted with balconies on both ends. I can leave both doors open to catch the breeze. If there is a breeze. Most mornings it is 80 degrees inside by 10 a.m. It can get well up into the nineties by late afternoon. There is a ceiling fan over the bed, which  is mostly for show. There is a portable fan that works much better, however. The good news is that the cool air falls down from the mountains after 7 p.m. I shut the front door at night, but leave the sliding door to the front , stairless balcony open. Whatever climbs in through that window, Bruno the Bear included, is going to get a very rude welcome.I’ve got at least that much repressed rage going on.

So you get the picture, high desert with no air conditioning. Most people here don’t have it. After all it only goes up to the high 90s here, whereas in the valley it gets up to 110.

I have whined on about the no phone, no internet and analogue TV set in previous posts, so I won’t bore you with that again. I can always jump into the golf cart and come to the house in the pines or go to the internet cafe -which serves nothing and is often locked, but the signal works on the deck. Clara has her first cell phone, a Verizon phone of course. We AT&T-ers are fresh out of luck. I am teaching her to use it and so, I am able to send a text from time to time.

Using Clara’s kitchenette has its own difficulty. Clara always locks her screen door so that Jasmine doesn’t escape. Then she falls asleep. It’s hard to knock on screen and Clara is hard of hearing. I stand there teabag in hand, but, hey, it’s not so bad if you put into room temperature water and leave it for 20 minutes.

Because where else can I get hot tea? Well, at the amazing bakery, which makes to-die-for croissants. The bakery is open from 7 to 2 Thursday to Monday. Then there is La Lena, the Mexican restaurant. Amazingly you can get hot tea there as well as beer with lime, but it’s at the other end of town.

That brings up the question of what to eat and where. It is possible to eat cheese enchiladas three times a day at La Lena. That hard working family does not work on mountain time. They work seven days a week, breakfast through dinner. The pizza restaurant is open from 2 to 7,  later on weekends, closed on Wednesday. Their chicken Caesar is made with pre-frozen cubes which puts it a step down from La Lena’s meat. Mommy’s Roadhouse downstairs from Madd Bailey’s bar does a decent Angus burger and closes Wednesday. Then there is the club house which is open for breakfast and lunch every day, but serves dinner only from Thursday to Sunday. In other words, it is closed Wednesday night. The best restaurant is Silva Bella, although the chef leans heavily on milk and the prices are high. If you want to eat on Wenesday, however, that’s the place.

If you are working with food allergies, you are up against even if it isn’t Wednesday.

At least once a week, sometimes more I eat at the house in the pines and cook a family meal that often as well.

I am happy warming up leftovers from the house in the microwave or tossing a spinach salad, but Clara -not so much. Often I eat my gluten free breakfast and then drive her to the club where she eats scrambled eggs and I drink tea. If I order toast, I get a special commendation from the wait staff.

So here upon this bank and shoal of time, we wait for the resolution of our various problems. We wait at the Reality Hotel.

What’s that song: They’re living it up at the hotel California…… Then isn’t there something about “You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave.

hotel California

 

Pack in Haste: regret at leisure

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suitcase(howtodothings.com)

You’ve see those movies where the grifters have to leave town asap. They throw their clothes, hangers and all, into suitcases. Easy to do, because they had only one suitcase of clothes to begin with. Or the flee-ers scoop everything out of drawers into suitcases, which they slam shut. In comedies, some personal item trails out.

This time I had a 2 hour notice that I had to get from Toronto to Southern California. (Last time I got maybe 20 hrs.) It took me a half hour to figure out how to book  ticket while in a state of shock. (Definitely, on-line. Definitely don’t pay attention to prices.) Signed, sealed, delivered, checked in, bag paid for, boarding pass printed. Now what to pack?

I had made the same trip under more relaxed conditions, in early May, four weeks earlier. No problem, pack what I took then.

I dragged the purple suitcase out of the back of the long narrow cupboard. I set it on the blanket box at the foot of the bed, opened it and began flinging clothes at it. I had to be at the airport at 6 p.m. It was 5. Okay, this isn’t working.

I phoned Blake, my ex-husband. He knew he would have to drive me to the airport already. I said, “You have to come now,” I can’t think. He was with his young female friend. Let’s call her Noreen. “As soon as he could,” he said. They were caught in traffic. I kept flinging clothes. Breaking off now and then to empty the fridge, tie up the garbage, unplug the fountains. Forget the timer for the lights. I could cancel the papers once I got there. I was a whirling dervish.

5:20, they arrived.

“Joyce, this is Noreen” etc. I had heard a lot about Noreen. She seemed amiable enough.

“Can you two roll all this stuff up tightly and pack it.” The first time I’d met her and she was rolling my underwear.

I was stuffing toiletries into a plastic bag. When they finished, I put the dresses, etc. into the top compartment where they stood a small chance of not getting wrinkled.

They dropped me at Pearson International airport at 6:15. Noreen helped me put the bags on a cart and hugged me goodbye. Big surprise. No crowds. I self-served all the way through baggage check, customs, immigration, baggage loading – a nice Jamaician man lifted my bag onto the belt and sang me a song of his own devising- and finally, that metaphysical hurdle, security check, to arrive in good time at the gate for an 8:15 departure.

I forgot to mention the stop at the exchange counter. I have several hundred untouchable U.S. dollars in the bank, untouchable unless I present myself at the bank counter to claim them. I paid $138 Cdn for $100 US.

Fine.

At the first of June, on the mountain, north of Los Angeles, I survey my suitcase. What a difference a month makes! 24 times 31 little hours! It is hot, even at 5000 feet.

The grey wool suit, however light, is a non-starter. The tights will work on cold mornings or for midnight trysts. The desert cools down at night, especially at altitude. I have one t-shirt. No problem, here are 3 t-shirts from my male host. They should work. No shorts. Not even any capris or clam diggers. Well, here are 3 dresses and a wrap-around skirt that my size 2 hostess can give me. I am a size 14, but by some miracle, these are loose and flowing – on her. On me, not so much. I have brought the top of my bathing suit but not the bottom. (You should have some fun even in the middle of an emergency.) You know how they always say, “You can buy what you need when you get there.” They weren’t talking about the wilds of Kern County, but it is true in this one case. I find myself in Bakersfield and  buy a black bottom in Walmart. No sandals. No problem. I order some from Birkenstocks. I do not upgrade the shipping. Two weeks later I try to track the package. It has just been accepted by the mail service. In China. I pull out the silky tank top. It’s not the plain, soft one. It’s covered with glittery bits of plastic, like scales. I bought it for a costume.

Everyday, I discover new left-behinds: the list of my passwords for example. And no one will believe that I know my mother’s maiden name.

Bell has handed my cell coverage over to AT&T. The mountain is served only by Verizon. I send pleading texts from other people’s phones: please water the plant, did my parcel from Amazon come? Have they stopped paper delivery?

I can get most websites on my computer up here, but not my bank’s. I am reduced to telephone banking. How 90s!

They say that new experiences keep the aging brain young. I figure mine has dialed back to 17.

 

 

 

Bouts of Joy

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Not us. Another group of haymow jumpers

Not us. Another group of haymow jumpers

Back in the Sierra Nevadas, having exhausted myself walking up the mountain at 7,000 ft., I came down to the village to walk beside the lake, really a pond that holds the water for the fire department. One side of the water is thick with cat tails and behind there is a slope covered with deciduous bushes of different hues, including a soft red. Suddenly, I had a flash of standing beside the Indian River with my grandmother, Gladys, when she was the age I am now and I was 42.

She and I had found ourselves single and living alone that summer. Her son had gone off to live with his best friend’s wife, best friend having passed to his reward. Gladys had left the farm and gone to live in a small house on the Quebec/U.S. border. Meanwhile, my husband, daughter and son had gone off in their own directions. Gladys and I were heart-broken and yet she still made me laugh.

She recalled a day in her first home, a farmhouse. It was spring cleaning time and she had hired a French Canadian girl whom I remember later as Aunt Kate. Kate was cleaning upstairs, when she suddenly came rushing down yelling, “Gladness, Gladness, the house is on fire.” It burned to the ground. All that was left was a stone-lined cellar hole. Gladys roared with laughter as she imitated Kate.

They didn’t lose everything. The “men” -two of them would have been about 12- must have smelled the smoke or heard the sound of pots smashed together that called them back. They rushed in and grabbed the first thing the saw, the big round oak table, which immediately got  jammed in the door. Gladys screamed and yelled. They pushed and shoved. Finally the door jam yielded and the table flew out, but precious time had been wasted. Other men began to arrive and grab what they could. Some things Gladys loved were lost and the family of 6 was homeless. But in the country, someone can always squeeze in a family of six.

Twenty seven years later, the family had changed shape. My mother, who was 13 when the house burned, was married as were her next three brothers. But there were still three children at home, more or less the same age I was and I was 19. This house, too, caught fire. Once again the men seized the oak table first. Once again it got stuck in the door and Gladys screamed, “Leave that damned thing to burn”. Gladys never damned anything. It was the worst word to her. They didn’t leave it. See above.

The third house was built by the community across the road from the second one. The porch was smaller but screened. There was a coal furnace in the cement cellar and no longer needed to be insulated on the outside with banks of sawdust. And there was an actual bathroom. Until 1955, the old out-house had stood at the back of the wagon shed and only little children could use the commode inside. Gladys was very happy there. Her kitchen stove had a wood side for heating and an electric side for cooking. She had hot and cold running water, which ran into a claw foot tub. Many a visit, we sat at the much despised round oak table and laughed.

We laughed about the time that four of us, aged 11 to 13 decided to jump in the hay. It wasn’t a dangerous sport once the new hay had been harvested, but it hadn’t. All there was in the mows was last years hay, so low in the mow that it could be pulled down through the lowest door. Moreover it had compacted and was hard.

I was 13, Evelyn and Ted, twin aunt and uncle, 11 and Percy, 10. The boys dared us to go out onto the side beam that led across the mow from the barn floor (ramp) and jump from there. Sure, we girls said we can do that. The boys went first, sliding on their bottoms far across so as to leave space for us. I went next, noting as I began that it was at least 20 down. I could barely move. Finally, Evelyn began the crossing. We were all scared but she was terrified. She didn’t want to lose face in front of her brothers and once, embarked, she couldn’t go back either.

My sisters, Georgia 7 and Anne 5 stood watching on the barn floor.

I was sweating and gripping the beam. First Ted and then Percy launched himself off into the air with a bloodcurdling whoop. They would crash together, I thought. Both disappeared. A few seconds later their heads appeared as they dug themselves out of the dusty hay.

I knew I couldn’t do it. “Go back, Evelyn,” I cried.

“I can’t move”, she said. Me neither, I thought.

I studied the mow. The boys were urgently calling us to jump. “It’s fun. It’s not so bad.” My stomach heaved. I had to go to the out-house. I jumped.

The worst part was drowning in hay dust and desperately scrambling out. But now we had another problem. Evelyn was deaf to our pleading. She was weeping in terror and hiding her face in her shoulder.

“Go get Ma,” Ted yelled to my sisters. They clomped off down the wooden ramp. Crying and yelling ensued while we waited. Then Gladys was there with her small grand daughters, wiping her hands on her apron, and clearly not happy.

“What in the name of heaven were you kids doing out on that beam?” We always jumped from the barn floor and never into low hard hay. “Get back here,” she screamed at her daughter.

“Can’t,” said Evelyn,” Can’t move.”

“Well, then jump!”

Evelyn protested she would die if she did.

“Well, you’ll die if you don’t, Evelyn Grace. I’ll come out there and give you such a clout…”

Evelyn threw herself headlong, screaming, and landed on her face. We pulled her out and I dusted her off, but she continued to scream that it was all our fault. The boys and I ran across the hay, through to the mow over the cowshed, down the trap door, out through the empty cow shed and up around the barn. There on the dirt ramp, stood Gladys, her face in her apron, laughing so hard her body shook. My little sisters, who were totally unused to laughter, clung to her skirts.

 

 

Bulletin from Shangri-La: the boxcar house

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boxcar house #2

Shangri-La, here in the Sierras at the bottom end of Kern County has a type of house called the boxcar house.

This is the possible view from the back of the boxcar house.

mountain view from boxcarmountain view #2This is the actual view.

actual viewThere are no windows on the long side, except around the front door. There are sliding doors at either end, but we are enjoined not to leave them open, in case of bears. THey are the only windows that open.

During the day when we are out, the temperature inside soars. It is still about 90F/33C when we return. There is no AC. Someone used to live here full-time. How?

My room-mate and I have 163 years between us. The bathtub is two feet off the floor. Tai chi and a well-anchored bar makes it possible for me into it to take a shower. The other gal showers elsewhere.

Our first night is amusing. It is about 60F/15C inside. We have been told there are wall heaters. And yes there are. I turn on the one in the living room. It heats well enough, but not as far as the open kitchen and certainly not to the bathroom or the bedrooms, which are at either end. I turn on the heater in my bedroom. The fan powers up. A little guy inside is hitting heavy metal with a sledge hammer. I actually try to bear it. After three minutes I shut the heat off. I prefer silent cold.

The phone will not make long distance calls. The owner lives in Ventura. My cell phone gets no reception at this spot. Who carries a phone card these days? Next day, we learn that the noise will quit after the first five minutes. That proves to be true.

I start to make my bed. Like all rental cottages, this one does not provide linens. We have brought linens from the house in the pines, over the way. The bed is queen-sized. My sheets are not. If you turn the top sheet crossways and tuck it in at the sides, it more or less covers the mattress. Then the fitted sheet can be tucked in at one bottom corner to serve as a top sheet. I pile the five blankets, I find in the cupboard on top.  Quite a heavy load. I wrap what turns out to be a padded baby crib mattress cover around my shoulders and endeavour to read in bed.

In the morning, I decide to boil water for tea. I search all the cupboards. No kettle. For a few dizzy moments, I can’t find any dishes at all, until I spy the narrow cupboards built into the front wall. I find a pan to fill with water. How to turn the ceramic top burner on high. I take a guess. Ten minutes later the pan is still cold. My room-mate is an outgoing, former actor, a famous joker, but with less salty language. I stand there in exasperation and hear myself exclaiming, “Bad word, bad word, bad word.”

But here’s the best part. It is silent. No railway trains, no traffic noise. One jet – overhead in two weeks -a fighter from Lompok. No light pollution. Great beds. Excellent water pressure. Lots of hot water. And it is costing less than $60 a night. I have the address.

 

 

The Ex – a love letter

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I needed a date the other night, someone who would appreciate a family party and would be willing to drive an hour north into white-out country, late March though it was. Naturally, I called my Ex.

When I was 16, the year that Blake and I met on a Good Friday bicycle hike, the word “ex” hadn’t been invented and had certainly not devolved from meaning ex-husband/wife down to meaning ex-boy/girl friend. Only the rich and scandalous and movie stars got divorced in those days. I can’t even remember whispered adult conversations about divorced people in my home and I always heard the whispered, good stuff.

Blake and I were together for over 25 years before we broke my grandmother’s heart. (My mother had passed on, so my grandmother had to fill the role.) She thanked God that at least my grandfather had not lived to see it. Then divorce began spreading like a nasty disease and she started working hard to keep up.

So my second niece was turning 50. My children and my sister’s are all one year apart – Irish twins, as they say. This niece was the last of the four to reach 50. Initially I phoned her daughter -great niece, that would be – to say sorry, apologies and all that. I got off the phone and had a brainwave. The invitation had been addressed to Joyce and guest. I phoned Blake and he readily agreed to be my date. It would be good to see the family, he said. I cancelled my regrets.

Blake could drive through hell without turning a hair as he proved in Paris, Rome, Athens and on the Autobann when we were married. And although we have been divorced for 36 years, he has come to family gatherings in the last few years. My sister greeted him at that first Easter dinner, “Gee Blake, I didn’t know we were going to get you back.”

It hasn’t always been hearts and flowers. At first when divorce loomed, the kitchen knives lured me, sang siren songs, but both Blake and I have a blood phobia and being a bright guy, he moved out.

Even so, we didn’t fight over the division of property or children. Fifteen and sixteen -year-olds make up their own minds. The rest we divided in half, although I resented being given the cabinet television set, which took 2 men and a boy to move. We didn’t divide my brother’s drug stash in the crawl space because we didn’t know about it and he didn’t know we were selling the house. It’s still there if you look up in the rafters near an air vent or so he claims. But that’s on your head.

Any lingering angst evaporated when Blake’s wife died. No, I didn’t mean it like that. She was a beautiful, vital young woman, as passionate as only the Spanish can be and she was a brilliant cook of Mediterranean food, ambitious and hard-working. She and Blake were coping with the idea that he would go first since he already had a cancer diagnosis. Then she was diagnosed, but the prognosis was good. Not to worry. But in the course of one autumn, she turned very badly for the worse and passed away on the winter solstice.

Our daughter came flying back to aid and comfort her father. Although neither of us had known his wife well, we felt a great out-pouring of love as if she were sending it back from the other side. Blake was perhaps too overwrought to register it. It wasn’t hard to realize that Blake could use support once our daughter left.

We go to movies like August, Osage County, I cook steaks or stew, or we eat out and we talk about politics or current events: ‘what did happen to that airplane’. Julia says it’s just what we did at our own table all those years ago.  We go along with each other for medical appointments, just to have a second set of ears and to decide on treatment if necessary. It’s true that Blake has other companionship as well. Fine with me. She can keep up with him. Being younger. Is there a pattern …. No, no, that’s small minded.

Dressing for this masked ball proved challenging for me, but I pulled together a long sleeveless dress, heavy tights and a black scoop-necked top with long sleeves for a suitably “formal” look. Blake showed up in maroon cords, a blue shirt and the softest grey/blue jacket that invited touch, mine and that of several other women.

We had a charming misunderstanding about our gift of cash. He insisted on being generous. I thought we were dividing what I had ready in half. He thought he was adding to what I had ready.

When we arrived, my niece’s grandchildren greeted us at the door, the boy in a tuxedo,  two girls in long dresses and one in a tutu. Our coats were whisked away and we were provided with masks.

Shortly, thereafter, Blake wished my older niece happy birthday and she thanked him, noting that he was 5 weeks early. “Wrong niece, Blake”, but Blake is forgiven everything. He is the beloved, absent-minded uncle to them and always has been.

It is an interesting venue, the long narrow foyer of an athletic club where the birthday girl works, with a bar and tiny kitchen in the middle and  glassed in squash courts in clear view. There is one baby. Two others have been left at home, to great disappointment. And all those flying beautiful sub-teens. So septuagenarians right down to a one-year-old. In the kitchen is the family chef, birthday girl’s son-in-law, father of 6, churning out nibblies, that the kids pass around, explaining each in detail.

Someone is reported to have said, “It’s nice to see Blake and Joyce back together.” It’s not clear if this was a joke.

Blake and I enjoy a chat with my younger sister, Georgia. They have always liked each other and are not above flirting. Then we try to mingle and find ourselves with the most mono-syllabic fellow in the room. He regards innocuous questions as an invasion of privacy.

Then a remarkable thing happens. Georgia’s ex-husband takes his two daughters – my nieces- aside and tells them he is giving each of them $40,000 from their grandfather’s estate.

It takes me only a minute to slide over to the gift table, unseal the envelope  and pocket my gift money. NO, no. I didn’t do that. Honestly, I didn’t.

Then in general jubilation, the band starts up – Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin – and the dancing begins.

Once upon a time as in the best fairy tales, Blake and I danced. We square danced, we polka-ed, we two-stepped, we jitterbugged, we foxtrotted. Since we parted all those years ago, neither of us has danced. Sixty years later, we dance.

 

 

 

Carrickfergus – soul song

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jim mccannYesterday’s ear-worm, the traditional Irish ballad, “I wish I was in Carrickfergus” was so persistent that I dropped everything to deal with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaurO8e5-mg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMggxSzxM4

The first You Tube link is the song sung by Bruce Guthro; the second by Jim McCann  (pictured above) of the Dubliners. The latter is revered by fans of the song. There is also a version by Loudon Wainright III, done for Boardwalk Empire, as well as Van Morrison and others by women, such as Joan Baez – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S7ITkoxojI

I have been a great lover of traditional ballads ever since those halycon days when high school curriculum loosened up in the early 70’s and such poetry was taught in English class. One of my adult children thinks I sang it, but I didn’t know the words until yesterday, so I thought she was remembering other similarly tragic ballads that I put on the record player.

If you go to Wikepedia, you get arcane tips on where the song came from, the fact that Carrickfergus is in County Antrim, which other ballads may have been melded to create it, etc. In other places, you will learn that the Irish actor, Peter O’Toole taught it to Dominic Behan who recorded it – thus bringing it to popular attention- and supposedly, added a verse of his own. On other sites, you will learn that it was written by Van Morrison, James Taylor, etc. Or perhaps it was written by an Irish poet who died in 1745. I’m tempted to say I wrote it. Why not? Usually, old ballads like this are ascribed to Anonymous and since they were orally transmitted, there are many versions. Perhaps my daughter is right about hearing the song in childhood because I have a memory of knowing how Joan Baez gave new meaning to the last two lines: Ah, but I am sick now, my days are numbered/ So come all you young men and lay me down.

The song begins:

I wish I was in Carrickfergus
Only for nights in Ballygran(d)
 I would swim over the deepest ocean
The deepest ocean for my love to find.

Some on-line commentators find “nights in Ballygran” puzzling. Really? Joan Baez makes this clearer: “I wish I had you in Carrickfergus.” Carrickfergus names a borough or wider area than the town of Ballygrand, which is located there.

Clearly, the song is about an insurmountable obstacle, which the singer first announces can be overcome by heroic effort, but then grows sadly more realistic.
But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over
And neither have I wings to fly
If I could find me a handsome (handy) boatman
To ferry me over to my love and I (and die)

Boatmen have been associated with passage to the next life ever since the Greeks put coins on the eyes of the dead to pay for ferry passage across the River Styx. (I once spent a summer holiday on the banks of this actual river – literally.)  So I think that singing and I is just a dodge to keep the crowd in the pub happy.

My childhood days bring back sad reflections
Of happy times I spent so long ago
My boyhood (girlhood) friends and my own relations
Have passed away like melting snow

Is this the verse Behan wrote? Seems so to me.

But I’ll spend my days in endless (ceaseless) roaming
Soft is the grass and my bed is free
Ah, to be back in Carrickfergus
On that long road down to the salty sea

Well, at least there was that.

And in Kilkenny it is reported
There are marble stones as black as ink (Written on stones…)
With gold and silver I did support her (he did support me)
But I’ll sing no more now till I get a drink.

I’m drunk today and I’m seldom sober
A handsome rover from town to town
Ah but I’m sick now, my days are numbered
Come all ye young men and lay me down.

So happy childhood, adult prosperity, loss, exile, vagrancy and drunkenness. These verses speak to the part of me that would love to deal with such loss by staying drunk. Fortunately, this is not an overwhelming urge because I ration the pinot grigio strictly. The lines encourage empathy in me for less sober types.

Having spent the whole day with the song, listening to it over and over, I had a good grieve. Catharsis, we English teachers call it, fear and pity that cleanse the heart.

In the end, however, I fell in love with the full-throated voices of the singers, as if it were being sung by my beloved. The song is full of the deep suffering life can bring us, the dreams that get trashed, the lovers and children and houses and status lost. But, even though we may be wanderers from town to town and deeply in need of comfort, something has been guiding us to where we are, which is where we need to be.

The alternate ending to the second verse seems to me truer to the tale the singer is telling.

Septuagenarian Puts Out Garbage

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This is no country for old women.

On Saturday, I confirmed that hypothesis. I did a really hard tai chi class. I climbed into the little red Yaris, which helpfully told me the temperature was 2 degrees celsius (34 F), but of course, it had not factored in the bitter wind, which meant it felt to me much colder. I stopped at the local wine shop to pick up my drug of choice, a little Pinot Grigio to get me through the night. At home, I struggled out of my long, brown, old-lady coat and my fur-lined aviator ear-flapped hat. I unlaced my snow boots. Then I remembered.

Twice a week, at least, I have to put the garbage out. I had the recycling pail ready in the kitchen. The newspaper rack was over-flowing. The ‘real’ garbage pail under the sink was not too fragrant and the compost on the counter was fermenting big time.

I crawled back into the feather duvet, which passes as my coat. I couldn’t dare dash out with just a hoodie on. My screamingly sensitive cells would catch the bitter wind and go for … a week-long headache or pneumonia.  I tied the  hat under my chin. I dragged my tall black Wellingtons out from the back of the closet and clumped out with the recycling pail, the garbage bag and the compost bag. Thus laden I started down the walk that leads to the drive. OMG, I need to put more ice salt down. “Be very, very careful.” I manouevre carefully past the cedar trees that have started to lean with the weight of ice and snow. This gives me a sideways sort of hunchback-of-Notre-Dame look. I decide to leave one of my burdens on the stone wall so that I get a purchase on the wrought-iron rail on the steps. I open the green bin and deposit the compost. Then I move it back away from the basement window sill. The coon which moseyed by my front window this morning needs the sill’s height to get a purchase on the green bin.

I pass on to the blue bin where I upend the recycling pail, noting as I do so that my house mates drink a lot of pop. They may also drink wine, but we have stopped putting wine bottles in this huge bin because of the Polish-only scavenger who insists on rooting through it and putting the recycling into the garbage bin as he goes. True my Polish neighbour has helpfully translated my threats to him and on the third try, achieved the same angry volume as I did. I haven’t seen him since, but that may be because this is no country for old men either. (What do we do with the wine bottles? We have to haul them off to the beer store (!!!) to get our deposit back. I have a whole winter’s accumulation waiting for warm weather.) Last I retrieve the vraiment garbage from the stone wall and turn to the black garbage bin. Back in the house after a careful return walk, I go down to the basement to get the ice salt and carefully salt the walk and the steps and the patches of ice on the drive, which is on a steep slope.

Back in the first floor apartment, I divest myself of outer wear, hang it up and go into the kitchen to make lunch. Opening the freezer, I discover another bag of compost, which really prevents my putting in the frozen food, I just bought at the market where the wine shop is. See above, re outer wear, still icy walk, sloping drive, green bin.

When I was young, you know 30, when I could still whip out the side door in a sweater and put the ONE unsorted bag of garbage in the ONE garbage pail in our double garage, I had children, I had a husband. All I had to do was threaten them with death to get the garbage taken out. It all went to a landfill I never saw and I was content.

Then it transpired that we were killing the earth. We mustn’t buy packaged goods. That worked well. More and more things came sealed in impervious plastic and cardboard. We must reuse. Well, no problem. In my family we even drove our cars until they died of age.

I left the city. I moved to a country town sans help-mates, mostly. I got acquainted with the dump -sorry- transfer station. I got acquainted with the nice man in the gate house. I enjoyed fireside chats. I started sorting bottles into one dumpster, paper into another. I learned to heave heavy, real garbage bags exactly where I was supposed to that week and I enjoyed browsing through the stuff people left at the side, which you could reuse, no charge. I did have to pay when I needed to get rid of a truck load of drywall and old pieces of plumbing. But it was a reasonable cost and Daniel, now an adult, no longer had to be threatened. I had bought the 20-year-old truck for him.

In my back yard, which lay open to my little barn and open fields, I had a composting pile that yielded lovely black loam for my vegetable garden.

By the time I moved back to the city, I found myself with a grey box for paper, a blue box for glass, a real garbage bin and, eventually, a counter-top holder for compost and a small green bin outside, which was especially designed to accommodate the small hands of a raccoon. Luckily, my first apartment on the second floor of a house also had a pond, so we were coon-central for dining excellence.

Well, at least we didn’t have bears, so I saved a couple of thousand on a garbage safe.

Eventually, the city introduced large black garbage bins and blue recycling bins -the green bins were such a success, they carried on. The former two bins can be automatically lifted by the truck as you probably know, except on streets with parking, except…, except… And the green bin guy has to get out and hand load.

In the house, I have often stood with a ting scrap of food and a tiny bit of cellophane extracted from the sink strainer and puzzled my over-worked sorting brain. Which goes where? Sometimes, I confess, I just put both in the garbage, even though the voice of my friend, Sara, alias, the garbage police, is shouting in my head that I have just put another nail in Mother Earth’s coffin. It’s my small rebellion.

Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned.

Note #1: Initially I gave the scavenger bags of bottles.  I was repaid by a grunt and intense self-satisfaction. Then he must have started coming when I wasn’t in the kitchen where I could hear his racket. That’s when he started trashing the recycling..

Note #2: A woman I know went out to her green bin one morning and a coon sprang out in her face. She staggered back, tripped, broke her hip and had to crawl next door. I visited her in rehab. She blamed her husband.

Note #3: Calling all coons -you are nocturnal.

Septuagenarian Hobbit Has Ultrasound

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My hobbit attitude is getting out of hand. I could say it’s the weather that’s making me a stay-at-home. And my age. My muscles are prone to spasm and never more than when there is a windchill of -30 C (-20F). So much of January, I’ve been hunkered down indoors, reading my Christmas books and watching my Christmas DVDs. I’ve even eschewed tai chi classes in favour of moving the furniture and practicing in the living room. But yesterday I had to go out.

I had an appointment for an ultrasound of my right breast. I first mentioned my oncologist’s concern about my right breast in The Cure for Fear https://115journals.com/2013/11/22/the-cure-for-fear/   Evidently, right breast felt that left breast had got altogether too much attention in the past and had started acting out.

When I wrote The Cure for Fear, I was convinced that I would know the scope of the disaster the next day. As it turned out, I didn’t. First the results got delayed. Word-processing of results is no longer done in-house. It’s moved off shore or something. Possibly there is a “typing” factory in South Asia. So my first appointment got cancelled. Then I made the trip to Streetsville, an hour away, to be told that the doctor had had an emergency and wasn’t there. But, not to worry, said his assistant. The results were okay. When I finally got to see the doctor, two weeks later, he was distracted. I tried to ask a question and he said, “Can’t you see I’m reading?”

OK.

I waited silently.

There was, apparently, a little party going on in my right breast: a swollen lymph node, a cyst and a small lump, all nicely lined up at 10 o’clock. After careful examination, Dr. ____ gave me the choice of having a biopsy right away or a further ultrasound in 3 months. Breaking my silence, I said, “Depends on what you mean by right away. I’ll be away the rest of December.” And so, it came to pass that I ended up with this appointment at the end of January. (How is that 3 months, anyway?)

First thing I did when I got home from the oncologist was fish out the reports from 15 years ago when left breast was getting all the attention. There I read that a small benign lump had been detected in my right breast at 11 o’clock. I hied myself off to my G.P., report in hand. I was careful not to speak while he was reading. Could be, he said. Might be the same lump lurking there all these years. Couldn’t be sure. Sure enough to get my hyper-vigilant, worrier off the case. I flew off to Brussels where I very nearly forgot it.

Yesterday, I arrived at the hospital early. Just as well since I had to drive nearly to the top of the parking garage. Like many others, I feel that I am a co-owner of this garage its tariff is so steep. Since I was so early, I decided to wipe the side windows, which I could barely see through for the dirty salt residue that had been whipped up off the highway. I wet paper towel with windshield washer fluid and wiped them down. Don’t try it. I seem to have forgotten everything I ever knew about driving in a Canadian winter. When I came out to drive home 2 hours and $12 later, the windows were covered with dirty swirls through which I could not see at all.

I’m used to the check-in procedure here now, having checked in at least once a year since the year of the left breast. I even manage to find the ultrasound waiting room, and get myself into one of those nice gowns that tie in the back. It’s inconvenient to have to carry my clothes and my long winter coat, which sit next to me while I wait. And wait. And wait.

No problem. Someone is texting me pictures and CP 24 is on the television set. It’s true that I am a little unsettled by the fact that everyone who comes in after me is immediately whisked out of there for their test. The announcer on the news channel tells me that Dufferin County has declared a state of emergency and closed all its roads. Whoa! That’s north of here but still, has the weather changed that much since I came in? Then “Code Blue in Cardiology. Code Blue in Cardiology”. Then there’s the mayor on the screen, looking like a candidate for a Code Blue himself and being served with papers alleging that he engineered a jail house beat-down. Not that Mayor Ford gets much airtime because Justin Bieber is back in town surrendering to police on a charge of assault. I tear myself away from all this hair-raising excitement. No one else waiting. Four people, presumably ultrasound technicians, are chatting away in front of computers. And I’ve been left here in limbo? It’s like a really bad dream I once had. https://115journals.com/2012/07/20/i-dream-of-etherica-life-changing-dream-2/

Finally, we get down to the task at hand, with apologies because they are so busy. ???? The good news is that the gel is warm these days. It takes a long while. It is clear that the cyst is alive and well, if cysts can be said to be well, but deep breathing helps with pain. This is taking much longer than usual. At last, the technician says, “Why are you here?” For one moment, I think “Wasting taxpayer’s money.. do you think we are going to pay for this?” But I explain about right breast’s recent party mode. “Well, I see the cyst but I can’t find anything else,” she says and tosses me a towel.  She’s just broken the sacred code of technician silence. “Oh, thank you, thank you. You’re so kind to tell me,” I cry, only just restraining myself from throwing my arms around her.

So that’s the end for now. Mr Death isn’t knocking on the door for this green-eyed girl just yet.

Winter Blues

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“Pile Driver Blues” was an a cappella opus, I made up one weekend when I found myself trapped in a San Fransisco airport hotel during construction. I sang it to a two year-old as I pushed him in a stroller around the concrete. Next door was the infernal, 12 hour a day, ground-shaking pile driver. It was not my last encounter with the blues. January seems to breed them.

Does it pay to examine their origin closely? Holiday hangover? Weather fallout? Economic downturn? Legitimate grief? Fatigue? All of the above? Information is always useful, I suppose, and may provide perspective.

The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, the treatise on ancient Chinese medicine, sees it as a good and necessary way to slow us down in winter so that we get enough rest to consolidate our strength.

Early this morning, my sister Georgia, alerted to my winter blues, phoned to prescribe Northrop Frye’s Double Vision Chpt. 3. I was taken aback, to say the least. I was on my way to a tai chi class, however, so I tabled the suggestion.

Two hours later, I was back home, stretched and invigorated, but bluer than ever. I tried a nap and woke up ready to try her idea. I found Double Vision on-line and began reading. What do you know, she might be onto something.

Chapter 3 is called “The Double Vision of Time” and begins with a description of the tragedy of time. “It seems probable that the basis for consciousness … is the awareness that the uneasy pact between body and soul will dissolve sooner or later..”  The body’s drive to survive makes us suppress our consciousness of this as much as possible or, at the very least, to convince ourselves that we are not going to die at once. The result, however, is a “subdued anxiety”, or quiet desperation, according to Frye, scholar, critic, a fellow Torontonian, and 78 years-old when he wrote that (1912-1991).

Ordinarily, we see time as horizontal and linear, comprised of past, present and future, although all attempts to grasp “Now” prove illusive. It barely emerges from the past before it vanishes into the future. Moreover, its progress involves a kind of repetition which Frye describes as parabolic as is clearly demonstrated in Shakespeare’s seven stages of man, beginning and ending in helplessness. (“All the world’s a stage..” As You Like It II, vii) “Thus the tragic aspect of time in which every moment brings us toward death.” The double vision of time involves superimposing a vertical dimension, in which all time exists at once.

In practical terms, we can free ourselves from time by “genuine achievement” in everything that matters and that can be accomplished by the building of habit through “incessant practice”. Practicing the piano, for example, repetitively playing scales and practice pieces eventually allows us to break through to the freedom of accomplishment. Thus we come to an “enlarged sense of the present moment”. Experience and awareness are one. Now we are in the “Now”. This intensity is spiritual connection, the vertical dimension, enlightenment.

Right. I think I get it. I do have a number of practices: tai chi, journal writing, cooking, blogging. If I just keep at them, with intention, I’ll break through to a timeless moment? And such a moment will surely be free of the Blues.