Category Archives: relationships

When you just have to listen to show tunes…..

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“What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life, to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.”     George Elliott

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Some moments sneak up on us, catching us completely off-guard while other moments just slap us in the face.  The hand print is still on my cheek from my experience this afternoon.

We were being bombarded by the first snowfall of the season.  It was in our forecast so it was no surprise.  What was a shock was my immediate thought to call my mother and tell her to stay indoors today.  I was driving home from work and, without hesitation, was reaching for my speed dial to call her number when I realized what I was doing…..and then the tears came.  My mother passed away in March of 2014.   Even though I was a mere 1/2 kilometre from my house, I had to pull over at the end of my road to collect myself.

I have felt my mom’s presence quite a bit lately, and so has my brother.  He actually admitted to me that he was listening to the Cabaret soundtrack at work (sorry, Jamie) and I know that was my mother’s doing.  Cabaret was one of her favorites, and although my brother didn’t spend the countless hours my mom and I did watching old musicals, the nostalgia of the music was not lost on him.

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I never doubt that my mother will always be here when we need her.  As I took a break from writing this post, she prodded me once again in her subtle way.  A duet with Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb magically appeared on my news feed on Facebook and it was one of my mom’s favorite Barbra songs.  “What Kind of Fool” doesn’t believe that messages can be sent from those who have passed?

She is here….inserting herself into the moments that she feels she is needed.  Her mother-instinct is still alive and well and she knows, perhaps better than we do, that she can still help guide us through those moments when only a mom can say or do the right thing.  And, once again, she is correct.  I do need her now…..and maybe my brother does as well.  And even if my worries are not about me, her presence and her calming influence are making me feel like everything is going to be ‘real fine’.

 

 

 

 

Getting the green light

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The lodge where I am employed is closed for the season, our quaint little village resembles more of a ghost town with a few tumbleweeds rolling down the main street and the silence at night can be deafening.

But in these times of serenity, behind the doors of seemingly empty kitchens, a group of women and men are readying themselves to wield sharp knives and give even Gordon Ramsay a run for his money in the chopping department!

Our small group of devoted volunteers meet for a couple of hours over a couple of weekends to create crockpot freezer meals to help a few families who may be struggling, for whatever reason.  Last year, it was a young family who had lost their home in a fire just after delivering twins.  This year we are doing our best to spread the meals to a few families and not just one.

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There have been a few hurdles along the track to finding these families but the ribbon at the finish line is getting to be within striking distance.   Although the meals are being prepared in an inspected and certified kitchen, many of the choppers have not taken a food safety course, so there was a question as to whether the food bank was going to be allowed to accept our donations.

The joy of living in a small town is that you can literally ask your neighbors if they know of any families who could benefit from our knife skills and they will immediately give you a list of names.  And I have recently discovered that, as long as the meals are labelled with all ingredients (which they are), the food bank will give us that long awaited green light and accept the meals – so the only thing left to do is shop and chop!

 

 

 

 

Letting the taste linger

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“The many moments in your life that seem small end up leaving the largest imprints on your heart.” ~ SN

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 There are so many moments that we take for granted, times in our life that we should document and put into a time capsule but they seem to slip by, unnoticed.  Those small pieces of our lives, the ones we seemingly overlook, can leave the biggest impression on our lives without us really being aware of it at the time.

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Lately, I have really begun to take notice of those small moments.  I savor them like a fine wine and let those precious seconds sit on my tongue for a little longer before I swallow them.  Sure, remembering how that wine tasted is easy but truly enjoying it in the moment is important or that wine is nothing more than fortified grape juice.

Yesterday I was able to embrace some of those small moments – those moments that, to anyone else may seem trivial but to me, will take up a special corner in the vault of my memory.  And although the way in which I recall the details may become slightly altered over time, for now they are the strings pulling up the corners of my mouth when I least expect it.

Like sands through the hourglass…..

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Yesterday was a very important calendar date.  It had been looming and, as each day brought me closer to it, the dread I felt increased exponentially.

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Last year, on that precise calendar day of October 18th, my dog had her first Petit Mal seizure.  I was a mess and I called my friend in a complete panic.  He calmed me down and made me realize that I must control my hysteria.   I needed put on a brave face so my dog knew that I had my shit together.  It was tough, but I did it.

Poor Callaway lost a great deal of her freedom after that, only because I was too afraid to let her out of my sight.  What if it happened again?  And if it did happen again, what if she was somewhere on the property I couldn’t see her and didn’t know what was happening?  We bonded a great deal more over the weeks that followed her seizure because I was afraid to leave her alone.

As the days turned into months, I became less of a “helicopter parent” and eased the reigns a bit on her leash.  And then April 18th came – six months to the day after her first one –  and she had another seizure.  Like the first, it was a Petit Mal seizure.  But unlike the first, I kept my composure and soothed her through the episode.

Yesterday was October 18th.   Callaway has not shown any signs over the last six months of having had any incidents while I have been at work (or at home) but that date glowed in neon on every calendar in my peripheral vision.  It was my waking thought yesterday.  The number 18 hovered above my head like a cartoon balloon and spent the entire day threatening, like that too-close pair of glowing eyes in the dark.

But thankfully the day ended with as little commotion as it began.  And as she sits chewing on her rawhide sticks, I am thankful – thankful because I am now able to focus on all of the days she hasn’t had a seizure and not just the two that she did.

 

I am in love

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“Life is about finding someone who understands the sum of your parts….and not just some of your parts.” ~ SN

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 It seems my brain, lately, has been running programs in the background that I have been unaware of, until now.  Being in the hospitality industry, and being a student of life, I have had the good fortune of meeting a great number of couples.  Some couples go through their journey alone and many travel the road of life with their children.  And over the last few months, I seem to have been paying much more attention to how these couples interact with each other – the nuances of the looks they give each other, their unspoken communication and the respect they have for each other as best friends and as lovers, and not just as parents.

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There is a silent language they speak, an inaudible conversation they have been having for years.  You can see it in the way they look at each other and laugh at the same silly things.  Their declaration of love comes from a mere touch, their bodies speak to one another, and their understanding of each other comes from years of really getting to know everything about that other person.

I have slowly come to realize that I am in love with the way they are in love.  They just get each other.   They realize that they have found the person who loves everything about them and not just the things they are supposed to love.  They share crazy habits and the same sense of humor but they are mindful of the mannerisms that they don’t quite understand.  They can spend hours just talking and never be bored in each other’s company.

The opening line of this post is one I came up with earlier this year and it has stuck with me.  Enough so that it has haunted me until I was able to eventually use it on this blog.

Whether I have yet to meet him or he is somehow already in my life, I’m willing to wait for that someone.   That person who will know me, really know me, and take every opportunity to let me know that he gets my math.

Can we be honest for a moment?

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“Three things cannot be long hidden – the sun, the moon and the truth.” ~ Buddha

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I have lied.  I have told untruths throughout my life.  Whether it has been to protect another or to surreptitiously protect myself, words born from the fictitious have previously escaped my lips.  But as a great student of life, I learned early in the game that lying only creates a web in which we will eventually become entangled.

Lies beget more lies.  Soon enough, the merry-go-round of deception increases its momentum and those who intentionally expound on their distorted reality are eventually hurtled into the real world at full speed.  And when their trickery finally meets the facts of sensibility, the results can be disastrous.

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Small white lies aside, I like to think of myself as an honest person.  I leave the fiction in my life to my writing and deal with my life in the most honorable way I can.  Being honest simply means I am living my truth.  Being the most sincere version of me allows me to never have to think twice about the words that have escaped my lips.   And just being truthful with myself grants me the luxury of never having to second guess the reflections I share with anyone else because I don’t ever have to keep track of what I have said in the past.

Big or small, lies are lies.  And when you know a lie has been spoken aloud by another, it is enough to make you question the factual integrity of anything else they say.  Knowing you are being lied to is bad enough….but knowing you aren’t worth the truth is excruciating.

What is THIS lovely fragrance?

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There was no sweetness.  There were no flowers.  And the only thing that was stolen was my breath.   What began as a restful few hours between a long day and an abbreviated sleep turned into a rolling profusion of expletives followed by a few moments to regain my sense of composure.

On any other occasion, these moments could have been used to describe a much more pleasurable evening.  What really happened will live in my mind, and my nasal cavity, for years to come.

It was a routine outing.   Callaway never strays far from the house for her late night relief before bedtime so I didn’t think twice about opening the door to let her out.   But I certainly thought twice about opening the door to let her in when the pungent stench of skunk met the sensory cells of my nose.  She looked extremely pleased with herself and I’m certain she sensed that I was not so pleased.

I scoured the cupboards for the age-old remedy of tomato juice but came up empty-handed.  I glanced at the clock and it read 10:30 pm, so a trip to the local, small town grocery store was out of the question.  I then relied on the only endless source of information I had readily available – Facebook.

As much as I have expounded in great detail about this social media icon being a complete mind sucking website – it became my lifeline and my hero.   After a bath of Hydrogen Peroxide, baking soda and dish soap, the putrid odor dissipated to the point that I could tolerate her and allow my dog to come inside.   Since I would never leave her out at night, I wrapped her in blankets to help her dry off and put her to bed.

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The “lovely fragrance” still lingers on my dog and in my house.  And I’m sure it will be a phantom smell that follows me for months.  But I have since forgiven her for the reminder that she is more canine than human, and she has forgiven me for forgetting that she is a dog and that she will continue to behave as a dog.   Lessons learned…..and from now on, we walk together….Callaway on a leash, and me with a flashlight looking for any eyes in my peripheral that may pose an olfactory threat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s a few grey hairs between friends?

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The grey whiskers appeared almost overnight.   In the blink of an eye, my dog had matured beyond the youthful puppy I have known for 9 years.  Sure she still has the spunk of a young pup on occasion but I can slowly see time creeping up on her faster than I would like it to.

My solace lies in the fact that our affection for each other is timeless.   Her devotion to me, whether her joints are currently aching and she has no desire to jump on my bed, is endless.  She is, and will continue for years to be, my true companion.   She is happy to see me when I have returned home after four hours or four minutes.  She never judges my idiosyncrasies and she still manages to hear my soft sobs when I am trying to quietly cry and she comes to clean away the salty tears.

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I thought my life was full before she came along.   I was dead wrong.  We have always had dogs.  Growing up, my life was filled with hairballs and doggy kisses.   But Callaway is a unique soul.   There is not a doubt in my mind that she was meant to be my dog.   The picture we fell in love with on the adoption website (the one above) was a picture of her brother but it was Callaway who came into my life and into my heart.  I fought for her during my divorce because I couldn’t imagine my house without her in it.

I know I must face the inevitable – time will not go backwards and those grey hairs on her muzzle will slowly multiply, but so will the grey hairs on my head.  We will face this truth together knowing that however long we were destined to be in each other’s lives, we will make the most of each moment.

 

Sometimes you can go back

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Some would say to leave the past in the past.  Over the course of this previous weekend, parts of my past engaged with my present and it was a wonderful blend of remembering old and making new memories.

I’ve never been one to shy away from the things in my past.  All of those moments, good or bad, made me who I am today.  And although things may not have worked out the way I may have wanted, I always like to think I learned a lesson from each one of those experiences.

I learned to be strong when I needed to be and to allow myself to feel vulnerable when I needed support.  I have learned that each one of the people in my past still holds a piece of my heart even though they may not be an everyday character in this act of my present.

But the final chapters of my story have not been written.  There may be a rough outline but the story has not been sent to print and there is always room for a few backspaces and some new paragraphs to be written.  Sometimes you can go back, not to the past you had but you can go back to reread the story line and see if any of those characters can be written into a few paragraphs of your future.

I am not going to live in the past, but I will always allow my past to live within me.

Balls to the wall

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It lay dormant, nestled in the corner of the family dining room at the cottage.  It listened to every one of our crazy conversations and eventually became the topic of many of those conversations instead of just blending into the background.

Its birth was accidental.  It came to be through a simple act of property maintenance.  The family cottage was built in the early 1900’s and had begun to show its age so, without regard for its final appearance, a spray foam was used to seal a few cracks in the old building.  What resulted in the upper corner of that dining room was eventually named and heralded as a true piece of our family history.

Perhaps this innocuous object was made more grotesque by my family’s depraved sense of humor.  It is even reasonable to say that other families may never look at this simple mass and see what we all saw.  But from the first time it was noticed at a family dinner, it was affectionately dubbed the “shiny ball sack’.

Over the years, this harmless protrusion witnessed our highs and our lows.  It feasted on the sounds of our laughter and it absorbed the collection of our tears.  Somehow that inanimate object became a large part of the traditions of our family meals and I was devastated to find out it was going to be amputated from its place in those family traditions.

I haven’t been able to visit the cottage yet this summer so I was unaware that the surgical removal had taken place – until today.  I came home from work to find a lovely gift bag on my front door step and when I saw what was inside, my heart swelled.  There, gently preserved in a shadow box, was the shiny ball sack that has been a part of our family dinners for decades.  My aunt had painstakingly saved this piece of history and presented it in a way that would allow me to keep this little gem of our family history safe and sound.

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My mom and I used to laugh endlessly about this mutation of foam and it will now find its place beside a picture of my mother in my living room.  It is a fitting ending to this chapter knowing that two of the things that brought me so much joy will be together again.