Christmas cards

Here's a dandy I received today.

Winter Solstice

In the greatest darkness, the light is reborn.

Out of winter's cold, the light is reborn

From our deepest fears, the light is reborn

When we most despair, the light is reborn

When all seems lost, the light is reborn

When the earth lies waste, the light is reborn

When animals hide, the light is reborn

When the leaves are gone, the light is reborn

When the river is frozen, the light is reborn

When the ground is hard, the light is reborn

Shadows are fleeing
Light is returning
Warmth will come again
Summer will be here once more
Plants will grow again
Animals will be seen once more
Green will come again
Life will continue

Winter Solstice

My cousin Amanda

I love my cousin Amanda. She is comfortable to be with. She is wise, funny, and human. There are a lot of layers to her.

We have been slowly cultivating a friendship over our lifetimes. My first memory having to do with Amanda involves her wedding. I was ten years old. Her mom was in charge of the guest list. She decided it would be nice not to have children at the wedding. This was unusual in our circles. Weddings, in my mind, were times to get dressed up, eat lots of cheese curds, crunch down as many sugar cubes as possible, and play with my cousins.

I was angry for many years. Myself and the other young cousins plotted for years about not inviting Amanda, her mother, and other related beings to our weddings.

I got over it. I grew up. I told Amanda about it. She was shocked. Had no idea we'd been excluded. Had no idea we were so upset by it.

Over the years, I've always looked forward to seeing Amanda at the twice-a-year extended family gatherings. She and her husband always make their rounds, and talk to all of us.

Then one Christmas gathering 4 years ago, we decided it would be fun to have a grown-up sleepover with the "girl" cousins. It happened. We talked and talked and talked. Much of the talking was "under the dome." People needed to know they were safe. We all got to know each other and our families just a little better. The age gaps continued to disappear. The sleepover has been an annual event.

One year Amanda said something about looking forward to seeing me at the cousin sleepover - said it just wouldn't be right if I wasn't there. What?! Me?! I felt honored and glad to hear there was reciprocity.

I just got back from an evening at Amanda's house. This is my idea of a great Saturday night. A few glasses of great wine, an Ethiopian dinner, good conversation, celebration of friendship.

Family. A friend in the family. It's all good.

Confessions of an extremist

Extremes run in my family. I love genetics, especially the highly scientific variety, that allow me to rationalize behaviour that the sensible side of me does not find acceptable.

Some confessions of this extremist:
1. I can't usually stay awake past 10:00. Often it's more like 9:30.

2. Last night (this morning) I finally fell asleep at 3:30. I blame it on an extremely restful work trip this week, in which I spent many hours travelling and not very many hours actually seeing kids. Flying equals naptime. Early to bed, late to rise equals long long hours of undisturbed sleep (my apologies to insomniacs and parents of young children.)

3. Friday nights are often my most tired night of the week. Last night, I and a friend went to a "two-for-one" movie theatre, entering at 7 and emerging at 12:30, then out for something to eat and some lovely blueberry tea.

4. I love blueberry tea but fortunately forget to have it at home, so a bottle of Amaretto lasts me a long long time.

5. I deleted all the games off my computer years ago, as it was very easy to do nothing else, but grow old as I clicked cards around my screen.

6. I was foolish enough to think I was enough to handle computer games again, so loaded solitaire (all the varieties under the sun) a few weeks ago.

7. They got deleted this morning.

8. People have this concept of me as a healthy eater. In fact, I do buy mostly "whole foods" (that's a new term for me) from the outskirts of the grocery store, so I suppose it's not all bunk.

9. I love candy and chocolate. On a recent trip to Nunavut, I discovered HUGE sugar blobs in the Co-op which I renamed giant rockets. I ate half of them, and shared the rest with my friend Al, who shares my enjoyment of those little rolls of sugary delight. He loved the giant rockets.

10. I am passionate about my work.

11. I hate paperwork.

12. Last year I filed 4 years worth of tax returns.

13. At the ripe old age of 41, I seem to have acquired the ability to sleep in.

14. I love to buck the trends.

15. I have a fantastic memory for tiny inconsequential details, like what Micah was wearing when he came to the Folk Festival at the age of three months.

16. I remember astonishingly little of the facts and details I spent hours and hours pounding into my brain through four years of university. The image of A.J.Fernando smoking in the halls with his long cigarette holder, however, is permanently burned into my brain. So is his green polyester suit with the flared legs.

17. You can stand a spoon up in my coffee. I can easily drink 4 or 5 cups of the stuff.

18. Once or twice a year, I come to my senses about all the caffeine, and switch instantly to decaf. Then it's mixed, and the caffeine slowly takes over once again.

I think that's enough for now. The coffee pot is empty.

Fivefootunder

I am not smart enough to put this blog in my links without Brian's help, but you need to check this one out:

fivefootunder.blogspot.com

Especially her most recent post, a lovely tribute to her mom on her birthday.

Nothing in the world is as it first may appear. A very basic truth I've known for a long time, but keep getting reminded of. People's strength and resilience are amazing.

Enjoy.

opie teepee

Words, acronyms, and abbreviations are great, and provide some good humor when slightly confused.

I often travel with an occupational therapist, and we get labelled OTPT. Recently we were recorded on a school calendar as OPTP. Out-patient toilet paper? old-phashioned travelling people? Ordinary practical trading practises?

My brother's blackberry (or crack-berry as we liked to call it) became a blueberry.

Fiddleheads, in the mind of a 4-year-old, became piano-heads.

Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy were three little girls who spent their entire lives chasing David. As a little kid, I thought about that one for a long time before asking my mom what she thought Shirley might have been wearing. I thought it sounded like a very exhausting life for all of them.

I read about nectarines being placed during a surgical procedure. It took me a while to realize they were supposed to be "neck drains." Many doctors have terrible hand-writing. They also mumble when they do dictation.

I was out for dinner with some elderly friends a few years ago. One ordered ceasar salad. Another lady shrieked across the table "What's that dear? Did you say you're having a seizure?"

It all gives me much more respect and admiration for those who transplant themselves, in their adult lives, into an english-speaking country and go about learning the language.

Family

It was a busy weekend. Due to strong winds and other factors, we only got home from our arctic journey at 10:30 Friday night.

I was at church by 9:00 on Saturday morning, preparing to meet the happy cheerful masses of children and hoping to assist in doing some semblance of a "rehearsal" for Sunday's pageant. It was typically chaotic, but the pizza arrived on time, there were moments of peace, and we ensured that the 4-year-old dressed as a chicken would be sitting far away from his brother who liked to provoke him by poking him in the ribs and clucking.

The giant styrofoam fish were confiscated after bits of their mouths broke off. Seems the fish were trying to eat each other while waiting for their minute in the spotlight.

One of the phone messages waiting for me Friday night was from a 15-year-old niece. Could she come on Saturday for a sleepover?

Do fish swim in the ocean?

I love being an auntie. I love being part of the fabric of a child's life. I am honored to be a friend.

She joined me at church Sunday morning and watched as I and the other adults tried to keep the fish from destroying each other, the chicken from reacting too loudly to his brother, the right groups of kids ready to take their places. It all went swimmingly.

Sunday afternoon we were joined by two younger nieces and the house rapidly turned into something resembling a national disaster site. At the end, there were 12 star-shaped chocolate cakes with enough icing and sprinkles to adorn each of us from head to toe, thousands of tiny angelfish and castle punch-outs, crafts, booklets, spilled milk, and toys everywhere.

There were also 3 neices and one auntie with more memories of life as family.

Family. It's a good thing.

Is this really a job?!

Sometimes I have a "pinch me to make sure I'm not dreaming this" feeling at work. It happened this last week, as my OT colleague and I strolled back to the health center after lunch in the tiny arctic town we were working in.

We both love going there - it always feels like we are dropping in to see some friends (and do a bit of work.) This week we had the luxury of going through the newly printed community yearbook to study up on names, and who was related to whom. I have a terrible memory for names, so the book came in very handy.

One day just before lunch, we went to do a home visit. We walked past the arctic fox hanging on the railing, the sealskin, the ducks lying on the kitchen floor waiting to be lunch, the liver offerings on the counter, both raw and cooked.

I went up with a serious resolve to NOT spend any money. This lasted for about 24 hours, when my friend came back from the Co-op with the news that my favorite carver had been busy, and that I should at least look. Well, what are credit cards for, after all?

We caught up with the news in town, some good, some sad. The court had just been in town, so there were people saying goodbye to family members heading off to serve sentences in jail in other communities. For one friend, this meant being able to be at peace in her home for the first time in a very long time. A tough week for her, but one of respite as well.

Thursday night was Midnight Madness at the Co-op. I missed it last year, so was quite determined to make this the year to witness the screaming lucky person fly through the store for their 60-second shopping spree. Alas, I have to settle for a second-hand account, as I was fast asleep by 9:30 and didn't even hear the knock on my door at 10:00 to summon me for the big event.

The flight home was a long one; we battled strong winds on the first leg of the journey. We dropped off most of the passengers, leaving only my colleague and I for the trip to Winnipeg. After take-off, I switched seats and got comfortable with my book. That's when I noticed that I seemed to be in a rocking chair...... Oops, the seat was not bolted down on one side.

We did the photo first, then let the pilot know. (No animals, people, or boxes of Tide were strapped into that seat during any take-offs or landings, so we were perfectly safe the whole time.) The pilot had it fixed lickety split, then sat down and chatted for a while. These pilots double as baggage handlers, seat bolters, flight attendants, and fine company.

It's a great privilege to be able to work in these communities.

What a bonus to get a paycheque on top of it all.

My dad

My dad has the most beautiful eyes. They are a lovely blue, like a clear sky. Though Mom would never go into details about falling in love, she does talk about Dad's eyes, and her hopes that their children would inherit them. One did; though he is now gone, his beautiful blue eyes live on in both his daughter's faces.

I haven't asked in a long time, but I used to ask Dad to take his glasses off so I could take a good look at those eyes and enjoy them.

When he mentioned, quite casually, this past July, that he was having some trouble with one of his eyes, I snapped to attention. We were sitting in the arrivals area of the Winnipeg airport, waiting for my eldest brother to join us. In Dad's regular matter-of-fact way, he described what he called "venetian blinds" that would slowly block out all vision in one of his eyes, stay closed for 5 minutes or so, then open again.

That was the beginning of another medical saga for Dad. We're still in the middle of it, but he eventually got to an ultrasound department where the blockages in his carotid arteries were probed, photographed, and documented. We're into a new chapter now, a chapter where he has medical appointments on a regular basis, with a bunch of different varieties of docs.

Dad is one of those guys who just wasn't getting old. Until the age of 82, I really can't say there was any indication of his age showing on his body. Dad retired from farming more than 20 years ago, packed up, and moved to town along with most of our farming neighbors. For the first year, he puttered around and didn't quite know what to do with himself. We worried, but were happy that their house in town had a double garage and a shop. The double garage meant he had a place for the truck, and the shop meant there was a place for tools. The yard is big enough for the huge garden that gets planted every year, Dad getting the soil ready with the tiller, and Mom hoping that he stays away from the areas sheltering the perennials.

Dad started volunteering at the Thrift Shop after he retired from farming. This was a full-time passion for many years. If you can plug it in, Dad can fix it. I don't know if any of us have ever bought a new vacuum cleaner; Dad was always putting pieces together to make functional vacuums out of discarded ones. My idea of shopping for small kitchen appliances is "Dad, can you get me a slow cooker with a removable pot?"

One of the things I've always enjoyed teasing Dad about is his name.

Abraham.

Father of many.

No kidding.

A few summers ago, we realized that all eight of us offspring were home at the same time. We lined ourselves up in the same arrangement as our 1972 Walt's Studio family picture.

Abraham is a great dad. The best, in fact. I feel selfish in wanting him around forever. There's so much more of Dad that I'd like rubbed off on me. As the years have gone by, Dad has become friends with his adult children. He cries in front of us. He thanks us often for loving him and Mom like we do. As the inevitability of age has begun to leave its mark on his body, he is taking these changes with grace and dignity.

Though the view may change, Dad's eyes are still the most beautiful I've ever seen.

I love you, Dad.