Easter, 1960

[image from google]

It was another time, another place - a more innocent time, before life was so media-influenced, before drugs were so widespread. Times were strict; structure and mores confined, but also protected. Kelowna was a small town back then, a Church-driven community, a place where life was at least ten years behind the times even then. Orchards blossomed all over the landscape, which today is littered with expensive condos.  Church was a required part of the week.

Easter Sunday was a very big deal. I remember that year I had a new white dress with black polka dots, and lots of crinolines underneath to make it stick out. I had a round, big-brimmed sailor hat with two streamers going down the back. Nylons, small-heeled little pumps, my first, and white gloves, to the wrist. All of this was carefully laid out the night before. In those days, I wore curlers to bed, and they were bristly and definitely uncomfortable, but my mother always said, "You have to suffer to be beautiful!" (If that's true, I should have been a raving beauty and, alas, I was not!)

 My little sister had a new yellow dress with a pinafore, black shiny patent leather shoes, and long blonde ringlets my mom had carefully created that morning  with the curling iron. In those days, a curling iron was a terrifying metal one that you heated on the stove element and then applied to the hair, sometimes singeing the edges. I remember that smell of burning hair and the heat of the curling iron so close to my face.

Grandma and Grandpa were very devotional, old-time religious, and decent to the very core of their being. They would pull up out front in the big old white and brown Ford (Grandpa always had Fords), and we'd climb in.

The church itself was an old fashioned white clapboard with a steeple. It was replaced with a new brick one shortly after, and I missed the old church, which had the feeling of decades of devotion that the new one lacked. I also missed the Latin, when the church modernized the Mass. We lost some of the mystique and the beauty, when the rolling, lyrical ancient words were replaced by  the more functional English language.

Everyone filed into Church in reverent silence, dipping our fingertips in the holy water fountain at the doorway, genuflecting outside the pew before filing in. Young parents herded small children, dowagers observing the young people with critical, disapproving eyes, catching every whisper and wriggle.

I filed upstairs to the choir loft. The choir always sang High Mass, and soon the Magnificat echoed gloriously to the rafters. My  eyes peered out from under the brim of my sailor hat, attentive to the nun conducting our voices. Communion bells rang out, heads bowed reverently, then we sang again, as row after row of parishioners shuffled up to the altar rail for communion.

After Mass, outside, shy little girls with proud, pleased eyes pirouetted and ran about in their pretty Easter dresses and shiny new shoes. Little boys in brush-cuts stood about, uncomfortable in their tight jackets, stiff white shirts and ties.

For the teenage girls, this was a time to quietly be aware of moony-eyed teen boys looking our way. We affected attitudes of supreme indifference, while our hearts quickened if one or the other of them walked towards us, or smiled.

After Mass, Grandma always put on a huge Sunday breakfast, pancakes and eggs and bacon, and whatever family members lived in town gathered for food, coffee and laughter. Always laughter. Sometimes, in the afternoon, we grandkids would go with Grandma and Grandpa for a drive out in the country and, often, we'd stop at the Casorso's, a pig farm out near Mission Creek. They were a fairy tale family to me. I wrote about them earlier here:  http://stardreamingwithsherrybluesky.blogspot.com/2010/07/casorsos.html

Sunday evenings, on our small black and white television, we'd watch Family Knows Best, a sit-com so unlike today's sit-coms as to be unrecognizable. Nothing questionable was allowed on TV, there were strict standards to be observed. Then Ed Sullivan, at eight p.m. Then bed, and school the next day and another week beginning.

A more innocent time. A time of strict expectations of behavior, and confines which stifled, and that we might chafe against, but that also kept us safe. We couldn't stray too far out of line and, I believe, were the better for it.

Wild Woman Update

Well, kids, it's a beautiful, sunny day, actually warmer out than inside, and my door is open to the fresh air. I've been sitting on my porch swing watching the hummingbirds come back and back to the feeder, while Jasmine rolls around luxuriously on the porch rug. I have been Contemplating Change, of which life is so abundant.

This is my cute comfy living room, with the new laminate floors I waited years for, installed this past winter. The soft sage green walls were painted before Christmas too, a gift from my sister to me, as was the laminate - I just paid for the installation.

I love Tibetan prayer flags, and have them on my porch and, in good weather, out in the yard as well. Cant have too many prayers wafting up to the heavens!

My teensy table and the lovely daffodils of spring, gathered from the base of my big maple, now sporting buds right on schedule for another season of leaf-making.

Functional small kitchen at the other end of the living room. Tibetan photos on the cupboard door.

My favorite place in the world, my cozy purple bed, which I wish I could spend more time in!

I am SOOOOOO tired!

Other half of my purple bedroom.

The computer room, with more shelves of books. In my small place, I have six bookcases of books I cant part with, having divested myself of several hundred others, recently, in a quest to down-size.

Desk and computer, where The Magic happens :)

The Dalai Lama keeps me company, from the windowsill, and the side of my computer tower.

My front porch, next to bed, my favorite place, porch swing

for Pondering Weighty Matters out of sight to the right.

I will miss this porch the most, along with looking out

and seeing so much space around me.

My little place has never looked as cute as it has since the For Sale sign went up. This winter was a tough one, too many expenses, between renovations costing three times the estimate, Jasmine's surgery and expensive after-care,  then the hot water tank blowing and Pup's death one week later.

I was flummoxed. It was all too much. I need to offload debt, down-size and find a way to live more cheaply. Even my modest housing is difficult to hang onto, given the economy, prices going up every month, and disability income that hasnt changed since 1996.

Every time I have been in this position before, when I set things into action, the universe rushed to support me, and both times I was moved out within ten days. So we shall see. It feels like this is what I am meant to do. My left leg is giving out under me, I need to  take it easier and for that, life has to  be easier. We shall see if the universe supports this move, as it has before.

This place has been Home since 2003, the first home since I lost mine in Tofino when I first got ill. I will miss it. But when I feel like I am rowing across the ocean in a teacup, I have to do what needs doing to get to an easier place. If this place sells, I will move into a very tiny suite in my sister's house across the road. One big room, and a small kitchenette. I can do it. I will be able to keep the things that mean the most to me and get rid of the rest. Even though I purge every few months, there is still too much stuff, and so much of it can go, without ever being missed.

I am lucky to have that option, as renting anywhere else would be more expensive than keeping this place. On the other side of this big change, life will ease, and I need it to do that, and soon. My health is faltering over the struggle to hold on, and so the intelligent response is to just .... Let Go. Life has been a series of losses, but with every loss there is also a gain. I know this by now, and next winter has to be easier than this past one. I will do everything I can to make it be. The rest is up to the universe.

I just hope Pup will still find me when I move. Sometimes Jasmine gets so excited, snuffling along the fence with her tail wagging, that I think he must be in his yard. He'll get confused if he comes and someone else is here. But I wont be far away. I'll leave a trail of his favorite treats across the street, so he can be sure to find me.

The Next Step

Day 23 of the Soul Card Journey

with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music

Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin

at http://www.touchdrawing.com/



Traveler

curls into

a fetal ball.

Too heavy a load,

legs faltering

and weak, 
long, hard road

between

here and rest.

When the path

looks long,

and direction

is unclear:

just take

the next step.

Free

Day 22 of the Soul Card journey
with Elizabeth Crawford of Soul's Music
Soul Cards by Deborah Koff-Chapin at http://www.touchdrawing.com/

It took

Traveler

a long time

to find her voice.

Time after time,

she was silenced,

oppressed,

shouted down,

pressed into

smaller and smaller

confines,

from which she

would eventually

have to

break free,

one after another,

in order to survive.

Each time,

afterwards,

she retreated

into a cocoon

of safety,

to recover

and gain strength,

in order

to continue

traveling.

Finally,

she grew so tired

of this pattern,

that she gave one

loud

last

uncompromising

primal

scream:

"No More!"

After that,

her life

remained

her own.

She journeyed

where she

pleased,

in peace,

unaccompanied

and, thus,

unequivocally

free.

Wild Woman and Sister Play Charades

For a decade, Sister has been laughing about Wild Woman's aphasia, not being able to access a particular word, or remember the name of a just-watched movie, the plot or who was in it. But as Sister approaches a Certain Age, to her chagrin, she begins experiencing the same difficulty.

Sister: "I tried to watch a movie last night. it was really good, it  was....ummmm........ummmmm.........you know that one with........

what's his name?............."

Laughter, rueful shaking of heads.

Then:


Sister: "So and so's got to have an operation on his..........ummmm, what's it called? one of those........things????"


Wild Woman, helpfully: "Testicles?"


Sister: "No!  it's a......(pointing higher up)"


Wild Woman: "Oh! Starts with an H, am thinking........ hemhorroids? No, wrong spot."


Sister: "No....ummm.......hernia!"

Wild Woman: "Hernia, that's it! I knew it started with an H."


Cackles.


Wild Woman: "The Bank Manager and the Poet Have Coffee! Well, at least I'm not the only one any more!"

Easter Dog

In lieu of an Easter bunny, here is Jasmine.

She and I wish a Happy Easter to all who celebrate it,

happy spring to those enjoying spring,

and happy being alive

to everyone else.

There is always

something

worth celebrating, no?

Jas actually is finally losing some weight,

but still most resembles

a woolly mammoth.

Sigh.

Dieting is

a slow process,

faltering towards Perfection.

Rather like life,

a sort of Slow-Cooker

procedure.

Hope Rising

[image from visualphotos.com]

for Poets United's Thursday Think Tank prompt: Secrets

She told me

her secret

with tears,

this grown-up

girl-child,

remembering days

back then,

when vulnerable

little girls

were never safe

in a world

filled with

predatory men.

My world tilted,

then righted itself

as I

looked back,

making sense

of the hidden clues,

the misunderstood cues,

a time when

my mind could not

conceive

how damaged

and damaging

some people can be,

or understand

the impact on

our lives

went far

beyond

me.

The miracle

in this life is

somehow

we all

survive, and

some of us

actually

transcend,

grow whole,

help others heal,

choose light

instead of

darkness,

turn away from pain,

choose life

after all,

hope rising,

again and

yet again,

no matter

how many times

we fall.

A secret

that changes

memory,

changes

the past,

is good

when it is

finally told

at last.