she learned that a long time ago

 

When Kelsey was really small, my sister Cathy went to the UK for a few years.  She came back about halfway though for a visit; at that point, it was also about halfway through Kelsey’s whole life.  Understandably, the two year old didn’t know that aunt from adam.  So, when we all went to the airport to collect Cathy, Kels wasn’t sure how to deal with all the emotion surrounding this “aunt person” who showed up out of nowhere and made everybody cry. 

Later at Gram’s house there was a bit of a party.  The crying turned to talking and laughing.  Kelsey’s older sister seemed right at home with the aunt, but Kels wasn’t having any of it.  Then, the aunt brought out a big bag, out of which there stuck some curious and soft looking ears.  Aunt Cathy lifted out a beautiful tin lunchbox for Carly and Carly loved it.  Kelsey, recognised at that moment there was something special about those ears sticking out of the bag, and more so something about that aunt and all the stuff going on around her visit.  And so shyly she expressed it to the aunt:

“I ‘yike’ you.”

The aunt pretty much melted on receipt of that innocent expression of trust and all she could do was pull that bear out of the bag.  Kels and the bear (and the aunt) fell in love with each other instantly.

That bear, symbolic of the love that little girl came to understand that day, has stuck with her through all kinds of good and not so good adventures.  And Kelsey, in turn, reflects that love with steadfast genuineness and honesty.    

Happy birthday Kelsey. 

And many more and… well you know…

yorkshire sister

I’m not a fan of greeting cards.  I think they’re a giant rip off, and usually I’d rather say what I want in a phone call or a gift or a visit. 

Nevertheless, sometimes they’re just the thing, like when your sister lives on a different continent and thinking that her receiving mail from family at home is a priority.  Like during the holidays. 

So there I am standing in the Hallmark section of a store a week or two ago looking for a Christmas card for Jane and I’m blubbering like an idiot amidst all the sugary sentiment and dreamy winter scenes.

A sister is a part of you – she is connected to all things and more than DNA.  A sister is always there in the way you see, the things you feel and how you feel about yourself.  And that magic doesn’t diminish when she moves across oceans. 

But it doesn’t make you miss her any less when she’s far away.  And I was missing Jane a lot standing in that Hallmark aisle at lunchtime.   

Yesterday was her birthday and I was thinking about her place in my life – from that stubborn and independent little pig-tailed girl, to the beautiful and content transplanted Canadian Yorkshirewoman she’s become. 

I love you sister.  No less than if you lived around the corner.  Thank goodness for technology.

(And many more and shut the door on ricky hubble…)

she hasn’t changed a bit

She started to talk when she was one and she never really stopped.  And now she’s one of my favourite people in the world to talk to.  She was a little older than that when she got famous in our family for asking for broccoli (“barkly”) for breakfast.  Later she turned herself into a vegetarian.  She loved music, listening to it actively from the time she sat in a baby chair.  Today music is still about her favourite thing and if she makes you a mixed CD you’re lucky because she’s insightful and knows what you’ll like before you hear it.   She was bright and cheerful and made being a new mom pretty wonderful.

Oh yeah – and she still smiles just like that.

 

Happy birthday Carly.  At 27, you’re as much of a joy as you ever were.

(and many more and shut the door on you know who)

sydney pearl

Once, a number of years ago, Sydney’s mother was brought to tears when she saw my daughter Carly because, she said, it seemed in the few months since she had seen her last, Carly had suddenly turned into a young woman.

It’s kind of how I feel today, thinking of our Syd turning thirteen.  In many ways I want her to stay that little girl who hated it when I called her “peanut.”  But each time I see her she is lovelier than she was the last time.  Inside and out.

When it comes to nieces, Sydney is as nice as they get.  Strong and pretty and deep and smart and extra, extra sweet.  The best hugger ever; she’ll love you from the bottom of her heart.  Happy birthday  Sydney.  I’m so glad I get to be your aunt.

(And many more and shut the door on ricky hubble.)

quoting julie quoting dad

Jen, texting Cathy from a 7 am train to Montreal:

“That lake is as still as pee on a plate.”

Cathy, texting Jen from an airport taxi enroute to catch flight to Montreal:

“This morning was as black as the inside of a cow.”

see ya clarice

I’ve been cooped up much too much lately.  Much of last week and Monday this week I stayed home from work because of a bug that had me in regular and extended coughing fits.  And before I go any further – no – it’s not *that* bug.  I kept myself at home though mostly because of all the hype surrounding *that* bug and even though the doctor confirmed I don’t have it, the paranoia has internalized enough that I fear being accused of spreading *that* bug around.  So I stayed home lots and puttered around cleaning out drawers, closets and as shown below – the shameful bookshelves. 

The wretched cough – for fun, let’s call the bitch Clarice – loved especially to show up and latch on to me at times of stillness.  Which became the reason for the multiple housy projects, and me not resting like everyone thought I should.  Every time I laid down for a nap, Clarice would cosy up next to me.  My attention span is normally short, and it’s always been a challenge for me to finish projects.  But housebound, I had lots of extra time and extra motivation for sorting and cleaning and organizing.  However, if I settled on the floor to wipe off a pile of books, Clarice would show up before long, wanting to join in and I’d get up and attempt to walk her off and try to ignore her by focusing on something else.  Then, standing over the entire contents of my desk spread out on the kitchen table doing the old “sort and pitch,” there she’d be again, wrapping her cold clammy arms around my poor tired lungs. 

The project of the books was thus a pokey affair, and I must admit there is still the odd little pile waiting for its respective home.  But aside from the blasted Clarice, it was pleasant.  In many ways – you clean and organize your bookshelves – you re-live a life. 

My last post talked about the diversion leading to the box holding the first diary.  That box, still in the middle of my living room, harbours memory triggers from childhood through high school.  Photographs and schoolgirl notes and mementos and pictures cut from magazines and cards and beer bottle labels, (does anyone really know why we peeled those off anyway?), autographs and letters and even a cigarette stub.  I think it was my first.  I should have saved my last too – I could have framed them.  I even found a greenish blackish end from some ancient doobie.  (My guess is that I was marking some great party.  I don’t remember what party for the life of me, but let’s just say I’ve got proof that there was some party back then there in the seventies that was good enough to be honoured by way of this little wad of paper and ash saved for posterity.)

The bookshelves bring to life scores of internal snapshots.  Open a book from my shelves and you may find a drawing and letter from Kelsey to the Tooth Fairy requesting that she keep the lost tooth, her first.  Or a bookmark made for me for Christmas by Carly, which I used for a year when I was studying English Literature and would think of her whenever I used it, wondering what she might study someday.  These little captured moments – a note to mom, a little story – illuminate, unexpectedly, layers of those marvellous little girls that our stash of oft-looked photos can sometimes forget. 

Open another book and find a card sent by a supportive and loving sister during a trying time.  A time that can now, thankfully, be looked upon as one of the building blocks that created this current version of me.   

A wax-pressed leaf – held back from a bunch I sent across the ocean to a friend on a whim.  A poem about the joy of flight that Aunt Martha printed out for my girls just before they were to fly for the first time.  A cantankerous letter cut from the Windsor Star, written by me, questioning some political ridiculousness of the day. 

The books of the Ondaatje period.  The books of the Doyle period.  The books of the Creative Recovery period.  Books of letters.  Anthologies of memoir.  Books brought home from trips.  Books given to me as gifts.  Books that were my mother’s.  Books that once sat on the shelf of Kathleen Dinsmore, before she sold her cottage and all the things in it to my father at the end of her life.  Books stuffed with post-it notes and notes written in the margins conveying some new wonder and passion discovered therein.

The married years.  The little girls in the house years.  The university years.  The possibility years…

The Secret Garden.  The Norton Anthology of Friendship.  Technopoly.  How Green Was My Valley.  Green Eggs and Ham.  The Grapes of Wrath.  The Bat Poet.  The Prophet.

As far as being cooped up goes, it’s been a good cooped up.  But I’ve had enough.  This weekend I’m seizing the opportunity to piggyback on my sister’s work weekend in Montreal and staying with her there.  This cooped up gal is counting the hours til she can roam the streets of one of her favourite cities.  I expect she may come home with a new book for her clean and tidy shelves.

november sister

Happy birthday Cathy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thanked my lucky stars that you’re my sister because in this big ol’ random world what are the chances I’d cross paths with a friend like you? Unfailingly on my side; forever seeing my view; ready with uncompromised support and understanding before I ever need ask for it.

The middle sister – you were always like the heart of us, emitting a gentle warmth and love that drew all to you practically since the day you arrived on the planet. And still today that bright and shining smile warms the heart of anyone you meet. Your clarity of vision is something I will always depend on, and aspire to. You’re beautiful inside and out, and I’m looking forward to carrying out the rest of this life’s adventure with you.

In thee my soul shall own combined the sister and the friend.  ~Catherine Killigrew

remembrance day, and a Park who lived

When my sisters and I came into this world, my mother had no parents, one sister and one first cousin.  Her cousin Allan Park was a half generation older than her.  Like most of our family, he was known to us more in story than life.  That scar on his head was legendary.  It was from a war. 

World War II  was mythology to us kids born in the sixties.  I have fuzzy recollections of my dad watching the news on tv and seeing footage from Viet Nam but that wasn’t real, it was on tv.  

Allan’s war, to us, was a story wrapped up in that scarred head we saw a few times over our lifetimes.  All we knew was that we were lucky he was with us, that his injury very nearly killed him and if it had everything would be different.  

In 1979, the story of that scar revealed itself via the words of national favourite storyteller, Farley Mowat, in his novel And No Birds Sang.  It was a different story than the one any of us had known.

The blanket that screened the shattered cellar door was thrust aside and a party of stretcher bearers pushed in amongst us.  Al Park lay on one of the stretchers.  He was alive, though barely so… unconscious, with a bullet in his head.

As I looked down at his faded, empty face under its crimson bandages, I began to weep.

I wonder now… were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go?

Or was I weeping for myself… and those who would remain?

 – Excerpt: And No Birds Sang, Farley Mowat

You want to talk about how a story can bring new light to a family? 

To a nation on Remembrance Day?

queen of hearts

As a baby, her face would light up with the most infectious bliss when she set her eyes on a loved one. As a toddler, she could contort that little face into the most miserable misery or ferocious ferocity when things didn’t go her two year old way.

I remember once when she was about five, my sister and I were out walking and she and her brother were ahead of us on their bikes. She was WAY finished with this bike ride and absolutely couldn’t bear to pedal one more centimetre. And her mother, as mothers do, was ignoring the whining and the complaining so she expressed her unhappiness with her entire body ensuring we could, from a block behind, fully understand her feelings. You never saw such draping and flopping over the front of any tricycle – you’d swear she was operating a slave ship and she was the only rower. I tell you, Sarah Bernhardt had nothing on this kid. Margaret O’Brien? Forget it.

Another time we had a birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to her up at the cottage and I swear you could have given that kid a hundred presents and a thousand lollipops and they wouldn’t have been even a smidge as wonderful as that birthday cake.

Ever since she was a tiny little tot, she’s been an actress, wearing her emotions from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.  Tonight she’s playing the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

Knock ‘em dead kid.  You’re the queen of a lot of hearts already.

Our favourite drama queen

my nephew dropped me on facebook

Not the one who just got married.  The other one who also happens to be breaking out of a starting gate into a new life.  In this case:  high school. 

Alas, it was only two weeks ago I rode high in this nephew’s “favourite friends” list, and now I’m out.  Cut off.  Me the fun artsy aunt who’s always done fun artsy projects with him and my nieces.  The one who was always sort of an extension to his mother, he said – in a good way.  Oh, and the mom – the equally cool, fun, happy mom?  She’s out too.

Okay I get that he had to make a choice – Facebook had to become either for friends only, or include family.  And there is a LOT of his family on Facebook.  Even a grandmother and a few great aunts.  It’s become something of a family forum, and that’s where the kid’s problems started.

See, there was this little incident of a swear word on a certain Facebook status for all the world to see, and a certain mom having an issue with it and a certain kid having computer privileges taken away.  You’re absolutely right, we all said (us grownups anyway).   It was a reckless, dumb teenager thing to say in a public realm, and my sister had every right to be angry about it – his Facebook is a reflection of him, and by extension, his family.  The kid needs to know how to behave around different audiences.  It’s an important grownup skill. 

So he had to make the choice.  I’m sure I would have done exactly the same thing he did when I was his age.  I would have made a big sigh and said to myself, hey, this is my new teenager world and it’s big and exciting and I don’t want no mom or no sisterly extension of my mom (even if she is fun and artsy) looking in the window.  It’s mine.  My high school friends don’t care if I say fuck on Facebook.  (Although, the closest thing we had to Facebook back when I was in school was passing a note around in math class.)

So I really do understand.  He is embarking on a brand new level of maturity – from my 48 year old perspective, reckless profanity – not so mature.  Go ahead and be an ass (his mother’s honest to goodness fear) around your high school buddies all you want – but not around relatives and grownups. Looking through my teenager eyes I’m thinking, what’s the big deal? 

My nephew is taking that new and exciting road into greater independence and freedom, and I don’t have to know all about it – nor do I want to.  I remember how great it felt to explore who I was and grow into my marvellously individual self and have more and more freedom to do so.  And teenagers deserve privacy just like the rest of us. We need to let them take these little steps giant leaps even though sometimes they’ll stumble.  We did.  Most of us turned out just fine. 

I suppose I’m just feeling a little sad I’m not of that top friends list anymore; my nephew’s world has grown that much larger.  I’m feeling sad that he didn’t go public about his new (first) girlfriend until after he locked me out, I had to hear about it from my daughter who’s still “in.”  And I’m feeling, for my sister, that mild sense of panic I felt when my own kids went to high school and everything changed.  It’s a melancholy aunt love that’s feeling both thrilled and sad about the boy she loves from the bottom of her heart who is turning into a young man, and before we know it, a man.