Vicky

Yesterday – and today, too – I washed and waxed the floors. I remember my mother doing this. I remember her answering the telephone and saying to a friend who, presumably, was asking what she did that day. “Oh, not too much,” she would say. “I washed and waxed the floors”.  How long can it take, I used to ask myself, to wash and wax the floors?

When I grew up, cleaning floors went like this: you sweep them, run a mop over them, squeeze on them some floor shining stuff from a plastic bottle, let them dry. You occasionally get down on your hands and knees to scrub a stubborn spot. You then go and check your email or have a little espresso with left-over Christmas cake.

But now I own a Viking ‘77 floor polisher. Remembering my mother’s floors which gleamed like glass, I decided to wash and wax my floors in an attempt to achieve the same result. And I did. It took about four hours, taking to account the drying times between mopping, waxing and polishing. And buffing, the icing on the hardwood.

Recently, during an evening of wine sampling and chit chat with my middle sister, we discussed floor polishing. She, too, has a polisher. Her’s is a 50s greyish pink, and mine is a muted green, just like Mum’s.

She nabbed it on Big Garbage Eve. She doesn’t really have the scavenging gene, but Big Garbage Eve is when the truck will take anything from washing machines to mascot costumes, including the oversized head. One can see some wild sights curbside. Ever the style maven, the pink caught her eye. One man’s trash is another gal’s floor polisher.

My sister, now very social and easy to be with, was timid as a child. She had what we thought were amusing fears: Santa Claus, our next-door neighbour Cliff, an unwillingness to spend an overnighter with my grandparents. In writing this, I realize it sounds dark and weird, but she has assured me there was nothing at play but her little-girl imagination.

She also had an imaginary friend, Christine. My sister has described her to me, but the description is so detailed that it would take too long to type it here. I can say only that Christine was African Canadian – or African American, for I don’t know from which country Christine came.  I’m not sure my sister ever asked her.  I once asked her how real Christine seemed to her. She paused, leaned in toward me, lowered her voice and said “it was as real as you are sitting here in front of me”. It gave me pause, and a shudder, I’ll admit.

But on that night of sampling and chit chat, I learned something new about my sister vis a vis a floor polisher. My mother kept hers stored in a small alcove-ish space at the top of our stairs. Turns out, that in addition to Christine, the floor polisher was also a part of my sister’s social circle. It was her “tall, skinny friend”.  I don’t know the tall, skinny friend’s name. Perhaps it was Viking ‘77  - Vicky for short, I’m figuring. According to my sister, she and Christine would sit on the top stair visiting their tall, skinny friend.

Now – smart, practical, funny – I wonder what she thinks when she polishes her floor. I’m pretty sure she gives a wry little laugh and gets on with the job.

But me. I can’t help look at my muted green polisher  - just like my mother’s – and think: are you Vicky, if that in fact is you name?

It gives me pause, and a shudder, I’ll admit.

Second:

The blogs are sporadic, I know. But look outside. Grass. Flowers. Intermittent sun. Blogging or being outside. Which would you choose?

Neighbours have appeared beyond the fence wearing dirty clothes, the inexplicably popular Crocs, broad-brimmed hats or ball caps or devil-may-care bandanas. They’re  eager to share chunks of Hosta and tips about when to fertilize and when not to prune. Grocery store parking lots have given over a quarter of their real estate to hastily erected, and entirely temporary, gardening centres. My brother calls from the west coast and idly muses as to whether this will be the year when he finally succeeds in growing a Clematis. Even my own backyard looks promising (alas, I’m usually the one who causes that promise to be broken – not without a few tears of guilt and remorse).

Other signs of the seasonal shift:

The winter toys that dotted the front yard of my neighbour – tiny shovels, little sleds, home-made slides that would allow a child to enjoy the exhilaration of sliding for approximately an eighth of a second, etc – have all been swept away and replaced by tiny rakes, little bikes with training wheels, a clownishly large red plastic baseball bat, etc. I find these toys cheery, no matter what the season.

When people walk by the house they look thinner to me. This is because of the magical spring jacket which, in contrast to the winter coat, looks sleek, like it might almost allow one to fly. Paradoxically, and somewhat regrettably, inside the house – when the jacket is removed – it loses its magic because winter pounds do show, don’t they?

One tries on last years clothes. This has the capacity to delight or depress, but that depends on whether one likes or dislikes shopping for new clothes in a larger size.

One thinks about exercise.

One’s toenails look strange.

The house seems dirtier and less tidy than ever. The reason for this? The house actually is dirty and untidy but one is outdoors so often and for so long that it’s a new shock every time one returns home. And because one is outdoors so much, there simply isn’t time to clean and tidy.

The grass becomes a little too confident. Cocky, even. It acts as if it could mow itself.

And this, too, could be seasonal, but I have doubt:

While writing, one shifts from “one” to “I” regularly without knowing how remain consistent, and/or too lazy to go back and rewrite. One embarrasses myself, or I embarrass one’s self.

All to say that the year is rolling in the right direction. The branches of Shad Blow hang with tissuey white blossoms. Males finches are yellow again. Two turtles have appeared in my pond, and thousands of tadpoles are losing their tails and dragging themselves into adolescence.  Summer will come. And fall and winter. Another year. My wish for this one is that it is not much unlike the last, and that continuing life is all we know and want.

It’s a singular joy to arrive home to a sparkling house, fresh floweres, a nice Pino Noir, a tasty little snack and fresh sheets on one’s own bed. Even better is to rise, have familiar coffee, find two New York Times crosswords (saved from the Saturday papers), and then discover that the basement landing had been cleared of all bottles and cans that awaited recycling. Best, to go to the basement to notice it’s been tidied, cleaned and organized. How good and satisfying, and for all this I’m grateful.

To me, this was a happy tour. Going into it, none of us knew how it might be  -  how we would travel together, how the work would be divided and completed, if we would get along. Turns out we travelled well together, we did our respective jobs with no question or fuss, we got along splendidly. There were many, many laughs and even some great meals, considering all the traveling we did through remote areas. Sometimes good coffee was beyond easy access, but it made arrival at a Starbucks-like establishment an great occasion.

My compatriots, Raylene, Cindy and Clarence, were easy travel companions and colleagues. The shows went pretty well, every one in its own way. With one or two exceptions, accommodations were comfortable. One place was a bit dodgy, but the welcome was warm.

One place was not so dodgy but the welcome was cool,  and the coffee – supplied by the roaster one block away – cost $3.30 per cup. As Clarence and I were leaving our breakfast table, Cindy had come to the dining room to grab a coffee to take to her room. We chatted a bit, and she decided might as well take two coffees, thereby saving a trip downstairs. Cups in hand, she politely asked how much she owed. The response was “$6.30″ “Pardon me?” said Cindy, and the young woman re-calculated. “Oh, I’m sorry – I made a mistake” she said. “It’s $6.60″.  It seemed that every “Could I…? Would it be possible…? Are there any…? Could you please…?”  was met with a half-smile and a sorry little “No” accompanied by a pathetic head-tilt that seemed to suggest an tacit understanding of the disappointment the requester would experience. However, the promise of hand-milled soap was kept and there was a Saltine-sized wafer of it in each room. I would have traded it for a private bathroom, I can assure you. The lasting upside, though, was the re-telling of the story which was revived regularly. We would often answer requests with a sorry little “No” and tilt our heads in sympathy.

However, one good thing about that particular brief stay is that my dear friends, Stephen and Lorne, showed up unexpectedly and arranged a nice little after-show snack and beverage. How they did it, I’m not sure. I expect money passed hands. I’m absolutely certain no violence occurred.

There were many other running jokes and routines, but they fall into the “had to be there” category. Will I include them here? Well, I must say “No” and tilt my head in sympathy.

The weather was unseasonably warm and fine. The clear days allowed us to see the breathtaking beauty of Southern Alberta, and BC. The foothills of the Rockies are soul lifting, and especially beautiful this time of year, with a skiff of snow and golden grass poking through it. I think it was Geronimo who said that horses made the land more beautiful and he was right. Whenever horses were visible from the van, a little stir of excitement lifted the whole experience a bit, as if there had been a sudden burst of extra beauty erupting for our additional pleasure. The Foothills, the Rockies, the Cascades, the Arbutus and Redwoods of the coast, the plane-flat fields leading to North Saskatchewan – they made the long drives pleasurable.

The folks at all the venues were beyond welcoming. Food, hot and cold drinks – some providing hot meals. No complaints. And the audiences were responsive and enthusiastic.

I would be hard pressed to recall a better group experience, although traveling with John Reischman ranks high not only for his musicianship, but also his uncanny ability to sniff out great food and lead us to it.

We parted last night and returned to our respective homes. All happy to be back, I suspect. I know I’m happy to be here, but will look forward with joyful anticipation to the time when we can do it again.

Hope no one tilts their head, smiles a little and says “No”.

It is: in hotels, slip the remote control into a ziplock bag to avoid the bugs left behind by previous guests.

Very good tip. Thank you, Clarence Deveau.

I think this is Day 10, not Day 9. Some confusion on my part, owing to my numbers phobia.

Singly, we are lethal weapons. Together, we are a platoon. We must be stopped.

The coffee maker will save me from bad coffee on the road, and the worst of the bad (my opinion only – please don’t sue me): Tim Horton’s. My mother, when asked for her take on Tim’s coffee, replied “That coffee is just not my cup of tea”. Mum has a way with words. Hey, here’s a question: why is the Tim’s double-double so popular? Answer: because double cream and double sugar mask the taste of art gum erasers. Don’t ask me how I know.

So I have this little electric espresso maker now, and I will take it on the road with me next week. Last time I travelled, I was lodged in a “all suite” hotel, so I took my little stove-top Bialetti. Took a bag of ground coffee with me, settled into the hotel, had a good nights sleep. Woke the next morning, filled the Bialetti with cold water, put ground coffee in the little receptacle that fits in it, put on the top . Moved toward the stove to turn on the burner. Realized that there was no burner. No stove, in fact. A small microwave was tucked in a corner and I stared at it for what seemed a long time. I don’t know long I stood there – coffee maker in hand, stunned and confused. I know it was long enough to work it through in my mind carefully and come to the decision not to put the shiny bialetti in the microwave. I’m slow at 6:30 in the morning, and on that morning there was some desperation in play.

Word to the wise: not all “all suite” hotels are all suites. They’re “partial suite” hotels. They’re “microwave and beer fridge suite” hotels. They’re “we’ll give you cutlery, wine glasses, plates, bowls, pots and pans but no stove” hotels. They’re “we’ll charge you seven dollars for a bad cup of coffee” hotels. Word to the wise. And wise I’ll be with my new little coffee maker. Slightly smug, too, it’s turning out. I look forward to it all.

As said, second to arrive was the quilt. If I have the family tree standing right, the quilt top was made by my grandfather’s cousin’s wife, deceased a few years back. The quilting was done by her daughter, who, since her mother’s death, has taken on the project of quilting all the tops that her mother was unable to quilt. This one, the one I received today, is the second to last (and as we know from a few blogs back, it’s the penultimate). And it is a beauty. Double wedding ring pattern – lovely in itself – but the quilting is remarkable in that it’s stitched with tiny hearts that one can only see with close examination. Old colourful fabrics and a scalloped edging to give it a finish. These bits of material came from the clothes of relatives, and long ago friends of my mother, I’m guessing. She grew up in the village where the top was stitched and the quilting completed. In fact, now that I think on it, it was sewn in the very house where my mother was born.

This is the picture I see, this is the story I imagine:

A daughter comes home to care for her mother. When her mother dies, she leaves behind 24 quilt tops. The daughter takes them up and quilts every one (well, still one to go…). It takes six years. She again lives in the house where she grew up, the house in which my mother was born, the house in which I watched buttermilk being squeezed from butter and where I counted the dozens of salt and pepper shakers that had been long collected. A house that looks out on a blue like no other, a small harbour that receives the iron-riddled river – the brook, as it was called and what we call it still. A house where my uncle Zen sat outside in the sun – wordless and watchful. I can see it all.

Two great deliveries today. One to look forward. One to look back. I can see it all.

My generation speaks of love carelessly, and we assign the word to a number of more precise emotions that we can’t be bothered to say. The word slips as easily from us as pennies to a pocket. We say it like we’re saying hello or goodbye. We say we love these things – generally speaking, in no particular order and incomplete: cars; hockey; certain movies; our hairdressers (if we’re lucky); autumn; all dogs and/or cats; chocolate; certain or all music; traveling; our computers; nice little Pinot Noirs: great big Cabernet Sauvignons; shoes; cheese; colours; reading; pajamas; certain or all Beatles. In short: we say we love most everything we like a lot. I’m loathe to use the word in songs but some songwriters…well, they love to use it.

I don’t doubt that in some of these instances the love is true if we, in the words of Rainer Rilke, define love like this:  love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. When I sit to play a certain guitar, for example, I truly love it. My guitar and I are two solitudes. I protect it and it protects me (although it could probably not stop a bullet – it’s my hope that I am never shot at one stage, but one can never be certain). I touch it and it touches me. Very tactile. I greet it, and it greets me, although sometimes it seems to be saying “Yeah, hi, but keep your hands off of me”.

What, though, is love? This is where Rilke’s words shine. Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.  Can’t top that, but let’s throw in forgiveness for good measure.

How lucky are we who learned that, now know it and live our lives accordingly – or try.  Not every family has earned or deserves this, but especially blessed with fortune are we who have that, despite woundings and old scars.

So I think of my family today with that in mind. How lucky I am, and how careful I’ll be.

Certainly, the year my two-year old sister woke early and tore the wrapping from every gift stands out. My mother remembers it well, too – and all too well.  It was the Christmas of the blanket thank-you: we will always treasure whatever it is you gave us.

From various Christmases, there are others:

• My foodie/fashionista sister, her Easy Bake Oven and her plastic wigs – blond, red, and battleship grey.
• My brother, his Rubber Soul album and his please drop dead expression in every photo.
• My youngest sister, her pre-Christmas separate stash of wrapped presents and her post-Christmas neat arrangement of toys and games
• My grandparents, and my feverish anticipation of their arrival for dinner.
• My mother, her sweat-inducing labour in cooking dinner for at least eight people – sometimes more.
• The card table on which kids fought and ate.
• The rum-induced light in my father’s eye that only lasted so long.
• My brother outside the window with a freshly cut Christmas tree, and my mother – from the inside – directing him to turn it around slowly so that she could see it from every angle. Also, the look of complete boredom on my brother’s face.
• Days of the week underpants.
• The first doll I really loved: a boy doll dressed in short black pants and a red vest, but  - oddly – wearing little girly Mary-Janes with white ankle socks.
• First outfit I really loved: mini-skirt with matching Nehru collar jacket.
• Ribbon candy that was never eaten.
• Striped hard candy that was never eaten.
• Barley candy (whatever that was) on sticks, gold or red, shaped like camels and other unusual things – never eaten.

The list is long, too long to list. But I add this one more, the best and my favourite Christmas memory: lifting my three year old sister, Ellen, perching her on my nine year old hip and pointing out the window to what I now know was a bright planet, Venus or Jupiter. Then, I  believed that it was something else and whispered “Look, Ellen. It’s the Star in the East”.

The Wise Men were astrologers and astronomers, and certainly would have studied the skies for the sake of time, navigation and omens. The Star of Bethlehem was probably an astronomical event of planets and stars converging in such a way that they created a very bright object in the sky. The myth-making around the birth of Christ, which paradoxically began well after the death of Christ, transformed this star into a powerful symbol of awe and redemption. For some, it’s a wistful notion, and that notion a beacon on which hopes and wishes are pinned.

My sister turned 50 last month, and went to Paris to celebrate her birthday. She brought back ribbons, the like I have never before seen, deep reds and deeper greens. They were purchased specifically to decorate the Christmas table, to lay over a white linen cloth. She loves Christmas, does our Ellen. She makes Christmas beautiful and soulful, even for non-believers like me. Food, wine, lots of laughter and easy affection. Because we are only recently in close proximity to each other, this year I have the same same joyful anticipation that was reserved for my grandparent’s Christmas day arrival.

Ellen has no memory of being held up to see the star that shone so on that Christmas morning. But I do, and as I anticipate the next few days with her and her husband, I realize that the star on which I pin my secular Christmas dreams was not in the sky that morning, but sitting on my hip – one small finger in her mouth and a tiny arm draped around the back of my neck.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good star.