The new refrigerator

After 14 years, our fridge quit on us. I was initially bummed because of the unexpected expense, but now that the shiny new brushed aluminum fridge is in place I am very happy with the new robot looking appliance. It was quite the event, getting the old fridge out, and getting the new fridge in our  front door. Fourteen years ago, my husband ended up taking off the entire door frame. So, since the measurements of the new fridge were the same, off came the door and door frame again. It took two and a half hours of using a hammer and power bar, and the result was that it made our house look like it was in the process of being built. It was a weird feeling. I told my husband and son I felt like we were living in a Lego house, because you could look right into our house. I felt like I wouldn't have been surprised if a giant hand came down and removed the roof next, poking around in our stuff with a giant size thumb, and grabbing our furniture that was minuscule in their huge fingers. While my husband was busy banging at the door frame, I got busy cleaning out the old fridge and cleaning off all the stickers and removing all the pictures of our family and friends. As the fridge was already empty on the inside, the empty look of the outside of the white fridge suddenly made me sad. I felt like I was not just undressing our fridge, but our life story of the last almost 15 years. It was like a small funeral for the fridge and how loyally it had tolerated all the pictures and stickers, it had become an intimate expression of our loves and likes,and now I was stripping it naked, and I felt sad. I have so precious few family that stripping the few pictures of the few people in my world felt painful. I was relieved to see a new fridge take its place, all shiny and modern looking and I found myself cautiously putting a few very carefully selected pictures on this new electronic member of our small family. I put my son's childhood giraffe back on top of the new fridge, it just looked like the giraffe had to stay. I decided no more stickers, I had gone overkill on the other fridge. The new fridge looks elegantly spare, quite the victory for an enthusiastic house over stuffer like myself. Once the new fridge was installed, then it was a matter of cleaning up all the mess from the old fridge, and restocking the brand new one while my husband and son got busy rehanging the front door and putting the door frame back together, which took fortunately less time than taking them off.  It felt good to fill up the new fridge, like stocking a food closet, instead of a dresser or clothes closet. The sadness about undressing the old fridge faded, but I will remember my strong emotional reaction to the event. It was another reminder of the implacable passage of time. It was a reminder to use that time wisely, lovingly, joyfully. For as sure as that fridge started purring when it first was plugged into our kitchen 14 years ago, and then spurted to a gasping halt, shuddering to a permanent stop, just as sure my heart that started beating 58 years ago, will one day falter, sputter and stop. For good, and like the fridge, I will be undressed, dismantled and taken away to a final resting place, and all that made me will be removed, the story of my life folded and closed. Something to think about. Everyday is a gift. A new chance. The new fridge reminds me that I am given that chance with each new day. I am very grateful for that. I can still add new pictures to my story and I can still treasure the old pictures and the old stories with a warm, beating heart as I continue my life with my husband ,our son and our friends.      

Spring Cleaning

The weekend weather turned out beautiful, sunny, cool in the mornings with a crisp breeze, and warm but not yet hot in the afternoon. Perfect for working in the garden, and for opening all the windows wide and start spring cleaning. Michael got busy filling our window boxes for our bedroom and patio and deck with petunias and Morning Glory. He prepared a window box by the green house steps for Sweet Peas. Our green house looks so busy now, with the sunflower seedlings growing strong, so soon we will be able to transplant them into the garden behind and in front of the green house. The scent of fresh soil filled the air and smelled so invigorating, so full of promise. I cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, and finished polishing the big mirror in there. I cracked up, seeing my reflection in that mirror so squeaky clean made me startle at the fact that I was definitely in my fifties from what I saw. Yet, I rarely felt older than about 27. Kind of fun, however illusory, as long as the energy and optimism is there. A few grey hairs and sneaky wrinkles can be covered up. As I got busy dusting and washing down my dresser shelf in our bedroom, going down memory lane with each picture frame I cleaned and each precious item recalling a happy moment or time, I thought of growing up and helping our nanny Julienne clean our big house that was stuffed to the gills with expensive furniture, family heirlooms of silver and 19th century crystal, expensive art and carpets. But what I treasure now of those memories are what I learned from Julienne, when she would share memories of her own hard knocks childhood and her life now as our house keeper. She was also often our chauffeur picking us up from school , our cook, babysitter and friend. She was married to a man who worked as a janitor at the local plant where my father was CEO in charge of over 1500 people. Her house was a small row house in a working class neighbourhood, very much like my neighbourhood now. I remember spending the night at her small, but cozy house many times, hanging out with her two daughters who were already old enough to wear make- up, which was very exiting to be part of as an 8 yr.old. My house, like Julienne's, is devoid of fancy furniture, and expensive silver and crystal, or carpets and art. A lot of our furniture was made by my husband Michael, and the art decorating our walls is done by my son and me. I have learned to appreciate work done by one's own hands, be it a garden, a piece of furniture, or art. I taught myself to do small tapestries, in honour of both my parent's family traditions, where my mother came form a family of artists who painted, and my father came from a family where the women were skilled seamstresses. I have done 9 tapestries so far, and really enjoy drawing onto the fabric from a photograph, and then choosing the colour of my own interpretation. The writing grew out of the therapy sessions I had for two years after the tragic deaths of my two younger sisters and the total disintegration of my parents' marriage and their subsequent deaths on opposite sides of the globe in 2008. I grew up in luxury and now live modestly, but the lessons I have learned about integrity and commitment and true love and devotion were worth all the loss financially and socially. I am a different person, and  I am very grateful for that. My friend Brenda reminds me of Julienne in many ways. She is 5 years younger than me, but has always felt like my big sister, a big sister watching out for me. We met in 1998, when both our sons were in  Kindergarten together and became friends. She is so real, so warm and caring, and feels like family after all these years. She is always there for us, and has rescued us many times when we got stranded somewhere in the past when one of our used cars would break down. When Nicholas and I were in a collision last week, she was the person I called to come pick us up and she dropped everything and was there 10 minutes later. I love her big heart, that is always there to listen, to encourage and laugh. Like Julienne, she is a friend for all seasons, always optimistic, always a ready smile and an encouraging word. Springcleaning could be a bore, but with the memory of Julienne then and Brenda now, adding a bit of sparkle is actually fun.

At the theatre

A recent car collision that left my son and I shaken and bruised but basically unharmed, combined with our 14 year old fridge dying the day after the accident and an Emergency Room visit also the next day because my heart was stressed to the max and came about as close to a heart attack as I care to ever experience, made me think of how illusory our defenses are. We like to think we have our ducks in a row, that we have a firm grip on our reality and circumstances. The fact of the matter is that things can go chaotic in just a matter of minutes. The whole thing made me think of theatre. When we watch a play, we get drawn into the circumstances of the characters and the narrative, and as the play evolves before our eyes, we get a feel that we are a part of what is happening , that all this feels very real. Our emotional involvement confirms that. We laugh, get scared, worry, and sometimes even cry at the challenges the characters on the stage have to deal with. We forget about the lights, the orchestra below the stage, the costumes and make up, the fact that every word spoken by the characters come from well written and well rehearsed lines of a script. We are not even shaken by the intermission, and the curtain coming down for that. We go out into the lobby, hurry to the bathroom, quickly sip a free drink, chat a bit with our companions, and then anxiously find our seats back to wait with bated breath for the second part of the performance. As I was looking around my house this morning, I found myself in a bit of a theatre ambiance mood. The kind of mood that must exist before the play is ready to be performed, and bits of costume and make -up and script are cluttered evidence of things not being ready. Cacophonic sounds of orchestra rehearsal notes mixing in with actors pacing up and down, light and sound engineers getting in the way of the play's director, cleaning crews getting the auditorium ready. I felt like my life was just a rehearsal and I could not ever quite get things coordinated enough to pull off a smooth play of whatever part of my life was being performed by me and my husband and son at that particular moment in the theatre of life. Some people come across so organized, everything seems to just come together beautifully, so you can just enjoy the show of their life on display and go, bravo, that was really nice, and then, they just seem to go smoothly again into the next play, without any evidence of rehearsal and its accompanying challenges, frustration and chaos. I thought of royalty, of actors and how they seem on the surface of things to always be prepared, poised, in control. Of course, every tabloid out there will tell you that just isn't so. But I still get a sneaky feeling that for the more ordinary folk like myself, getting our act to look smooth is just quite difficult. I cannot even convince myself most days, let alone anyone else, I am sure of that. The whole thing seemed at the same time humorous and sad. I will continue to try to look like I got my part down just so in this play of life, and maybe , just maybe, one of these days I will get it all right, and someone will say, damn, you played your part really well. In the meantime, I will try very hard not to trip too much as the cluttered suitcases I brought to this play of life seem to scatter all over my best intentions and deeds. 

The Ties That Bind

The house felt so cozy and warm today, all the simple things of our house, from the frilly lace kitchen window curtains to the abundance of books and stuffed animals, the gentle country feel of our garden, the snoozing cat and dog. All the colors seemed brighter today, and I thought of our son and his words of insight and wisdom to my husband and I last night. I was trying to remember everything he said, as tears were streaming down his face. My son and I were in a three car collision two days ago. We hit a car that was trying to pass to the right of the car in front of him, a car that had come to a full stop to let two young pedestrians cross at the pedestrian walk. This made it look to us that traffic was moving,so we hit him. Everything went into slow motion and then seemed to speed up just at the last second before impact. We were all right, but as it turned out, my son hit his head going forward at impact and the seat belt bruised my chest internally enough to make my heart think it was having a heart attack. I did not realize any of this until the police were gone, the insurance agent called, witnesses gave their statement to the police and the tow truck towed away our badly damaged car. My son was so calm and focused at 22, so protective of me. He did most of the talking to the very patient and kind police officer and he made all the phone calls to the insurance agent, he talked to the tow truck driver. I called my good friend of 17 years, Brenda, and she came and took my son and I and our dog home.
As we were waiting for her, I noticed my son had a cut on his forehead, that my hands were shaking and that my chest was hurting. I got really nauseous, feeling like I would get sick, but I manged to suppress it. The next day, trying to relax I only started to feel more tense and suddenly my heart felt like it was being compressed to about an inch with intense pain and I got very nauseous this time. I finally convinced my husband to take me to the emergency room, as our doctor who we had seen earlier in the day felt we seemed to be OK up until that point had already left his office for the weekend. So my husband and I left the house super irritable and snappy with each other. As emergency rooms go, we left around 5 p.m. and were home at 11: 30, exhausted but relieved that the EKG and chest x -rays and blood work checking for enzyme counts all turned out normal. The doctor gave me a Cyclobenzaprine tablet for the muscle spasm around my heart, and a Lidocaine and Milk of Magnesia cocktail for the persistent nausea. We got home relieved ,but drained and somehow we picked up the  argument where we had left it before we went to the emergency room. My son suddenly had had enough. He started talking about how tired he was of us getting into dumb arguments that were circular and always seemed to draw him in, making him feel like he had to choose sides. He said it was selfish and unfair of us, and wanted from now on to be treated like an adult, thus with respect due an adult of the family. He reminded us we loved each other, made us hold hands and look at each other and tell each other we forgave each other the accusatory childish and repetitive arguments we used to deal with stress, asking not to be interrupted, as it was our turn to listen to him now. I was so proud of him, so impressed with his wise  words and keen psychological insights into the dysfunctional pattern we would fall into when trying to resolve differences. He stayed on course not pointing out what frustrated him about us individually, but as a couple, that would take to behave like our own parents' and their terrible marriages. He said we were better than that, that he did not want to be put in the middle of these pointless arguments that could be settled by talking to each other like adults. It was humbling to realize the young man in front of us was our son, and that he had at least  as good insights as we did, and he had the words to express them. I felt sad that we had let him down in this area, and I was encouraged at the same time, because I was listening to profound insights into my husband and my 29 year old marriage. I told him I thought he was right, and that I would try harder to communicate with my husband and my husband said he would, too. I  was so glad to see that brave side of my son articulated so well after the last two stressful days. Our son made us think of how we had to be careful no to repeat the mistakes our parents made, had to learn to communicate effectively and healthily, without resorting to manipulative tactics pulling him to one of us, pulling him in to making him feel he had  to choose a side. That is not fair he concluded. We quietly drank our tea and went to bed. The next day I woke to feel totally relaxed, content. We may come from dysfunctional families, but as our son pointed out, it was time to move forward and shake off the poison of our upbringing. He was so articulate, so precise. The warm feeling I had wrapped itself around me like a soft blanket, the feeling of gratitude, of belonging, of realizing the importance of counting our many blessings, of truly recognizing that what we had in each other as a family was a gift not to be taken lightly, a gift as our son pointed out so many people have to do without, or only get to experience in part or not at all, due to abuse, poverty, addiction, illness, war. My home with my son and husband never felt more precious than today, because our son had pointed out what really matters is to respect the love that holds us together, to respect the ties that bind, with courage, compassion and a kindness that does not allow itself to be seduced by pride and ego. We had been the irresponsible child, and our son had reminded us what being a true adult is all about. It was an impressive lesson, one he taught us with fierce yet kind determination. I feel it sticking to my heart like gorilla glue. From here on out the path goes forward, not sideways or backwards. My husband and I felt like two old fools, which we definitely were. I am hoping that we are now well on our way to be a pair of humble souls in training, heeding our son's wise scolding as a lucky break.                                                                                             

Gravity 's Cloak

I have a fondness for science - fiction and in that vein I was impressed by the movie "Interstellar". The 2014 movie by director Christopher Nolan deals with a crew of astronauts traveling through a wormhole to find a habitable planet for humanity since crop blight is making the survival of the planet no longer a possibility. The movie deals very successfully with the difficult concepts of gravity being able to manipulate time and being able to be used to communicate when one of the lead astronauts, played very convincingly by Matthew McConaughey, travels through a wormhole that allows him to communicate with his daughter in the past via the construct of a tesseract. The movie keeps your attention  through the elaborate story and the implementation of mind boggling quantum physics, and is both magical and completely compelling. I find the movie sticks with me like a very good and rich meal and I find myself wondering how amazing it would be if we were able and allowed to use this malleability in our own lives that gravity seems to be capable of, at least in theory. The idea that we could manipulate time is hypnotic, to say the least. Would it allow us to accept the past better, or understand it better, if through some rift we could briefly revisit it and have a better understanding of what happened there to us and the ones we love ? The idea of moving into the future seems acceptable as possible, but returning to the past seems a permanently unsolvable riddle. Perhaps the closest we could come to revisiting the past are parallel universes, where we could live out alternatives to our current existence. Maybe in that version of gravity manipulation, I would go pursue that dream of becoming an art teacher or world traveling journalist, and maybe I would grow up in a family with parents that loved each other. Maybe in that parallel universe my sisters would not die so young and my father would be strong enough to stand up to his spoiled, destructive wife and she would be a woman that was not out to destroy her family. But, maybe in another version of the possibilities of parallel universes, things would have turned out even more difficult and I would not have the love and warmth of my husband and son, and not have learned the lessons life brought me, and maybe I would not have found the peace and strength I have now, and the chance to heal through writing my poems and my experiences. Still, there are times when it feels like the possibilities of several parallel universes come at  me all at once, making things muddled and frustrating. But I am convinced now that no matter what the possibilities in the time that is real and concrete for this life, making the best of what is in front of me is definitely adventurous and challenging enough. Gravity may have its cloak, but I feel I still have a few tricks up my sleeve in this dimension.  

Spark

Brush strokes soft and free, full of light and colour
surround me, a happy figure on the canvas of this day,
I hum a cheery tune and breathe in the scented, powdery
air around my eyes and smile.

The cool, clear morning air sticks like honey to the sun,
 the blue expanse and clouds of white and grey,
like yarn are playfully tossed about by a teasing, giddy wind.

I wear you like honeysuckle perfume and sandalwood incense
as I delight at the spark your touch so far away brings to my soul,
as a new message lets me know digitally that you are still there.

I see the spark traverse the globe to land like a neon butterfly
in the backyard of my stories and poems tilled by your kind respect
as I carefully trim the path that some day might briefly carry your step.

The spark a tiny seed I already planted in my heart, surges through
the parts that need some extra warmth, reminding me of Aesop's words:
" No act of kindness, however small, is ever lost".

The quiet, heartfelt touch of your friendship, however far away,
leaving gentle prints alongside mine on this path I now get to pursue
of writing my stories and my poems, a dream held inside for so very long.


Trudi Ralston.
April 22nd, 2015.
Pour un ami, un frere, un guide et un ange guardien,
pour D.O. 

Je me sens mieux

Le matin es plein d'energie comme le feu dans mon ame.
J'ecoute de la musique de ta region du monde,
et tu parais pres de moi, un passager dans ma voiture.

Je me sens comme une enfant heureuse avec ta presence
c'est fou comme cela n'a pas d'importance que tu es si loin,
a l'autre bout du monde.

C'est peut-etre pour cette raison qu'etant enfant on peut
etre si content, vivant dans le monde de l'imagination,
peu cela me trouble que tu es mon ami imaginair.

Je me sens mieux quand tu es la,et qu'on se parle
meme si cela doit etre dans mes souvenirs d'il ya longtemps,
meme si tu ne sais pas repondre, puisque tu n'es pas la.

Je me sens mieux quand j'y pense, les matins tranquils
dans ma voiture, en chemin de la vie, ma vie qui cherche
toujours un autre voyage, un autre horizon.

Je te visite dans ma tete, et je souris a la folie
de te penser pres d'ici, ou pres de moi.
C'est sur que je me sens mieux quand je m'imagine
une visite charmante, entre tes voyages nombreuses,
de toi, ami du passe tetu et si lointain.


Trudi Ralston.
April 21st, 2015.
Pour D.O.