"Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant." ~ Victor Hugo

I just don't know if I can depend on my memory sometimes.

If this seems to be becoming a recurrent theme, it is because I am experiencing a love affair with the past and all it has given me, but there are moments of crystal recall when no one else other than I am able to verify the memory. Both of my parents have passed, so I can't ask them, "Did this really happen?" Many of my contemporaries have failing memories, too, or didn't attach the importance to a person, place or object that I seem to have. As time passes, I find myself questioning whether my brain has simply implanted situations and images from dreams, books I've read or other people's stories in its convoluted recesses.

At this point there is nothing grave about any of that. I have what most people think is a phenomenal memory, and I am grateful that it has serve me so well for fifty-nine years. I know phone numbers from years ago, even if I haven't dialed them recently. I don't forget birthdays or anniversaries, passwords or codes. I can use King Philip Came Over For Good Soup to remember Linnaean taxonomy and the other tried and true mnemonics for planetary order in the solar system and colours of the spectrum. If you were one of the more than six thousand students I encountered over my thirty-two years of teaching high school, chances are if you give me your last name, I can retrieve your first from the depths.

I am six years old and holding a smooth wooden box with a tiny key on the bottom which when I wind it, sets a brass cylinder in motion. I can see the intricate works through the glass in the box. Tiny teeth on the cylinder pluck teeth on a single metal comb and produce tinkling sounds - a lively waltz. I can read the words on the paper label on the inside of the music box lid –– "Faust Waltz", Gounod. It is only years later when as a teen I am consumed with all things dark that I actually read Faust and understand his relinquishing of his soul to Mephistopheles for "unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures" that I realize what a strange choice this bit of melody is for a child's music box.

And I know I stood transfixed on the stairs ascending to the second floor of the house where we now live when it was owned by the Healys, examining prints in miniature of 17th century princes and princesses, portraits by Diego Velasquez and his peers, of little children garbed as royal adults in velvets and satin brocades.

I was fascinated by these tiny replicas of queens and kings; babies in rich robes, the Infanta Margarita Teresa, daughter of Philip of Spain. I can see the pewter-coloured frames and the diagonal arrangement Mrs. Healy has made of them as the stairway turns and rises. 













This week, I asked Liz if she remembered what prints were on the stairway. "The Bartletts," she replied. Mind you, she is three years my junior, and may not remember the Velasquezes but it is the miniatures that are indelibly printed in my mind. Yes, the Bartletts came later, pastoral scenes from 1840's Europe and North America. Yes, indeed. I can picture them now that she has provided the information.
































Perhaps memory is not so very fickle as I fear, but rather simply selective. Why don't I just relax, then and let it serve . . .?

Time was all we had . . .

Summer nights are like indelible ink - black, deep blue, forever. I feel carried away by the deepening darkness to other times in my life, always achingly summer.  I can transport myself to places and times long past simply by opening my spirit to the night air, sky and shadows.

In the liquid evening, there are sounds of mothers calling children in from days of hard play, laughter and popsicles. Screen doors slam and it is 1959. My baby brother is four months old, Mark is four, I am going to be six in three weeks. We are plunked into the tub to soak away the sand and grit of beach or sandbox, dried off  and dressed in lightweight seersucker pyjamas and nightgown respectively. One red lifesaver each, a drink; I will my eyes to stay open until it's first star wish time. Rarely do they cooperate.

Lights of all colours, strung from tree to tree come on down the street and laughter rings out from the patio. It is 1965, my twelfth birthday, and all the kids from the block are at the Healy's house. We are all ages, from Robert's age of eighteen down, and there is a record player and 45s for us to dance to. I swear sometimes that Kim Mitchell's song was written about that night - the nervous boys and girls, lemonade or punch to drink, but it's the Righteous Brothers and Billy Joe Royal I remember more than Bobby Vinton's "Blue On Blue". Am I really dancing with a boy to "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"? The night is so warm, my cotton sleeveless dress is damp from fast dances and I'm so self-conscious as Kenny pulls me a little closer and sings along. It's over before I can believe it, and he's off to ask someone else to dance, and I am more relieved than anything.


Tires give a little squeal on the loose gravel before gripping the scorching pavement. That sound lands me in 1970, the year before my grad year from high school. My mother is pregnant at age 38, and I in my teenage mind think she has done this deliberately so I'll have to babysit forever. But sweet freedom is mine for all the summer nights because I have the car and can cruise with friends, or alone which I sometimes prefer. The moon follows all of our roads, windows rolled all the way down, radio turned all the way up. We are all in the same garb, long, center-parted hair, blue jean bell bottoms, t-shirts and water buffalo leather sandals. Seventeen means there's beer at parties and everyone gets high. Almost.

After a brilliant aquapeachgoldpink sunset at the bay shore, the stars come out one by one until the velvet dark sky is studded with a bazillion diamonds. Is it 1988 already? I'm peaceful in my heart, and my five-year old snuggles against me on a blanket beside our car. We are trying to see the shapes of the constellations and this wondrous little person knows many names from books that we have read and charts that we have looked at. "Cassiopoeia, Mommy! And Orion's Belt." We are a pair now, just the two of us, and we're going to be just fine.

A fish jumps just to the right of the dock on a sultry, navy-blue night, and a gentle voice whispers words of love and intimacy beside my ear. In one another's embrace, wrapped in a thick down comforter against the chill of late August's rehearsal for autumn, we kiss, look into each other's eyes and make promises that neither of us is certain we can keep. Our intentions are pure, our passion unquestionable, and I feel safer than I recall feeling, ever, before or since. 

Summer nights feel like all these times rolled together into one beating, grateful heart. My heart.

I think this just might work . . .

I have to write things down. 

My very full, distractible (see last post) brain just cannot hold all the things I want to write about for longer than a goldfish's, and some of my best ideas come and go like the scarce rains of this summer. When did I get out of the habit of having a notebook with me everywhere I go? Or a least scraps of paper to jot down a snippet of overheard conversation or a scene that is story fodder?

Maybe I have become over-confident in my memory's ability to snag and hold ideas. I know sometimes when I am researching something on the web, I open a new tab to find a related post and forget almost at once what it was I came for, sort of like walking into a room in my house with great purpose until I stop and say, "Wait. What am I here for?" It's frustrating, but in conversations with others I find that I am far from the only one. 


It's useless for me to try to retrieve the neural signal by concentrating harder. The more I struggle, the more elusive the idea gets. I retrace. It was a quote I read that got me pondering the complexities of . . . what? Arrghhhh. I tell myself to relax, clear my mind and it will come back. Sometimes in the fullness of time, it does. Sometimes, nada.


Deep breath. OK. I am going to strategically place notebooks and pens wherever I spend time -- in my handbag, in the car, by my bed, in the kitchen and maybe even the bathroom. (I do some fine thinking in there by times.) When the thought or inspiration comes, it will have no chance of escaping into the fargone-osphere anymore! (credit to my former husband for that word; it's where every lost thing ever goes.)


Wish me luck.

I got busy . . . living.

I get distracted.


If you know me, you get that. If you married me, you knew that coming in. If I gave birth to you, you really know that.


Could I call it Attention Deficit Disorder? In the best sense of the terminology flung about so readily these days, I suppose so. Having worked thirty plus years in the field of education, I know that the diagnosis rarely means the inability to pay attention, but the tendency to pay attention to everything, all the time. I think of it more as being pulled, drawn in . . . every sensory input requires acknowledgement and so I hear all the conversations within earshot, I see the tiniest movement of that branch . . . WAIT! Do I smell cinnamon? The fabric of that cushion on the display sofa is just begging me to caress it with my fingers, nay . . . both hands.


Sometimes the world is just much too interesting to get all my focus on the very thing or person that I am supposed to or wish to be attending to. This blog for example. So, I have about four other tasks, all pleasant ones, on hold while I write this entry, and I am laughing at my confession to you thinking that you do this too, in some regard. 


It's not pure procrastination nor lack of my muse visiting. Oh she visits, all right! When I want to sleep, drive, grocery shop, garden, have tea with a friend, she visits, unbidden and I write and write. But rarely on my blog, to my chagrin and to that of a few of my dear followers who I fear must have long forgotten and/or abandoned me. And who would blame them . . .? 


Living in the moment with mindfulness and gratitude almost requires one to be sensorily driven. How could I forego the minutes scratching my dogs' silken ears for anything else? I have the liberty to do nothing besides listen to Andrea Bocelli's voice for a whole hour if I so choose. Why would I multitask and do several things badly when I can just stop and look? Look and see the indescribable deep coral rose colour of the poppies in the vase on the coffee table?


Distractions as some would call them are everywhere --  the internet, Facebook and Pinterest, phone calls and people in store lineups,  photo opportunities in a ditch or orchard. Other people's babies in strollers, elderly faces with the wisdom of the ages on bodies bent by work and time; books, shops and photographs. I look at all the lighted windows down any road at night when we drive past, and wonder about the lives being lived in those houses. I don't want to miss any of it.


When I am brought back sharply at times from one of these moments, I'm often caught off guard by what else is happening, what someone has just asked me, or the cover rattling on a boiling pot that I've momentarily overlooked. How can all of this be happening at the same time? I want to concentrate on the smell of this fresh cut lemon. I want to feel and hear and taste it all. I want to will my eyes to take it all in, the beauty and the ugliness. To commit it to memory and savour it.

It sometimes feels like a marathon . . .

We as human beings carry out some very strange rituals in the name of preserving tradition, even though these practices may leave us spent, tired and craving some alone time after they have passed for another year. How I love Christmas and the lead up to the days of family gatherings, friends, food and laughter as we catch up with one another in person from our various homes, nearby and provinces away! I revel in making our home a welcoming place by cleaning, re-arranging and decorating its rooms for the yuletide times so that Jules comes home from work each night in December wondering what else I have strewn with lights, boughs and baubles. She smilingly approves and tells me how nice it looks, and I know she is sincere, for it is not this part of the celebrations that either of us find taxing.


Where things get tricky is the part where we are invited out or we invite others in. Is it my age or am I just becoming less inclined to socialize? The cast of characters remains pretty stable - old friends, neighbours, siblings, cousins and children. Jules is not a big fan of crowds and noise. She loves these people but in small doses, and if there's something about Christmas that is troublesome to her, it would be large, loud gatherings with voices raised above music, hockey games, and calling from one room (or storey, for that matter) to another to round up the crew to get going. This is why either one of us gets a "by" if we need it on occasion. We have an agreement that she or I can be excused from play if we have simply had our fill. How I love the way this works! Now and then, we both send our regrets because we are double-booked, or just want to stay home, on our own in our comfortable nest that time.


We are such creatures of habit within our own domain, all of us. For the first time this year, our home was occupied not just by us, but for a couple of days and nights by our son, his partner and three awesome young people. The other 357 (give or take!) days of the year, we are free to walk around in our pjs and not lock the bathroom door. Now there are seven people wanting the shower . . . Add to it Christmas gifts for four more people, two adorable and well-behaved Golden Retrievers, meals, snacks and drinks at all hours, and there is disruption however brief. We not only survived, but had a wonderful time together!

Some miraculous transformation has come over me in the past few years around this time of holiday joy. Where I once would have stressed and fretted about every tiny detail, I am now much more sanguine and relaxed. Not very single dog hair needs to be removed from every surface. Dogs live here. There are three varieties of cookies, not eight. Adjust. The tree has blue and silver and hot pink shatterproof ornaments and a kitten sleeping in it. Yaaaaay!


I loved the hive of activity at our home from the 23rd to 25th with the arrival of our little family from The Passage. My heart was so full when after dinner on the night they came, all of us were tucked into our beds for the night, under this roof where my own parents made so many wonderful Christmas memories for us. Christmas Eve was so nice with friends and family at our open house for gentle snowfall and the brass band and carolers. We broke tradition and opened our presents after the guests had left, leaving stockings for morning and then brunch before they had to leave for home and other celebrations.

Blended families have some extra pressure to share time with the former spouses and other families and we're not alone in this, as that same scenario plays out in our siblings' homes as well. Somehow we manage all the roadtrips and dinners and get the precious hours together with those we love. Christmas dinner and gifts in Upper Granville, Boxing Day at brother Number One's, the following night at Susie P's, New Year's Day at TNTZ's. Hugs and kisses. Peals of laughter. Go, go, go.

Give me the noise, confusion and people time every year - full on. We are very blessed. Sometimes the holidays are like a marathon, but it is so worth it!