Note to Self - Sept 27 2021

 

Note to Self

Sept 27 2021

I write my grocery lists

on the backs of scraps of paper.

I love lists,

the sense of order

the feeling of control.

Which is mostly illusion, I know

but I still can't resist.

Composed of things

like notes to self

cryptic addresses

and quickly penned messages

while talking on the phone.

As well as rough drafts of poetry,

scrawled in black ink

on blank paper

in my barely legible hand.

The usual palimpsest

with arrows snaking here and there,

rejected words

crossed-out hard.

So when when it was unwittingly dropped

  —  desperately patting my pockets

and pawing through the bins  —

I felt a rush of embarrassment.

For the eccentric assortment of foods

the usual shopper

would never stop for.

For how specific I get,

picky as a toddler.

And for the snippets of poetry

that would hardly make sense

to anyone else,

might seem precious

or mark me as odd.

Who knew

that an instrumental list

as disposable as anything

could make me flush red hot.

As if kale and garbanzos

were really so exotic.

As if poetry

has something wrong with it.

As if I should be feeling so self-conscious

that I'd written a note to myself

about love

and loss

and longing.

As if such thoughts

were my own private torment

and mine alone.

Eventually, I found it

beneath the beetroot bottles

in the bottom of the cart.

And raised it like a trophy, relieved,

gratefully unfolding

the tattered scrap of paper

and pressing it flat.

That my list was in hand

order restored.

That nothing would be missed.

But most of all

that I remained unexposed;

my notes to self

and whatever inner life they revealed

were still mine

and mine alone.

They don't anymore. Contain poetry, that is. I used to write exclusively in long hand, but recently I've taken to writing directly on the computer. But an inveterate list maker, I definitely am. I'm forgetful. And I do need that feeling of control . . .however illusory actual control is in life.

I think we often forget how similar we all are: that we aren't as alone as we imagine in what we find embarrassing about our private thoughts and inner lives.

And we don't recognize that the spotlight effect – the feeling that you're under a strong white light, and all your actions are being scrutinized by those around you – is a pretty universal delusion. When, in fact, the vast majority of people are too involved with themselves to bother even noticing you.

I have to admit, though, that when I find a discarded grocery list, I do read it. And yes, judge. Just as I can't help judging the food choices of the people lined up at the check-out with me.

Derailed - Sept 26 2021

 

Derailed

Sept 26 2021

To feel lonely when you're alone

is human nature.

But how oppressive it must be

to feel that way

trapped in a marriage.

She said that even during the wedding

she knew she'd made a mistake,

but the runaway train

of hope and denial

and social expectation

was too fast to stop,

careering down the tracks

heading for a curve

only she could see.

As for me, I'm used to being alone.

Despite my strength, too fearful

to surrender

take the leap of faith

soften the edges of personal space,

complacent

with the reassuring speed of inertia.

Of course, she soon escaped

from the forced intimacy

of an unfortunate match.

From performing normalcy.

From a man

who could never understand her.

From the loneliness

of being so close

and yet so far.

As for us

our paths briefly intersected

then were redirected down diverging tracks,

no need

for formal invitations

halfhearted vows.

And for all I know

she is older now

and happy by herself.

But it was fun, while it lasted

pausing as we passed,

at a level crossing

at headlong speed

before we the wheels started slipping

and we drifted apart.

My first serious girlfriend as a young adult confessed this to me. I had always idealized marriage. And I couldn't imagine acting in such a self-sabotaging way. But since then, I have learned the power of denial, false hope, and societal expectations. And, I admit, felt a little miffed at the time: that she had this complicated past life I had no idea about. What other secrets could there be?

I should mention that the inspiration for this poem came from a new HBO series called Scenes From a Marriage. I haven't watched (yet), but my understanding is that it's about just this: the particular and exquisite loneliness you can feel in a bad marriage. And if that's not what it's about, it doesn't matter. The poem stands on its own.

I wonder if couples sometimes become so preoccupied with the wedding that they neglect the marriage. The ceremony is a singular rite of passage. But it's just one day, and a life together is not only a lot more complicated, it needs to be worked on every day that follows.

What Endures - Sept 24 2021

What Endures

Sept 24 2021

A rogue wave out at sea.

Killer frost in late spring.

That freak blizzard in early fall

when summer was still in the air.

When the old tree was in full leaf,

and left the lawn littered

with broken branches and shattered limbs;

wet gloppy snow

too much weight

for it to bear.

Which is the nature of weather

and helps keep life interesting.

But didn't kill the tree,

its deep network of roots untouched

lifeblood intact.

So next season

its remaining branches would cast shade

provide habitat

and drop a mess of bruised apples

that will brown and rot,

attracting nuisance bears

who will lumber in, as usual

stoking up their winter fat.

We've come to expect sudden change,

mercurial weather

unpredictable storms.

And so are grateful for the things that persist,

crab-apple jelly

apple butter

apple sauce.

And the whole house

redolent of apple pie

that turned out a little sour,

cooling on the counter

in a golden fall.

Once again, the “First Person” essay in the Globe inspired a poem. I give full credit to the author not only for the image of the snow laden tree and its recovery, but her pleasing litany of crab-apple jelly / apple butter / apple sauce.

FIRST PERSON Michelle Christopher’s passion for making jam has seen her through personal grief and a global pandemic

• The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)

• 24 Sep 2021

• Michelle Christopher writes Michelle Christopher lives in Calgary.

ILLUSTRATION BY APRIL DELA NOCHE MILNE

When I hear those lids ‘popping’ on the cooling jars, I know I’ll feel as accomplished as I did on the first try.

Almost no one I know makes jam, but it keeps my friends happy, anticipating, so I keep making it. And I give it all, or nearly all, away.

or the first time since before the pandemic, I meet a friend for brunch. I furtively text “en route,” knowing I would be late again. It’s a running joke. My friends are used to meeting me at “ish” time – 12ish, 7ish, whatever. They are very patient with my pathological tardiness, but to be fair, I always reward them with jam.

This time, it’s strawberry-rhubarb and blackberry-gin. “My mom’s rhubarb,” I tell him.

“Oh, your mom’s.” My friend emphasizes the last word. He hugs me again.

I can’t remember the first time I made jam, but it was at least 30 years ago.

That long-ago spring, with two small kids in tow, as my husband and I unpacked and set up in our new house, the tree in front bloomed overnight. Later on, we were delighted to find the blankets of flowers had turned into crab apples. A gift! Waste not, want not, my mother had always told me.

That fall, I stood in the overgrown grass and plucked off the apples, which by then had turned a gorgeous crimson, kissed by the late September sun. There were a lot of apples. For the first time, I borrowed my grandmother’s blue-speckled canner and splurged on a flat of jars. I started with crab-apple jelly. Then apple butter. Then apple sauce. I felt oddly accomplished when I heard the little “pop” of the canning lids settling into the cooling jars. Good, I thought. This will last the winter.

For years, I repeated this back-to-school ritual. As the kids settled into lessons and music and dance and sports, I picked crab apples, and I made a lot of jelly. And apple butter. And apple sauce. I gave it all, or nearly all, away.

Later on, I added other jellies and jams to my repertoire. Some years, I did up pickles and beets. At Christmas time, antipasto. But the favourite is always crab-apple jelly, which I have perfected to a crystalline, stained-glass ruby red. Not cloudy. Not runny. Perfectly wobbly. Just like grandma used to make, my friends tell me.

It’s a quirky, old-time hobby. Almost no one I know makes jam, but it keeps my friends happy, anticipating, so I keep making it. And I give it all, or nearly all, away.

After my mother died, it finally occurred to me that all that jam and jelly making was important to me, too.

Her death was sudden. A blood clot, then she’s gone. It was the first of September. The summer had been hot, but not too hot. The crab apples were still green, fat from the late August rains. On the day of the funeral, it was unusually cold and then it began to snow. A freak snowstorm descended: full-on, blowing, whiteout snow. Heavy and wet, the crab-apple tree was still fully leafed-out and laden with fruit. The branches snapped and broke with the weight of the snow. It was as if the rage and sorrow I felt turned into weather. It was awful. The tree was broken, and so was I. And so I hibernated. I grieved. I did not make jelly. I did not make jam.

When the pandemic hit, I grieved anew. It felt like another death. Life as we know it is suddenly snatched away. Kids, far away, can’t come home. Work turns virtual and we are cut off from our colleagues. We can’t see our friends. Even grocery stores are daunting.

With reports of an impending lock-down, I drove to my mother’s small Prairie hometown. I visited her grave and stopped at a nearby marker dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the influenza pandemic between 1916 and 1926. Ten years, a pandemic! Ten years! I can’t bear the thought. I think of my grandmother, who lost two babies in one year back then. And yet, she lived. More children arrived, including my mother. Life went on. Life goes on. And so, defiant, I resume making jam.

Citrus fruits, the first gift of winter, provide lemon curd, then, marmalade. A stroke of luck brings Seville oranges to my local market. For many years, I could not find them. Somehow 2020 brings me Seville oranges, not from Spain, but California. They will have to do. I look, but cannot find my mother’s recipe for Seville orange marmalade. The internet recipe will have to do. I make the marmalade. It is spectacular.

Next is strawberry jam, then raspberry, then rhubarb, with or without the strawberry. The vibrant scarlet hues of these fruits evoke a never-forgotten trip to Paris in springtime, where the menu of our Left Bank bistro was entirely devoted to les fruits rouges. Incroyable!

Blackberries begin to feature prominently in late spring and early summer. In the first pandemic midsummer, I decide we all deserve boozy jam, so I experiment, pairing fruit with gin, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, even rum. For the big kids only. This year’s blackberry-gin is sensational; nuanced, complex. A big kids’ treat. No one says no to these jars.

July is cherry month, also the month when my daughter was born. I smile, remembering how I stood sideways next to the cherry bins in the supermarket, far too pregnant to reach the cherries any other way. It’s her favourite, not surprisingly.

July and August bring the stone fruits: pear, peach, apricot, plum. The recipe for peach-pear jam was handed down to me, along with one for rose-petal jelly, from a beloved friend’s mom, no longer with us.

“Use fragrant roses” I read, trying to decipher the spidery handwritten notes. “Remember to leave ½ cup chopped petals for the tops of the jars” texts my friend.

When we talk about where to find the most fragrant roses, we pause. I know my friend misses her mom more than she can say. I do, too.

This year, I make the rose-petal jelly myself for the first time. It’s not as good as Vera’s. How could it be? My mom, always approving, would have loved it anyway. I make a second batch with roses from my son-in-law’s childhood garden down the road, hoping it will cheer us up, distract us all from missing the now-adult kids too much.

Meanwhile, as the pandemic wanes, the crab apples grow and ripen on the tree outside the front window. The house, aging, like us, needs a renovation. Perhaps we do too, but this September, we will start the jam cycle again. When the crab apples are ripe and beautifully red, I will again stand in the overgrown grass and pluck off the apples.

And when I hear the lids “popping” on the cooling jars, I will feel as accomplished as I did on the first try. Then, I’ll give it all, or nearly all, away. Life goes on.

First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers

Accumulation - Sept 22 2021`

 

Accumulation

Sept 22 2021

I'm told that even plastic doesn't last.

That it keeps on gassing off,

bleeding into the air

like a prairie pond in drought.

Even after

the carpet stops fuming

that new car smell is gone.

It must have been the sun

that turned the old blinds brittle

and apparently thinner,

imperceptibly yellowing

day after day

in its powerful light.

All the plastic in our lives

starting to die

the moment it's created.

Nothing lasts, it seems,

even indestructible plastic.

Even though they say it persists

as if immortal,

in vast Pacific gyres

and every of handful of soil.

Even though it will circle

long after our own brief lives

and of our distant descendants

will also have vaporized

and decomposed.

Yet I save.

Photos, poems

sentimental objects,

even threadbare clothes

I can't bear to part with.

All of it transient.

Except for gold, that is

which will outlast us all,

made in the heart of exploding stars

in a final act

of creative destruction.

But what else can one do?

Time for us moves slowly,

and for most of of it

we, too, are immortal.

A comforting delusion

we only see through when we're old.

Sp perhaps less is more.

Only as much

as you can carry on your back

keep track of on your fingers.

Good enough

that it accompanies us

on our short but wondrous journey.

Another poem on mortality, but with what I hope is a different and less morbid twist. It began where it begins, cutting down the header on an old blind to make it squeeze into a new spot: what presumably began as supple translucent plastic had turned into this brittle yellow stuff that instead of cutting smoothly, tended to shatter into pointy little shards. I couldn't help but think: “this is the stuff they say will last forever?”

The final stanza is true in two senses. First, less almost always is more. Especially in the context of a culture of consumption where we are all accumulating more and more useless junk. And second, this truth is so clearly manifest with age, when we realize that we can't take it with us; that little of it provides meaning or lasting pleasure; and that it has become a burden at a time we want to simplify our lives and prioritize what's important.

Illuminated - Sept 18 2021

 

Illuminated

Sept 18 2021

Before the new windows arrive

I've moved tables and chairs

removed all the curtains and blinds.

Early fall

and the low sun comes flooding in,

casting its golden glow

and reaching the eternally dark corners

and whatever secrets they hold.

I've grown accustomed to subdued light

and thought I preferred it that way;

but now, illuminated, the place seems magical,

the colours rich

fabrics alive.

And through the unobstructed windows

clear blue sky,

as if the buffer that divides

outside from in

had lifted,

making the house seem small

but the world bigger.

But still, change is hard,

and the sense of disorder disturbs me.

You get used to things just-so,

and the feeling of a loss of control

leaves me uncertain.

Dust dances in the shafts of sun.

The maple floors have a lustrous shine,

despite the clumps of shed brown hair

I never noticed before.

And the dogs lie by the windows

seeking out the warmest spots,

oblivious to the change in light

out-of-place furniture.

Where, as usual, they promptly fall asleep

as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

The story is only partially true. Yes, without the blinds the place does feel illuminated. And the fall sun is indeed golden. But no curtains; only blinds. And I'm not sure I could live with this. I actually do prefer subdued light, the firm division between inside and out. OK for now; but not permanent.

It isn't fall by the official calendar, but it is by ours. Because by the first week of September, the leaves are already turning, the days noticeably shortening, and the nights cooler. So fall it is.

The dogs, btw, are – very cat-like – lying in the sun. But instead of inside, out on the porch, where – whenever possible – they usually are. But the point remains: the flexible and accepting nature of dogs. And how we lead parallel but non-intersecting lives, where our concerns and preoccupations are utterly immaterial to them.

Rocket Science - Sept 17 2021

 

Rocket Science

Sept 17 2021

It ain't rocket science

we glibly say

as we've done for half a century.

But haven't we moved on

to a different order of complexity?

From blasting-off

expanding gases

and parabolic paths

to more subtle kinds of science?

To inner space, instead of outer.

The permutations

of love, hate

relationship.

The arcane equations

of the human mind,

and the hard problem of consciousness.

Even the meaning of life,

as if something so metaphysical

could be captured

in numbers and graphs.

Yet even physics

isn't hard and fast,

rockets still explode

veer off course

fizzle on the launch pad.

And even Wernher Von Braun

was far more complex

than his moonshot invention,

navigating so deftly

from Nazi to American

in a fraction of time.

Because rocketry is easy

we are not.

So wouldn't it be more accurate to say

it ain't anthropology

psychology

the arcane art of dating?

The human journey

and all its baffling billions

of complex parts.

Held Up - Sept 14 2021

 

Held Up

Sept 16 2021

The memorial bench

in the little parkette

had a small commemorative plaque.

Written in cursive script

and screwed firmly to the back

it's just what you'd expect   —

the year of death

a loving family

a name inscribed in brass.

I was thankful to find it,

in a secluded corner

a shady spot.

From a thoughtful donor

honouring a life lost

with a gesture that will last.

And where, exhausted by a hard run

I stumbled upon it

and gratefully sat,

held up

by memory

and the power of grief

and the human need for meaning.

I do not believe we live on after death.

But the modest offering

of a public park bench

seems a perfect afterlife,

practical

and open to all.

And while I sit lightly

whenever I pass

I feel beholden to this departed philanthropist.

So as a gesture of respect

I recall the words on the plaque

each time I lean back;

sweat staining the wood,

cool brass against my skin,

the sturdy bench

a simple reminder

that the love we give lives on.

I came to the end of this First Person essay in today's Globe, and the mention of a memorial bench recalled for me my own experience. The poem takes some poetic licence with the details, but I think the sentiment of gratitude and respect – which, I acknowledge, is a little on the precious side for me – is very much mine.

The working title was originally Memorial Bench. But I think a key phrase in the poem is held up (which is why it's given a line of its own), and I wanted to highlight this. I also like the slight misdirection: I think a reader's first inclination on reading it – especially given the setting of an isolated corner of a well-treed park – might be to think of a mugging. Language with ambiguous meaning is always appealing to me.

TAKING IT STEP BY STEP

• The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)

• 16 Sep 2021

• Barbara Barash Simmons writes Barbara Barash Simmons lives in Toronto.

ILLUSTRATION BY RACHEL WADA

After my husband died, I tried grief counselling. And while those six sessions couldn’t heal the pain I felt, they brought me close to someone who did.

Widowhood is not a club one would choose to join – the membership fee is too high. I know, I joined four years ago. My husband died right in the middle of a CAT scan. All the medical professionals surrounding him in the imaging department of the teaching hospital couldn’t save him. The doctor said: “Sudden heart attack.” A nurse said: “It was just his time.” The non-denominational clergy person who rushed in to console me said: “He’s in a better place.”

Really? I thought.

My fury was only outwitted by my disbelief. And then denial set in and stayed. Acceptance seemed far away. Continuing grief led me to find a bereavement group of strangers who would be fastened together by our new status. How long could I expect my friends to stay open to my endless stories of 25 years of memories with Will? Friends will never tell you the truth – that they’ve heard enough.

And so, on a dreary day in early April, I sat in my car mentally preparing for the first session, when through my rain-streaked car window, I saw a woman slowly moving through the parking lot as if she were carrying a heavy burden.

She looked like I felt. I just knew she was headed for the same grief-counselling group.

We sat in a circle. Four women, two men. Everyone over 65, everyone had recently lost their spouse. I had some doubts about how the next six weeks would turn out as I studied the individuals in my group – everyone looked stunned and the quiet in the small hot room reflected our states of mind.

I almost stood up to apologize and leave; how could these people help me, or me them, when clearly, we are all in our private hell? I can’t even help myself, let alone someone else needy. But our leader had started with an overview of the sessions to help us “move forward,” and I stayed in my aluminum chair with my coat half on.

“Please introduce yourself, and tell us a bit about why you are here – what you want to get out of this group,” our social worker said.

No one spoke.

So, I heard myself start with my name, and then interspersed with weeping, I told them of my adorable husband, Will, and that these past months have been caught up in some stagnant space since those awful days in the ICU, watching him disappear, first with his voice that I never heard again after he was intubated, and then, how, during a CAT scan on a Tuesday afternoon, his heart gave up, gave out. “I am not sure why I am here,” I said.

“But I am hopeful,” I added. I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the social worker who was trying so hard to make us feel better with her smile when we had no smiles.

And then, when I thought I couldn’t feel worse, the next person who spoke was the woman I saw in the parking lot – and I could tell she was traumatized.

And so, it went. Each story as sad as the one before.

I knew by the third week that the group was not something in which I wanted to stay, but I did. After each meeting, the parking-lot woman and I would linger and talk at the bottom of the stairs, and those chats were more unguarded than the hour and a half just spent in group.

After the six sessions blissfully came to an end, Susan, the parking-lot woman, and I started meeting occasionally for coffee, then casual lunches, and then, one day, one of us suggested we start walking together.

It started with a mile walk once a week.

In the beginning, all we talked about was how our husbands died, in the most brutal of detail.

Our feelings of guilt meshed; we said what we had not shared in group.

During the early walks, our husbands were flawless; we had perfect marriages. Then, bit by bit, we started sharing the now-funny stuff they did that had driven us mad, their foibles – things such as never putting their used coffee cups into the dishwasher, or strewing newspapers on the floor after reading, or hoarding the TV remote and watching a show on fishing.

Eventually, we revealed that we had indeed worked on our marriages, it was not so seamless as we had deluded ourselves after they passed, a blurred memory of what they were actually like as people. Not perfect, not flawless. But, like us, works in progress, until their progress suddenly stopped.

We added a mile, then two to our weekly walks. Over time, we started laughing and talking about topics other than our late husbands and our sadness; we marvelled at our grandkids, and shared family issues that we would not tell anyone else.

The grief-counselling sessions worked in the sense that they made two widowed strangers into friends. Both of us were divorced many years before marrying our late husbands. And with our second chances, both of us know we were lucky having found husbands we adored to the core.

On Mondays, we walk and talk. We walk three miles in rain, snow, sleet or sunshine. We have kept in step throughout the pandemic, distanced and masked. We both have loving families and close friends, but we know that we can speak openly to each other. It takes another widow to really understand. How long could I expect my friends to stay open to my endless stories of 25 years of memories with Will? Friends will never tell you the truth – that they’ve heard enough.

We two widows are not the same women we were four years ago. Before, it was so easy to have someone else make decisions. Now, not only have we both taken on what we had previously left to our husbands – car servicing, home insurance, calling the plumber, investment decisions – we are also comfortable in our new lives. We make our own schedules; we say, “No thank you,” to social offers that do not interest us. We hold the TV remote in our own hands.

One day, we stopped after our walk to sit on the memorial bench I had purchased for Will in a neighbourhood parkette he had loved. Sighing, and looking up at the snow-covered trees surrounding us, I said, “I feel happy again.”

Susan nodded and said, “Me too.” And we smiled at each other as if we had climbed Mount Everest.

Ageing Gracefully - Sept 14 2021

 

Ageing Gracefully

Sept 14 2021

I thought that age would mellow me.

More understanding

of human frailty.

More empathy and tolerance.

More patient

and better able to take the long view,

deferring gratification

resisting the passions of youth.

I thought age would make me wise

comfortable in my skin.

An old man

I would sit back, and look out on the world,

a bemused smile lighting my face,

distilled pearls of wisdom

issuing from my lips.

I'd be a fat judicious Buddha,

arms folded contentedly

across my ample belly.

But I have failed,

and find my cynicism

and misanthropy

are greater than they ever were,

short with my fellow travellers

and aghast at the state of the world.

If only I could detach,

throw up my hands

and say to hell with it;

ignore the lunatics

and greedy kleptocrats,

the self-centred

and power mad,

the degenerate

and unrepentant

who repeatedly get away with it.

I still bear the burden

of caring too much,

yet am cursed by my lack of agency

and the feeling it's to late

for change that makes a difference.

Someone once quipped

old age isn't for sissies

and I cannot disagree.

Life doesn't get easier.

The passion still burns,

but the candle flickers

casting more heat than light;

its fuel depleted,

its fitful shadows

dancing grimly in the dark.

It was Bette Davis who said it, or is reputed to have. An actress from before my time, but whose name and celebrity seem to have persisted. I've also seem her quoted as saying Old age ain't no place for sissies . . . which has a much more pithy ring to it! The quote may be attributed to her, but the sentiments expressed in the poem are very much mine.