Mom and the Man and Plenty of Fish!

At the very end of her life, my mother, had a love affair.  She met him on “Plenty of Fish.”  She was 76, he was 84.  I’ll take credit for being the facilitator of this twilight union because I wrote her profile.  But the rest was all her. 

Mom was pretty and cheeky and a kick-ass girl.  She viewed the world from the left side.  She rallied after divorce from my father in 1970 by attending university to achieve a degree in anthropology.  It wasn’t such a common sight in those days to see a pretty, young single mother of 4 taking fulltime classes and writing exams.  Several years later, from her perch as a career counsellor at the newly minted Malaspina College, she founded the first women’s centre in Nanaimo.   A heady and hopeful project in a time of renewed feminism. 

Mom was an ardent cheerleader for lost souls… men, as well as women…. and she frequently offered emotional and practical shelter to others who needed a pit stop.  This included our friends when we were growing up.  I remember living with my best friend in a canvas tent in our back yard because the bedrooms on the inside were full to busting.  Our home was a melting pot of creative activity and uncommon liaisons.  Growing up in a time of social experimentation, this all felt very exciting.  Upon reflection, however, I think it was also just abit confusing.  Boundaries were vague.  

  

Twenty years later, after she retired from the college and a years or so after her second husband left... suddenly… as too many men do….with merely a note to punctuate his departure….she embraced the residuals of her loss and grief with volunteerism and off-the-beaten-track travel.   Donning her anthropology hat, Mom volunteered for a non-profit organization, Global Village, that sought to find western markets for third world crafters.  She also volunteered for CESO… Canadian Executive Services Organization. The two jobs, together, were a good pairing. They provided her with free travel to countries and places other people had barely heard of as well as opportunities to seek out crafters in need of a market. 

Her first trip for CESO was to Sierra Leone.  Thankfully, before civil war ravaged the country and the people.  The project was to develop college programs for women.  From there she went to Bolivia, Guyana, Guatemala, Kyrgysztan… a country I’d certainly never heard of before…. and Skoocumchuk, B.C.  All of this when she was well past the age of 60. 

Canadian Executive Services Org 

Despite all of her extreme travel and academic achievements, she still identified herself through her relationships with men.  She also had a playful, almost child-like quality about her that got lost in the seriousness of her disappointments with them.   So, as she resisted aging, it was good to see her giddy and hopeful with the anticipation of a last love.   

Sadly this last relationship did not end well.  We know now that at the end of her life she had “global deterioration of the brain.” A condition that brought on intermittent dementia-like, disinhibited behaviours, such as appearing in my kitchen one morning fully dressed… except from the waist down!  A mental image of which she thought was hilariously funny.  Her man, however did not.  They had just returned from an arduous 5 week trip to his native country of New Zealand.  An episode similar to this had happened at a public pool in Christchurch.  In all fairness to him, I think he realized he was taking on more than he bargained for.  He, afterall, had his own issues of aging to deal with.  The relationship ended soon after…. with evasiveness and a Valentine’s card claiming friendship, not love.  Even from dementia Mom recognized the tone.  She was dumped.  She was crestfallen. 

Six months after her return from New Zealand, Mom died suddenly of a massive heart attack.  No notice.  No sentimental good-byes.  No long, drawn out illness.  I think my brother was right when he said at her memorial that she chose her time.  She did a scan of her circumstances after reluctantly moving into an assisted living facility.  Living among "the inmates," as she called them.... she measured her heart from the inside and her future opportunities. They didn’t measure up.  And so, she checked out… on her terms.  With courage and decisiveness. She was a pragmatist.  But, I’m pretty sure Mom died of a broken heart. 

Adrienne Marjorie.  You are missed 

Happy Birthday, Mom.  September 28.    

Point Roberts, WA.... A Short Nose to the South

Photo by J Stephen Conn 

I have a friend who says that Point Roberts is for people in the “witness protection” program.  She may be right.  Because in every sense of the word it’s off the grid of normal, urban want and expectation.  A tiny nose on the map, just south of the 49^th parallel, it’s easy to hide out there because no one’s watching. 

Mount Baker to the east 

If you’re American it’s difficult to get to because it’s cut off from the mainland.  Unless you travel by boat, you have to cross through two borders.  If you’re Canadian, you can’t live there for more than 6 months and, for those acclimatized to overstimulation, there’s not all that much to do.  No more than the size of Stanley Park, it’s dominated by trees and light and bounded by the border to the north and the sea to the east, west and south.  It’s kind of like living in a large, gated community.  These are all the reasons why I love it.

Point Roberts dwells in another time.  In another dimension. It’s surrounded by beaches and grass and it’s predominantly woodsy and rural.  The sun shines there when it’s raining in North Vancouver.  You can buy over an acre of waterfront with a view of Mount Baker for way less than a mil. Hell!!!…. you can buy a wooded lot there, that perks, for $25,000.00!!

Lily Point

There’s only one grocery store and the top selling items are cheese, chips, pop, beer and wine.  There are four restaurants and the service is lousy.  The one remaining bar… albeit seedy, (the scene there changed decades ago when Vancouver licensed liquor sales on Sunday), poised by the waters edge, with a view worth buying a beer for, is benign and non-descript.  No more Sunday strippers.  No more pull tabs.  No more dated rock and roll.  

The “downtown” core is dominated by gas stations and mail boxes.  The only thriving businesses are thanks to gas prices in Canada and to Ebay and Amazon.com.  The community newspaper is not threatened by the internet.  The tiny library… for reasons I mentioned in an earlier posting…  is the best in the world.  People still read there.  One quaint little church, though marked Lutheran, is mostly multi-denominational.  The annual garden tour is abit cheesy.  There’s no mall.  No theatre. No traffic lights.  No traffic!  Hallelujah!  Cell service is iffy.  For all of these attributes, it’s the best kept secret in the Pacific Northwest.  And it’s only 50 minutes due south from my front door. 

It’s here that my ex-partner and I shared a modest, little house on the beach.  For 22 years we watched the sunset and BC ferries tenaciously ply the Juan de Fuca strait.  The kids, however… mine and his…. never bonded with it.  Not enough to buy.  Not enough to do.  Too sleepy.  Too quiet.  Too boring!!!!  Two years ago we stripped the lot and began building our dream house.  A project I thought he wanted.  A project I thought would take us into old age.  A project I thought would bring all the urban family ADD’s together.

I’m reclaiming Point Roberts, the place, the community... on my own terms.  I'm putting the past behind me and I’ve decided to feel safe there.  I cross the border and I’m enveloped by nature and familiarity and simplicity and community and friends and a time gone by.  I’m going to build my own house there.  A tiny one.  In the woods, but close enough to the sea so I can smell it.  And, big enough for me and my kick-ass friends to create new memories… with love and spirit and soul.  For me, God lives there. 

  

It Started with a Bracelet and a Leap of Faith.....

A few days after the roof top phone call that catapulted me into descension…. I met a young, Indian man.  No… it’s not what you think. 

The rooftop where my life changed

It started with a bracelet.  It ended with trust.  

I don’t believe in coincidences.  I believe in serendipitous intersections.  Since that dreadful night in Jaipur… and now that I’m coming to attention in my life…. I’m aware of so many lovely, spine tingling convergences of people and matter and experiences and airflow.  The bracelet was a catalyst for one such serendipitous convergence. 

I love jewellery.  I love “in-your-face,” “not-for-the-faint-of- heart” jewellery.  I make art jewellery.   (www. giuliettadesigns.ca). I love to spend time with other people who make jewellery.  So… when I saw a gem stone bracelet... that I hesitated to afford...in a high end jewellery store in Jaipur, it started me thinking about deserving.  Do I deserve?  What do I deserve?  What do I deserve… when my world caves in?  Answer...  this bracelet!!!!  Nevertheless, with admirable discipline, I walked out of the store without the bracelet.  I took a photograph instead. 

The bracelet!

A day or two later, I was wandering with a friend through the maze of alley ways that make the outdoor market in Jaipur a surreal experience.  A man invited us to follow him to his store.  My friend is a kick-ass girl.  We’d been here before.  So we followed.

Across the busy street (taking our life into our hands)….  down the dark alley…. past the monkeys… through the ancient door…. up the stairs… and into a tiny, spare, austere store.  Greeted by boys and men. The norm here.  India is a country fuelled by testosterone.   My friend wanted earrings.  I wanted THE bracelet!

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere!  

The young man, Kapil, who served us wasn’t more than 25.  But, he’d already logged over 10 years in the jewellery business. He showed us lots of earrings.  And then… I thought to ask him if he could make MY bracelet.  He could.  For one-third the price of the one I’d seen at the jewellery store!

The rest of the story is a leap of faith… for both the young man and for me.  Me, trusting that he could make the bracelet I wanted, exactly from the photograph I'd taken...  before my trip ended.  He, trusting that I would pay him in full.  I gave him a 30% deposit.   He gave me a promissory note.  We would meet in Delhi in 30 days at my hotel.  He with my bracelet.  Me with his money.  Promises made.  Leap of faith taken.

For the next month as I toured India…. grieving….. head to my knees a good deal of the time…. thinking about deserving…. this determined, ambitious young man followed me with texts and photos showing the bracelet in progress. I was excited. 

Kapil's bracelet.... Diamonds, emeralds, rubies & sapphires 

It took Kapil 6 hours of driving from Jaipur to Delhi in a rental car to meet me at my hotel... with MY bracelet.  The bracelet he made exceeded my expectations.  It is exactly as it was in my photograph.  It is even more beautiful. At a time when I had little faith in menfolk…. this tenacious, courageous, young man… starting his business with conviction and determination….rekindled, reignited, revived... with a spark... my faith in men.  Little did I know when I ordered the bracelet 30 days earlier that the gift Kapil gave me wasn’t a bracelet.  It was a belief in the goodness of men. It was trust.   

       

Me, Kapil and the bracelet. Thank-you!  

A Double Dose of Sisters, a Few Good Men and Cheezies.....

A necessary prescription for kick-ass (k-a) healing? 

Point Roberts, WA

Available at most grocery stores 

My heart healing... a work in progress... involves the following:  

A double dose of sisters (I have two); India; Nature; A good counsellor… who lives close to...  nature... and to angels (mine does!);  My inner child; Friends…. the ones who aren’t afraid to tell me the butt-naked truth… and then tell me again because I have to learn most things twice! A tall glass of wine… prn; Nature; Barbara's Cheez Puffs (the best!), A fair settlement agreement; Klondike Solitaire; Point Roberts; Trashy magazines (whatever this is to you?  For me It's "Hello" and "People!" Yikes!!!! That's the most difficult confession than anything else I've written so far! )  Nature, Vietnam (with my sister), Giggles…lots.... prn, A few good men… especially my son and the sons of others (you know who you are!) and ... One tiny house…. in nature!  (More about tiny houses later!)  

I was in Rajasthan, India when the main man in my story descended into adolescence and called us off. Again!

Love, loyalty, longevity... pushed aside.  No going back this time.  No talking it through.  No recourse.  No reconciliation. No crisis.  I’ll never know what the limits are on trip cancellation insurance.  I’ll never know if it covers marital departure.  There was shock.  No awe.  But, no going back. No doubt. I never doubted the healing capacity of India.  Atleast the clarity of intent, if not action, was liberating.  

Elizabeth Gilbert knows that India is a good place to heal.  India’s also a good place to get hit over the head with a good dose of reality.  Because… India has the unique characteristic of cradling and holding… of sustaining grief.  So does my sister.  She was with me in Rajasthan.  Healing my heart began with India… and with my sister.  

Suffice it to say that like Lidia, my sister graduated to the “50 something” club for loss and grieving at a very young age.  Her first husband commit suicide as a result of PTSD, albeit after they had already separated.  But, in her mid 20’s, she was already on the front lines of his descension into disequilibrium.  It‘s not fair to lose two husbands to death in one lifetime.  But, as the cliché goes…no one said life would be fair.  She came with experience. 

My relationship with my sister has been hard won.  Typical for siblings… especially so close in age… we did not always get along.  But the want for intimacy was there.  Like all intimate relationships, we worked at love with the same ingredients my main man rejected.  Loyalty, desire, determination, tenacity… and a willingness to learn how to listen.  When we left YVR for India in a flurry of excited expectation neither my sister nor I had any idea that the trip would become one big test… of love.  Love for India. Love for each other. Love for ourselves.  

Back to the Edge: Inebriated by Misguided Loyalty, University politics and Vancouver Real Estate....

Lidia Yuknavitch is a hard act to follow. 

But… back to the edge and my story.  For context to the following… read my post on September 2... if you haven't already.  

Long Beach. Miles of stranded and lost jelly fish... as I felt in 2007

The gong show… first go-around, happened in 2007. The man I’d loved forever, left me for dogged pursuit of youth… his... Chapter one. Then after three years apart, I took him back… with a misguided determination to love and accept him for who he was. The narcissistic nurse/ fixer upper in me, determined to absolve and heal the narcissistic adolescent in him.  Silly... silly me!!!!  I was inebriated by denial, loyalty, tenacity and a misguided sense of purpose.  But, not before a whirly round of emotional whip lashes and virtual body bruises that would have sent me directly to bed had it not been for a semester of courses to prep for, a gaggle of students to teach, a tedium of meetings to chair, university politics to stay clear of, a painfully long commute, a side business to manage and… unbeknownst to me at the time … a new grandbaby on the way.  Life was busy. At 53, round one saw me sucker punched.  But… I felt purposeful.  Valid.  People needed me.

During those 3 years of estrangement from my partner…. as I bore witness to his arrested development and stupidly pined for reconciliation…. Red Flag! Red Flag!  Red Flag!  Where was Dr. Laura when I needed her?.... I was laid off twice from my university teaching position. (University politics is down and dirty at the best of times.  In the worst of times, it felt like a battle of David and Goliath.) 

     

My Goliath!  

“David”… that’s me!.... won the first round.  Thanks to my savvy financial advisor and an opportunistic accountant …. my argument testifying for inappropriate dismissal was confirmed and approved.  The university powers-that-be relented.  I received a decent severance package.  And, then… I was rehired!!!  For a few minutes I felt triumphant!  But, less than a year later, the whole mucky muck started all over again and I was laid off for the second time.  This time, I surrendered in favour of sanity. I accepted this as an opportunity to be the fulltime artist I always wanted to be. I reluctantly retired from teaching at 55. Plan B?  

While my personal drama of betrayal and loss slithered painfully along, my middle sister’s husband was diagnosed with brain cancer.  He was 49 when he first got the awful, devastating, life crushing news. Thus began a 3 year battle that both my sister and her husband were destined to lose. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to be much of a supporter, but I offered what I could.  My brother-in-law died at age 52.

 

Four months later, my mother… with whom I shared a very close relationship… suffered a massive heart attack that took her out suddenly at 78. That’s young in todays world. The loss of my most ardent cheerleader and compatriot in misguided thinking, was and still is, enormous.  

Beautiful Mom and her chickadees

In light of the layoff and because I needed to downsize my expenses, I decided to sell my house... the one I’d lived in, raised my son in and cherished.  My adult son was horrified!  He still hasn’t forgiven me! 

Since I loved my house, I naturally thought everyone else would too. I expected it to sell in record time and well above the list price. Not an unfamiliar scenario in Vancouver’s surreal/unreal and volatile real estate market. But… I listed it a few weeks too late for a fast, profitable outcome.  The house languished on the market for a couple of months before selling well below my original price. I miss the enveloping, familiar and comforting threshold of my modest but beautiful, little, character home, circa 1929. I don’t miss the gardening, the mortgage and ongoing expenses of owning a house. Today I live in a new townhome. I haven’t quite adjusted. It feels like a hotel!!! 

And, then… I put my cat down. 

In less than 3 years, I lost the man I loved, a relationship I’d worked hard for.  I lost sex!! I lost a job I loved…. twice!  I gave up my nest and my neighbourhood. My best friend of 35 years, died young of complications related to MS, my brother-in-law died, then my mother…. and then, my cat! Thus began a series of secondary losses as my immediate family lost hold… of each other.... and spiralled apart. Yikes!!!  In terms of loss and grief, the universe was making up for lost time. 

Then, just 6 months ago... because I have to learn everything atleast twice...the whole shit-a-roo happened all over again!!!  

And… that’s what brought me to the edge.  Not to the edge of sanity.  But, to the edge of loss, body numbing grief, introspection, rumination and confidence. In the blogs ahead I’ll tell you about the journey back and making acquaintance with my inner child.  It’s still a work in progress. One that includes the kick-ass girls I’m so blessed to have in my life. They are my posse.  My docents. My brazen ones. My angels.  

Little me! The child I lost sight of. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t pretend that my story is unique. By the time we reach 60 it can be the norm.  For men as well as for women.  These are the voices over 50 that I want to hear…. loudly.  How women... and even men... rise above the ashes of their own lives and turn into phoenixes. These are the stories I want to share.   

    

Note:  There is a basic rule of disclosure.  I’ll tell you my story… if you tell me yours.  I’m ready to listen.  Follow me and comment. 

Blissful ignorance and "Wild." The calm before the second storm. 2011 

A Brief Side Step from the Edge... to Introduce Lidia...

....Lidia, Yuknavitch, that is.....

I’ll get back to my own story about surfacing from loss and grief soon.  And… I promise I’ll get to the kick-ass part.  But, I’m feeling a little self-conscious that, so far, this blog is all about me.  Combined with previous FaceBook postings, I don’t want to bore friends and readers or potential blog followers with the assumption that my emotional shit show is all I want to talk about.  It’s not!  My intent at this new beginning is to set a context for what got me to writing about all of this in the first place and why I think my 60+ voice might be important.

It’s also my intent to introduce and talk about other kick-ass girls who support me, inspire me, move me to breathe…. deeper, longer, more.  Women from my own life.  But, since I read…alot....  especially memoirs about girls, I thought I’d interrupt the story line from time to time to talk about some books I love and the kick-ass writers who wrote them. 

I’ve already made two previous references to popular books by Cheryl Strayed, Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love.  Masters of kick-ass, for sure. But I also enjoy reading… in fact, I prefer reading…. memoirs that aren’t made into movies.  Most of which I get from the only library in Point Roberts, WA.  And... my favorite library in my world!  (Thanks Kris and Rose, and others whose names I don’t know, for separating out the memoirs and biographies from the rest of the stacks.  For one who suffers from over stimulation at the best of times, I appreciate the size and scale of this tiny, comforting space... and the friendly people in it.)  

In this post, I want to talk about my favorite memoir, A Chronology of Water, written by my queen of kick-ass girls…  and the bravest writer I know…. Lidia Yuknavitch.  Now, I don’t know how old Lidia is.... but she has surely experienced excrutiating loss… of herself… and... OMG!.... of her tiny still born daughter. She graduated to the 50+ class for loss and grieving early in her life. Her gift as a writer to get raw and personal…. who opens the wound and bleeds.... who makes words her own.... who doesn’t write in complete sentences... rocks me to my core.  No one writes about loss and grief the way Lidia does. No one writes about love and sex... the way Lidia does. You can find her on Face Book. But...  you can't friend her because she's topped out! 

She has a new book out, this past July.  I haven’t read it yet.  But, I will. 

Kick-Ass Girls and the Shit that Makes Us!

My intention with this blog is not to dwell on gut wrenching, body numbing losses that turn out kick-ass girls.  Loss isn’t sexy. The voices of women over 50 are quiet because most have, or soon will, experience loss.  But… people don’t want to hear about loss.  It makes them feel uncomfortable.  Edgy.  Unsettled.  It’s a good reason to get busy.  To inebriate.  But, life is loss.  My intention in this blog is to acknowledge… yes!… validate… listen to… allow…. what takes us to the edge.  In my case… what took me to the edge of the Pacific.  To the wilderness.  To the edge of nature.  But...  of more importance…. what brings us back. How do kick-ass girls deal with the seemingly bottomless pit of grief that inevitably accompanies heart pounding, bone gripping, life changing losses. How do we process that which seems unfathomable in our 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. How do women over 50 go “Wild?”  How do women over 50 “Eat, Pray, Love?” 

So what got this woman… me…. just one tiny leap over 61…. to the edge of the Pacific….camping alone?   It was a curve ball that landed with a heart stopping thunk in the form of a sudden, unexpected, body numbing cancellation of my story with the man I’d loved forever.  Thirty-two years in, he changed his mind and decided… in the blink of an eye… to marry a woman 30 years younger who barely speaks English!  This is what took me to the edge of Vancouver Island on Barkley Sound. 

One day my man and I were “making love” (I put this in quotations because, looking back, I’m not sure that’s what it was!)…  in apparent trepidation of spending five weeks apart. Two days later we kissed fondly as I bid farewell. Three days after that, I anxiously paced the roof garden of a travellers hotel in Jaipur, India, in the dead of night while he told me he was in love… with youth!…  and wanted a trial separation. I‘m sure he said “trial” just to soften the blow.  Either that or he actually believed he could have both me and her!  I was done!  Finito!  The End!  Thirty-two years together and the house we were building… Gone!  In one short, cowardly, long distance phone call… care of Vodafone.

Truth be known, I can’t say that I didn’t have warnings.  I’m embarrassed to admit that an earily similar trial of betrayal, cowardice and estrangement happened 8 years earlier over the same woman.  At that point I really hadn’t experienced much loss… yet!!!!  That was all about to change.

More about my story in my next post. 

See you there…… On the edge! 

Send me yours!