Yesterday, Christmas Eve, would have been my Mom’s 93rd birthday. As with most Christmas Eves, I spent it with her in mind. I have created a new tradition in which I float a candle down the river on a paper boat on Christmas Eve, in her honour. However, this year, there is 18 inches of thick wet slippery snow on the docks, plus a few layers of ice, and I suspect that Mom would understand me not wanting to join her in the Great Beyond just yet. So I skipped that part.
Instead, I baked. Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, date squares and orange coconut chews. I love it when my kitchen smells like my Mom’s kitchen.
One of the bits of math I do from time to time is to consider my current age (53) against what my Mom would have been doing at the same age. When my Mom was 53, I was 13. Yikes. I can’t imagine having a 13 year old, two adult sons, and a full household to run. I don’t know how she did it. Â My life is pretty sloth-like compared to hers.
I miss her every day. Her funny wisdom, practicality, and child-like wonder at all the new things the world was churning out.  The endless cribbage games and cups of tea and coffee. I hope she has found some decent euchre players in heaven.
Usually, when moving to a new place, there is the excitement of setting up one’s living space as suits. Unpacking, finding new homes for treasured things. The wonderful feeling of getting settled.
That didn’t happen in the move up here, October 2011. The whole thing was rushed, complex, fraught with last minute disasters. The first morning, I recall, was really sweet as we had friends helping and I made a huge breakfast and, for a little while, I managed to get my hands on that feeling of adventure and fun, setting up a new home with my partner and kids.
I never really nested, though. That settledness didn’t ever happen properly. Things were never in their right places. Everything felt off, like a chair you really want to sink into, that looks so comfortable, but it just won’t let you.
Rooms kept getting re-arranged. Boxes became like furniture – still packed – and just sitting there.
Much of the last year then, the fun of it, has been the nesting. Every week, sometimes every day, sees some new minor improvement that advances the settling cog one or two notches further. Â Today I had a couple of nice local teens, looking for Christmas money, help me for a couple of hours. As a result, just today, I have a linen cupboard placed where I can use it, my spice rack (lo these five years not installed after I paid a mint to have it custom made for my condo)Â finally installed where it belongs, and a basement that looks … amazing!
I’m busy creating a workshop in the garage so I can really get going on the nesting. So many fun projects on my list. To reclaim the garage, I’ve had a structure built to house firewood and, when fully finished, to be a tool shed. This will keep firewood and larg
e implements out of the garage so I can start to settle there, too.
I have other things I probably should be doing. But the force to reclaim this space is strong in this one, so to speak. I feel like I can’t start my “next big thing” until I’m done this series of smaller things.
Cue, huge intake of breath … and … WHOOSH!
*cough*
That was me, blowing the dust off this blog. It has been a while.
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Confession: I love winter.
Supermoon over Coby
I love the crispness of the air, the freshness that new snow lends every vista. I love having a vista, of sorts.
I love the challenge: staying warm, balancing system heat with wood heat, the work of shovelling, snow-blowing, stacking, sweeping. God help me, I even like winter driving. That is to say, I’m not put off by it. Bring it on. Â A “supermoon” hung over the east sky a few nights ago, as I was piecing my way through a few squalls to get home. Like a huge bauble, dangling just above the horizon. Â Gorgeous.
I love the coziness of a fire when the temperature is plunging outside, the sound of a hockey game on the tv as I go about other tasks. The happy riot at the birdfeeders when I’ve just re-filled them.
The eagerness on Big Dee’s face when he can see me going through the steps of getting ready to go outside: boots, scarf, coat, hat, go back inside for something (my phone), come back to the door, go back inside again for something else (treats), open the door, close it again, grab my mitts, open the door, close it again, go back inside for something (coffee) … eventually, we get outside. He has learned patience.
Up here, the silence is extraordinary. I’m not really one to judge, given that my world seems to get more silent, or muffled, every day. Maybe silence isn’t really the word – stillness.
This is my second winter up here on my own, and it certainly came on quickly. Â I thought I would have a bit longer to wrap up my outdoor projects … but, no … the shed isn’t finished and the raised beds still stand. Oi.
The plan, for those who are still following along, was not for me to be here on my own. Yet, here I am. It has, in fact, worked out. I want to say something about the journey up here as part of a couple in 2011, the rapid deterioration, the frantic yet dismal attempts at repair, the denouement late summer of 2015. But … what to say? It did NOT work out. Â Anger, hurt, blaming – all the old standards. Â I did not blow the dust off the blog to re-visit the minutia of the hash we both made of it.
The fact of my life at the moment is that each season up here is a gift. I wouldn’t have moved up here, independently. It doesn’t make a ton of logistical or financial sense. I had to be given the context to step back into a non-urban life. The fact that the context evaporated pretty quickly left me with a choice: Â stay by the river or return to the city. Every cell of my being said, unhesitatingly, “stay”. Â So I am grateful for the context, if you will, dragging me up the road and depositing me by the river.
The first four seasons on my own were, quite possibly, the happiest I’ve been for so many years. The absence of tension was palpable. I’d come home from the city and just stand on the landing between the kitchen and the living room, looking out over the deck, and marvel at the opportunity I have to re-invent myself. Re-plant, perhaps. A transplant, happy to find herself in a place that restores and nourishes.