Storm Cookies

I have spent the morning, as well as all day yesterday, working and reworking, writing and rewriting essays for my Field Notes book collection.
It's a lot harder than I expected it would be -- and I certainly wasn't expecting it to be easy. What I've discovered, however, is that my strongest writing happens when I write about other people. So after two days of work, I know that this collection of essays will combine my stories with the other people's stories.
But I've done enough. This kind of work uses a lot of brain power and it's time to take a break. Tomorrow afternoon I have my first 4H project meeting, in cake decorating, so it's time to switch gears creatively and move into the kitchen. I have a cake to bake and icing to mix up.
I've made this cake recipe dozens of times so why do I feel so nervous making it now? Who knew cake decorating at level one could make a 44-year-old woman anxious?
Creating food has always been my answer to lack of inspiration in writing. If I couldn't write, I vented that energy into baking. Now that I'm working on several book projects, as well as my columns for two newspapers, baking is a break from writing, a chance to relax mind and body.
With immediate, enjoyable results. The way my brain is spinning right now, there is going to be dozens of cookies piled up in a few hours. Or else my husband will find me passed out in a bowl of batter in about 20 minutes.

Making Tracks

We've been snowshoeing fiends since the snowstorm on Tuesday & Wednesday, which I suppose means only that we've been snowshoeing a lot the last two days but it's such a treat. Not that I'm complaining about the winter we've had so far; it's been great for walking, great for this writer who needs to move after a day sitting in her chair, hunched over a keyboard (bad habit, that hunching).
But there is something very different about tromping through the snowy woods on snowshoes. It's a better workout (my brain and heart are grateful for the pumped-up circulation) and it just feels like winter, feels good to move through the cold air, through the hushed air of a snow-covered plantation.
"There are no bugs," my mother is fond of reminding me when I convince her to join me on a walk.
We're not the only ones making tracks in the woods, though.
Winter reminds you that you are not alone out there. It's easy to forget the fox and rabbits. mice and deer, coyotes and porcupines that live in these woods; those eyes that watch us from hiding spots we'll never find. Once the snow falls, we realize just how many creatures are living in our woods.The rabbits are plentiful this year.

 There will be one more romp along our trails this afternoon, as the sun sets, one last trek through these woods before another 20 or 30 centimeters overnight obliterates our tracks, keeps me inside tomorrow hunched over the keyboard, thinking of the creatures in the woods huddled somewhere with their backs against the wind and the snow.

Cleaning Up

The old tractor is huffing and puffing in the yard today, clearing the snow drifts from yesterday's blizzard. It is an old tractor that remained in good shape because it sat in a barn until my husband's father suggested Dwayne take it home. But it snorts and bellows because of moisture in the gas tank or in the lines, things I know nothing about. I've seen it backfire then belch fire and smoke. Dwayne babies it, yells at it, curses it, but ultimately fixes it.
The old tractor is back in the warm garage now but my husband will stick with it until he solves the problem and then the huffing and puffing, snorting and bellowing will start again and our yard will be cleared.
As I write that, I hear the tractor revving up. Didn't they know how to build machines back then? They built machines to last. They built machines they way they lived: So they never give up. Just like my husband, born in the 50s just like the tractor he's working on right now.

Barn Cat

Nothing pierces the heart like a skittish barn cat. Look at this sweet thing with that wee face, crying in the barn because she's hungry. She's also afraid of people.
"Any closer than this," my friend said, "and she'll take off."
My friend's other cat, a black-and-white boy, greets you when you arrive. He lets you pick him up and cuddle him. He stalks your camera strap and clomps across the yard on his white polydactyl feet when this sweet thing cries for food and the people say, "Time for breakfast."

These Days Are Made For Chickens

With no snow on the ground, comparisons with "this time last year" are inevitable. When I think that our chickens were cooped up inside from November until April, what a winter they are having this year. There have been more days for them outside than inside -- and they don't even have sweaters to wear. Hardy, happy birds.
The only downside is the plethora of chicken poopsicles that my dogs find irresistible. I wonder if I could market them as a dog delicacy? Afterall, it's an all-natural treat and we have oodles.
(Which reminds me, I have to do one last read and tweak of that food essay I'm working on about my dogs and their obsession with food. And, yes, there's a paragraph about poop.)

Indications

 "There's a hoar frost this morning," my husband announced at 7:30 when the sky had lightened enough to see.
I looked up 'hoar frost' and it's a complicated explanation for us non-meterological types but I think the best way to described it is that a hoar frost is winter's dew. Instead of water droplets on blades and branches, we see ice crystals.
"That means there's a thaw coming," my husband added. "There must be. When I was out on the deck with my coffee, I heard the freight train rumbling through Oxford Junction. They say that's a sign of a thaw coming, when sound travels like that."
 

I was awake in the middle of the night with a headache so piercing, I felt nauseous. Pain is much less bearable when it's dark. If my husband had awakened and asked me what was wrong, I might have cried. I spent some time lying on the bathroom floor but it was cool in there and eventually eased the nausea so I returned to bed. After some more tossing and turning, trying to find a position that didn't make the headache worse, I drifted off to sleep for awhile.
The dogs woke us early so we all got up and I made them breakfast. Then, instead of waiting for the day to warm, we went for our walk early, inside the crystal palace of the tree plantation. No sparkles this morning; no sun but also no wind. It was very quiet and very peaceful. Like something is coming. Snow, a thaw, spring.
My favourite time of the day in my favourite place. 
Last winter, the deep snow made for its own kind of beauty but it was less accessible for walking with the dogs; this year, the ice snakes along the ground beneath our feet, creating in the grooves left by the four-wheeler. The sleepless night made me feel off-balance, not the feeling you want when walking on ice, but the cold air felt good on my bare head, taking the edge off the pain.
Maybe spring doesn't need to come yet.

In Conversation With...Carolyne Angers

First published in The Oxford Journal on Wednesday, January 21, 2015 by Sara Jewell Mattinson

Simone Angers is sitting in a large, comfy armchair in the TV room of her daughter’s large heritage home in Springhill when Carolyne kneels on the floor next to her mother’s chair.

“Mom, I need a hug.”

As Carolyne lays against her mother’s lap, Simone smiles and pats her back.

“She’s my angel,” she says.

“Mom, I’m turning 60 tomorrow,” Carolyne says when she sits up.

“I know,” her mother replies.

“And you’ll be 90 in May.”

Simone puts a finger to her lips. “Ssshhh.”

Last year, in honour of her mother’s birthday, Carolyne did something completely unplanned and utterly out-of-character: She got a tattoo.

“I saw a tattoo artist standing outside his store so I asked him if he was any good,” she says with one of her big-smile laughs. “He asked me what I wanted and I didn’t know. I said, ‘Ten minutes ago, I didn’t know I wanted a tattoo.’ I’m not a tattoo person.”

She went inside and together they designed the tattoo that is now on her right forearm: Three cherry blossoms.

Carolyne pulls up her sleeve and shows the tattoo to her mother. 

“What’s this?” she says.

Her mother points to each pink flower. “Bob. Me. You.”

“We three,” Carolyne nods. “I love you, Mom.”

Later, over tea at her kitchen table, Carolyne says, “We three. My mother, my husband and me. I couldn’t do this if I didn’t have the husband that I have.”

‘This’ is being a full-time caregiver to her mother who has congestive heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease.

Due to failing health, Albert and Simone Angers moved from Port Royal to Bob and Carolyne’s home in Springhill in October 2012 where they had their own bedroom and bathroom on the main floor. Two weeks after the move, Carolyne’s father passed away. 

“My siblings wanted to put them in a nursing home but, thanks to Bob, we brought them to our home,” she says. “Dad was dying, as it turns out. It was almost as if once he knew that Mom was going to be safe and nurtured and loved, he was done.”

Carolyne describes her mother as very French, very polite and very social. 

“So coming to our home, even now, all of her manners are still in place. She doesn’t go to bed at night without thanking Bob and thanking me and wishing us goodnight. She didn’t have any company the way she has now and she loves it. We love it too but sometimes it’s hard because…Price Is Right, Wheel of Fortune, Murder She Wrote,” Carolyne saysof the TV shows Simone likes to watch.

Carolyne says her learning curve for caring for a parent with dementia was steep. 

“I was a bit task-oriented but then I had this neat idea.”

Every morning, Carolyne makes herself a cup of coffee then, still in her pajamas, she goes to her mother’s room and sits on the bed. The dog jumps up with them. For about an hour, they just hang out together surrounded by Simone’s familiar things, her paintings and photos of her husband and three children. 

“In the moment, she amazing but she doesn’t remember ten seconds later,” Carolyne explains. “So we visit. We reminisce and we talk. I tell her how I’m doing. It starts the day off so calm and tender. It’s the most amazing thing in the world. Sometimes she’ll say ‘We love each other and as long as we have love, we can get through anything’. The love I receive is so big and wonderful. I would do anything in the world for her.”

Carolyne, who lives with a chronic illness herself, admits she can be a bit of a tornado when it comes to caring for her mother. She knows she is demanding when it comes to getting support for her.

“I might not be good for myself but I am fierce for her,” she says of the perception that she is combative and hard to get along with. “Because of who I am and the way I talk, it seems like I want something for me but I don’t. It’s for my mother. Everything I do is for that woman.”

 This feeling has been reinforced by her mother’s congestive heart failure. 

“Every night I kiss her a whole bunch because I don’t know if I’m going to see her in the morning,” says Carolyne.

After breaking her arm last year trying to get out of a chair while Carolyne was making tea in the kitchen, Simone now uses a walker to get around. Despite her mother’s objections, Carolyne insists because the congestive heart failure makes her mother weak and the dementia makes her forget how to put one foot in front of the other.

“She’s never alone now,” Carolyn explains. “Sometimes I get on my knees and say, ‘Mom, I really need to have a shower. Promise me you won’t get up’. But she’s never alone.”

Carolyne’s excitement at having this conversation points to the isolation many caregivers experience.

“It’s as isolating as heck,” she agrees. “It’s the most lonely thing I’ll ever do in my life. There’s nobody to rely on for help. It’s scary to imagine. Most of the support staff for Mom have been amazing and I have emergency health services nearby but really and truly, it’s an awful burden to put on someone, to make them ask for help.”

Her isolation is compounded by the fact she and Bob are fairly new to the area (he transferred to Springhill with his federal government job), their two children (and one grandchild) live in Ontario and British Columbia, and taking care of her mother and her own health issues prevent her from getting out and meeting people.

But you won’t hear Carolyne complain about what she sacrifices to care for her mother at home.

“I don’t this because it’s the right thing to do. I do this because I want to do this,” she says, driving her finger into the tabletop for emphasis. “It’s not an obligation. How long will I be able to do it? I don’t know. It depends on where my mother’s journey goes. This is a wonderful, joyous experience.”