Dad's Couch

 Once my husband's parents had moved out of their house -- forced by ailment and age to leave and never return -- Dwayne's conversations with them often included a mention of belongings. 

Dwayne always wanted the dining room table but his father insisted the sideboard, lovely but large, had to go with it, and we don't have room or need of that sideboard. So Dwayne let that go. Even though his father died last summer, Dwayne still honoured his wish. 

I was looking for a curio cabinet and his mother's would have suited but it's still full of seventy years of ... curios... so we bought one ourselves (and it has the rounded glass sides I prefer). 

After his brother passed away suddenly, in January, the future of the old farmhouse changed quickly. Funny how plans bandied about as ideas and dreams, as "some day", drop into high gear forward when someone dies. All of a sudden, the plans for a grandson to renovate the farmhouse and move in with his family are taking place now, rather than in a few years. This is happening because Dwayne's sister-in-law is all alone on the property. 

So there was a visit to the old house, Dwayne and I, to pick out things we wanted. Dwayne looked at a lot of things and I'd say, "Do you want this?" but ultimately he'd put it down and say, "No, I don't want it."

This befuddled me; I'm all about trinkets and tokens and memorabilia -- for the memories, for the connection. Still, I put his dad's wallet and some notepads with his dad's name on them in my pocket. I have my father's wallet; I felt Dwayne (now the only living son) should keep his own father's wallet, too. 

Last fall, we got rid of the couch after we installed a fireplace insert; we couldn't have the couch blocking the fireplace and I didn't want the big picture window blocked either. So I spent the winter trying to figure out what to do and I settled on the idea of a daybed, something we could sleep on but wouldn't block the window. At the time, I suggested bringing over the daybed from his parents' kitchen, but Dwayne quickly nixed that idea. 

Until it worked away at him. Until one day he said, "Let's use the daybed from the house." 

It's old; it's VINTAGE. And it's shorter and narrower than a modern daybed so thankfully, the original mattress is still in good shape -- they built things to last back then, didn't they? -- so we have the whole ensemble in our house now. My intention all along has been to cover it in blankets and pillows, and I keep adding them. 

Every so often, Dwayne lies down on "Dad's couch" and has a nap. Just like his father did in the kitchen of the house Dwayne grew up in. A lifetime ago. 

I have his father's wallet. He has his father's daybed. Memories and connections reminding us of who we are and who we came from. 

A Poem: Words To Speak

Memorial - Photo by Robert Short, from cbc.ca website

WORDS TO SPEAK

by Sara Jewell

I keep coming back to a set of words spoken 

by a woman in Ottawa in October 2014

as Corporal Nathan Cirillo 

lay bleeding to death beneath our national war memorial

after being shot by a lone gunman on a rampage

Barbara Winters was walking to work

when she heard the shots

when she ran towards the danger

when she lay down alongside Corporal Cirillo 

and whispered to him, over and over,  

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

Today we remember and honour and mourn 

the first anniversary of the mass killings in rural Nova Scotia

that took 22 people –

parents, spouses, children, siblings, neighbours, friends, colleagues – 

loved ones

cherished ones – 

from their families and communities 

We remember those who rushed out of the safety of their homes 

and lost their lives trying to help, to save:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.” 

We remember those whose little peace of heaven 

fuelled roaring flames that reached towards the stars:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

We remember those who started their day 

with a walk or a drive to work but did not return home:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

We remember Constable Heidi Stevenson 

who lost her life confronting evil masquerading as good:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

If those are words we speak to the dying, 

what words do we speak to the survivors, 

those who lived and worked through that terror? 

those who live with the loss of people they loved?

We honour the police officers and firefighters and paramedics 

who ran toward the danger because it is their work: 

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.” 

We honour the leaders – municipal and spiritual –

who offered comfort and support with their own broken hearts:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

 

We honour the families and neighbours and friends

who seek answers that will never change what happened:

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good.”

We mourn with them as we remember: 

You are loved. You are brave. You are good. 

You are not alone. 

Those are the only words there are

then

now 

There are no other words 

for their grief

for their disbelief

for their despair, their rage, their if-onlys

There are no other words

for their loss

for their isolation

for their memories, their wishes, their what-ifs

We can only lay down alongside them today 

as they bleed from reopened wounds

and whisper over and over, 

“You are loved. You are brave. You are good. 

We are here. We are strong.

You are not alone.”

In memory of:

Tom Bagley – Kristen Beaton – Jamie Blair – Greg Blair – Joy Bond – Peter Bond – Corrie Ellison – Gina Goulet – Dawn Madsen Gulenchyn – Frank Gulenchyn – Lillian Hyslop – Alanna Jenkins – Lisa McCully – Sean McLeod – Heather O’Brien – Jolene Oliver – Heidi Stevenson – Emily Tuck – Aaron Tuck – E. Joanne Thomas – Joey Webber – John Zahl 

April 18 & 19, 2020

Hallelujah! I sold a book!

 I've been a lay worship leader since 2013, and since 2015, I've been working almost every Sunday at the United Church in Oxford, Nova Scotia. 

It's work I enjoy doing, and seem to have an aptitude for, as it uses my training in teaching, broadcasting and journalism, and my skills in researching, planning, writing and presenting. I have never aspired to be more than a lay worship leader, never wanted to become a minister. What I enjoy doing is creating worship services -- planning the words and music for worship -- and that's what I'm satisfied doing. 

So it's interesting that this church I serve has a huge stained glass window at the front of the church, over the choir loft, that features a traditional (and rather fancy) Jesus Christ in the centre, while all the people around him are modern to the time of the window's creation, likely the 1940s. (If you look at most stained glass windows in the churches, they usually depict Jesus during his lifetime.) It's rather remarkable to have this modern stained glass depiction of men and women and children as labourers and managers and parents, etc. (There's no diversity, of course; everyone, including Jesus, is white and falling into traditional gender roles).

My point is: There is a writer in the stained glass window. A journalist. Someone struggling to write a novel. Someone rewriting their memoir for the fifth time. I've always felt this was "a sign" I was in the right place doing the right work. 

And once you hear my news, you may agree. 

Because I have sold my second book. After four years of pitching a memoir, a collection of essays and a novel, after four years writing and editing and submitting, after four years of not hearing back or getting rejected, I sold a book in a month. In one year, I did the work, pitched the idea and sold the book. 

! 

Last year, from January to June, I did a sermon series called "The Alphabet of Faith". 26 Sundays, 26 letters. 

And next year, those 26 sermons will be published as 26 essays in a book called "The Alphabet of Faith". It will be published by Wood Lake Books, a Canadian publisher based in British Columbia who has been publishing books about faith for over 70 years. They are a progressive Christian publisher which is why my second book and I are a great fit. I'm really looking forward to this new publishing experience. 

I'm delighted. I'm relieved. I'm excited. I'm apprehensive. This is really going to put my spiritual writing out there in the world in a way I've never been brave and daring enough to do. But there's no point in holding back or being scared -- I've made enough mistakes in the past ten years that I've learned important lessons (double-checking EVERYTHING being one of them!) so I'm going to head out onto this new path with trust and joy and total confidence I can do this. And more. 

Amen to that! 

Getting Mugged

 

Now that it's spring, I needed a new mug. 
When Mother came home today with one for her and one for me, I held mine up to my husband and said, "My spring mug!" 
"Your what?"
The look on his face reminded me of something I wrote after our renovation ten years ago... 

Gentlemen, if you’re going to ask the woman in your life the question, “Do you really think you need...?” don’t be surprised at the response. There’s only one reasonable answer to give you, and that’s The Look. 

Familiar, centuries-old, perhaps even genetically implanted, this facial expression is a mixture of disbelief and disdain. It is usually followed by the word, “Yes.”

Shoes. Scarves. Hats. Magazines. Nail polish. Cookbooks. Cats. It doesn’t matter what the collection is, if it’s in a woman’s house, it’s important. If it means something to her, it’s unquestionable.  

My husband and I were slowly putting the house back together after the renovations are completed. Since cooking was a priority once we’d moved back in, all the boxes containing pots and utensils and graters and measuring spoons were unpacked first; the only boxes left to unpack were two boxes of mugs. My mugs.

“Do you really think you need so many mugs?” my husband asked after I announced that my least-favourite mugs would have to go on the top shelf because I couldn’t reach it without a stepping stool.

I froze, mug in hand, and stared at him. This from the man who uses the same two mugs every day for every beverage. This time, however, instead of giving him The Look and The Word, I tried a new tactic: The Explanation.

“Well, each of these mugs serves a specific purpose,” I began. “Some are for morning coffee, others are for afternoon tea. Within those categories, they are further subdivided into mugs for perked coffee or instant coffee, mugs for black tea, mugs for green tea. Of course, if it’s chai tea in the morning, it’s a certain mug, the one that matches my yoga mat since that’s what I’m doing when I drink that tea, BUT if it’s chai tea in the afternoon, I use that tall brown mug there...”

By now, my husband’s eyes had glazed over and he had this strange half-smile on his face.

“You’re doing a great job, honey,” he murmured before stumbling off, shaking his head as though there was some strange buzzing sound inside it. 

I looked down at the mug in my hand. It was dark blue, picked up at a pottery shop on the Island many summers ago during a day trip with my parents. What a shame my husband walked away so soon. Every one of my two dozen mugs had a story and I would have gladly shared each one with him, over a pot of blueberry tea...which goes in the dark blue mug.

~ by Sara Jewell - cross-posted on Facebook 

My Favourite Sight

I will never, ever tire of seeing this view out my bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen windows. In any season, looking out and seeing the chicken coop makes me happy, makes me feel content -- even when I'm fretting about things. It appears my current bout of fretting and anxiety and even despair has passed; I'm fortunate that these things do pass for me, since they are career-related. The past year and a half certainly makes me more empathetic to those who struggle daily with depression and anxiety. 

Speaking of making people happy, the book sale - which ran again on Sunday because of low turnout on Saturday - raised over $600 for a local, rural library. Very pleased about that. And it was nice to have conversations with people - live and in person! - about books.

We woke up to a couple of inches of snowing that arrived silently during the night. Apparently, it is only snowing down river this morning; Dwayne drove into town and says "half a mile up the road, there's nothing". Oh, the micro-climates in Nova Scotia, and we seem to live in a micro micro-climate! It may seem unfair to teachers and students to have a snow day on the first day of March  Break, but I thought it a good day to stay in my pajamas and read; that lasted until 11 a.m. Shouldn't have turned my phone on.

As much as I love this view, I don't write much about country living anymore; it does develop a rhythm and a sameness. I value that, even if I chafe at the isolation (not related to the pandemic but because resources and opportunities are so far away from where I live). It seems my writing is moving into a new area: my spiritual writing may be taking me in a new direction. That will require exploring new ways to get my thoughts and ideas out into the world -- a new blog? a video channel? what else is out there?! -- but none of that needs to happen soon. I realized that I was trying too hard and putting pressure on myself to create my "next big thing" without actually knowing what that entails or what I need. So I put the brakes on. Actually, I braked, pulled the car off the road, and parked it. 

Figuratively, I got out of that car and walked away. Right now, I consider myself "laying fallow" like a field, taking a rest, resting my heart and my mind in order to rejuvenate them, taking a break from all the striving and pushing and not getting anywhere; it's time to lay back and watch the clouds float by. I've done enough work that I can rest and be still, let the soil of my spirit regain nutrients -- be inspired again -- and see what road opens up because of that work. 

And you know, living where life is quiet and simple, relatively unchanging, and predictable still seems the perfect place for a writer like me to live. The chicken coop remains my symbol of belonging and contentment, as well as a reminder that sometimes you have to break the eggs in order to make something new... 

Every Sunrise, Every Sunset

 

As I go through my books to see what I'm willing to part with in our book sale -- and that's hard because so often, I'll let a book go then need it for an article or sermon -- I'm realizing how many pages are dog-eared to mark important ideas or ideas that I liked.

I found this one in Sharon Butala's memoir of moving from the city to the country, in Saskatchewan: 

"In my reading and occasionally in conversation with urban visitors, I hear or read people either saying directly or implying indirectly that true rural people don't notice or appreciate the beauty in which they live. Although I don't say so, the arrogance and ignorance of such remarks always makes me angry, implying as it does that rural people lack humanity, are somehow an inferior branch of the human species, that beauty is beyond their ken. It is one thing to come from  the city and be overwhelmed by the beauty of Nature and to speak of it, and another thing entirely to have lived in it so long that it has seeped into your bones and your blood and is inseparable from your own being, so that it is part of you and requires no mention or hymns of praise."

~ The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature, (2004), page 89

Having moved from the city to rural Nova Scotia nearly twenty years ago, having lived here in rural Nova Scotia for almost 14 years, I know what Butala is writing about. I am still in awe of the huge sky and the sprawling fields and all the trees [that are left], by the deer and rabbit and coyote tracks, by the creaking of the ice on the river, by the eagles flying overhead.

There will never be a day when I don't notice, when I don't appreciate. Because I'm still delighted to realize I live here, under that big sky, alongside that winding river, beneath the wings of the eagle. 

But my husband, A TRUE RURAL PERSON, he understands this space, this place, these woods and fields and rivers in a way I never will. He doesn't notice or appreciate in the way I do - consciously, intentionally, vocally. His noticing, his appreciating is done in breath, in heart beat, in eye blink, in the subtle twitch of an ear. Woven into his genetic fabric, through several generations, he doesn't even know he's noticing, isn't even aware he's appreciating. 

With his chronic pain, and his frustration at not being able to do the things outside that he used to do and wants to do, I think Dwayne is even more in tune; grief has a way of honing the senses, of focusing on what is lost. Yet I can't help but hope the sky and fields and woods and river are healing, even if there is no cure for what ails him. 

The Butala book is staying on my bookshelf, I think. 

BOOK SALE!

Mother and I usually donate books to the Cumberland Public Library's annual book sale but, thanks to the pandemic, that didn't happen last year and, thanks to the pandemic, it's not happening this year. That means there are A DOZEN boxes of books clogging the upstairs hallway.

My husband fears the whole upstairs is going to collapse on him (I've said this before - because he keeps saying this - yeesh). 

So we need to get rid of some books. 

At the same time, the Oxford branch of the CPL  is moving into its new location -- and it needs money to buy stuff! So we're holding this BOOK SALE as a FUNDRAISER for our local library.

Saturday, March 13

9 am to noon

My house on Route 301 - there will be a sign at our driveway.

(If you're up for a drive & need more specific directions, email me at jewellofawriter "at" gmail dot com)

There will also be HOUSEHOLD STUFF for sale, with those proceeds going to the "new" Oxford library as well. 

It would be really nice to have the hallway to my office free and clear again! I feel like it's been a long time since it was a proper hallway.

Notes: I know that font in the graphic is hard to read but it's very cool. Also, that is not my country road but it, too, was a cool photo. There is very little in me that is practical. I know the rules but I choose to follow my heart!