The Pollyanna Principle

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the

 world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to 

plan the day."

For years I've been trying to draw a line in the sand but the tide comes in and washes it away.  Sometimes a fair west wind bends down to blow loose grains over it and covers all traces of its existence, fragmenting my desire for juxtaposition.  How am I supposed to objectively analyze and separate when the line keeps disappearing?  

Our world is a complex web of goodness and heinousness and each day, as a citizen of it, I have choices.  The goodness is the easy part.  It's what to do with the heinous that troubles me.  

My line in the sand would separate the "fear, fight and worry" instinct in me from the "ostrich" instinct: a head in the sand keeps you blind to it all.  How does a body know on which side to stand when the line keeps drifting, disappearing from view.  

I naturally gravitate to "ostrich", or at least suffusing the ugly with rose colored glasses.  Not always safe or realistic but it makes me feel good in the short term.  In reality, I can be a lot like a child, covering my ears and "la la-ing" loudly, hoping it will all go away.

On the other hand, fear can stimulate anger which, in turn, should stimulate positive action.  But where is that line?  How can I strike a healthy balance?  

Many days the voice of the doomsdayer closes in on me, like walls in a night terror - economic collapse, the imminence of a world war, political deceipt and corruption, big corporation control, environmental destruction, my children's world going ass over tea kettle.  

I don't have the answers yet.  I listen ever so carefully to my heart and my head - they usually disagree.  So I wait, rose colored glasses propped vigilantly at the end of my nose. And I look in the rear view, believing that, in the end, goodness always prevails and something fortuitous can arise from the smoke of any situation.  

Call me a dreamer, but I happen to be an optimist.  I don't believe in arbitrary happenstance or a capricious god.  I believe in humankind.  Life is too short for anything less.

DEAR DIARY

The prospect of reading someone's diary can be titillating, perhaps a little brassy and reckless.  There's a boundary that one crosses opening the cover to unearth another's deepest, darkest secrets.  It's like digging around in your mother's underwear drawer; there's some places you just don't go! 

Sitting here with this diary in my hand feels all wrong.  I don't know her anymore, do I have a right?  I made a vow to myself years ago that, if ever I stumbled upon someone's diary, I would NEVER read it.  Maybe that's why my hands are trembling now.  Do I?  Don't I?  

I peak gingerly at the first page, just to confirm my suspicions.  This is indeed a diary - first page entry dated June 28, 1976.  The handwriting is tiny and swoopy, with little hearts for "i" dots.  I hardly recognize it.  But then why would I?  It was 37 years ago.  

I don't even know at this moment why I've dug it from its covert location, deep in the recesses of my steamer trunk where a collection of relics languish, awaiting a day when they'll become relevant again.  And why am I afraid to dive in?  I'm not sure I want to resurrect all that stuff again, that's why.  What if I don't like who she was?  Perhaps I've allowed a level of post-youth memory loss to cloud those turbulent years.  Neuroscience would have a name for it: Post Youthful Stupidity Dissociative Condition.  A condition not intended to be messed with, I'm sure.

Against my better judgment I begin to read and I'm pulled in like a psychopath to his next victim.  It's hard to read past all of the boo- hoo-ing and woe-is-me.  Was life really that hard as a 13 year old in the funky, flower-child days of the 1970's?  And then it gets interesting.  I strap myself in - this could be a wild ride.  

Dear Diary, it continues, as though powwowing with a confidante.  The pages are laced with details of all of those impetus moments, the events that set the stage for maturity: boyfriends and break-ups, parties and concerts, friends and fights.  She takes me on a journey that I didn't know I wanted to return to.  

At times I wince.  She really did lead that boy on.  It's no wonder he followed her around like a hyena on the prowl for years to come, burning her initials into his forearm, not knowing when to give up the chase.  

At times I'm saddened, realizing that her high school education collided with a time in her life when she had such a blatant disregard for anything cerebral.  "You coulda been a contenda, kid,"  I remind her.  

And then I smile, the roller coaster peaks and the butterflys set in - she's found love.  Young, idealistic, unobstructed love.  Of course, its not all uphill from here but her entire attitude swivels around on its axis, and she's focused outside her self-absorbed center.  Hm, funny how certain people can do that to you.

I turn the last page and I'm glad I read it - apart from the parts that should have remained latent in my memory's vault of Lost & Forgotten Things.  And I don't feel guilty.  I realize now she wrote it for me.  She wrote it knowing that, way far away in the great somewhere, I'd find the diary again and relive it.  She was a part of me, afterall, and to disown her would be denying her an earned and merited place in my life.  

The Graduate

    She stood defiant, her stubborn little hands resting on her hips, standing off against the person who'd given her life.  "No!"  She exclaimed, planting her size 2 feet a little more firmly.  I couldn't let her win - could I?  I'd raised two sons and never reached such an impasse, never faced such a collision of wills.  
     "It's a girl," the nurse, Debbie, stated as she plopped the little wet bundle into my waiting arms just years earlier.  "It's a girl," my husband echoed from beside the labor bed, a silly grin stretched across his face.  But what does one do with this knowledge?  She came with no guide, no manual, just the fact that she'd wear a different color.  At least, that is, until SHE decided otherwise; that my perception of girl was waaaay wrong and that she'd train me to think like her; not her I.  

     She became the apple of everyone's eye.  Her big brothers - 6 and 9 years older than she - took the charge of menacing body guards, defying anyone to put a crumple in her crinolin.  Her daddy too, so enamored with the cherubic face and whispy blond curls, carried her weightlessly on his shoulders, like a princess on a litter, challenging the world to take notice - "She's my girl!"

     

     She was his girl.  Stubborn and willful as the day is long.  By 4 she'd outgrown my idea of dresses and hairclips and demanded to fashion her own ecclectic ensemble.  By 6 she was marching out the door, independant and strong, getting on the school bus all by herself.  By 11 she won the puppy that the boys never had.  And by 13, well...we all stood and held our breath.  Puberty...!

     Then something happened.  Something only the benevolent gods would understand.  She softened.  She asked me for fashion advice (off of the basketball and volleyball courts).  She began to dabble in femininity and mellow like a fine wine.  Daddy was right all along.  Her strength of character would become her greatest ally, buffering her self-worth from the hurtful hazards of youth.  

     Today she's reached her first big milestone, morphed perfectly into the woman that she alone was determined to create.  I wish I could say it was me who laid the path for her.  But only she knows where she's going and how she'll get there.  And on this graduation day the stars continue to align..

                                                        winking their favor upon her

fortifying her with friendships

and giving us reason to sigh...she's our little girl

and she'll go far!

Memoir of a Fateful Summer

     I remember her eyes best of all. They were paisley. Not paisley like the pattern, but the colors - brown and green and gold in mottled swirls of iris. She liked Cheezies, I could tell. Her paisley eyes flitted from the back of the green vinyl seat to the shiny orange cellophane in my hand and then back to the seat again. I held out the open bag. She blushed and one corner of her mouth twitched upward. Her hand followed her gaze and she reached in, methodically, emancipating a single powdery Cheezy from the bag, looking down at her bruised knees as she silently popped the treasure into her waiting mouth. I popped another into mine and, in unison, our cheeks collapsed as we sucked the cheese treats till they disappeared on our tongues.

     That's how we became friends. It was a silent friendship, mostly. A mutual, introverted, wall-flower friendship. We spoke in rhythms and movements and rituals. Like the Cheezies ritual, which took place every day after that for almost two weeks, at three-thirty pm on the bus ride home from swimming lessons. I didn't know her name yet. I wouldn't learn her name until later, when it was too late.

     It was 1972. The orange bus lumbered along Highway #52 like an old locomotive in the fever of the August sun. Heat waves danced on the highway in front like fairies, stealing away the mirage pools just before our tires could make a splash. I sat in the front seat with my new friend, both of us too awkward to push past the imposing faces behind us to a more venerable spot. In the front we'd be the first to arrive.
     I'd never particularly liked water, or pools, or instructors who insisted that your head must break the water's surface to become a proficient swimmer. Just last summer I'd invented five ways to be sick during swimming hour - one for each day at junior camp. The camp counselor and my mother must have collaborated, because here I was - my first summer in swimming lessons.
     My fingers curled around the quarter in the pocket of my pink polyester shorts. It was small recompense to get me on the bus each day, swimsuit and towel in tow. It was the purchase price of a bag of vending machine Cheezies and a new friendship.
     Chlorine kissed our noses as we disembarked. I liked the smell; it was a clean smell and it drew me willingly into the confines of the first open change stall. I exchanged glances with my friend before swinging the teal-painted door shut. She would wait there while I changed then I, in turn, would wait for her.
     My feet danced lightly on the cold, cracked concrete as I pulled the tie dyed T over my head. I lay my clothes neatly in a pile on the bench. She would stack her outerwear on top where they would await our return. There was a distinct disparity between her and I, although only superficial. Placing her generously patched and fraying clothing on top of mine, I reasoned, would reduce the likelihood of change room thievery. I double checked the pocket for my quarter.
     We moved out into the open pool area like Flossie and Freddie, the Bobbsey twins, holding hands, close at each others heels. This was where the chopping block came down. We could no longer ride shotgun from here.
     Edging in gently next to another girl in roll call line, I pulled my Josie and the Pussycats towel tighter around me. The breeze was cool and, as the goose bumps rose on my calves, I imagined the prepubescent hair on my legs standing on end like flags in a windstorm. I dropped the towel a little lower.
      “Debbie? Gloria? Jeffrie? Brenda?”
     Our instructor checked each name off her list. I glanced around the pool for the familiarity of my friend. She sat on the concrete at the far end of the pool, knees bent up to her chin, shielding her from unwarranted attention to her faded, stretched out swimsuit. Her class hadn't started yet. She looked like a dusty, bygone china doll.
     “Okay class, jump into the water and give me ten bobs.”
     Bobs. Why must we always start off with bobs? I slipped silently into the tepid water and turned my back to the instructor. Holding my nose between pinched fingers, I bobbed, my face never fully breaking the surface. Somehow, miraculously, I was the first to achieve ten. I turned to watch the others, still bobbing, luxuriating in the feel of water in their eyes, noses and mouths, on top of their heads, in their ears. They were sea creatures and I a ground mammal. I bounced on my tippy toes, up and down in the water, enjoying the feeling of buoyancy. Perhaps my pretty floral swimsuit would distract them all from my inadequacies.

     By the end of the first week I'd come to realize that not all instructors were required to get wet in order to be swimming teachers. My instructor, Margie, was that variety. I wondered what possessed her to put on a bathing suit before leaving the house in the morning. She could have stayed in a housecoat for all the effort she put in.
     “Not like that class, like this.”
     We would stop and rub the moisture from our eyes as she'd demonstrate – poolside – her arms drawing on great heaps of air, balancing on one leg while kicking like a dolphin with the other. She looked like the perpetual motion drinking bird my dad kept on display as a conversation piece at home.
     Each class would eventually end with a race to the pool steps, a clamber back to our reckless summer lives, free of tutelage and responsibility.
     I was usually the first back to the bus, reserving “our” seat and waiting while the others returned in twos or threes. Eventually my friend would board, her brown hair tangled and dripping. It was no great feat for her to find me on that bus, we were parallel personalities, kindred in so many ways, drawn together like opposing poles. We came from two different worlds and found a solidarity in this new one.
     We knew nothing of each others lives, not even a name. We shared Cheezies and trivialities. Perhaps too many details would muck up the mystery and the vulnerability of what we had. I didn't question it then.
     The last day of swimming lessons finally arrived but something was different. Everything was different. My friend was not on the bus, not in her usual spot, not smiling her crooked tooth smile as I plopped down in our seat. Her spot was cold and it left me cold as I shuffled in. Perhaps she missed the bus and her parents would drive her in.
     My friend did not arrive. She was not there to safeguard the change room door, shadow me to the pool or share a celebratory bag of Cheezies on the way home. She was not there as her instructor called out her name, not there to collect her badge. I wished in that moment I'd known her name. How would I ever find her?
     I lost myself over the next few days in the hot, hazy summer cycle of play and boredom. Then suddenly I saw her. Not the way I'd expected; not waving from a passing car, or skipping with a group of friends. It was an image; a likeness looking back at me in black and white familiarity, the face that drew me to the newspaper on our kitchen table. She stared back at me from the front page and for the first time I learned her name; Renata.
     Renata Wiebe, the newspaper stated in tiny font underneath the picture of my swimming lesson friend. She looked happy, completely unaware of the large, bold faced letters above her threatening to squash her from the page.
     Gruesome Slaying Shocks Community. I didn't understand. Found dead Friday morning...nearly decapitated...father used a butcher knife. Was this a joke? Lost his job just weeks prior...family was soon to be evicted from the home they'd been renting...Renata was eight years old...mother and younger sibling safe in police custody.   

      My mother entered the room and drew next to me, brushing my bangs from my face. She swept the newspaper from the kitchen table, away from a young girl's curious eyes.

     “Don't you have something to do? A friend to go play with?”
     I shook my head. I wanted to tell my mother that Renata was my friend, that we both liked Cheezies, but the words wouldn't come. I wanted Mother to say that the paper had made a mistake, but she flipped it over on the counter top, front page down, smiling a worried smile. A worry that sits behind a mother's eyes, fretting over the world her child must grow up in. Fretting over another degree of innocence slipped away, victim to a dark and hungry reality.
     I curled into my bed and watched the sunlight dance on the purple bedspread beside me. Closing my eyes I tried to be there, in her last moments, in her house on Second Street. But I was lost; I couldn't find my way through the unfamiliarity of this foreign place, a land so barren, ugly and bereft of humanity.
     I thought, instead, of the wind in our hair as we won the battle with a jammed bus window, wobbly fountain pen tattoos scrawled onto our arms, and giddy giggles behind pursed lips as we kicked a rotten apple core toward the bus drivers unsuspecting feet. I thought of Cheezies.

Tribute to an amigo bueno. Happy Birthday, Jim

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life".  Mark Twain
     

     I'm popping a cork today...chin chin to good friends!  Today's hip hip hoorah goes out to my good friend Jim.  Cumpleaños Feliz, to my Spanish conquistador.  

     Jim is the Mark Twain in my life.  He's like the old Retriever that lies at your feet waiting for you to need your slippers or a cold beer from the fridge (he's a very adept Retriever).  The kind of friend that feels like they've always been there.  Wise, well-processed affirmations flow from his lips, anchoring me to myself.   

     He is suave and debonair - well-seasoned yet eternally young at heart.   And he's always there, lurking somewhere in the ethereal regions of friend-dom, waiting with a howdy-do...are things well with you?

     Tip o' the hat to ya, ol' chap!  Thanks for the cyber-dance.

A Hug From Mama Nature

 

     It's May long weekend, it's Manitoba and it's raining - predictable and familiar - they go together like Larry, Curly and Moe.  One of the truly beautiful things about getting older is that you have enough summers behind you to recognize trends, and you can start to avoid the unnecessary let-downs of things beyond your control.
     Who decided the May long weekend was for camping and frolicking in the backyard anyway?  For me, its an opportunity to stock up on Shiraz, procure a good book and luxuriate by my picture window while mother nature greens up my lawn.  It's also a great time to get out the gardening books, draw a schematic of the yard and plan, plan, plan.

     Think like Annie: "The sun'll come out tomorrow.  Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun."
     This year I've decided to turn a page, send Monsanto (and other unfriendly chemical producers) a "dear John" and follow the beat of a more kindly and gentle drummer.   I will practice what I preach - more natural options to lawn and garden care and insect control.
     Spring is my favorite time of year.  At this point memories of back-breaking weed-pulling and perpetual lawn mowing still elude me.  The smell of fresh-cut grass and the luxurious feel of compost in my palms is a catharsis for my soul.
     We've made some practical changes in the last year, selling off a portion of our much too large property and rethinking the extraordinary possibilities of what a smaller yard is capable of doing.  This has me excited to say the least, imagining garden boxes, planter vegetables and herb gardens in my front lawn.  Every corner, nook and cranny of my lot will soon become functional, beautiful or both.
     And so, believing that the sun WILL come out tomorrow (or at least sooner or later), I thought I'd pass on some handy tips I've been learning in my quest for lovelier, fed-from-nature's-spoon gardens and lawns.

1)  FOR A WEED FREE EXPERIENCE:  Lay a layer of newspaper right over your existing garden beds (working around perennials & shrubs) and cover it over with a really good compost mixture (purchased by the yard at landscape centers).  The newspaper works better than landscape fabric for weed control, is biodegradable and free.  You don't have to wait a season, you can plant immediately.  This is also a great option for eliminating a patch of lawn to be turned into garden.

2)  POTTED PLANTS: Using a good quality compost in your pots can produce far better results than even the best potting soil mixture.  No soil required!

3)  COVER THE DIRT with fine wood mulch.  It can be the answer to weeding and tilling around trees, shrubs and perrenials.  Use a layer of newspaper and compost first and you'll eliminate weeds further.  The mulch adds esthetic appeal and feeds your plants.  It can be purchased by the yard to reduce the cost of buying it in bags.

4)  PREVENT INVASIVE PLANTS FROM SPREADING, like decorative grasses, by burying a planter right into the soil and planting in the planter.  Every 2-3 years you'll need to remove the plant from the planter to thin out the bulbs or roots but it won't take over your garden.  Simply repot one portion of the separated roots, stick the pot back into the ground and you're good for another few years.

5)  PLANT GARDEN BOXES.  Using the newspaper method above you can virtually eliminate weeds from your vege garden too.  Garden boxes are attractive and keep your feet off the dirt to prevent compacting the soil (light, airy soil is what your plants want).  Build the garden boxes small enough for you to reach right to the center without a problem.  The higher you build them the less you need to bend.  Internal irrigation systems are available at Home Depot so that even watering can be a breeze.  Make sure your soil is a 50/50 mix of quality soil and compost.  Adding mulch such as coconut husk (purchased at Sage Garden) helps keep the soil airy and easy to work with.

6) GET GROWING ORGANICALLY.  Sage Garden on St. Mary's is currently the only garden center in Winnipeg that specializes in organic plants and seeds.  Check them out.  They also offer some fantastic classes in Spring, Summer and Fall to boost your green thumb skills.

7)  ORGANIC FERTILIZER  is like medicine to the ailing, like fudge to the chocolate lover!  In 24 hours you can create a compost tea to add to your plants and gardens.  Then stand back and watch them thank you.  Recipe for compost tea:

unchlorinated water 
2 oz skim milk powder
compost 
3-4 oz Seawater liquid (available at Sage Garden)
3 oz unsulfured black strap molasses
5 gallon pail
1 stocking, nylon or burlap bag
1 fish tank aerator

Fill the stocking or bag with compost and tie shut.  Fill the 5 gallon pail with water to about 2/3 full and add remaining ingredients to water.  Steep the stocking in the water alongside the aerator.  Steep for 24 hours.  Dilute the tea with another equal amount of water and feed plants regularly.

8)  WEED CONTROL.  Use straight Javex in a spray bottle for killing weeds like dandelions, thistle, quack grass, etc.  Be careful to shield other plants from spray.  Another option is a mixture of 1/2 gallon apple cider vinegar, 1 1/4 cups table salt and 1/2 tsp liquid dish soap.
     Sprinkle baking soda between patio blocks or stones to curb weed growth.
     Use 2 tablespoon Epsom salt to a gallon of water to spray on lawn for lush, green grass.  Epsom salt is loaded with magnesium.

9)  PEST CONTROL.  Mix 3 parts water to 1 part ammonia and spray directly onto plants to control slugs and other pests.
     Keep spiders from constructing webs across your windows and doors with the following mixture: 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup pepper, 1 tsp each cooking oil and liquid soap.  Pour into a spray bottle to apply.  Re-apply after a rain.
     Natural mosquito repellant: 16 oz spray bottle, 15 drops lavendar oil, 3-4 tablespoons vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp lemon juice.  Fill the balance of the bottle with water and shake.
     Place a half orange with the fleshly portion stabbed with whole cloves on your patio table when eating al fresco to keep the flies at bay.
     Install a bat house (can be homemade or purchased where bird houses are sold) near your back yard.  Bats are insectivores and one bat can catch up to 600+ mosquitoes per hour!

     There is a wealth of informtion out there for organically sound yard and garden options just waiting to be explored.  One of my favorite people, Mark, works with a Winnipeg organization called Urban Eatin Gardeners Worker Co-op - www.urbaneatin.com - helping urban dwellers create functional growing spaces full of organic good eatin'.  Check out the website.  They would be glad to respond to any questions with sound, healthy, sustainable options.

     I'd love to hear your ideas and share them on further blogs.

You can see why I love my backyard!

                                                        

   

Polishing My Halo

     My finger hovers precariously atop the "publish" button of this blog post, quivering with anticipation.  By the time you read this I will have been storing up this little secret in the attic of my brain for two weeks or more.  This clandestine piece of knowledge has legs and wants to run amok, like Tigger on amphetamines.  And thus, I have kept it locked up tight, inside a trunk, heavy leather straps and padlock to keep it secure, safe from slithering through my lips and into the ears of those who are not yet in the inner circle of secrecy.
     Oh, the agony!  Hording a secret such as I have is not a privilege, it is a curse; the cross that I must bear as a steward of good faith.  And I have upheld my part of the bargain, nearly busting a molar in the clenching of my teeth when opportune moments arise to shout it from the rooftops.
     And I have waited eagerly at the starting line for this very moment, my feet planted firmly for a jackrabbit start - get ready, get set............GO!

                                                               Stay with me....



                                                              Stay with me....


                          Iamgoingtobeagrandma!  I am going to be a grandma!  

Wheeeeeew!  There I said it.  I can't feel my legs...I think I smell burnt toast.  Oh my stars, I'm going to be a    
                                                               GRANDMA.