May I help you, my love? #7

Not that I want to knock  the joys of youth,but anyone who is over 50 more than likely has personal stories of disrespect they endured while young.  And I can  attest to that as well. I remember going to the old Giant Mart in Churchill Square when I was in my early twenties. I had to use the phone and perhaps I was on it more than two minutes.  And I suppose it got on the nerves of the lady working at a nearby counter.  She took it on herself to remind me that the phone was not mine.  And in not too pleasant a voice either.   But I listened to her and hung up as soon as I could politely finish  the dialogue with my husband.  I thought to myself that she should  be more respectful of me since I was a married woman now and deserving of full adult status. But obviously my marital status did not have the impact that my aging appearance has given me.

I find now that I am over sixty that I can get away with a lot more. Today no one would be so rude as to hurry me up or verbally roughhouse me.  Is that what makes us , older people so crotchety ; the fact that that we can get away with a lot more?  It seems no matter what I do these days I am still everyone’s  love.  It is becoming quite noticeable.  I know in Canada the endearment, “my love”  is unique to Newfoundland.  But it is absolutely overwhelming these days the number of times  it is used as my name .

I mean, I don’t have a face that is angelic.  In fact it can be quite stern. My lips naturally turn down making a frown.  I have to consciously remind myself to tip up the corners just a little to appear merely placid.  Otherwise people ask  me what’s wrong .  I think I cultivated the stern face when I was teaching junior high in my early working days.  I had to use creative ways to maintain discipline.  Barbara Coloroso hadn’t published her book then.  One of my strategies was the  hairy eyeball, which if I can reconstruct it in my mind, I will describe to you.  The hairy eyeball is a total facial performance  with the eyes being the leading act.  It consists of pursing the lips ,taking a deep breath , flaring  the nostrils and lifting the upper eyelids to make your eyes pop .  All this you do while fastening a stare on the  squirming miscreant in front of you. I don’t know if my students were afraid of it or got a laugh from it but they gave me my ovation by responding appropriately which is the only payment I wanted for my efforts.

Anyway it is the  perfection of that type of  theatrical  ploy that has given my once youthful face the look of the wicked witch of the north.  So I am thinking that these days it isn’t my inner cherub that is prompting the barrage of “my loves ” that accost me the moment I step into a store. I suggest it is the recognition of my advancing years .

I’m not complaining, mind you.  I love it.  I can take those words all day long and night-time too.  Not too much love for me.  I just find it strange.  I reserve that endearment for  little children ,close family members, and occasionally , dear friends.   At one time I used it with everyone who seemed nice. Then with the impact  of globalization  it became insulting to some people who considered “my love” to be “talking down”.  I can’t deny that it isn’t “talking up”.   After all I wouldn’t call the queen my love or my ducky or sweetheart.  But  people very close to me use it regularly and I reciprocate.  So on the premise that it is used with the best of intentions I am going to accept it as I feel it is intended.  And I will bask in “my love”  till I am too old to hear it any more.

The next time I go to the mall and some little snippet of a seventeen year old says ” May I help you, my love?” I will count my blessings  that despite the hairy eyeball I still have a face worthy of such endearments and have lived to an age where I have earned it.

My sock drawer Ommmmmmmmmmmm

an organized sock drawer

You are never too old to learn something new.  And today there is no excuse for passing up the opportunity to learn how to do something different.  And I have found the perfect place to get the instruction.  It is not at the local colleges, university or recreation centre.  It is here, in my own home and on my computer, right there on Youtube.

So what have I learned in my own home?  Well most recently I learned how to fold socks.  You read correctly.Folding socks is an art.  I no longer put the heels together in the same direction and fold the sock in half.  Nor do I take the socks and tug the ribbing  of one over the balled up carcass of the two bodies.  Oh no!   There is a technique to folding socks.  First you place one sock on top of the other so that they are perfectly matched.   Fold them into three equal parts and bring the ribbed section of one completely over and beyond the bulk of the two socks .  Keep everything flat as you do this and you will have a very neat package.    My sock drawer is a vision of neatness and calm in what used to be a collage  of disorder.  You can sense the calm.  No need to do Yoga in my place.  Just open the sock drawer and instantly all is right in the world. The evenly space ridges of folded socks speak of undulating South Pacific Ocean ripples.  The colours of the yarn  conjure up evening sunsets of pink , blue, grey and white and the drawer itself nestles the contents in a swath of shadowy stillness.  Listen to Yanni  when you open that drawer take a deep breath, smell the scent of  freshness and put your mind back in the womb once again.

I paid $99 to do a Yoga class last winter.  Why they charged $99 and not $100 is a mystery to me.  Is there some fear of three digit numbers?  If it weren’t for my sock drawer I would get very upset about that $99.  I would think they are trying to put one over on me by persuading me that there is a BIG difference between that two digit charge and the next number up.  I know it is a psychological ploy .  People react better to $99 than to $100 but I find it a pain in the derriere and an insult to my intelligence.  That is I DID  find it a pain.  But now when theses negative thoughts come to my mind I   close  my bedroom door, turn on my Yanni tape and repeat my mantra.  Sock drawer, sock drawer,   Saw aw  aw  k       draaaaaaaw   er .         Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm.   Then I open the little doors of the bureau, find the  second drawer and open it reverently.  Instantly there is peace.  All distractions and discord evaporate.  Everything is as it should be.

Just try it. Check it out at info central, YouTube.  Search  ”folding socks”.  Then  spend a day organizing your sock drawer and see if you too will find  inner peace.

Private whisper versus Public roar-a most remarkable teacher, Miss Brett

She stood six feet tall.   Well that is how I remember her.  And she was a handsome woman.  That word is rarely used today but it describes Miss Brett to the tee. She wore double-breasted jackets with matching pleated skirts  and she had a habit of placing one hand inside the left lapel as she taught.  And while she talked she paced the front of the room so we had to follow her movements as we listened. She was our English teacher.

I remember the first day she walked into class.  My friend,Sonny, who sat across the aisle from me had challenged me to a game of hockey.  Yes right there, in the classroom.  Our rulers were hockey sticks and the grey and white eraser was a puck.  The goal posts were the legs of our chairs .We remained seated and held our sticks down by the side of our desks and we’d attempt to flick the eraser between the legs of the opposite desk.    I had just shot the puck past Sonny’s stick , through the opening and scored_ at the instant Miss B made her entrance.  My hurrah stopped at Hurrrrrrrrrr and died right there.  My arms froze in mid-air,then weakened and melted back to my desk.  And her eyes and mine locked.  This was not going to be a stare down. You could just see she was seasoned by many a hard as nails pupil in her career.  And I was a student.  Yes a STUDENT.  I never got into trouble.  My marks were good and I wouldn’t say POOP if my mouth were full of it.

Did that matter to her?  Not a wit.  I could tell  that this was going to be a very painful experience.  She said not a word.  Her lips were tight, a line across the bottom third of her face .  And there was absolutely no expression.  Not a trace of a frown nor a smile.  But she held me in her gaze as she slowly and deliberately strutted towards my desk.  I lowered my head and waited.  Everyone in the class was silent. No one would dare drop a pin if they could.

She stopped right next to my shoulder.  I didn’t dare look up at this ten foot monster.  Instead I folded up into myself like a sheet of paper in a flame.  My heart beat  a dirge and I trembled in dread.  I expected to be hauled out of the seat,  propelled to the classroom door, and God knows what else.

She bent down. She didn’t bend her legs but folded from the waist.  Her laced shoes were flat on the floor and from my view there was a perfectly straight torso with a head hanging somewhere near my right ear.  The lips moved.  I could barely hear. The words were precise, clipped, and unmistakably threatening .  But all they said was, ” Don’t you ever do that again in my class.”  No one else could hear.  It was just a whisper.  She drew herself up to full height, walked back to the front of the class and began her teaching.

I sat, my face flaming, in total embarrassment. I was fifteen and how I hated her. My fifteen year old mind wished her tongue would fall out, lightning would strike her dead, the flames of hell would engulf her.  How dare she embarrass me like that!   I was a good student.  I never got into any trouble. It was the only time a teacher had ever chastised me.

Oh how the young mind can twist things and fail to see the broader picture.

It took me weeks to get over that day.  But she had certainly made an impact.  I dared not turn my head when she came into the class.  I was forced to pay attention.  And pay attention I did.  I listened as she told the stories of George Elliot who had to use a man’s name so that her writing would be taken seriously.   I listened as she told us about the love relationship between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband, Robert.   I heard her tell of  Emily Carr, her artistry and her authorship.  She taught us about the French Revolution , the problems that precipitated it and the horrors and heroes of that era as we read A Tale of Two Cities.  And we  examined issues like euthanasia that arose in the  pastoral poem, David and the  dilemma of war in  The Man he Killed.

She stimulated our minds and she was the original Iron Lady. I had never had a teacher like her and none ever did measure up to her.   She knew her subject and taught more than the curriculum called for.  And she kept order in her class with a mere look.  She commanded respect because of her knowledge and love of her subject and her expectation that we would be attentive and engaged.

When I chose to become a teacher, she was always in my mind as the epitome of excellence in that profession.  And whenever I had to deal with undesirable student behaviour I remembered how she  handled it.  A private whisper achieved more than a public roar.

Finding your “presence”

Two more days and I will chalk in a full week of walking!  I feel good about it especially since we have had very cold days since I made this promise to extricate myself from the arms of my recliner . What a change I see in my energy level and in such a short period of time!  I can see I will be running the Telly Ten this summer .

Considering I am trying to be more active, it is more than a little ironic that this week should bring to me  a new experience that involved absolutely no expenditure of physical energy.  A couple of weeks ago it was my first massage.  This time I was invited to accompany my friend to a meditation  class.  Since I am game for most novel experiences I agreed to give it a try.

My friend had a groupon certificate for dinner at the Casbah and since her husband was unavailable she offered to share it with me.  We would eat and then meditate.  We parked her car a half kilometer away from the restaurant. It was a lovely evening, though cool, so the little walk was pleasant.  We did realize that after our meal there would be a walk of the same distance to the meditation class.  That was no problem. It would aid our digestion.

The restaurant was lovely and we were served by a bubbly young Bulgarian beauty who spoke perfect English and catered to our every need.  The chicken in cream sauce , vegetables of green pepper, eggplant, asparagus , and miniature potatoes appealed to our eyes and our palates.  We were so full that we passed on the dessert and had coffee  to cap off the meal.

Then , stomachs full we headed down Duckworth St.  towards  the Lotus Centre.  This is the place where one can do Yoga or meditation.  What I hadn’t counted on was the steep uphill trek.  Anyone who has walked downtown is aware of the hills and if you drive a standard you would be particularly knowledgeable about which streets challenge you to slide backwards.  This was one of those hills.  And the two of us being fairly substantial in girth had all we could do to keep from rolling arse over kettle towards the harbour.  Eventually after a great deal of huffing and puffing we arrived red faced and sweating at the door which would lead to the centre of ourselves and the world of meditation.

The house was a very old row house that is typical of the downtown area.  There was no evidence of any modern intervention in the rooms that I could see.  It was obvious that it was a dwelling as well as a studio because there was a kitchen area we passed on our way up the one lane stairwell and a couple of doors  opened onto  bedrooms.  We were led to a  carpeted room which had cushions around all the walls.  The cushions were large and we each sat on one as we waited for the class to begin.  In the centre of the floor stood a pitcher of water and some glasses .  We poured some and had a few sips of the warm liquid.  Warm water is supposed to be good for some reason that I do not know.  I have learned that anything I considered normal in my life as far as food, drink and thinking goes is absolutely abnormal and bizarre in the world of Yoga and meditation.

But I am an open minded person so warm water is fine with me.  I drank it in Korea along with cold coffee long before Ice caps were introduced at Tim Horton’s.  The leader came in the room.  Oh, how thin she was!  She shouldn’t be allowed out around the door with that slim body.  Oops!  Sorry!  A little envy there.  In a soft slow voice she urged us to take our places and to get comfortable.  We were about to find our “presence”.  She lit a candle in the centre of the room, the water was gone at this point.   All other lights were off.  One solitary candle. Ten people.  We were about to feel the energy of the others there with us.  So she said.

A tap on the singing bowl with a mallet and we sat spines erect, legs crossed, eyes closed as she lulled us with her words into a state of relaxation.  Five minutes of listening to her soft slow voice, another tap on the singing bowl and there was silence.  For forty five minutes we sat, not a word, not even the sound of a car outside to distract us.  Forty five minutes I sat cross legged, with ten other people sending out their energy around me and I didn’t find my “presence”.  I know I was present but my presence was shooting out everywhere in the room at a time when I was supposed to find it deep inside.

I closed my eyes.  Got bored with that.  Opened them slightly. Gazed at the candle through slitty eyes .  That was interesting.  I could see the light that danced all around the flame, you know, those long flickering rays that you can only see when you stare at the flame for a long time,  rays that extend way out the more squinty you keep your eyes.  A couple of minutes doing that and I thought it might be a good idea to see if there was any light emanating from any of my companions.  With all the talk of auras these days this was the perfect opportunity to investigate this theory.  At least one person in the room should  have an aura plainly visible even to my untrained eye.  I stared and stared and stared.  My slitty eyes glided from one person to another.  No auras. I wondered if all this focused attention would make even one spirit acknowledge my presence lurking near.  No luck there either.

How many minutes did I have left I wondered.  There was no way to know; my watch was broken and it was too dark to see anyway.

Of course there is nothing like trying to relax and meditate that will bring to mind the most unrelaxing thoughts.  Here in the semidarkness, absolute quiet and stillness what should pop into my head?  My cellphone!  Did I turn it off?  Apparently my friend had the same thought. Telepathy , no doubt.  She was staring at me.  I could see her hand crawl towards her bag.  She motioned to me with the telephone hand position what she was looking for. Well that curdled the milk of meditation for the next thirty minutes.  I could imagine the scene if both our phones started ringing.  So I spent the rest of the period willing them to stay silent.

And they did.  Again my thought must have silenced any calls for the phone did not ring once.  Proof positive of the power of the human mind.  No matter that it rings only once a blue moon anyway.

In the distance I heard the sound of a clock , it seemed.  I thought it must be the end of a half hour.  The chime sounded a few times.  Then I realized what I was hearing was the singing bowl.  The meditation was over.

I had spent forty five minutes and a number of dollars to do what I had been doing in my recliner for the past two months.  Next week I will light my own candle in the centre of the room, drink a liter of warm water and tap on my crystal glass as I search for my “presence”.

You Life as it appears in an Estate Auction

I don’t profess to be a hoarder , in fact, I am broaching the life of a minimalist.  So for me to attend an auction flies in the face of my contention that we complicate our lives by having too many things.  However, I dream sometimes of finding that rare item that will land me on the Antique Roadshow with a $500 000 footstool that I paid $15 for at an auction.

Last Thursday, my daughter and I attended a pre-auction showing just up the street from my home.  It was in a private home, an estate auction.  I didn’t go with any high expectations assuming   that most items of value would have been sold privately . The house itself  had the sad look of  aging without any cosmetic surgery.    Nothing had been done to it since the seventies when I would guess it had been built.  The shag carpets were worn .  The linoleum flooring was dated and I thought what a job it was going to be for the new owners to remove the forty year old wallpaper. It was a surprise then when I looked through the items listed  to see that this particular sale had everything a homeowner would expect to have but in duplicate and triplicate. And much of it was in pristine condition.

The basement held the auctioneers heaven.  For the carpenter there were workbenches still in the boxes.  I counted three.  One large tool chest high as a man stood in a corner of the basement and another slightly smaller one was next to it.  Both were  in perfect condition .  The red paint had no scratch , dent or smudge.  Alongside,  an electric sander, rotary saw and screwdrivers peeked out from a box on the floor.   Scattered around the place were ladders, hammers, saws, screwdrivers and drills , all new apparently unused. Two exercise machines were stored there. They showed no evidence of use.

Hundreds of artificial flowers , beads, ribbons, vases, bindings and acoutrements that one would use to make arrangements sat on shelves in another room.  The themes varied from the earthy autumn  colours, to easter yellows and purples and Christmas reds and greens.

Upstairs on the main level there was a pantry. It overflowed with   baking tools.   I noticed numerous baking pans , cookie sheets, moulds, and cookie cutters.  Pots and pans lined the shelves .  There was too much to take in all at once.  My thought was someone in this household  really enjoyed cooking and baking.  The library in the tv. room was additional confirmation . Shelves and shelves of books the length of the room held only cook books, hundreds of them.

I concluded the occupants of the house were a couple who were heavily involved in  crafts ,  carpentry,  physical fitness and baking.  They were interested in everything.

On the upper level were the bedrooms and main bathroom.

The bedrooms were stripped of furniture except for  one which had a twin bed  covered with the most beautiful thick duvet I have ever seen.  It appeared to be in sparkling white brand new condition.  And the cover was in its original unopened packaging.

Art prints and various hangings were lying here and there , in the closets, on the walls , on shelves. They had obviously been removed from their original places and combined with similar works to make their sale a more convenient process.  Auctioneers frequently sell things in groups.

I place a prebid on one single object, a stacking shelf with wicker baskets that I thought would look nice in a spare room of my house.

Before leaving I decided I would have to find out just why so many things were being auctioned.  If the family was moving, why were they not taking their treasures with them?  Had there been an accident with all souls killed?  Was it a widower or widow who had passed away and the offspring had no interest in the property?  My curiosity had to be satisfied.  So I asked.

To my surprise, the owner was a single woman, a doctor.  She had had a stroke and had gone to live in a home where she would be cared for.  She was barely 50 years old.

I don’t know her.  And yet I feel I do.

And I feel sadness.  It seems this person spent her time buying things .  Collecting.  Was this compensation for some void in her life?

Then, on the other hand, she did floral arrangements.  I could see that because there were some around the house . That makes me feel better.   And baking may have been a pastime though the pans looked new and unused to me.  But the carpenter’s tools are a mystery. The house had not seen any renovations.  The tools looked new.  What was the story behind them?

I doubt I will ever know the answers .

This experience leads me to one resolve.  When I die I hope my things will show that I lived a life.  The evidence will be in the wear and tear on my clothes, the worn finish on my pots and pans , the dog eared pages of my cookbooks, the worn out soles of my running shoes and the stains and nicks in my dinnerware.   I know that in one of my  handwritten recipe books there are samples of many meals I  prepared .  However they are no longer palatable and live only as stains and smears on the pages.

Haircut

Like most people when I am doing something routine my mind wanders to similar situations in my past. I was brushing my grand daughter’s hair in preparation for the anguish of winding the thin elastic band tightly around to make a pony tail. My mind rolled back to a day in my childhood when I made my first visit to a  hairdresser without my mother.  Her name was Mrs. Durante, not a local name,  and she operated a salon in her home.  I think she was a single divorced mother of three .  In those days there were very few divorced people in our town or anywhere else,  for that matter.  Mrs. Durante, to her credit, was making her living through her little business.  I believe she had moved to our town from some place on the mainland.  It must have been quite an adjustment for her particularly when it came to understanding our rapid speech let alone the accent  and colourful dialect.

I remember this haircut because of  the unexpected reaction from her when I explained what I wanted done.  I was probably around ten years old.  After she had washed my hair  I settled into the “styling” chair and she fastened the plastic cape around my neck .

I must first mention that my mother had a wonderful thesaurus of Newfoundland words for the most ordinary things.  These words are not found in Miriam Webster  and very unlikely in the Oxford dictionary. One which I checked out recently was “clitty”. I could find it only in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.  Whenever we had tangles in our hair she would tut tut over the clits.  No one batted an eyelash . It was a perfectly acceptable colloquialism.

Also the nape of our necks was referred to as the pole. How often when we were growing up did mom comment as we were playing ,  ” Bless her little pole!” or sometimes ” Bless her gob!”  We used these words without thinking .  The tangles were clits and the nape of our neck was a pole.  And gob was the mouth . Simple as that.

Therefore when I was properly installed in the “styling” chair and Mrs Durante asked me what it was I  wanted done  I answered in the dialect of my childhood and with the seriousness of an eighty year old, ” I want my crop cut , please.”

I couldn’t understand at the time how I was responsible for the guffaws of laughter that her right hand pressed firmly to her “gob” failed to suppress .

Pamper Yourself

It is important to pamper yourself whenever you get the chance.

What a wonderful day I had yesterday !  And it all came about due to a birthday gift.  You might think it was a present I received but it wasn’t.  It was a gift I gave.  Some months ago I purchased a two and a half hour session at a spa for $29.95.  I bought three of them.  After all it was a real steal to my mind.  The coupon entitled the owner to a pedicure, manicure, massage and facial. I simply could not pass that up.  One I purchased for my daughter and one each for my friend and me.  We thought it a great idea to plan a day together around her birthday which we did.

At 9:15 am we set out for Manuels about 20 minutes from St. John’s.  We arrived too early so a coffee at Tim’s seemed a good idea since it was near the spa. We didn’t have enough time to finish our coffee so when we had to leave we took them  with us and headed towards the door.  As usual there was a kilometer long lineup of people spilling through the door onto the parking lot.  But the most interesting thing was that as I walked past it I sensed a rush of testosterone . Every human being there was male.   Ordinarily I would never be aware of that overpowering presence of masculinity but this was a day I was catering to the female in me through a little pampering.  All my senses were in overdrive.

We entered the sanctity of  the salon and for the next three and a half hours we were totally self -absorbed . That is no error .  The two and half hours stretched  an hour longer.  Back rubs, foot massages, hot packs , heated towels , rosemary and cardamom scented creams, fountains trickling in the background and soft music titillated our senses.  We left feeling warm and fuzzy.

Of course we couldn’t stop there as one of our senses was begging attention.  That was TASTE.  So off we headed to Jungle Jims where we had chicken tacos and rice. The world was bright.  And I do mean bright because even the sun graced us with its appearance.  And that is no little thing for May month in Newfoundland.

Rather than have dessert we opted for a walk along the Virginia River Trail.  The trees were burgeoning not quite in full bloom but almost there, the wind sang through the branches and barely cooled us in the heat of the afternoon. We watched a solitary duck swim in a shaded area of the river and later searched for a resident swan on the lake.  It was a day full of sensory delight.  A gift I purchased for my friend was as much a gift to me.

Today I am thinking it was an excellent decision I made to buy those coupons because reality has a way of giving you a few slaps.  In contrast to yesterday,  I am obliged  today to pay two plumbers bills, my car registration and the charge  to have my tires changed.  To top it all off  Honda Motors just called to let me know that while they were changing  the tires they noticed I need new brake pads.  Sigh!!

Well at least I can hand over my Visa Card with lovely manicured finger nails.