Dead People’s Stuff
I am surrounded by dead people’s stuff. Sometimes I feel like I live in a graveyard. Sometimes I want to live in a graveyard; especially in the fall, when the cemetery grounds are calm and gray and dreary. I would so fit in with the Addams family. I covet their house.
Next week it is Halloween (Samhain) and El Día de los Muertos. This is the time of year to reflect and honour our ancestors. I don’t have to go far to do this as half of my apartment is furnished with dead people’s stuff.
I’ve been collecting furniture from dead people all my life. (The image that comes to my mind is of me knocking on doors of old houses, Victorian mansions, Gingerbread cottages, etc, and the doors being answered by a variety of ghosts, young, old, ancient, etc. Oh, if only I could draw!)
What I mean is that I prefer to buy second-hand rather than new. I like my possessions to come with stories; even if they are only stories I make up myself.
So, though I can say most of my stuff is second-hand, only about half of it was actually acquired from dead people.
In the living room, there is Ruby’s couch. Ruby was a friend of my moms. She died just after I moved to the city. I bought the couch because it folds out into a bed. It makes my mom think of Ruby but I only see the practicability of having an extra bed.
Also, in the living room is my grandmother’s (my mother’s mother) television. My mom and sister bought it for her when she moved into the home so that she could watch her soaps in the privacy of her own room. Like me, my mother’s mother was a quiet woman. She preferred her privacy.
Yes, the television is too small for the space it is in. I like it that way!
Just down from the television is a table my grandfather (my mother’s father) made. It use to have a linoleum top. About five years ago, I borrowed my sister’s garage one summer and redid the top of the table. It involved a lot of sanding and painting and varnishing. It is not finished on purpose. The incompleteness reminds me that my grandfather chose not to teach me those types of skills because I am a woman. The incompleteness also reminds me that nothing is permanent. Life is mutable, ever-changing and even though, for me, change is not always good, I try to remember that change is necessary.
Under the table is a foot stool that I bought when my small home town’s undertaker died. He lived just down the street from us and I wanted something to remember him by. His only daughter had died young and he always made a habit to say hi and ask after us when we were gone. He was one of the good ones.
In the kitchen is Aunt Jenny’s kitchen table and chairs. I also have some of her cooking pots. She was not my Aunt Jenny. She was my pseudo step-dad’s aunt. I never met her. I heard much about her. She lived alone, but for hired help, in her own house until she died. This is how I wish to die – in my own home.
In the bedroom is Ruby’s dresser. Notice how none of my stuff matches. I am not a matchy type of soul. I like the mish mash of this and that. I like the opportunity of making what was someone else’s mine. I replaced two of the drawer pulls, on this dresser, with dragonflies. They fit well, don’t you think?
Also, in the bedroom is the last comforter my grandmother ever slept under. It is part of my winter bedding because it is down filled and warm, even though it is over fifteen years old.
That is about half of what I own.
There is also:
- a green rocking chair that I bought at a garage sale,
- the kitchen table that was my mom’s old table that I use to add more cupboard space to my kitchen,
- my bed, which was a wedding gift – go here to see my summer bedding,
- the bookcases I bought second-hand (an amazing bargain),
- the hope chest my dad gave me for my 16th birthday,
- a small bedroom cabinet that I bought new (horrors),
- And two of my mom’s old kitchen chairs.
Oh, and my roll-top desk. I’ve wanted one since forever and finally was able to find one, for an obscene price, at a church sale just after I moved back to the city. I like to think some old lady use to sit here and write long rambling letters to her loved ones.
I like being surrounded by dead people’s stuff; continuing on their stories. I hope that when I am gone someone else will use and love my stuff with the same respect.
Sick Alone
I was home sick last week. Alone. I spent twenty hours in bed on Wednesday just sleeping and over two days had no more than a cup of oatmeal to eat. I left the house once. To go across the street to buy necessities: tissues, toilet paper, white bread, ginger ale.
Not sure what I had. The symptoms were all over the place: runny nose, fever, aches & pains. Mostly, I was tired and didn’t want anything to eat or drink.
And this concerned me; that I wasn’t eating or drinking much. I worried about getting dehydrated and confused. I know how quickly one can die. I remember Jim Henson – one day kind of sick, the next day too late to go to the hospital.
My Eldest Sister is a nurse. She’s been attending a lot of the pandemic preparation seminars. She has me worried. I’m not over concerned about the H1N1 flu, and I will be getting the vaccination once it is available, but I do worry about being sick and alone.
I was worried about getting confused and making bad judgments because I’m sick, tired, and feverish. There were times this last week when I wasn’t sure when the last time was that I took medications.
I usually can easily live alone. I can entertain myself for decades, even without television or the internet. Right now, I have a year’s worth of books stashed in my apartment – about two hundred or so. I have a high tolerance for combating boredom. I can, and do, entertain myself. I read, I write, I make up stories in my head; I watch television, own my favorites on DVD and have toys to play with (shh).
Loneliness is not usually the problem. Though, truth be told I never felt this alone in Montreal. Where I had no family and only a few friends, but we all were alone and that meant we felt obligated to check up on each other regularly.
What really concerned me this week was basic survival. How could I get food, water, money, when I couldn’t leave the house and I know no one in the city that I would feel comfortable asking to run these errands for me? If I were back home in the small town I grew up in, the grocery stores would deliver and let me buy what I needed on credit. I wouldn’t need to worry about having less than ten dollars in my apartment.
I’m starting to seriously consider having an emergency kit. I have a case of water now left over from the last time the city turned off the water without letting us know. I have the necessary medical supplies, thanks to my sister’s worries. I have a freezer full of meat and enough food for about two weeks but it all needs preparation and what if I can’t cook, for both medical or practical reasons.
What would I do then?
Honestly, I don’t know.
When I was a young woman, new to the city, I lived downtown in an apartment on the third floor. Every once in a while, an elderly neighbour (probably in her 70s or older) would show up needing help opening a tin can. I always helped. (I hope this helps my karma in the future). I learnt, over the course of my two years there, that she lived alone on the first floor. The lone elderly woman in a building usually filled up with university students or young workers new to the work force and city. My apartment building, where I live now, is also mostly university students and lone middle-aged workers too poor to afford a house. I know maybe six of my neighbours by sight, two by name. I don’t have the sort of courage that it takes to go door to door asking for help until someone smiles and helps.
That old woman died alone in that apartment building just before I moved out to Montreal. I think about her. Who was she? Why did she have no one? She died alone. They cleaned out her apartment and threw most every thing she owned into the dumpster behind the building. This is how Garbo entered my life. She belonged to that old woman and I felt something of hers should be rescued and passed on to someone who would try to remember an old woman she never really knew!
This is Garbo – she is named after Greta Garbo (because all of us prefer to live alone!).
This is why I think it’s time I had a preparedness plan and kit. I’ve looked over the list and it’s nice to know that I have at least half of it already. I also know that I need to keep what few social connections I already have, nurtured. I need to keep in contact with my family and learn how to make new friends. Alone is fine, but the older I get, the more I realize that I also need a community to help me nurture myself.
Yes, I am a healthy, independent woman. I can live in harmony with myself. The trick is learning to feel a little bit less solitary in the wide open spaces alone and to learn how to be a contributing community member and still be comfortably solitaire.
First Snow and Fall Suppers
We had our first snow on Thursday. It started falling in the late morning. By the time I went out for lunch, there were big fluffy, flakes floating in the air and settling on all the green that just days before had been basking in the warmth of the sun.
Hopefully, it will warm up again and all this snow will melt before Halloween. We barely got any Fall; Fall only officially started here at 1:18 pm CST on Tuesday, September 22. That was, what, less than three weeks ago?
I do not have pictures of this. I really should keep my camera with me. I envisioned many lovely compositions on Thursday and now we shall never see how they would have turned out. 
Here are a few pictures I took Friday morning on my walk to work…when it was minus 14 degrees Celsius with a wind chill. Brrr. (For you Americans that means the temperature was 6 degrees Fahrenheit.)
Here is a picture of birds (wrens? swallows?) foraging that morning in the park.
Don’t they look cold? Okay, maybe I’m projecting here. I was feeling very cold when I took that picture. It was about half-way through my walk. And I was worried the birds wouldn’t show up in the picture. (It’s a new camera – I’m still getting used to it.)
The next picture is of our Hollyhock plants here at work. They don’t look as cold. Perhaps, because they have such a warm snowy quilt covering them. 
In the world I grew up in it seemed that fall suppers were ubiquitous. They were everywhere. I recall that we could go to one, every weekend, from the start of school till Halloween. I’m sure, now, that this memory if false. Firstly, because, of course, Fall Suppers could not start until after the harvest was done. A Fall Supper is a community affair, everyone contributes something. Secondly, of course, they probably stopped at Thanksgiving (which, here in Canada, is this weekend) because by then everyone was tired of turkey.
Their name is debatable. Is it Fall Supper, because they are held in the Fall? Is it Fowl Supper, because the main meat is turkey? As long as it is not Foul Supper (a colleague jokes – LOL).
Traditionally, the small town I grew up in would have five separate suppers. Each church, Catholic, Lutheran, United, Pentecostal, would sponsor one and the school would also sponsor one. Now, we are down to one – only the school can still muster up enough workers and food. Coming from a small town, having left as so many of us did, I do wonder who will carry on these traditions. The church women, who use to do the cooking, are getting older. The churches, in small towns, are consolidating so that there are fewer churches. The children mostly leave or work outside the community.
This time of the year, I yearn for Fall Suppers. Weekends filled with turkey, community and camaraderie.
Here is a true bounty. There are groaning platters of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, jellied salads, vegetables and desserts. The tables glow with pies and cakes and home-made delicacies. I could go on forever praising this liturgy of food and love.
I want to be a small child again, running in and out of the hall. I want to be a young teen reading the names off the tombstones in the cemetery next to the hall. I want to be the one cooking and cleaning and gossiping in the kitchen. I was never the mother corralling the young-uns – this I did as an aunt. I will never be the crone sitting and reminiscing as I sip my tea; unless I move back.
I am glad it is Thanksgiving. I am happy to be going to my sister’s for turkey and gossip. I could do without the cold. I will end now, with a final picture from Friday. When I went to work in the morning this tree had all its leaves. When I came home it had shivered and shook all its leaves off. There they are blanketing the ground. Poor tree, it was not ready for the cold weather either.
Green Angel
October 4, 2009 at 8:28 pm (Book Commentary) (Alice Hoffnan, book review, dystopia, environmental issues, family, Green Angel, sisters, tattoos)
At the beginning of August, I wrote a review of Alice Hoffman’s book The Story Sisters and mentioned how much I also loved her book Green Angel. So, I decided to give you that review today. It’s a bit long. I was very verbose when I wrote the review, just after I read the book.
There may be spoilers within.
If Green Angel is a Fairy Tale it is a feminist rending of one. The story focuses around Green, our heroine, who through her own fortitude, courage and resilience overcomes numerous obstacles to complete her quest. There is a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, too much hope to be a dystopia. However, does the story have enough magic in it so that we can feel comfortable calling it a Fairy Tale?
We could argue also that Green Angel is Magic Realist fiction. It is, after all, a story set within an everyday mundane world with the aura of the fantastic surrounding it. Because one cannot, after all, tattoo themselves so completely even if one were an ambidextrous contortionist. And can science explain how the body’s chemistry can turn black ink to green?
Then there are the dystopian elements that are so hard to ignore. Is the condition of Green’s life so extremely bad that there is no hope?
We bandy about these fictional terms like a talisman against the ancient gods who have forgotten us. If we can name something we can control it and thus have no reason to fear it.
If I told you only that I loved this book, that the language was perfect, that I wanted to rush right out and buy a copy for all my sisters (I have five), would you rush right out and buy a copy as well you should. If I told you only that I kept renewing the library copy so that I could still have it in my bag, on my person, until I can afford to buy my own copy of this exquisite little volume, would you understand.
Alice Hoffman wrote Green Angel. Matt Mahurin illustrates the Scholastic edition, designed by Elizabeth B. Parisi. Green pages run throughout the delicious illustrations and the book fits comfortably in the hand.
Green Angel is divided into five stories. They are Heart, Soul, Treasure, Rain and Sister. The themes are reminiscent of Cinder-Ella and Sleeping Beauty. Is this a Fairy Tale after all?
The tale told in Heart is the reality of what happened and how it happened. The tale told in Soul is what Green dreams. The tale told in Treasure tells us who and what Green loved. The tale told in Rain is what Green has lost. The tale told in Sister details the story that Green is finally able to tell.
A story involving a quest and love, with a smidgen of science, a hint of magic, and too much hope to be a dystopia.
Green and her younger sister Aurora live an ideal life above a village at the edge of a forest. Their father is honest and strong. Their mother prefers Blue Jay feathers to pearls. Aurora is wild and beautiful and can disappear like moonlight. Green is the least of them, a weed among the flowers. She is looking forward to turning sixteen. She keeps her distance from the village, is happy to be her family’s shadow. She is comfortable in the shadows, patient enough to sit for hours and watch the garden grow, see it turning green. Her family treasures her, Green says, because of her ability to grow substance from nothing … to create a garden that nourishes them all.
When catastrophe happens, Green is left alone to pick up the pieces of her life. The end of the world comes and Green survives to exist in the ashes. She must protect herself from the sooty days and parentless looters who come in the night not knowing she survived. The looters destroy the garden leaving nothing but ashes and stones. Stones that Green collects to build funeral cairns for her family. Half-blind, this task becomes her purpose, as she wishes to not feel anything. She becomes a half-dead thing in a half-dead world.
Green creates armor for herself out of her father’s old black boots and battered leather jacket. She carries stones and a slingshot everywhere. She tears the thorns from her garden’s bare rosebushes and sews them onto her clothes. She takes a needle and inks onto herself a raven, a bat, and a rose. She writes upon herself with black ink.
She loses herself in sleep and dreaming. She dreams her sister back into being, so Green herself can become, once again, patient, still waiting to be sixteen, still hopeful. Green sleepwalks through her days and each night inks tattoos upon her skin. This gives her courage to venture into the village. They thought her dead, they call her cursed. Green changes her name to Ash.
Slowly, Ash becomes friends with a neighbor, rescues a ghost white dog, feeds the birds, feeds and clothes an old nemesis, befriends a boy, dreams that her sister does not know her.
Slowly Ash changes. She trusts. She loves. Her tattoos start to change color from black to green. She replants her garden. She learns that to heal one must learn to let go.
Ash becomes Green once again. She dreams of a sister who knows her. Green cries and her tears wash the ash embers out of her eyes.
By the end of her quest Green is able to see clearly. She can see the world outside, aching and ruined, but beautiful all the same. She can miss her family, she can watch her revitalized garden grow, and she can discard her armor. Green can start to live happily ever after.
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
New York: Scholastic, 2003
ISBN: 0439443849
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