“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

Why does my mind say yellow? Yellow was never my favourite colour. But the clothes I remember fondly are always yellow; that Easter Spring sun dress, the baby doll nightgown I wore for more than half a decade. You must know, that when I say yellow I mean a bright golden colour – like this:

Yellow is bright and flighty and obvious. I am not, was never, do not aspire to be any of these things. Not bright as the sun is bright. I am midnight’s child, friend of the full moon and haunter of graveyards. Flight is willy nilly, here and there, never settling. I can sit and settle for longer than the spaces between breath and nothingness. I am nothingness. Obvious is seen. I was rarely seen.

On his death bed, my grandfather, my father’s father, saw me. He said; “Where is gigi? Is she off somewhere reading?” I was in the room but he did not see me in that hospital room; he saw ME!

I am the little one - almost hiding behind my sisters...

What you need to know is that I don’t sew. I have not the patience (anymore). My stepmother sews wonderfully; my stepsisters sew creatively.

Do you know anyone who sews for pleasure; who sews out of love? I do. One Christmas, my stepmother sewed for me my second favourite nightgown. It was a baby doll nightgown made out of white flannel and it had a diaper pin pattern. I wore it until it was falling apart. When I told her how much I loved it she found the pattern and made me two identical new ones out of green flannel featuring the Archie gang. I wore one until it wore out and have the other hanging in my closet. I’m afraid to wear it. I don’t want it to wear out because my stepmother no longer sews and thus can’t make me another when this one is gone. And I don’t sew!

The Archies

My youngest stepsister sews and regularly wears what she sews. My eldest stepsister is creative and sews wall hangings and pillow coverings as well as creates other fun projects, such as cakes and cards. My middle stepsister has a career creating props for films and thus hammers and sews and glues and paints and creates something out of nothing on a fairly regular basis.

I learned to sew on a trundle/pedal sewing machine when I was seven or eight. I made clothes (tiny, tiny) for my passed down, poverty stricken Barbie dolls. They, poor girls, couldn’t afford store made clothes so I got a McCalls pattern and scraps of cloth and made them an enviable wardrobe. There was even a wedding gown.

The beauty of learning to sew on a pedal machine was that I controlled the speed – slow, slower, slowest. I sewed meditatively, pausing to gaze out the window and to listen to the hustle of family life behind me.

The Pjs my stepmother made...

Home Economics changed all that. In grade 7, I took the bus and traveled thirty minutes away to a bigger school district where we (the girls) were taught to cook (never mind the fact that I had been making meals for years already) and sew. To sew step by step; pick a project, buy material, measure, pin, cut, iron, sew.

I bought a simple baby doll nightgown pattern and an owl print – yellow, white, black cotton. I measured. I pinned. I cut. I ironed. I sewed. I was stressed. I was bored. This went on afternoon after afternoon, once every six school week days. I learned to hate sewing.

They (school, my home economics teacher, the school system) took something I enjoyed and made it a chore. My next three home economics projects (grades 8, 9, 10 – and then we moved on to typing aka office skills) were both practical and flighty. I made a circle skirt and chose material in which I would have to match the pattern at the seam. I made a plain tan cape with a hood and a lining. Who did I think I was – some fairy tale gypsy peasant? This project had me both basting and lining. See, I still know the terminology and can speak the sewing language. My last project was a pant suit. I wore all three of these items as little as possible. I wore the pant suit once, the cape maybe twice and the circle skirt maybe three or four times. None of these clothes were my style. I was brainwashed by 70s era Seventeen magazine.

Favourite colours.

What they didn’t tell us. What I didn’t hear before I choose my project. What was nearly my undoing? At thirteen.

Do you remember thirteen? The awkwardness. The hiding. The needing to be the same, to not stand out.

What they didn’t tell us was that at the end of the semester there would be a fashion show and we would be expected to model our outfit. And I had made baby doll pajamas!

Yes, at the end of the year, I modeled my baby doll nightgown and bottom. Thankfully, the show was only for my fellow home economic students (all girls – next year we would have two boys take cooking) and their mothers.

None the less, I never again sewed for pleasure, for meditation, I wore that baby doll nightgown for over five years until it was worn and threadbare. The nightgown was a simple A line shape with no sleeves and just covered my bottom. I wear tank tops to sleep in now – I don’t like to be constricted when I’m sleeping.

Looking at the colour of the swatch I saved, the black and white owls still makes me smile. But I no longer sew.

The old year has passed by and the new year is commencing. Like a snake I feel ready to shed my skin and become something else.

I’ve never felt that the new year should begin now at the beginning of January. When in school, the new year always started in September and having spent half of my life (currently) in school settings it feels right for the new year to start September 1st or, as in pagan beliefs, for the old year to end with the harvest and the new year to start November 1st.

None the less, I pass on New Year wishes to you all via Neil Gaiman.

A door closes. A door opens. Life has become too predictable. I wish to go beyond the familiar paths.

Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. (Neil Gaiman)

I live a precise, ordered life. I make my bed every morning. I am early for all appointments. I don’t over spend. I live within my means, don’t travel beyond my station and can tell you what I will (probably) be doing tomorrow and all the tomorrows beyond that.

My needs are met. My wants are few, practically non-existent.

If I had magic, that is, if I were magical, if I were Samantha, Tara, Hermione; I would go about cleaning up messes, picking up litter off the streets, closing things/lids other people have left open. My life is too precise, too ordered.

Ask me where anything is in my house and I can tell you. Ask me what I need and I can tell you.

Ask me what I want and I have no idea.

WANT is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky. But NEEDS, from one day to the next, are enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittlebush in a dry wind. (p. 13)

High Tide in Tucson: Essays From Now or Never
by Barbara Kingsolver
N.Y.: HarperCollins, 1995)

This year I hope I’m brave enough to make a lot of mistakes. I need to push myself out of my comfort zone.

What do I want?

I want to keep my independence. I want to let go of fear & the bad habit of putting others’ needs before my own.

What do I want?

I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.

Solitude and Leadership
On the enduring value of being alone with your thoughts.
William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar | Apr 2010

What do I want?

This year, I’m determined to know the answer before the year ends.

Wish me lots of mistakes.

I’ve always liked reading book series; that is, a sequence of books that have certain characteristics in common and are formally identified together as a group.

It’s nice to pick up a book knowing that I am already familiar with the landscape and most of the characters. It means I don’t have to think as much. Sometimes I don’t want to think that much. Sometimes I just want to enjoy.

I read all of Frank L. Baum’s Oz books before I turned thirteen. I’m familiar with the movies, especially the Judy Garland version. If lost in Oz – I think I’d be able to find my way around (and even be able to get back home again without the use of Ruby slippers).

I went to see Wicked, this fall, when the witches came through town. I went with my friend (my Glinda – yes, I see myself as Elphaba). It was hard not to sing along. Though, I’ve read the book, the musical helped clarify things I had forgotten or not quite “got” when reading the book. My mind/memory takes things in in large chunks, in generalities. Not so with my friend, she can tell you minutia about the books she reads. She would remember the name of Nessarose’s love without cheating or rereading. I have to google.

For me, this first book in the Wicked Years series is all about friendship and loyalty.

Poor Elphaba ends up alone and friendless in Oz. Book one ends and the next takes up the story through her son. Son of a Witch (and we all know what rhymes with that word). Here is a boy trying to find his way to becoming a man hampered by a past he had no part in creating (his parent’s legacy). Thus we all grow up fighting against and learning to find our own place despite what our parents do and do not tell us.

A Lion Among Men is more political. Here is the cowardly Lion’s story; a tale of happenstance and fate. Sir Brrr, companion to the infamous Dorothy, shows how everyday acts shadow courage. Who are we when the stakes are unknown?  How do we atone for that which we had no control over? Do our acts or our reflections separate Animal from animal? Perhaps, it is better to live an unexamined life.

This brings me back to the beginning. A girl child lost in the Land of Oz.

I finished reading Out of Oz this weekend. This is a book that begins with the infamous Dorothy, shows us that Glinda is lucky rather than smart and that Oz suffers because of the quality of leadership its peoples’ allow. This tome is a tale of family and politics, of hope and love, of power and the consequence of both embracing and rejecting this power.

Out of Oz made me think about power, family, gender and love differently.

Oz, as usual, made me look at my world differently.

All maps are from here.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

It seems, perhaps, there is a joy in growing older.

]]> http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/completing-the-circle/feed/ 0 solitaryspinster map_baum_oz1_land_of_oz Wicked Son of a Witch A Lion Among Men Out of Oz map_maguire_oz http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/weekly-photo-challenge-winter/ http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/weekly-photo-challenge-winter/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:15:51 +0000 solitaryspinster http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/?p=3202 ]]>

Winter; it’s finally here. The snow was too late for the holidays. There was no skiing or sledding then. Even today, there is less than an inch of snow shadowing the sidewalk that my front window overlooks. However, that hasn’t stopped the neighbourhood children from having fun. There are a chorus line of snow angels, made perhaps by a two or three year old child, cavorting down my sidewalk.

Someone is having fun.

I’m sitting here wishing for snow (a blizzard). As I write this it is New Year’s Eve but I am expected no where tonight or tomorrow and wish to be engulfed by a million snowflakes as I sit inside and read.

Winter: Five Windows on the Season is a Canadian book praising our coldest of seasons. Here are a few reviews. I’m not reading this book  now – I’ll save this one to read on a hot summer’s day. Right now, I’m immersed in steamy mysteries.

Happy New Years. Go and enjoy a walk outside where-ever you are.

This is Zuzu. My older sister (not the eldest) gave her to me one Christmas. I was in my twenties.

Zuzu is named after the youngest daughter in It’s A Wonderful Life which is a perpetual Christmas staple these days. The movie wasn’t a big smash when it was released. People found it depressing. The movie found its fame late in life, kind of like my sister and I did.

Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize.  Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks.  Borrow.  Break.  Monopolize the bathroom.  Are always underfoot.  But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there.  Defending you against all comers.  ~Pam Brown

The sister who bought Zuzu for me is also the sister who crushed my heart, when I was thirteen, by pointing out that I couldn’t carry a tune and therefore should not joyfully go around the house singing out loud.

Once upon a time, when my sisters had children and not grandchildren, when I was an aunt, I use to go shopping with them so that I could enjoy my nieces and nephews and mom could shop in peace.

This was in the eighties. It was November and the biggest toy was the cabbage patch doll. We went to Zellers to buy one for my niece for Christmas. I mentioned I coveted their Zeddy bear knowing it was not something I would ever buy myself. On that trip, my sister bought it for me, for Christmas.

On Christmas morning, I was shocked and surprised. I had no idea what she had got me. I can still remember the joy, the value of that gift. Zuzu sits in my bedroom, always, reminding me of the kindness my sister showed me.

I just finished reading Scroogenomics, which talks of the value of Christmas gifts and all I can say, is the value of Zuzu multiplies year by year. She was the perfect Christmas present.

Sisters are different. They heard the sobbing in the darkness.
They lived through all your triumphs, all your favorites,
all your loves and losses. They have no delusions.
They lived with you too long.
And so, when you achieve some victory, friends are delighted -
but sisters hold your hands in silence and shine with happiness.
For they know the cost. – Pam Brown

What do pets eat on the Enterprise?
Tribbles and Bits.

It is the holiday season and I am contemplating traditions (or my lack there-of). Fiddler on the Roof (click the traditions link) is based on a Yiddish short story about a milkman. I found this about by reading the book,  Outwitting History, which tells how one man set about to rescue as many Yiddish books as he could and ended up creating a library.

My mind wanders from connection to connection as I contemplate the childhood traditions I wish to keep.

Doing something once is not a ritual.

The repetition of ritual is what makes it special.

I am a solitary creature. I find peace in oneness and meditation. My best “Christmas” was one spent completely alone but family obligations keep me from repeating this. I am trying, as I get older, to redefine how I want to spend the Winter holiday and how my mother/family wish me to spend it.

I choose to honour their traditions and practice mine in solitude (though I may have found a spiritual community more in tune with who I am now).

How can I preserve what makes me nostalgic for Christmas,
without actually celebrating it?

I contemplate and I question and I remember. I hold on to what is good and get rid of that which no longer works for me.

Local churches get together to ask; Would You Like To Hold The Baby and I answer yes. Rebirth, renewal and the hope that a new baby symbolizes is important to me. Nieces and nephews all have new babies and I relish the peace as I hold them and remember this is why I create traditions – to pass them on. Though I have no children of my own I have witnessed my actions/words in the familial generations that follow me.

I buy my sister, the grandmother, a Canadian Christmas book to share with her grandchildren. This is what I do – I bestow books; this book, A Porcupine in a Pine Tree is a Canadian-centered 12 days of Christmas. It is a perfect early present ideas.

I buy myself Ganog Chicken Bones. Yes, they have to be from Ganog and I usually buy them for myself because, it seems, many people do not know what they are. What they are is perfection; a pink sugar candy filled with just the right amount of chocolate and tasting like paradise – cinnamon and sugar and bittersweet chocolate.

I tried to explain them to my ex in Montreal. He was going to the store and I wanted him to pick me up some chicken bones. He has no idea what they were and I explained they were candy covered in a pink sugar coating with chocolate inside. He couldn’t get past the concept of actual chicken bones and this is what he saw – chicken bones covered in chocolate and pink ribbon candy. This was pre-internet, now I could search and find an image to show him – though it wouldn’t be as fun as the miscommunication was.

May your celebration of this season of holidays draw deep from the abundant joy, fierce hopes, and enduring traditions of all of our ancestors.

Were they influenced by the witch in Hansel and Gretel?

Was her house actually made of gingerbread?

As you know, if you’ve been reading along, I went to the Festival of Trees a few weeks back. Along with trees, the festival also features and sells gingerbread creations. They didn’t have as many as they usually do but the houses on display were all very detailed.

These are the four I liked best.

The most unusual house was the Smurf Village; it was very blue and it was the blueness of it that first caught my eye. Once upon a time, after high school but before the nieces and nephews arrived, my youngest sisters collected smurfs and would drag me downtown where I would eventually buy them one (they cost around a dollar each so even poor college student me could humour my somewhat bratty baby sisters). I’m going to rent the new Smurfs movie just so that I can revel in the nostalgia.

I liked the Muppets house even though it was obviously based on a Muppet Christmas Carol, not the movie I would have chosen to base it on. Around the back, not pictured, is Sweetums who is half the size of the house and my most favourite large muppet. My favourite muppets are Animal and Oscar the Grouch. I went to see the new Muppets movie in the theatre, last weekend, and I recommend it absolutely! I will be buying the DVD.

My second favourite design was the lighthouse, again the blue really stood out. Looking at the water now, I see dolphins that I missed seeing when I saw this tableau in person. Once upon a time, before I saw an ocean, I wanted to live in a lighthouse. I was reading L. M. Montgomery’s Emily books and liked any house/space that was small and compact.

This was my favourite Gingerbread scene; it’s a little bit Nightmare Before Christmas inspired. I love the graveyard, the snow woman made of Christmas chocolates and the tiny gingerbread coffins. Who am I kidding? I adore the whole lovely, haunted, haunting scene. It speaks to morbid goth me.

So, last weekend, after seeing the muppets and being inspired by these creations and lovely blog posts, I decided to make my own gingerbread.

I had a star cookie cutter and a maple leaf one. They would be perfect for a Canadian winter holiday treat.

The stars on the darker cookie sheet baked the best. I could have rolled the gingerbread dough thinner. The cookies were a lot of work – time to make the dough, overnight in the fridge, then time to roll, cut out and bake the cookies. I don’t know how people do it? How they have the patience to create a whole gingerbread tableau? The cookies, alone, were too fiddly for me! I like my recipes to be simple and fool proof which is why I’m famous for my chocolate chip cookies!

The cookies were edible and I am eating them as I type. (Yeah, cookies). They would look prettier iced and I’m going to smoosh some peanut butter/chocolate ice cream between two maple leaves (which held up better than the stars) later.

The problem with cooking blogs is that they make baking look doable. I found this gingerbread macaron recipe today and even though my last (and first) attempt at macarons didn’t look any where as near as this pretty, I may try making these.

Now, I’m off to see if my library has this book since all this talk of gingerbread has made me wonder how much magic that witch used to b/m/ake her house.

In order to talk to the dead
you have to choose words
that they recognize as easily
as their hands
recognized the fur of their dogs in the dark.

Words clear and calm
as water of the torrent tamed in the wineglass
or chairs the mother puts in order
after the guests have left.
Words that night shelters
as marshes do their ghostly fires

In order to talk to the dead
you have to know how to wait:
they are fearful
like the first steps of a child.

But if we are patient
one day they will answer us
with a poplar leaf trapped in a broken mirror,
with a flame that suddenly revives in the fireplace,
with a dark return of birds
before the glance of a girl
who waits motionless on the threshold.

‘In Order to Talk with the Dead’
by Jorge Teillier

Je me souviens … Geneviève Bergeron, 21; Hélène Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz, 31; Maryse Laganière, 25; Maryse Leclair, 23; Anne-Marie Lemay, 27; Sonia Pelletier, 23; Michèle Richard, 21; Annie St-Arneault, 23; Annie Turcotte, 21.

My previous words of remembrance.

Every year, the Saskatoon City Hospital is supported by the Festival of Trees which is hosted by the Western Development Museum.

I don’t get to go every year. The festival runs for a week for Sunday to Saturday and unfortunately last year, due to working and the extreme cold, I didn’t get there.

Not that I minded, very much, because the trees do get to look very similar after awhile.

I’ve narrowed my 200 pictures of the 80 displays down to 16 pictures of 10 trees that I wish to showcase.

First up is the Hug Tree; it makes me smile. Honestly, I do want to hug it, especially the bear on top.

Speaking of toppers – isn’t this Lego angel the cutest thing. It’s perfect for a household full of little kids. Though, the young ones I know would daily be rearranging the Lego ornaments into new configurations.

There were the ubiquitous pink trees. If I remember correctly, this was a Barbie themed tree.

Of course, the Disney Princesses made an appearance or two (or three).

There was a Nutcracker tree. I love the army of mice (but then, I Like Mice).

There was a blue Polar Bear tree based on the Polar Express book.

There was the ever present Riders’ tree – they’ve had a rough year.

There was a fantastical, delightful, whimsical Seuss tree.

If you bought it, you got the books as well. Yes, all 80 displays were for sale; a quick, but not cheap way to decorate for the holidays. My favourite trees were too expensive for unemployed me to even think about buying. I’m not sure if I’d buy a pre-decorated tree even if I had the money (which does go to support a good cause). I mean, where’s the fun in that? The best part of the holidays is doing things, like decorating & baking, yourself.

My favourite tree was the Ebeneezer Scrooge tree. I loved the Victorian feel, the details true to the story, and the whole overall gold and white colour theme.

Look closely at the ledger; there is Scrooge with his quill pen keeping exact track of where his money is.

If you start at the beginning, the scroll tells us the story of Scrooge and Marley and the Christmas haunting. Did the ribbon come like that or did one of our meticulous decorators sit down and copy the words out by hand?

I also loved the Saskatchewan tree. It reminded me of Christmases spent on the farm, of quiet times and simple pleasures.

Of small towns and skating and sledding parties just before school broke for the holidays. I wonder, sometimes, if anything really got learned that week before school closed for the holidays.

I took this picture for my friends that curl. I don’t curl; I make it a point not to participate in sports I don’t understand. For a great Canadian curling movie, go and watch Men with Brooms. Funny, funny, funny and oh so, Canadian!

The haystack, below the tree, needs more cows and pigs and chickens (and perhaps, sheep).

I had high hopes for this year’s theme; A Storybook Christmas. Surely, the trees would go beyond the typical. There is always a Polar Express tree, a Night before Christmas, a Barbie, a Disney, and other ubiquitous childhood toys represented. It was nice to see Dr Seuss and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this year. However, I was hoping for something more imaginative.

I wanted every tree to be based on a book and not just any books, but Canadian books. Can you imagine it?

How about a junkyard tree to represent Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners or an Anne of Green Gables tree?  Instead of a Dr. Seuss tree, do a bunch of Munsch; instead of Disney princesses, the ever adventurous Paperbag Princess.

For our Saskatchewan tree, the decorations could have been based on A Prairie Year or W. O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind. The tree mostly is already, to keep in the Storybook theme just toss copies of these books in the hay stack below the tree.

Instead of a Riders’ tree, what about a hockey tree based on Ken Dryden’s book The Game? A Pierre Berton tree could encompass all of Canadian history or do a historical tree based on our first women writers, the sisters Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill.

Want something different. A computer/technology themed tree could be based on the works of Douglas Coupland (Generation X, Microserfs). A dystopian tree could be based on Margaret Atwood’s futuristic novels like the Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood. Or be political; try a tree based on Two Solitudes by Hugh Maclennan.

Finally, for the pure joy of it, I would base a tree on the works of Charles de Lint; most especially, the mythical city of Newford. I would need ornaments of the crow girls, cats, goblins, pixies, Victorian libraries, and other mythological creatures. I could let my imagination run wild and hide his many volumes underneath and within the branches of the tree. This would be a tree worth buying.