When Memories Come in Orange, Green, and Red.

This is a TANG morning; I can taste it and smell it and feel it and think it back from memory. I'm also thinking about home-made bread toast. The bread made from scratch, dough cracking, wholesome warm kitcheny, bread-bakingy scent that reminds me it is something that I haven't had in about 20 years. Now with these thoughts I'm also wishing there was a cure for Celiac too, even for a day, because I'd be lined up by Mary Browns for a center breast and taters, or maybe three or four. But, I digress.

Remember that delicious cocktail of chemicals and sugar that tasted like orange juice when mixed with the right amount of water. I don’t mean when times were poorer than most and you were trying to spare it and had to water it down, but when you could get the full effect of three cups of water to one package. Then, that was times three because there were two other envelopes in the Tang bag.

When I watch the Tropicana and Minute Made commercials and see all the oranges jammed inside each bottle, I wonder was there ever even an orange considered for Tang beyond the artificial flavour. Now at the time we knew very little about oranges, being only fortunate enough to get a half an orange for Christmas. But that little was enough to know I really liked the taste, artificial or real.

Freshie was also another less popular treat, not because of the taste, but because you had to add your own sugar. So, although the tiny chemically filled pack of Freshie cost much less, the sugar needed at home was a deciding factor. And if you didn't add the 8 cups of sugar to the 2-pint jug, it was awful. Like really awful. Green Freshie was my favourite, I never knew if it was because of the lime per se because we had never seen, let alone eaten a lime. Freshie, no matter the flavour, was also something that needed great care in the mixing, because one bit of the contents would stay on your fingers for days if you were unlucky enough to touch the powder, especially with wet or damp hands. It also made a great colorant for home grown playdough which, for some reason, I can't remember how to make.

In the summer especially, we’d get the green (a lime would be insulted to call it lime) Freshie and fill the jug from the well house. Mom would be baking raisin buns, the name stuck even though they could be with or without the raisins, and when they were pulled out of the oven, I’d put aside a few and pour a cap of watery icing sugar on a couple, and streel them to the top of the hill behind the house. There in the tall grass with the bees minding their own business but keeping us on edge, we’d break out the plastic glasses and fill them to the brim with the cold green liquid and picnic on the warm buns and cool lime taste. A breeze in the trees and sure it was paradise. It was essentially, a summertime ade.

At Christmas, Nanny would have the Purity Syrup, and on occasion there may have been a bottle at the house. That was hands down my favourite because I knew what a raspberry was, had picked them numerous times on the ridge where Dad had cut wood, and they were my favourite berry. You could never duplicate or replace Purity Syrup for the taste. Delicious. Though there wasn’t one raspberry harmed in its making. Hello artificial flavour.

However, getting back to the Tang, not only did it taste great, cold with hot toast dipped in and an oil slick skim of butter forming on the top, it could also clean the inside of your kettle. So, with all the talk of cleanses these days, I bet you that the TANG did the trick. Now I suppose I'll have a slice of warmed cardboard (non-artificial but the look and feel and taste would make you believe it) with a hint of butter and a drop of water for my breakfast and dream of a cure of Celiac. If I think hard enough about it, it will happen. But there are worse things than Celiac to torment a person, I can wait.

 

Cowboys and Indians - Dare I Write It?

Once upon a time, in a land not far away, in a time not so long ago, a bunch of kids got together to play outside. Regularly. So regularly, it was daily. Numbers predicated on the weather conditions. Yes, that was a reality.   

When we were young, we played Cowboys and Indians, or Cops and Robbers, in the spruce nap (or woods, or thicket for the non-nap-understanders) on the hill behind the house. When I say "we", it was the collective "we" of the young crowd in the community, forty, fifty, or sixty youngsters from toddlers to teens, girls and boys, loose in the woods just behind our family’s back fence for hours on end, summer mostly, but often in winter.

We were always worried about a counting equality so we would do half and half of whoever was present and the choice of the leader of the day determined if you were the good guy cowboy or cop, or the bad guy Indian or robber. You had no say unless you were the leader, but everybody got their turn at some point.

Living in St. Mary's Bay, we had no idea what the word Indian meant, nor cowboy for that matter though we did have horses around which was definitely a condition of employment for a cowboy. But I digress. I guess the early TV shows influenced the idea of the worth of the cowboy or the Indian and where equality factored into that.

Television, for the most part, made us believe that an Indian was the bad guy just because he was born an Indian. Though, when we wore the hat or proverbial feathers of Indians on the trail, I don’t recall feeling like a bad guy and believed we had a side to protect, and we wanted to win as a team. Unlike the westerns, sometimes, as Indians we did win. It was really a game of tag - you were caught, herded, and congregated and the last one standing made the team a winner.

We also got the idea of the cowboy being the good guys from the same westerns. But the ordinary cowboy was rarely the hero. It was the sheriff, or the lawmen, or the army, that came in and saved the day and sometimes were even fighting against cowboys not just the Indians.

Generally speaking, John Wayne was rarely a plain old cowboy in any of the 9 million westerns that he starred in. But he was always the hero, only being killed once that I recall and that was by plain old bad guy cowboys and not the dreaded bad Indians. Sometimes in the John Wayne movies there even got to be good Indians. Imagine. But, that sentiment didn’t always shine through, nor was it as emblazoned on our minds.

When we played cops and robbers, the robbers always stole the play money from the bank. That’s how it repetitively started. The fortified structure made from pared sticks and was double dutying as a bank and a jail stood out more than the regular bough structures for the town dotting the trails along the hill. So as a robber, we knew we were bad, we did something wrong. We entered where we shouldn’t have, took the monopoly money that wasn't ours, and went to jail for it if we were caught. As the cops, we were the good guys and were defending the property of somebody else. It was clear - good and bad. Even in the picking, the cops seemed to always have the stronger team.

Cowboys and Indians wasn't so clear. We were bad just because we were Indians in the eyes of the cowboys. We didn't rob the bank. We just existed. So when we were the Indians being chased for the sake of being chased we didn't feel like we were bad. But we ran. Some of us enjoyed the power of being the cowboy more than the subservience of the Indian but some wanted to be the Indian and tried harder to win. Not that it would change the course of history, but maybe it would.

Once the log jailhouse slash bank was constructed, our young minds gravitated to the nuance of Cops and Robbers - good and bad. It was easier to understand. 

I'm sure there is some lesson that I should learn from it. Maybe a person is not bad just because of who they are, or where they come from. I don’t know, that sounds too simple to be true. 

Maybe we just have to run the trail in the woods behind the house while being chased by a passel of (toy) gun-toting cowboy wanna be's to understand that concept with a slathering of a misconstruedness of who we are and how the cowboy rose to become mightier.

Or maybe we just have to be kind. Nothing else. Let’s try that. No woods running required.

 

Our People

 I strolled through the graveyard in North Harbour, a place I often like to visit, especially on my way to what we call “Graveyard Mass.” This is commonly held outdoors in the cemetery in celebration of the ones gone before us.

On this particular hot July evening full of biting bees, about seventy-five people of all ages gathered for the Mass. As with all things, everyone was invited to the community hall afterwards for a cup of tea and a chat. This is all part of the coming together as a people connected by common roots and the people we come from.

We come from people who worked hard, who fished, who tilled the soil, who built upon the land, who hunted, who cut wood, who picked berries, who raised animals, and who stayed. Our people saw more hungry month’s of March than prosperous years. They had no room for dreams for themselves. They lived meagerly, they saw poor times, they made do, they cared, they shared, and they looked out for one another. Our people endured.

We come from people who bore famine and diseases of poverty, people who experience loss, tragedy, still births, and young deaths. Our people went to war and came back less than whole but went on. Our people kept the place alive through hardship piled on hardship. Our people suffered.

We come from people who started again; who began to dream; who gathered and who spread out, who left and who stayed and who returned; who hoped for better for their offspring, who believed in place, in family, and in love. Our people sang, they danced, they played music, they played cards, they drank, they smoked, they worshipped as a community. Our people recovered.

We come from people who were crooked and jovial, straightforward and honest, kind and welcoming, sincere and heartfelt, sarcastic and funny, people who didn’t hold back but didn’t hold grudges. Our people picked others up and didn’t walk over them. Our people had big families, who spread out and spread out again. We came from people who planted foundational seeds of something greater knowing they’d never see the crop thrive but did it anyway because somebody belonged to them would. Our people instilled.

We come from people who trudged, and eked, and toiled. Our people knit, and sewed, and hammered, and nailed. They created, at first because they had to, then because they wanted to. Our people sacrificed with gratitude, gave with humbleness, divided with integrity, and lived with pride and happiness for the generations they created. Our people lasted.

Our people created people who went on to be community builders and leaders all over the world. The kind of leaders that were trailblazers, entrepreneurs, teachers, professors, clerics, nurses, doctors, tradespeople, secretaries, presidents, CEOs, care givers, soldiers, administrators, seamen, captains, fisher people, and the list goes on. The kind of people that other people wanted on their teams, in their companies, at their sides. Our people built good people.

Our people created people they would be proud of. People who returned to honour them and pay respects to their endurance, their fortitude, their suffering, their foundation, and their community. We pay tribute to that North Harbour gene and to being home, be it ever so humble, be it ever so powerful. 

We come from people who loved and we are people who love because of them.

 

 

A hungry Celiac's Adventure in England and Scotland - Journal Day 1

Day 1 Heathrow Airport England to Inverness, Scotland.

How it was supposed to go:

6:35 land

Collect bags

8:35 catch train to terminal 5 and end up in Inverness at suppertime.

Hold my beer. How it went:

6:35 land – the only thing that matched

Waited for luggage for one hour then spoke to a nice gentleman about how I was going to get my luggage that was still in Toronto.

Left terminal 2 via train shuttle to catch train at terminal 5

Delay of train coming into terminal 5 – it was delayed at terminal 2. All around the circle.

Left terminal 5, stopped at terminal 2 and then at Paddington Station where I had to get off.

From Paddington Station I had to go to Kings Cross Station. Got directions for the train, went to the platform and got on. Unfortunately, it was going in the wrong direction, so I had to get off, cross over the top and wait on the other side. That was the train wasteland because I was the only one there. Went in the right direction and got off at Kings Cross. Found the Northern Line like my ticket said after going down three levels over one big old escalator, found out it wasn’t the right place and had to go up the other side on a big ole escalator.

By now I was wandering aimlessly in the bowels of London city streets where people were telling me go up them stairs, take three rights and you are there. I did that but wherever there was, I wasn’t in it. I just want to say that “them” stairs were not like your average 12 step stair program, nope. They were like Dalai Lama of steps with quotes on the right where you want to quit kind of step. Then I’d get to the top and somebody would send me back down again. As I approached the Dalai Lama steps for the third time, I had a sudden sense of defeat mixed with frustration and a dash of self-pity and I had the urge to shed a tear. But I said to myself, “that’s enough of that nonsense, look at where you are.” I sucked it up and went down the 200-foot escalator once more, sure that what I was looking for was down there.

I stopped this young girl who was looking at the train app. I asked her if I was in the right place to get the train to Inverness and this dude came to a halt and backed up. “Lady, the trains are not down here. You are looking for the ones on the ground.” What I didn’t know was put to me plainly and I followed his directions up and out past the Dali Lama to freedom and sunshine.

This is where this couple sent me up the side of a two-storey building (literally, the stone steps were on the side). Up there, the girl pointed to where I needed to be, and it wasn’t up them steps.

Finally, after almost two hours, I burst through the doors of the Kings Crossing Train Station and into chaos. I made my way to the information booth and the gentleman there told me to come back up in 15 minutes and he’d have news for me. It was madness there, trains cancelled, delay, and people gathered watching the schedule. I went back up when the time was up and he told me the train wasn’t posted yet but I could go to platform 2. I did. So did about five hundred others. I managed to get a seat by this time ahead of many of the people. The track was broke on the main line and everything had to be routed around it or through it using one line but taking turns. We were going toward it. Luggage was piled up all around, people were on the floor, standing by the walls, children, adults, seniors, just blocked. People were angry about not getting seats, not getting something to eat, etc. It was bad.

I think there must have been a Murphy fellow who designed that train because everything that could go wrong (except for a head on collision but I digress) did go wrong. We stopped on the track for about 90 minutes as one train went through the bad spot, another came toward us, through it and then we were able to go. When we finally got through, another slower train with more stops got ahead of us and we’d have to stop and wait to be able to pass the station. Finally, that one went in a different direction but the railway put on another one to alleviate the mess of people waiting on the lines. She, too, made more stops than ours did so the trip to Edinburg was delayed in the end by 2.5 hours. By this time, all the trains going to Inverness from Edinburg were cancelled. I was in another pickle. There was another train that would bring me to a station an hour away that still had a non-cancelled connection to Inverness. By 10 pm, I walked in through the doors of my hotel five hours later than planned.

I had planned to sit in first class with lots of room, keep to myself, do some writing, but what I had planned didn’t come to fulfillment.

What happened instead was me really looking at the countryside. The burst of yellow canola patches slivering and patching the land, the gorgeous green grass with that fresh look of spring, the darker corn rows popping through the soil, the cleanliness of everything, and the list goes on.

The man who helped me through the process of having my luggage sent to me thanked me for being nice. Imagine how easy it was to just be nice. I had a chat with two woman who were so positive about the trip even though they were delayed. They laughed and carried on and made everyone’s mood lighter. There was this lady in the wheelchair who shouted, I’ll see you all later and she meant it though mostly everyone never saw the sky over her before. The crowd of workers who kept coming out of the dining car handing out chips, Pepsi, water, beer, sandwiches, cookies, etc. and cleaning up afterwards. They kept apologizing and keeping everyone well informed of what was happening. The hum of chatter and peeks at conversations between strangers that was a pleasant accompaniment to alleviating the stress of the day and passing the time. The old man who got on at the wrong station and the tired travelers who volunteered to give up their seats. The lovely man and wife who chatted me through the last few hours on the way to Inverness and promised to do a drive by wave at Moniack Mhor sometime this week. And finally, when I got to the hotel, I had the most wonderful room. There’s even a mural of a Newfoundland beach (well it could be kind of thing, but may not be) on the shower wall to make me feel at home. And to top it off, I asked if the kitchen was still open and the chef spoke up behind me and asked me what I wanted. (PS I had no food on the train except for two small bags of chips and some candy tots a woman left me when she was getting off). I said a sandwich would be lovely if they had gluten free bread. When I got a chicken salad sandwich, salad, chips, dip and a ginger ale delivered to my room not fifteen minutes later. And there were many more positive things from the day. Instead of being sad, mad, and frustrated, I went with questions, opening my eyes, and that feeling I had when I was down for just that minute, I can recreate that for a character in a book to come.

I don’t want to plan a regret; that's no fun for anyone. I want to live an adventure. Day 1 in England/Scotland, you weren’t so bad. I had sense enough to bring a change of clothes in my carry on and I’ll be just fine until my bags catch up with me. I have all week to write. Lucky me. Hold my ginger ale. I'm allergic to beer.

 

Happy Mothers Day

Mothers Day was the invention of a card company or a flower company or a telephone company to make money. A business decision and a good one. Now it’s even expanded beyond the 24-hour celebration to be a weekend thing that starts sometime on Friday really and expands to midnight on Sunday so that other companies can take advantage of the Mothers Day free for all spending spree. Even the weeks leading up to it are a frenzy of Mothers Day spending activities as we try to show our love for mothers with “things”.

However, to a large percentage of the world’s population, we know that Mothers Day is every single day from the time we set our heart upon that little human until our death. Even then I think we carry on in a different way.

Being a mother starts with loving too fiercely and too tightly but all with the best intentions of loving someone through life, and then slowly letting the other person become their own and then letting go. But never fully letting go with our heart or our love, no matter what. That’s motherhood. That can’t be just a one-day thing, or a one weekend thing. Mothers know this. But we’ll take a special day, make the companies rich, accept the gifts, just to ease the minds of our loved ones.

There’s a tiered system to motherhood, as well. I got to the grandmother level a few years ago and boy am I learning lots. Now I get to love somebody through loving somebody through life. Its like a favourite cake with icing all the time.

No matter what tier of motherhood I’m in, I’m still part of the village where one mother can rightly have the expectation for another mother or mother by proxy to help her love fiercely when she thinks she can’t love enough – to enfold her when she stumbles, to enfold her entire family, and to love them all through circling, and comforting, and guiding and again always with the best intentions.

Being human, sometimes mothers stray the course because it is long and hard and sometimes unforgiving. It’s a journey that she undertakes with fear but always with love to do the best she can. Sometimes that means letting go early and letting the village love.

A mother knows there is no right way to be a mother. There is only the right love.

For those who are just starting the journey, you have a village. Take advantage of the village, they’ll do right by you. You are not alone. You are not on a path that nobody has trod before. You are a mom! You have a village of moms to accompany you even when you might think its just you. Reach out early. Most importantly, trust yourself.

Not everyone chooses this path. Not everyone wants this path. Not everyone is up for the challenge of this motherhood path. Not everyone has the same opportunities or ways to get on this path or may have been on the traditional path for mere minutes. So, be kind with your words not only this weekend but every single day.

Motherhood is about doing the best you can even when love is all you have. Sometimes it is loving downward, upward, and sideways all the same time. Sometimes it’s through strands and tethers of hope and worry. That is what makes a mother a MOTHER.

I’m going to join the Mothers’ Day weekend bandwagon and say “Happy Mothers’ Day” especially to the ones I love the deepest and those who call me Mom, and my whole family of Moms who made me an Auntie and great-Auntie (or mothers by proxy).

This year, I’m going to try to be a better village as my own mother did before me.

Quenched

Alianor felt his budding presence before she awakened. The winter solstice she’d longed for was here. It was the only time of the year that the sun’s powerful rays breached the cavern, freeing Fendrel before cascading to her.

He’d be entirely unentombed from his marble casing before she’d be fully exposed. His potent fingers were already caressing her and stoking her passion as her own limbs awaited freedom to roam his chiseled body.

“Hello, my love,” he whispered, his lips teasing her emergence, along her cheek and eyelids before returning to capture her mouth. Her sigh was soft as the stone finally released her and her eyes were freed to gaze upon his handsomeness. Alianor gained full movement and threw her arms around Fendrel.

Fendrel scooped her up and stood her on the cloak spread in the light. He peeled her dress from her shoulders while his mouth ravaged the exposed ivory skin. Warmth and pleasure that had laid dormant for a year, now blossomed beneath his skilled touch.

“I wish we had more time,” she murmured as heat exploded within her and she arched toward him.

He drew in a ragged breath as her hands explored him. “We’ll make time.”

“That’s not possible,” she said. “We’ll be in darkness before too long.”

“Don't let thoughts of what we don’t have ruin this moment,” he said as his lips gently suckled her skin, sending shivers through her, seeding a heated ache in her loins. She squirmed and pressed her body into his kiss as he pushed the dress from her hips. The soft rustle foretold her nakedness.

Slowly, Alianor knelt beside him. She pressed herself to him, inviting, begging and tantalizing. Her skin tingled as it scratched against the hair on his chest before she crushed cat-like into his embrace, scorching skin fusing them as one. He kneaded his hands along her bare flank and grabbed her closer.

Their muted moans mingled with the soft breeze that wafted through the chamber. The light waned as they lay satiated in each other’s arms. 

A tear escaped as she felt the pull of him toward the marble pedestal. “You must get dressed,” she cried.

“No, I want to spend every moment with you,” he said as he hugged her. “Walk with me so your eyes can be the last thing I gaze upon.”

She did as he commanded, holding his hand until he was settled. As darkness seized Fendrel’s body and the marble encapsulated him, she held her lips to his as they went cold. She looked down at his nakedness and blushed.

Her own pull began. She wept as she crossed the chamber with the shadows. She paused before stepping into her dress, she grabbed the rich velvet and hastily clutched it to her breasts. She stood on the pedestal and thought of another year without Fendrel.

Emboldened, mere seconds before entombment she released her dress, smiled, and puckered her lips. Her last thought was of Fendrel finding her naked on the next winter solstice and hoping the marble would capture the twinkle in her eye.

 

The View From Dick Aylward’s Bench

One evening I went for a walk on the Trailway which is the name given to the former railroad bed, one stretch runs along the shore of Conception Bay near my home. I stopped for a moment to rest on a bench a few kilometers from my starting point. My eyes were drawn to a plaque on the bench’s wooden back. This particular seat was dedicated to Dick Aylward, a man who many years before, often sat in this very spot and gazed at the ocean.

Being curious, I wondered what did Dick Aylward see. So, I sat myself down on the bench to find out. I had just walked about two kilometers and hadn’t really “seen” anything. I waited for a few seconds, focused, and then took in my surroundings.

The sun, at my 10 o’clock view, was covered by a white hazy gauze which reminded me of the fleshy cod fish fillets on the lit boards of the trimming line. The distortion was perfect enough to keep the shine at bay allowing me to be mesmerized by the yellow orb.

Next, I noticed a golden Christmas tree on the water. I was sitting at the star while the branches spread out in even form to the base somewhere on the other side of Conception Bay. I watched the bright blue waves flutter within my shiny Christmas tree giving it an appearance of being alive. This Christmas tree was my own and I’m sure everyone on the trail had one but, like me before I sat, may have failed to see it.

In the distance at my 1 o’clock a small white object stood out against the darkening backdrop. For me it was a speck of ice but I’m sure from somewhere over around Bacon Cove or Brigus it was a sizeable iceberg. A tiny white shark fin caught my eye as a sailboat bobbed around mid-Bay. When I took my eye off it, it was hard to find again until it swung full sail into my view and grabbed the sun. Otherwise, it was no more than a pencil mark on a rippley blue canvas. A streak across the water drew my attention and I followed a speed boat in and out of my golden tree. As it departed the left side of the branches, I saw a lonesome gull flying low on the water in my near vision and just off shore. I would have missed it if it wasn’t for the speed boat dissecting my tree. Two more gulls slowly rose from the landwash, glided, and hung on the breeze not ten feet in front of me.

The sea gently caressed and polished the large beach rocks to a spit-shine as the gulls pitched and silently waited for something palatable to come by.

I followed the horizon of the north side of the bay but after four or five attempts to find the tip of Baie de Verde I was unable to determine if Ireland would be visible between the cup cake that sits at the end of Bell Island and the headland of Conception Bay. The land folded into the Bay until it was hard to tell what must be shifting water and what must be solid ground.

Closer to land on my side of the Bay two large chunks of ice took up station close to Bell Island. I had seen them off Topsail a few days prior. They were big then and didn’t seem to have lost any of their size. Roofs of houses gleamed in the sun from the top of Bell Island and I thought it must have been a good day on clothes over there. A red flag waved over by Kelly’s Island seizing my attention as another sailboat with bolder taste revealed itself to me.

It was a feast for the famished on Dick Aylward’s bench. To think I would have missed it all if I hadn’t taken a moment to sit down. I didn’t have a camera and I don’t have the skill to capture the vista, but I could see why Dick Aylward chose this place or maybe it chose him. I got up to head back and I thanked Dick Aylward for being fortuitous enough to find this spot and mark it for people like me who hadn’t taken the time to enjoy what Mother Nature has going on. So much going on, it’s no wonder she gets confused. For the last few years since my first revelation there, I have sat with Dick Aylward and contemplated what was going on around me. The ever-changing experience has always been worth my time. 

I hope you find your own Dick Aylward's bench and pause long enough for it to make a difference.