a journey of a thousand steps.....

is that right? no, it has something to do with miles and beginning with a single step. well, i have to start small, i can't think of miles right now.

this is the plan. i need to write or i'll go mad. i need to start this new life of mine - somewhere.  i need to focus. i need to breathe. so i thought i would start by keeping a weekly(?) diary of sorts. how i am - where i'm going - that sort of thing. firstly, i need to be kept accountable or at least reminded to continue in a forward direction. secondly, i need to somehow come to terms with the fact that my life is still very sad and will be so for a long time but that my life is also incredibly joyful and happy. i have to find a way to mash the two together without losing sight of either one. i feel like if i write a happy post, everyone, including myself will think "my god, you heartless bitch" but then again if i write depressing things about my grief everyone, including myself will think. " jesus, come on already."  i know this sounds very business-like but i have to start somewhere. i have to, over the coming year, get my shit together. there are practical matters to be dealt with - earning money, the farm, the septic system..... and on and on. there are the children and our ability to carve out some sort of new life. how to be happy and sad at the same time.

so off we go.

i'm fine, i'm really fine. i say that a lot now. i mean it about 80% of the time. people have been so incredibly kind and good to us. our community and family have quite literally given us a financial buffer that allows us to get through this first year without having to think about the power or gas and many, many other things. that gift is such a blessing and i want to remind myself, often, i must make the most of it. i must parlay that into the next phase. i must take those good wishes and hopes and show in the end, that we were worthy to receive them.

our lives right now are ruled by snow. this little part of alberta has received almost 200cm of snow this season. and nearly all of that now has decided to stick around. everything is made near impossible by waist high snowbanks. neighbours plough the driveway and shovel paths to feed the livestock. it snows almost everyday. i'd cry if it wasn't so damn funny. if this snow is a message from god. i'm just not getting it. my goal this week is to go the dump. i've never been. sad, really, that in 30 years of marriage i have not managed to help with garbage. i had to phone my friend and ask her how to do it. i have to find the dump card. i'm weirdly nervous about going but really i can't put it off. i let you know......

that was then - (2 weeks ago)..

this is now. i put off writing. but i read somewhere recently a quote "i will write myself well" i could google to see who thought that gem up, but does it matter? it is stuck in my head now. i did not end up going to the dump - bill, the crusty farmer went. he came over and collected my trash. so it appears i may be starting widowhood as i was in marriage - not taking responsibility for my own shit.

the snow has settled- it only comes to your knees now and so a lot more things seem possible. january is almost over. the sun is holding heat. spring is not far off. the farm ticks along, the children tick along. there is ballet, piano and 4H. i am tired, i will admit that, and i dream of my husband almost every night.

my grief comes in waves of panic. i feel, i'm sure, as a heroin addict feels. i can't breath or think of anything else. i want my life back. i want him back, now. i find if i just sit in that moment it will wash over me and i am ok. the panic passes, the knowledge that you would do anything in that panic to have what you want and then if you just let go, it passes on and leaves you in peace.

there i got that out. i think i'll finish here for today. i have so much more to tell you, funny stuff about my mom. i just want you to know that i'm living, i'm breathing in and out. i see a way forward. i don't know if will turn out to be "the" way but i must step onto the path and see where it leads......

bev xx

ps. i have linked this post with http://www.stephaniehowell.com/my_weblog/2014/01/blog-your-heart-january-2014-edition.html  who is i must say a lovely lady. i have added it to the "Blog your Heart" series. i hope to do more of these sorts of things this year - force my feelings out. i would like to insert a smiley face or say LOL here but i'll restrain myself.

waiting for time.....

well, here i am. i hope i have something to say.  my life has been altered, rearranged in a way i never saw coming. my sweet husband is gone. a summer filled with treatments, driving, pain, forms and more forms. a fall filled with long good byes. whispers of a life well lived, of love and laughter. and of course tears.

we never asked why? we never bowed our heads and asked for miracle. we understood from the second it was uttered, the future we had planned was impossible. we instead starting thinking about life in days. our time was no longer a stretch of open prairie, it had become a finite thing. we felt no urgency to rush, we would wait for time.

and then the time came. the unbelievable quietness of death. the flurry of activity that followed. the rituals and rites. and then, quite literally the snow came - over 1 metre of it.  it became the period at the end of the sentence. i was forced to pause. i was forced to look around at this new world order. i was forced to face some hard truths. i was forced stand still for a moment.


so now i wait for time again. people watch me and i in turn watch them. my mother, bless her, waits for me to crack. it gives me hope that i might disappoint her yet again. i cannot grieve in the open. i cannot stand and wail. i cannot take to my bed. instead i find my sadness bobbing on a sea of gratitude. i find that happiness cannot be denied, laughter creeps in through the cracks of my grief. i am blessed to have had 30 years of marriage. i am blessed to watch our children. i am blessed to be surrounded by family and friends. i am blessed to encounter so many kind strangers.

i am told that this is shock. i am told this is denial.  i prefer to think i'm waiting...... i'm waiting for time.

bev

only kindness matters....

quite unexpectedly, sadness and fear have entered our lives. this past week my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas and the prognosis is very grave. surgery and radiation have been ruled out as options. he will begin a course of brutal chemo therapy to try to slow the progress of the tumors and to hopefully buy him a little bit of time.

i ask all of you to be kind to one another. because kindness never fades from memory , it remains around you like a shawl - a layer of love against the sorrow

bev

nancy spots a whale and other tales - personal in nature......

(this is a repost about my last visit home. at the moment i'm up to my ass in children, planting the garden and greenhouse, making stuff for the farmer's markets  and getting cows ready to go to summer pasture...... jesus christ i'm tired)

my oh my, how time flies when your losing your mind. where to start - not the beginning - that's too obvious - not the end..... i think i'll not start at all, i'll just carry on. let's pretend in april i sighed somewhat dramatically, took a sip of tea and then looked pensively out the window for awhile. 

i went on an aeroplane. that practically ruined my entire summer. the anticipation of the crash. of whether i would ultimately sacrifice myself to save other passengers or in the flush of adrenalin i would toss them out in hopes of creating a soft pile to land on.

in the end i went and we did not crash. i hated every second of being on that plane. i sort of forgot about falling from the sky and instead found considerable issue with how uncomfortable i was, how confined and chubby if felt, how goddamn much a mini can of pringles cost, how long it was taking....

but then...
6 days in my mother's house. 6 days of sleeping on feather pillows that were created before WW2. 6 days of not eating any vegetables except canned peas. 6 days of laughing and laughing. 6 days of realizing i no longer belonged in this place. 6 days of soaking up the song of a people that is still my own. 6 days of my dear susan

i grew up among people who value the art of the telling over the art of the tale. which meant we thrived on the details. god how i miss that. i miss the sheer thrill of the tell. where facts are passed over for the more speculative approach. where judgements are passed before plots have unfolded. and to have 6 days of that wonder and recognizing yourself in the words and cadence of those around you is just to lovely for words.

during those 6 days i had use of my mother's car. firstly she said - "i would appreciate if you didn't go over 80km." i didn't see that restriction coming. that's the great thing about my mom - you can't predict her next move. her offensive game is just outstanding. mom had other rules regarding her 1991 ford focus. no driving after dark. no rough roads. no unlocked doors or windows left down. and under no circumstances was i to hit a deer. hmmm...

the first time i sat in the car. i said "ok little ford focus, you better keep your frigging mouth shut about the next 6 days or i'm going to slam your tiny, god damn ass into a deer." 

those 6 days were filled with immaturity and joy. my baby girl got to see humpback whales with here auntie sue. we ate clams and lobster and fish. we slept in the ancient lakelawn motel where we found blood, mysteriously smeared on the door and top sheet. we all had our theories and we felt delighted to have been assigned this family double. we found sea glass and iridescent blue plastic tampon holders on the beach. we picked apples and ate them unwashed. we sang filthy, dirty songs about sailors and german soldiers.

we had the time of our lives. but at times i looked in the face of my friend and found a happiness that i cannot find on my own.

bev

let's review the tape..........

i must warn you, i'm going to use the word anus in this post. not that's such a bad word. its just one i find quite startling to write. i not used to typing it. i say it a lot  - as in - "my husband being a giant anus" but i rarely write it down - as in -  correspondence to my mother - "your son-in-law being a giant anus." i ran into a similar problem when i used the word masturbation in a post. again, i just don't write that word a lot. i don't put pen to paper and say the neighbours' boy lost a thumb from vigorous masturbation. so hang on when you see anus.

some people bring out the best in others, some the worst. i seem to bring out the unexpected. people have the habit of saying the oddest things to me. sometimes my friends think i'm lying when relay a tidbit from someone else but then they're with me, it happens, and they look at me in shocked silence  and i say "weird isn't it".

this past week a perfectly nice lady cornered me and told me her god had a special plan for me. to be frank i did nothing to illicit this, i was minding my own business, eating a hot dog. she introduced herself, we chitchatted and then boom - she leaned in close and said "god has a special plan for you." as a nearly atheist, agnostic girl this was troubling. why was her god targeting me? why not give her a special plan? i was led to assume that this special plan was most likely carnal in nature. jesus, everyone wants a piece of the deliciousness that is me.

i also had a awkward encounter last week with a nurse. i asked what i could possibly give a baby girl, who was in my care, to boost her immune system. let's just put it out there that i was confident she was going to say vitamin drops. i was just about to say "i'll buy some on my way out." then, out of the blue she says, "breast milk." i was dumbstruck -  breast milk. how is breast milk the answer to any question in my world. "well, as it turns out," i said, " i don't have any." not deterred she told me to go to the milk bank. again i replied, "well, as it turns out i don't know where that is." "never mind," she said," i know a woman whose producing 70 oz a day. i'm sure she share with you. here's her number." "yea, maybe not today. i said.

of course
 when i moved to the prairies and started my my life as farm wife i found that farm women liked to talk about worms - specifically worms in their children. there were two camps, those who wormed and those who didn;'t. i fell in with the non-wormers. over the years i have heard an ever increasing number of ways to detect and expose the worm. when my children were small, people simply gave their children a worm pill in the spring - much like we give our cows. although, the cows get a liquid poured on their back to kill all and any parasitical intruders. sometimes i would spill a tiny bit of this bovine medication on the kids' heads and hoped that would do the job for them.
 in the last year or so i have heard of mothers actually going looking for the worms. no more blind dosing. people are becoming proactive. one mother told me that she goes in her kid's room at night pulls down their pants and shines a flashlight on their kids ass. then shuts it off and looks for worms - the worms apparently climb out of the anus at night and glow in the dark. jesus, jesus, jesus, so much planning. the csi flashlight, lying awake, waiting for opportunity and body position.

but
the mother of all evidence gathering came from my friend whose name rhymes with tim. she said her friends' mom  taped her kids anuses at night and in the morning pulled the tape off and the worms apparently stuck to the tape. sort of like a fly trap or one of those glue mouse traps. well this information sent me to the borders of my imagination. what sort of tape did she use - gift wrap invisible or standard duck tape. i assumed the tape would run vertical  like a adhesive thong. was it pulled off quickly like a band-aid or slowly for the big worm reveal? what age range were the children? who in holy hell thought of this? who said "i've got a idea let's put a bit of tape on the little fellers' ass and see what crawls out. come here to mommy."

so you see you can't shock me. well, you can shock me but only for a second and then i'm good to go.

bev
ps. for those who would like to know
hornet had a heifer calf this year and we named her terri
sally the christmas horse is lovely. she is halter broke and the apple of my daughter's eye

maternal laws of acquisition......

my mother is in the mood to love me right now. not that she doesn't love me all the time, sometimes i'm sure she could love the life right out of me. but right now she buoyed by the spring weather, photos of her grandchildren and the promise of a visit.  yes, i plan to visit my mother this summer for up to 3 weeks, god help me. i will bury myself in the bosom of my ancestral homeland and pray i don't die of exposure. i plan to take my teenage daughter on a tour of all the historical sites of the maritimes - stand on battlegrounds and peer over ramparts. i will probably also need to be immunized  to face the wonder that is my mother's refrigerator. ketchup that expired in 2009, mystery bits of food wrapped in tinfoil. my mother plays fast and loose with "best before dates." she tells me they are suggestions not facts. she is not deterred by mold or undercooking. i will sleep between damp and sheets and rest my head on pre world war 2 pillows. it will be grand and i'm sure you'll hear about

but this story is not about that. its about another time.....

my mother went on a trip to prince edward island with my sister and her friend. i was not there but i'm sure they traveled along with my mother providing on the spot commentary about the lack of amusement being provided. on the first afternoon, quite suddenly my mother had to pee and if i have not mentioned she is fantastically old and the general rule is never trust the elderly when it comes to holding it. my sister started looking for a place to stop. they came upon a house whose front lawn was awash with whirligigs - you know those little wooden folkarty things that twirl in the wind. my mother said, "look, pull over, there's a gift shop." everyone piled out of the rent-a-car and my sister and her friend walked around the lawn, admiring the items whilst my mother headed for the house. she tapped on the door and walked in. she was greeted, and my mother asked if she could use the bathroom. the women showed her to the washroom. after mom had finished her business she wandered around the place admiring the things on the wall. a ceramic cow took her eye, "why", as she tells it, "beverly would love this because she has cows." this, i should point out,  is my mother's reasoning for all gifts to me. her gifts are often randomly odd and she says things like "well i know how you like french fries so i bought you this pair of plastic potato salt and pepper shakers."

so

my mother finds the woman and says,  "how much for that darling cow. my daughter lives in alberta and she and her husband have a cattle farm. and by the way, you have some lovely things in your gift shop."

 the lady says to mom, "this isn't a gift shop."

my mother and sister stories change at this juncture. my sister tells her part through gritted teeth, "jesus, mom went into someones house, used the bathroom and bought a cow off the god damn living wall."  now, if i'm being honest and why wouldn't i, my sister did not use those swear words. she's so sweet she couldn't,  but her cheeks do turn red and her nostrils do flare when she tells it so i'm inserting the swears i would use.

 my mother's recall has her not fazed at all by urinating in an out of province private home. instead, she says "oh is that so. well, thank you dear for letting me use your washroom. now would you take $2 for that cow."

and that little cow still hangs beside my kitchen sink. it is as homely as sin but it makes me think fondly of the people from prince edward island and of my unflappable mother and her ability to put on a show.

bev

little miss sunshine.......

happy easter and all that. for those of you "of", or "new to" the christian religion, i realize the beginning of the holiday must be a definite low point for you, what with the cross bit and all, but don't despair. everything turns out later in the weekend, so hold on to your shorts, somebody going to be making a comeback. 

well it turns out that the fantastic annie over at  annie off leash gave me a pressie. she nominated me for the sunshine blogger award. annie is a sexy, smart, funny writer. she's definitely one of the cool kids. and she has her own full pilgram costume for mature role playing games. check her out. she's grand!

“The Sunshine Award is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers. The receivers of the Sunshine Award are bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogsphere.”

i have to reveal 7 interesting facts about myself. but let's face it, are there 7 interesting facts left? i have spread my business over this blog like a $2 whore - my massive boobs, my mother's monkey. my various rashes.... what is there left to tell - that i was promiscuous as a teenager and that i have wiped more whiskey off the end of my chin than you'll drink in your lifetime. boring crap like that

and so..... here they are.....

1. margaret atwood has not responded to my plea for academic banter and life-long friendship. i fear another gentle missive may be in order 

2. for a time my blog was big in lativa. (well, this according to blogger stats) lativa is a small country nestled between estonia and lithuania. i thought for awhile i might become the 'latvian jesus' but then realized i was probably more like the 'latvian david hasselhoff.' and then they went off me - completely. i think they're pissy about something lost or added in the translation. now, my 3rd highest audience is poland. i'm going to wait a bit before i pack my bags for the tour.

3. six of my chickens appeared in a hollywood movie. it was a western and they needed hens for a homestead. the animal handler came and picked them up, they were gone 6 weeks and were paid $100. they came home with their heads all big and wouldn't stay in the hen-yard. they were picked off one by one by the coyotes. so let this be a tale to heed. 

4. i disappointed my mother on a weekly basis in march. i know this because she told me - every time i called she would say, "beverly i'm some disappointed in you." i can't wait to spend 3 weeks with her this summer. 

5. starting at about 2 years old, i told my now 14 year old daughter  that martha stewart was her aunt. i used to say "we must sit very quiet because aunt martha is on the tv. i even went so far as to put a present under the tree from auntie martha at christmas. i was a big fan of the martha stewart living television show and wanted to watch it in peace. the poor little thing used to tell people, "martha stewart is my aunt," and people would look at her like she was addled. she figured it out around 6 or 7. don't judge me she's a whiz at folding fitted sheets.

6. i slept walked as a child. i would be found outside, asleep on the front porch or on the neighbours' porch. nobody that we knew suffered from my affliction and my mother was horribly embarrassed. she had no idea what to do about it so she took the approach that if i got hurt while sleep walking it would teach me never to do it again. she used to say, "i guess when you're out there traipsing around in your sleep and you fall down and break your leg, that will be the end of that foolishness."

7. i gunned the engine of my kia at buddy last week. buddy is the chihuahua that bites me every tine i go to where he lives. i pictured clipping the little bastard with my bumper and sending him skidding across the frozen crust of prairie snow. i scared the living shit out of him - his little bulging eyeballs were riveted on my smiling face. he ran off with his tail between his legs...... but he's a feisty bugger because the very next time i visited he bit me. maybe next time i'll pop it in drive and make contact.

and so...

now i must nominate some blogs to pass on the award. so, with out further ado here they are in no particular order.....
amy from addled
lady c from from fat to .... fabulous?
chris from life your way
francie from a north end journal
kate from nested
doris from meandering

thanks again annie
bev