Filed under: awareness, children, grief, living, loss, soul food cafe, worthwriting
sometimes I feel as old as this building and just as ready to close down forever
Each time I sat down to write even the simplest post about my simple day in this past week my usual tiredness morphed into a sense of overwhelming tiresomeness; the tiresomeness of merely existing until Life returns to me. Again and again I abandoned the computer, the camera, the page, and dragged myself reeling and dizzy with sudden exhaustion to bed regardless of the time of day or evening. It was not truly “hiding” because I was so honestly incapacitated by the merciless fatigue that I couldn’t do anything at all. It is just as though a blinding, disorienting fog descends and swallows up my awareness until I am no longer able to stay awake at all.
That metaphorical fog is comparative to the real phenomena that appeared on Thursday and left me with haunting impressions, absolutely unshakeable.
On my way back to the annual library book sale, I turned up Ferguson Avenue and took a pedestrian walkway through Beasley Park which brought me past J. Edgar Davey elementary school. It was very early in the morning and the young students would normally just be settling into their seats. This morning they were instead walking two-by-two, silently (as silently as very young children are able), around the perimeter of the school and the school yard. There were no placards or clues as to why, no declarations made of any sort, not a word spoken by anyone. Just children, together, as far as the eye could see – which was not far because of the heavy mist.
In this culture of necessary fear for our children’s safety I knew it was useless to wish I had my camera with me; no photographs would have been permitted. Also, I did not stop to look too obviously right away because staring at children in school yard will get everyone’s panic up, but eventually I was so overcome by the sight that I stopped at the far edge of the tall fence to watch the fascinating proceedings. After a moment I noticed that another woman had stopped to watch as well. And old muslim woman with broad strokes of kohl around her deeply creased eyes.
Together we watched children appear seemingly out of nowhere as they came into sight on our left through the ethereal mist, drift closer to us until we could see them smiling at each other, sometimes at us, sometimes holding each other’s hands, and we watched in equal wonder as they slowly drifted out of sight behind the smokey white veil, their final destination unknown.
It was all at once beautiful and upsetting to me. I thought quickly to myself that I just being oversensitive and silly, but when I turned to leave I was absolutely shaken to see the aged muslim woman openly weeping. She stood as still as the heavy mist that released and swallowed the children, her hands hanging at her sides, her watery eyes narrowed with her very own sadness, but still open and seeing, watching the children disappear behind the shroud. There are dozens of stories that would explain her tears and no need to ask which one was hers. I understood them all already. Loss is loss. Love is love. Grief is grief. Forever is forever.
I looked her in the eyes as I walked away nodding, and she looked me in the eyes, nodding as I walked away. And if wonder gives you wings, then knowledge must be gravity itself. If I didn’t have a couch and a bed to take turns resting my profoundly weary Self on throughout Thursday, I would have spent most of the day and evening on the floor. And if I did not have a floor, I would have lain in the dirt or the grass like so many homeless people who surround me in this neighbourhood. I don’t think they’re there because they’re lazy and stupid. I think they’re all profoundly sick and tired because they know too much about things that hurt.
I seized many a day when I had the chance and am living on the memories now. Seize the day, people, for memories may be the food that saves you when a harsh Soul Winter arrives in June and stays until the following May.
Stephanie Hansen www.worthworks.com
Filed under: children, grief, living, seanna, soul food cafe, worthwriting | Tags: acceptance, affection, depression, gratitude, humour, kelly, seanna
Kelly...my darling keeper
As you might imagine by the size of her, Kelly is not a ‘yippy little thing’; what she wants she straight out demands in a full-throated, “Look lady…don’t make me break yer kneecaps! I don’t wanna hafta get ugly, but I WILL!!!” kinda way. Of course, she does try the whimpering, licking, “oooohhhh I love you sooooo much…now GIMME!” way first. Yesterday was no exception, but how VERY fast the tail quit wagging and the tongue quit lickin’ when I told her I was going to delay her walk in favour of a book sale run.
Monday morning was the beginning of the week long famous (in the city of Hamilton, Ontario) Library Book Sale wherein they sell of a few hundred copies of ‘excess’ books at between $2 and $15 a copy – the lesser amount for basic paperback and hardcovers, and the $5 to $15 range for “coffee table books”. Being on the ‘food bank poor’ end of the fiscal scale, I was in there like a dirty shirt early in the day, which meant that Kelly’s morning walk had to wait. I don’t think I have yet been forgiven for that despicable transgression. Or perhaps it was the greater doggie crime to follow.
On the way home I stopped at the pet store and bought doggie nail clippers. Well my GAWD! You’d think I was trying to shave her arse! It might even be easier, come to think of it. The screaming and the wailing, my GAWD!!! No kidding. I’m talking about just picking up THE PAWWW!!! Jackass dog. It’s taken me umpteen runs at her over the course of several hours spanning about a day and a half and I’ve got three nails clipped. Kelly will be relieved to know that I give up. Either she goes to a doggie groomer somewhere to clip them so her toes don’t turn when she stands, or she’ll have to let me file them down. Yeah. Good luck, huh? She might go for the filing because it’s a loving, sucky, pampering kind of thing. (I’ll feed her chicken while I’m doing it. She’ll do almost ANYthing for chicken.)
Does that all just sound like nonsense babbling to you? More worthless WordPress filler like so much else out there? Well let me tell you something seriously about that dog then. Kelly saved my arse when I was so depressed I could NOT even pretend to make up an excuse to get up off the couch and walk in the sun one more time. I did not, could not, care. Kelly came with a reason to move and go outside and pay attention to the needs of another living being. She didn’t make me care about myself, but that didn’t matter. She kept me from atrophying after my Seanna died.
Seanna walking in the wind, smiling
Seanna and I walked a windy summer’s day away passing the camera between us taking closeups of each other and all manner of things we thought beautiful and wonderful. I will never forget the curve of her mouth, the shape of her lash, the touch of her hair against my cheek and shoulder.
There is absolutely no more humanizing experience on earth than having to diligently and compassionately identify the needs of another living being who is unable to tell you verbally what they want and need, what they think and feel. I learned that from my daughter, Seanna, who had severe brain damage. Seanna made me so very much more human than I was before I met and raised her, and Kelly returned to me some of that feeling of humanness I lost when I buried Seanna. Kelly did that simply by being totally unguarded, accepting, and openly grateful that I was kind enough to meet her basic needs, including her needs for attention, affection, belonging, and a sense of security.
We should all be so loved and easy to love.
In a child’s dreams, a child such as I was, who dreamt such dreams as I dreamt, the trees were tall, the gardens lush, and every lovely comforting thing was old and established and had been waiting just for me forever. All gardens were Eden to a child such as I, and Eden had existed since the beginning of Our Time.
It is hard for children such as I was to become adults such as I am and have to plant the seedlings and the bulbs and buds and wait for them to grow. A delight to some, it can be kind of sad to some, such as I of the Seuss-like was-and-am sort. We’re never entirely a ‘was’ or an ‘am’. We’re always was-and-am as one. And so some such as I plant our gardens and take our photos and wax poetic about the lushness of the tomorrows and the to-becomings.
Can you see what I see to-beoming in the view from my porch? From my back door? Go to www.worthworks.com and click on the link in my “How does your garden grow?” article on the left.
Steph (Who is enjoying the non-taxing non-physical labour of computer work for a change on this raining Friday)
Filed under: living
That seems to be the way of Me. I am here for a while, and then I retreat. It is not an insult to you, to the world around me. It is a survival thing. I cannot explain it fully, not even to myself, and feel no compulsion to try today, so I will simply follow the instructions in the title and Continue.
Continuing on from December (now April…Spring has sprung) I am attempting to re-engage myself with the world around me. Little by little. Bear with me patiently, friends, as I don’t think I went into hibernation properly. It was a blur. I don’t recall what I brought with me. Whether I gathered nuts or went nuts, for instance, or whether I stocked up on the right kind of sustenance for my peculiar species, though I assure you I managed to put on the winter fat a-plenty. I did not shiver for want of an insulating layer, oh no. *rueful grin*
Now that it is Spring, I have been poking about the corners of my lair wanting to take full advantage of what I have been graced with as “home”. I have raked and dug and pushed and pulled and scraped and scratched a few things into some order, holding some future promise of prettiness. If nothing dies. And if the grass seed takes. We’ll see.
I am an agony of knotted muscles and pinched nerves for my efforts today, but the last week in the sun, in the garden, in the good earth, (well…the Hamilton earth shot through with broken concrete and bits of broken glass) have turned my skin brown and freckled, my brownish hair turning lighter and lighter, revealing my Scandinavian ancestry. The essence of everything is being uncovered, no?
The essence of survival, then, is to return. Simply return. Re-turn. Turn, and turn again. Keep turning. One of the best lines from one of the best songs: “We have travelled for years now, baby, just to get back to a place we had already found…” by Vonda Sheppard off the Ally McBeal soundtrack. Surviving.
Like Steph.
At the risk of embarrassing the crap out of myself I will here and now reveal the first baby steps in the exploration of a new medium: fabric. Please keep in mind that I have never before touched a needle and thread. Honest to god…I donated any clothing that had lost a significant button.
steph
The sun is shining today, a shockingly delicious treat considering the endless gray of late. There is nothing bluer than a bright sky so long unseen. Criminy, it’s like the dawning of hope itself. (yes, it has been VERY bleak for a while)
And so…I rise. Before noon even. Also a rarity these days. When Seanna left she took all the fun out of our lives. She was the ringmaster, the clown, the lion tamer, and the entire high wire act. Every moment was either tragedy or ecstasy, but no one can deny that she lived her life dancing into the light…of oncoming trains and heaven both. Regardless, she was The Show.
And now…I rise, and wait for the show to begin, and grieve because the show is over, and wonder what the next act might be. Supposedly I’m the star of my own life story now, but I could never be so charming and horrifying and outrageous as the former star, though I’m tempted to try. There is no way to carry on without her. She was our lives. She and her sister, Indra. They were the center of it all. Without them an entirely new Show, new Life, must be designed. I was hoping Indra would come back into the center of her father’s life, but it seems not to be. A shame. A silly shame.
Forgive me for so seldom mentioning Indra. It is not that she was less important, because that’s ridiculously untrue, but she was important to me in ways different from her sister. An entirely different relationship that was so sadly not a success, but not for lack of trying. It just wasn’t meant to be.
I wish I could take on the spirit of Seanna and spend the rest of my life dancing into the light, but I’m more quiet and curious by nature. My own recklessness and rebellion is directed toward my art rather than my relationships. And so that is where I must begin. With my art. When I find out what that looks like in the physical absence of my Muse (Seanna), I will share it with you.
steph
In early December I moved away from my beautiful home in Dundas, and away from the children I raised for ten years. Too heartbreaking to explain the reasons right now, but I couldn’t live with the wild, angry youngest teenaged daughter anymore. My older daughter – and make no argument, for in all my heart and soul she is – was hardest to leave. And now she has left me. I buried my beloved Seanna (aka Stephanie’s Monkey) on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007.
Just as falling in love with her was a process, so is saying goodbye to her. She was tough to love, tough to leave, and I don’t know how to begin to grieve her. She lived for 15 years, and I had her for ten of those, so I suppose I start the process with a holy Thank You. Sleep well, Monkey Me.
steph
