I’m off to Paris
Posted January 22 2012.
I would have written more but this has been a crazy turbulent week. Rob was supposed to be away for a month but unfortunately became ill and had to return after a week and a half. The school fortunately has given him a time credit so he will return when he’s feeling better.
I’m leaving the poor man to go to another clothing market in Paris. The best part is that Gillian and a friend will meet me there which will make the work much easier and more fun.
I really must try and update this blog often but some days I fly from one project to another and don’t alight until I’m tired. More on my doings when I return.
Au revoir.
A New Year
Posted January 5 2012.
AFTER A DEATH
Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.
One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.
It is still beautiful to feel the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armour of black dragon scales.
by Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly
(I’ve just discovered this Swedish poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011.)
Looking back on 2011
I begin each new year putting a collage together of photographs from the past year to get an overview of how I’ve spent my time. I think it was Milan Kundera who said that one doesn’t know how to live one’s life until one has lived it. Another thought leaps from this one. A number of years ago I read Joanna Field’s (Marion Milner) “A Life of One’s Own” in which the author notes the moments when she is happy so she can, if I remember correctly, create more of them.
I look back at 2011 to see how I felt about the year as a whole, to see if there are things that I can change to experience more happiness.
Each picture represents not one event but are prompts, reminding me of what happened before and after the shot. (For instance, I look at the first picture of a mannequin and I remember late January in Paris when I had rented a small unsuitable apartment where Rob got food-poisoning, delaying our trip to Canada. I remember also how I felt re-entering the fashion world as a buyer.)
The sum of photographs remind me that I spent at lot of time travelling last year – six weeks in Toronto, two in Vancouver, and two in Northern Ireland. Rob and I also went on short excursions to Sommieres, Hendaye, Marciac, and Bordeaux in France, and Roses in Spain. I went to Paris twice to work. Gill joined me the last visit, flew down south with me, and, from home, the two of us went Aix-in-Provence.
Rob and I spent almost five months mid-year entertaining visitors – mostly family but a number of friends visited for varying lengths of time. My happiest moments with guests were spent at the dinner table. My least enjoyable were spent cleaning, washing sheets and towels, and sight-seeing. (In the end, I would drive guests to a location and then sit and read while they explored.)
My favourite months (those were I sustained happiness for the longest time) were September and October although there was no month without moments of pleasure. My saddest month was December.
If as Leonard Cohen says, we find our self-respect in our work (I’m not entirely in agreement), I am happy about what I accomplished workwise – managing the house in the village (nearly every guest wrote a rave review), editing a biography and holding the published version, buying in Paris for LJ in West Vancouver, and designing cards and pamphlets for a friend and myself.
I am not happy that I did so little of my own writing. (Thank goodness for my writing week in Ontario with Shirley. Whether what I wrote is crap or not, I want to complete the work I began too many years ago. When Rob leaves tomorrow for Nice and Villefranche-sur-mer for a month-long intensive French course, I shall immerse myself once again.)
What would I change if I could live 2011 once again? Although the year left me breathless and with a miserable cold, there is not much I would change except shorten the visiting months. (The hardest thing for me when others are around is deserting them and doing my own work. Some are fine with this and wander on their own but many simply sit and wait. I just can’t bear this.)
In 2012, I intend to clarify for myself what makes me happiest and to do this I must force myself to retreat to quiet places, preferably without internet.
“She rides in the front seat, she’s my older sister”
Posted December 27 2011.
Blog Hopes
Posted December 26 2011.
Yesterday I learned that if I hope for something on my blog, it could come true.
Our Christmas day began quietly. When Rob awoke, I made coffee and then we slipped downstairs and opened our Christmas stockings – little fun gifts we’d bought for the other. Rob prepared breakfast sandwiches and then I spent most of the day preparing for the evening feast (this included cleaning toilets). I love having the time to set a festive table, to prepare as much as is possible of the food, to re-clean the kitchen, and still have the time, without rushing, to shower and dress for the occasion.
Before the guests arrived, I spoke to Gill and John (who alas was ill) and his mother and father on Skype. (I love Skype.) And then I spoke with my mother, sisters, brother-in-law, and nieces and nephews. Rosemary, Fanny, and Dave arrived just before I ended this conversation.
Soon after, Ruth arrived with her famous chocolate mousse and two beautifully decorated Christmas logs. She flashed me a big smile and said that she had read on my blog that I hoped she would bring her violin and David his cello and that they would play. She had immediately telephoned David and they arranged to rehearse some Christmas carols.
Soon all were gathered, the final preparations for the feast complete, and thirteen of us sat down for a truly decadent Christmas feast. As our table is too small for thirteen, Rob and I had carried a smaller table from upstairs to the kitchen. There wasn’t a lot of room to move around and it was slightly chaotic but it didn’t matter: everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Perhaps I should hope in my blog that next year, Ruth holds the feast in her concert room, and I’ll prepare the turkey and trimmings.
I am joking, Ruth. I am so grateful to you and David for providing the perfect finale to our Christmas celebration. (It was a difficult Christmas for Rosemary, Fanny, and Dave, and your playing helped soothe their spirits.) You overwhelm me with your joie de vivre, your generosity, and your talent. Thank you.
Now it is Boxing Day and my mother’s birthday.
My Father is 89 Today
Posted December 24 2011.
Christmas Greetings
Posted December 23 2011.
I think this is the first Christmas Rob and I will spend without at least one of our children. It’s not as if we make a big deal about Christmas. We don’t even give presents but still I shall miss them all.
On Christmas day, when a dozen friends gather at our table, I will miss them most. Still it will a feast. Rosemary and Fanny are cooking a goose with chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes, and a sorbet for later. Rob and I will cook a turkey with potato stuffing, fresh cranberries, and brussels sprouts. Susan and David will make a red cabbage dish (apparently more delicious with goose) and bring a big fat hunk of cheese. Adam and his boys will bring more bread and cheese. Ruth and Bedding will bring dessert.
If we’re really lucky, Ruth will bring her violin and David his cello and they’ll play for us. I love having live music in our home. I even love singing to it though I can’t sing to save myself. Speaking of singing, our family has been busy making Christmas music videos for each other. I’d love to publish several but Michael jokingly said that he would kill the person that makes his and Kenzie’s public, so I won’t. Rob and I did “Winter Wonderland” and I sound terrible but we had such fun doing it, I don’t care. Still, I am not ready to go public. (Penny, do you remember our singing lessons at university? I should have kept practising.)
In Toronto a lot of my nuclear family are gathering to celebrate Christmas and birthdays together. (Bev, Bill, and their children flew in from Vancouver.) My sister Gael’s birthday is today. My father’s tomorrow. My mother’s on the 26th and my sister Stephanie’s on the 27th.
I shall try to publish a card for each on their special day. I’ve thought about not publishing them as I tend to go overboard with praise and mushy sentiments but I believe it’s important to make public, the private. This has been a very emotional two weeks since I returned to France from Toronto. Attending Bob’s funeral was painful and tearful, especially when they rolled the casket into the room. I kept thinking Bob’s in there – the man with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. Tears flowed. People wrote the obvious in the guest book. “I shall miss you.” One of his daughters said, “I loved him so much.” When the obvious is the truth, in my mind, it is good to read it, to say it out loud. Often it takes courage. Sometimes, so much love that you think you’ll burst if you keep it inside and so you expose yourself.
Merry Christmas everyone. I hope the season brings you more pleasure than worry.
Here’s my card to Gael who continues to overwhelm me with her intelligence and acts of kindness.
(Remember to click on picture once or twice so you can read it and see it more clearly.)
I’m back home
Posted December 6 2011.
I’m back home in France. I felt so sad leaving Toronto – the saddest I’ve ever felt – and then arriving home, when Rob met me at the airport, his face was white, so serious, too serious, and he told me that he had horrible news. I was so afraid. He said that a good friend, Bob Booth had died the previous evening. Rosemary, Bob’s wife had called him and said Bob had fallen. Rob dropped everything and ran, passed every car on the road, made it in ten minutes flat, and still he was too late. The doctor later said that Bob had probably died instantly when he hit his head on the tile floor. (He had slipped on a carpet runner.) Bob was 84 years old.
I was so exhausted from the flight that the news that I would never see Bob again broke me. We stopped on the way home, to see Rosemary and her daughter and son-in-law and we all cried. I went outside and felt animal whimpers and wails rising from my gut and wanted to throw up. Death is such a terrible thing. It leaves one empty and helpless.
Today, I gathered the few pictures together I had of Bob and wept some more. He was so charming, a storyteller, an intelligent generous man, with whom Rob and I have shared so many good times. To say that I will miss him, is an understatement.
Blessed Solitude
Posted November 24 2011.
Click here to see Shirley’s account of our week’s retreat.
Traveling Once Again
Posted November 23 2011.
She Flies Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease
Posted November 6 2011.
Here’s to Mackenzie on her special day who recently overcame her great fear of flying (or kept it in check) and flew from Vancouver to Toronto, from Toronto to Amsterdam, from Toulouse to Paris, and finally from Amsterdam to Vancouver. I wish you this same courage to follow your heart’s desires this year. Have a great day. Love you.