BLOGG # 64 A GHOSTLY EXPERIENCE

A ghostly experience.  Today, as it was a brisk autumn day, I decided to take my car out for a drive and chose the coastal route along Dallas road to Ogden Point. Even though it was almost noon there were remnants of fog still in the air. Autumn on the west Coast and especially in Victoria is the harbinger of fog. It starts on clear days in late afternoons and deepens giving us lovely melancholic evenings to satisfy the most romantic of souls and often lingers until late the next morning before it starts to burn off. So if you are flying into or out of Victoria during this time, dear readers, keep that in mind as planes are often grounded because of it. But I digress. This morning was typical and as I meandered along the Dallas road the fog was just lifting. I parked at the quay and got out. As I shut the door I looked up and there she was out in the harbour –a two mast tall ship in full sail - a ghost ship in the fog.  I was immediately plunged into a Robert Louis Stevenson world with London docks, rogues and pirates swearing and cursing and rollicking crowds of sailors, the air exotically pungent with the aroma of spices, coffee, refuse and rats. Then the fog lifted and I could see her standing there in all her glory. The sea was silver and serene, the sky was silver and serene and she was silver and serene - a majestic sight. I stood there enthralled. Suddenly the still ocean was pierced by a determined head and a long wake. A seal was coming to shore. The spell was broken. I was pulled rudely back to my time, the rogues and pirates, aromas and smells disappearing and I was again on my familiar marine coast along with ordinary seals, screaming gulls and egrets. Was I sorry to be back? Of course I was. Who wouldn’t rather be in a Robert Louis Stevenson world? On the other hand, though I know I can fit into the most challenging situations with élan, I am not so very sure about rogues, pirates and rats so I  happily walked along the quay greeting my fellow walkers with a cheery good morning just as all good Victorians do.  

BLOGG # 63 "WHAT A DEAL

Yesterday I was leafing through a fashion magazine while at my doctors office when I came upon an article titled “Designer items at reduced prices” The price of one of the items they quoted was a second hand Jane Birkin lizard Crystal bag at thirty two thousand dollars. Jane Birkin, as my savvy bloggers know was a model, fashion muse, an icon of the seventies for her fashion sense and the coolest girl in Paris.  Hermes fashioned the ultimate leather woman’s hand bag at that time under her specific instructions and called it the Jane Birkin Bag.  It still is the most coveted piece of accessory today. However, thirty thousand for a second hand purse seems a bit steep and I wonder what the original price was.  To try to wrap my mind around the thirty thousand dollar price tag, I attempted to put it in my world to understand it. Thirty thousand is the yearly income of a low income family in Canada- the minimum hourly rate here is ,I believe, ten dollars an hour-eighty dollars a day, and if in luck, that amounts to four hundred per week, or sixteen hundred a month- Goodness- the math! This amounts to twenty thousand a year. Worse- A single mother with two children on welfare has to make do with about a thousand a month or twelve thousand a year and we consider her a drain on our economy. We certainly haven’t come a long way baby, in the past five hundred years or so, have we? The French king Louis XVI  was beheaded because he spent more on one meal than a peasant in an entire year and his silly jewel -encrusted satin breaches and mile high powdered wigs broke the bank. Of course we still have an occasional despot who insists on gold toilet seats even in these enlightened times- but a thirty thousand dollar Birkin bag?  Somehow this disgusts me more than the crazy French king and his mile high powdered wigs or the present day despot’s toilet seat.  It makes me wonder where we are going- especially when I think there are large populations living under the poverty line starving with  Drones at a horrendous cost, flying over their heads with intent to bomb, using the excuse of “terrorist hunting”- I really begin to wonder!   I am an optimist and have faith in the integrity of the human spirit, but this Birkin Bag has shaken it. Hopefully ,dear readers, not for long as we need much optimism right now.--   Having read my newly posted blog again, I decided I had better come off my self rightious perch and admit to liking the original Jane Birkin Bag; love reading the Vogue magazine knowing it is a self-indulgent act; enjoy fashion in all it's variations and tremble to think I am becoming a soapbox shouting agitator, so please read  my blogg with a large grain of salt.--- Your  non-agitating, peace-loving auntie blogger   Laurie

BLOGG # 62 THE GREAT DELUGE

Well it is finally here- the Great Autumn Deluge! Two days ago, I was sitting on the patio of my favourite coffee shop basking in the sun for two hours in my brief summer top, and today it is raining. I use ,deliberately, this West Coast understatement to describe today's weather. I watched the deluge from the window for some time, the rain slashing down sweeping sideways in the strong wind and forming lake- like puddles on the pavement, then impulsively decided it was time to go out for a walk in it. There followed a flurry of hunting for boots, rain jackets, scarves and umbrellas.Suitably clad, I ventured forth in the deluge and immediately my umbrella inverted and broke. So there I was sloshing through the puddles under my broken umbrella, my waterproof jacket, sweatpants and sturdy boots soaked through. Was I unhappy? Was I miserable? not on your life!  A true West Coaster, I happily slogged along, reminiscing about other walks in seasonal rains- Spring rains in Melancholy Barcelona two years ago,walking ghostlike through the abandoned narrow streets heavy with atmosphere - a black and white forties' war movie- and ending with a coffee in a Tapas Bar- a pensive very long walk I did on a late winter evening in Vancouver as a young woman with a broken heart, in a cold foggy rain, ending up in a coffee shop for a warm-up coffee and talking to a stranger for comfort- and the best of all running barefoot through a sudden summer storm on the farm in Alberta as a child, arms flung wide, head tilted back and mouth wide open to catch the refreshing raindrops.  After all this reminiscing in this very wet walk I came home happy, soaked and satisfied. Autumn is here!  There is nothing so exhilerating as seasonal changes. So take my advice-again- dear readers, don't fall into the trap of autumn- rain depression, but gird yourself in all your rain gear and brave the wonderful elements that nature in her abundance gives us.

BLOGG# 61 LIVING SPHERICALLY

As you no doubt know, constant readers, I have not written in my blogg for many months. The reason is that my life has been rather complicated and many layered and to survive in my usual smoothly unperturbed sophisticated way, I decided to take that wise Italian film maker- Fellini's advice- ( I am now watching again the old iconic LA Dolce Vita and Julliet of the spirits" his great movies) and live spherically- which I have done.What does this mean? To me, it means to live enthusiastically at all levels in a globally embracing way without judging events, embracing all  in open arms even these events that are unpleasant or hurtful. This takes energy and concentration and this Blogger needed it all to live spherically. I can now say this way of living works and my life is smooth. But now I see you need an example. Last winter due to having to eat a restrictive diet for health reasons, I delightfully lost weight. This,as all women know, means new clothes and lots of shopping and I applied myself enthusiastically. I am sure you all read my favourite magazine- Vogue- and are aware that the new spring pant was a pencil thin and delightfully colourful one so I embraced this pant happily and spent the summer months smugly sporting this new look and it was good. An enjoyable summer. Unfortunately as the summer advanced to Autumn, so did my waistline and these lovely pants, even though made of stretch material, could not expand at the same rate. I realized the pants must go- the same way my too big pants went last spring-to my favourite second hand store known as "My sister's closet". Living spherically, I bundled  them up and with tears in my eyes took them to the shop so some slim Sylph -like creature could enjoy them, and perhaps, if lucky, repurchase my once "too big" pants. I was in luck- the shop owed me fifty dollars from the sale of the big ones and I could now buy "new" ones in my new size. You see now dear bloggers how well living spherically works and I advise you to do the same. You couldn't do better than listen to Fellini.

BLOG# 60 UNPREDICTABLE PAST

From on the unpredictable, suspect, probably false, nostalgic path. As you dear readers are very aware, one of my favourite pastimes is walking down the paths of nostalgia- my own life or anyone else-be it in old black and white movies, in life magazines of the 1930 to 1950 issues dreamingly browsing through the photos and ruminating on such iconic images as the famous photo of the homecoming sailor from the wars kissing the lovely blonde girl in white with her stocking seams straight and her body bent back almost double in ecstasy- an image that encapsulates all that needs to be said about the rapture felt at the end of that horrible and deprived time-, or the images of emaciated models in 1920 Vogue fashion magazines. However, in the past few weeks while getting ready to leave home on an exciting and strenuous trip to Turkey- yes- your wandering blog gist is on the move again- I have been unaccountably living in a nostalgic blur of my past life- my childhood and youth, but especially my childhood-perhaps a sign of a deteriorating mind- and have been noticing a highly suspicious tendency to improve and change my memories as I wander through this nostalgic path. This tendency is insidiously changing my own version of my past which I mistakenly thought of as "Cast in stone" This is very disconcerting. I am busily trying to change my viewpoint on all my hard won justifications of past neurosis and failures, a favourite viewpoint where I, with the help of my psychologist ,busily blame all these negatives on my parents, teachers, the environment or what have you. I now am trying to rearrange my nostalgic past again to make me appear in a satisfactory light. All this busyness in remanufacturing my past to meet my approval has kept me very preoccupied and away from my beloved typewriter and this blog is a gentle reminder to all of you from your Auntie blogger to be aware of the insidiousness of walking down the seductive nostalgic path as it is unpredictable, and can put you in the same place I am in, which is doubting my own remembered past-a precarious place to be. I will now close this rambling blog and will hopefully continue in a more interesting environment-Turkey- for the next one

BLOG # 59 YUMMMM TAX TIME

Yummm- My favourite- Tax time! Yes, dear readers, it has happened again- my favourite time of the year- as sure as taxes itself- Tax Time. As you can imagine, I have a long and loving relationship with the taxation department- probably the most consistent relationship of my life. It started in my early twenties. I believe the first time I filed one was when I was working in Montreal in the fifties. Yes, taxation existed even in that ancient time-I must have done the filing on my own-it is all rather in the dim past- but the reason I remember is that I was planning a long extended trip to Europe and being a good Canadian I filed my taxes before I left. I spent the next six months in carefree bliss hitching hiking around Europe with my friend and when the money was depleted returned to London to work. I then picked up my mail from the American express- that is what we did in those “olden times” dear readers- no emails, no computers. With the mail were several letters from the Quebec provincial taxation office complete with a court order to show up. The amount was $1.89. I had made a mistake- a habit I have continued faithfully to this day whenever I am foolish enough to do my own taxes-and the tax department demanded instant payment. I wrote a long letter of explanation along with a postal note for the amount – I can’t remember what I had to pay for this transaction, but I remember adding up the postage stamps the taxation office spent on their notices and it equaled the amount owing. The next few years I resided in Greece so had no further interaction with this institution and when I returned to Canada I used a professional service- the only irritation I had was I could not claim childcare expenses though having to support my family. When I retired it seemed prudent to do my own again and my dear friend told me the taxation office had a new program one could use by phone which was free! All you had to do was follow instructions and they would walk you through the procedure and so I decided to do it. Well dear readers, there I was, phone in one hand, volumes of tax papers in the other, and T-slips, bills etc falling on the floor. The program was taped- no patient understanding human voice - just a monotone consistent one giving me instructions to put “T-4 slip in the No. 256 blank, then turn to page 65 and copy it again and then refer back to page 22 to confirm” then on to the next step- without- I- kid- you -not taking a breath. “Wait” I shouted “I haven’t found page 65, and I can’t find my T4 slip –it fell on the floor” This had no effect, the voice did not stop. As I grappled on the floor all the other papers followed too –a veritable waterfall of tax forms and the voice still went on in an exorable monotone… I burst into tears at this point and sobbed as I haven’t since my heart was broken in the early fifties. This outburst shocked me very much. That the Taxation Department could have such an extreme effect on me as to create an emotional crisis equal to heartbreak was very disturbing. I finally controlled my sobs, took some aspirin to control my pounding headache, and said to myself “Laurie, there exist infinitely wise people in comfortable offices who will politely do all this for a mere sixty bucks- are you out of your mind?” I did just that and was happy. But just recently another friend gave me access to a computer program to file my own for free. I have had this program for a while now and occasionally glance at it askance and skeptically. Am I going to use it? Ahhh dear readers -that is the million dollar question. I am sorry I will not answer it, but will keep you in suspense ---- Happy Taxation time to you too.

BLOG #50 THE EASTER HUNT IS ON

The Easter Hunt is on! It is spring at last, the grass is acid green, the daffodils nod, and the bunnies are girding their loins for the annual Easter Egg hunt. In reality this means all young mothers are planning on waking up at six A.M. Easter Sunday and hiding sickly gaudy sugar-laden candy eggs in their gardens and all the rooms of their houses-in hopes this will allow them to sleep in longer- parents are always optimistic and delusional. And the dentists, of course, are busy sharpening their instruments and planning future expensive holidays. All this I have done in my own time as a young mother. I can still remember freezing rain-drenched Easter Sunday mornings at 6 A.M. barefoot and nighty-clad frantically hiding these toxic eggs in a sodden garden. I also remember, six months later, finding sticky melted greeny and pinky melted messes in such unlikely places as under the toaster, in the oven, or taped in the toilet tank. I don’t know where my mind was at -those many years ago-to fall into that commercial trap. But that is not my greatest sin-and being Easter it is good to use that word- but I also influenced my daughter too! For there she was, thirty years later, in pajamas in the freezing cold, barefooted, hiding these awful sticky eggs in unlikely places muttering to herself “I can’t believe I am doing this” The sins of the father---etc-etc-and so on it goes. But two days ago I glimpsed a break in these clouds of habitual neuroses- My masseuse was chattering on happily about the pending Easter festivities and the Easter hunt. I had to protest- not another generation under this yoke- this chain had to be broken and so I protested “no , stop. Stop. No more sickly sweet Easter eggs please” and she laughingly corrected me with “Not eggs. We hide and then hunt beer cans- and there is nothing more wonderful than finding the first one and opening it with a snap and guzzling it down. The day just gets happier. And the best of all is finding a forgotten one in the mailbox two months later!” So there is hope for Easter after all. I love the resilience and imagination of the human species. It can always find a way out of the mire and surmount the impossible to reach greater heights and greater enjoyment. Happy Easter dear readers and good hunting.