Dear Diary
Another wet day. Not too windy, cooler than yesterday. I used too much shredded cheese in our breakfast omelette. As usual. But breakfast is a treasured, leisurely event with us and it hardly matters. Irving left over that portion of his omelette which was too cheese-heavy and offered it to me, and as usual I ate it. I put off cleaning the bathrooms in favour of taking Button and Riley out for a ravine walk as early as possible, just in case it began raining again.
The tree trunks in the ravine are dark with the penetration of another all-night rain, contrasting sharply and beautifully with the bright limey-tone of the newly leafed canopy. We thought the trails were mucky yesterday, but they were perfectly fine compared to the slush we encounter today. The wild apple trees are nicely in bloom, the dogwoods are beginning to shape their flat floral sprays, the ferns are coming up apace, and ground cover is swiftly filling in the bare spots under the trees. In the very wet areas jewelweed has spread overall, looking like bits of watercress.
The cardinal's intense trills follows us half-way through our circuit, but today we don't glimpse his crimson plumage. The creek is running full, gurgling over the latterly-formed gravel bars, gushing in miniature waterfalls of muddy water over the accumulation of water-logged branches caught on the edge of the creek; the accretion of roots dabbling in the creek from the trees poised awkwardly above. There is an indelible odour of wet needles, old leaves.
Later, Irving busies himself again mixing black earth, sheep manure and peat into our wheelbarrow for distribution once again into the balance of our garden pots. I plant a few more perennials; another phlox, another liatrus that I just could not resist. (For we had taken time out to peruse the gardening offerings at another locale, and had been smitten with the variety, the robustness of the plants, and then, of course, submitted to the imperative to acquire more. Bacopa, Million bells, geraniums, lobelia, potato vines, heliochrysm. Thank you!) I begin to distribute the pink and the red wax begonias into various flower beds, just on the border, in a bit of semi-shade, while the white impatiens are placed into our little half-moon stone pots that border the pathway.
A few neighbours haul themselves over, and I promise to divide and distribute a few of our perennials, good and mature as they are, ripe for division. The candidates on this occasion are campanula, hostas and hydrangea. These neighbours are just budding gardeners, and listen intently to my descriptions, advice, and assurances that these plants need little to no care at all.
The canvass kit for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind is delivered to me, just before dinnertime. The person who brings it over is someone who has delivered these, and those for the Heart and Stroke, and for the Arthritis Society, for years. She lends herself to these charitable organizations, offering to deliver canvass kits, but declining to canvass door-to-door herself, if she can help it. And who can blame her? She speaks in a rapid-fire staccato that takes some getting used to, to fully understand her words. English is her second language, and it shows. Her grandchildren live with her; her daughter has had some very unfortunate alliances and this grandmother picks up the pieces.
After dinner I prepare to go out to begin the canvass, eager to begin and at least make some impact on getting the job done, since it is, after all, mid-month. Riley stands beside me at the front door, anxiously watching me prepare to leave the house. He's always a little pill about my absence and moons about unhappily until my return. He and Button behave as though I've been gone, unaccountably, and tragically for years, whenever Irving or I leave the house for any reason. I step outside, and stop on the porch. No wonder it seemed so dark, it's raining.
What to do? I telephone my sister in Toronto, just to keep in touch. We don't, after all, do such a terrific job of keeping in touch. My sister, incidentally, is legally blind. She's four years younger than me; her eyesight was always compromised, the result of a forceps-assisted birth. I speak first to my brother-in-law who assures me he is still swimming at the local "Y" five times a week. And good on him. I want to know how his daughter, who is undergoing a protocol of electro-shock treatments, because psychotropic drug therapy hasn't helped her, is doing. Well, he says, tentatively, she seems livelier, afterward, although immediately following treatment she's a little woozy.
When I'm speaking with my sister, she tells me she sees no difference yet at all. But this is only the eighth treatment session, so it's early days, after all. Yes, my sister says, they are still going out for daily walks. Yes, she feels pretty good. Well, maybe not so good. But they do go out walking. And dancing. Their last dance lesson in the series is this week, but they'll go out to the local community centre for their twice-monthly seniors dances. Something they've been doing for years. And, reports one of my very old friends with whom I communicate by email, they're very good. My friend also dances. She and her 80-year-old boyfriend. She speaks of my sister's and brother-in-law's dancing proficiency with admiration and envy.
We re-visit old times, talking about our mother, our father, our impressions of them at the time, when we were young. And how it is that one of our brothers is so distant and removed, so unwilling to be in any manner of contact with any of his siblings. How we always thought of our mother as "old" and stodgy. Simply because she was. About our relationship with our father. Which, said my sister, was non-existent. He was there, but not quite there for us.
Another entry on another day of life.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 17, 2006
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