Family

Four days left in my London visit. Where has the time gone? Glenn brought me here on December 22, and I'll be going home on January 2. I've had a wonderful time enjoying Christmakah festivities, relaxing and digesting all the food. I've been eating way too many holiday treats and have just put my WW regime on hold. It is too frustrating trying to work the program, when every home I visit has treats, when all the meals are rich and and festive. There are so many traditional treats that if not eaten, would make me feel too deprived. As soon as I get back home, I will go back to WW and resume my diet. Meanwhile, I'm being naughty and loving it.

We went out for brunch earlier and then to the Museum to see Maya's show. It was a really nice time that culminated with a visit for drinks with Maya's friends. Glenn was off, so it was fun having him along. I wish he could get two days off together instead of one day twice a week. It's simply impossible for him to get enough rest and take care of his personal business with such a work schedule. He is chronically tired.

We had a great week so far with Christmas eve spent at home, where Mambo and I cooked a traditional turkey dinner. The 25th had us opening gifts and then driving to Florence for Christmas dinner with Glenn's family. Boxing Day was leftovers (I love Christmas leftovers); Monday Maya and I went to eat Indonesian food, Tuesday we bought a new futon for the LR couch (my bed for the week) and put the old lumpy one outside for the trash pickup. This morning I saw the poor old discarded thing outside at the curb and felt a pang of sadness at our betrayal. Then I remembered that I slept really well last night. All pangs of sadness dissolved. We humans are fickle creatures.

The feline boys are having a ball. They play together and follow each other all over the house. My Willy has no time for me but all kinds of time for his cousins. It's like kitty camp here. Willy will be so let down when we get home. He'll sleep for three days.

Family, no matter how small, is a good thing - and we are family. Dec. 30th, 2010 at 03:27 am |

Maya's response to my Rock and a Hard Place.

I should be writing Spic and Span: a recent history of being clean, my upcoming exhibition. It's about attitude to cleanliness, hygiene and the "freeing" of a woman's time* through mechanisation that took off between 1920 and 1960. I should be all over this show. I should be having a great time writing it.

Except I can't focus on it at all.

Partly, there's an air of chaotic hilarity at work because naturally things are effing up all over when it should be a nice quiet week. Mostly it's because Glenn will be bringing my mom and her cat to stay with us for Christmas. I am distracted because I am thinking about what we'll be doing while she's here - I have all next week off - and we always have a lot of fun together.

I'm also thinking about what new ways we'll piss each other off. I don't know what's going on, but we're bickering a lot lately. It's not our fun, mutual snarking and teasing, but really unpleasant sniping. Mom accuses me of bullying her because I get mad when she lays guilt on me. She says that guilt is something I am projecting because of something lacking in me when really she's simply expressing her feelings. But this writes off my own feelings and puts the onus entirely on me, which is unfair. She also has suggested that recently, it's been like talking to teenaged-me, which is REALLY not fair, or true. If I ever become that person again, ever, please lock me up for the good of society.

Yes, I guess I'm not the most attentive daughter in the world. No, I don't comment on every blog/lj/fb post she makes. No, I don't call as often as I should. I know she's alone and I am her only daughter, but what she doesn't realise is that I'm not calling anyone, or answering every post out there. When has she asked me if I'm okay or is everything all right? She actually hasn't. I don't turn around and tell her off for it, though. We lead separate lives in separate places. It's not as she thinks, that I'm brushing her off or she's not my priority.

She is one of my priorities. One of a few priorities that pull in different directions. And yes, I feel shitty that I can't give all the attention I want to her and maybe that makes me neglectful. I think about things like living in a duplex with her, but she won't leave friends and familiarities of Peterborough, and for now (and in the forseeable future) I really can't see me moving there. I think about how to organise my future life to maximise use of our cottage so we can be there together. I think about what if something happens to her all the time. I know she doesn't want me to dwell on things like that, but I do. There you go.

Anyway, I will make a real effort not to get defensive. She'll be here for 10 days, so hopefully this will give us time to sort out whatever is getting in the way of our relationship, but I have a feeling that the "whatever" is probably me having an increasing number of grown-up responsibilities and stressors that get under my skin and take me away from the things that really matter most. Short of quitting my job, selling my stuff and moving home again, I can't really think how to stop those things from taking over my life. I nap a lot, which is an excellent form of escapism, whereas calling my mom probably makes me feel I should be telling her about the things I don't want to think about. Maybe that's why I don't call as much as I should. *sigh*

And yes, she can read this, just as I can read her blog posts wherein she writes about her concerns and hurts. Even if I have trouble expressing this stuff to my mom verbally, this is the stuff that's going on in my head, even when it seems I don't care.

Oprah's ugly secret

Oprah's ugly secret

Happy Solstice!

What a wonderful sunny day for the Solstice. This morning I went to my friend Mary's internment. There were about ten of us present at Little Lake Cemetery. Mary's niche is in the same cairn I selected for Elliot and I. In fact she is on the opposite side of the wall. The location, up on a hill under a grove of spruce trees is beautiful. The snow was glistening in the sunlight and there was no wind. A perfect Winter Solstice day.

It's almost a year since Mary's death and her husband David created a most beautiful ceremony. He spent some time researching different burial rituals and selected the elements that suited Mary's best. So we had symbols and readings from Ojiwa, Jewish, Wicca and Christian ceremonies. We all participated and then one by one, we laid pebbles in the niche. The niche was closed and it was over. It was a beautiful and dignified goodbye. We went together for lunch and then went on with our afternoon activities feeling joyful rather than sad. Mary would have approved.

My afternoon was mainly medical, getting the routine tests done before I head off to London and Christmas. Then I filled the bird feeders, topped up the bird bath, watered the plants and wrapped my last presents. Now I must pack my things and the food and I'll be ready to leave my happy home for Maya's and Glenn's happy home. Willy is still not aware that he's going anywhere but he'll have much fun with his London cousins.

Pleasing Ray.

This was a very good day. It combined many positive elements to make up a full package of good stuff. I visited Ray's studio in the afternoon to look at some of his recent paintings. He is a superb painter who's representational art reveals an extraordinary technique and a visual vocabulary that I envy. He has started painting abstract expressionist works that are much harder for me to relate to. Still, I could see the progress in his work as he evolved from fairly basic imagery to ever more complex work. The increasing complexity has resulted in some very fine paintings.

Then he came back to my place for dinner, conversation and some telly. I gave him my calendar for Christmas, that he opened immediately. Ray was always difficult to give anything to. He has little interest in most material things and no desire to collect stuff. Occasionally I've pleased him with an art book or a specific CD, but overall my gifts have left little impression. Not so this time. He loved the calendar, studying it carefully, commenting on the juxtaposition of images, layout fonts etc. He was immensely pleased. I couldn't disguise my glee at finally giving a present he liked.

We are older now, and we have mellowed since we were together before. He was very wise to move away to Deep River six years ago. That distance ended my obsession and gave him some perspective. It's such an easy relaxed friendship now that the sexual tension is gone. He is the only man I really like much more than I loved. We know all our foibles from our old relationship but we accept each other more in this new friendship. Nothing is at stake now and nobody needs to win. I like the easy way we are together and I'm grateful for our second chance. Old dogs do learn new tricks it seems.

For Barb...today, I'm ok.

Today, I'm very relieved because I had one and a half hours of good, friendly and accepting conversation with my daughter. I didn't "guilt" her once. I was a real person and we exchanged experiences and ideas without any issues arising. So nice for us both. We signed off happy and amused, looking forward to our Christmas visit together.

I'll be there from December 22 till January 2 and it will be warm, welcoming and fun!!!

I'll get to see her latest exhibition, visit with some of her friends and mine, see Glenn's group perform, putter and read. Willy will play with his cousins and they will be naughty together and we will be happy. How's that for setting expectations? Are they unrealistic? Maybe (just in case) I should climb back in from the limb and say what will be, will be.

I am having a very busy December with lots of social life, concerts, lunches and dinners. It's fun, but I'm growing tired. This week coming, I have a tea, a lunch and art exhibition in Toronto, my physio, my own group exhibition art exhibition, a concert, a hair appointment and a supper to attend. I still have some presents to wrap and deliver and the Christmas food shop to do. It's like people have suddenly realized that we are coming to the end of the year with life's loose ends to tidy up. The December social whirl is like a Dyson vacuum cleaner swirling around the room gathering up all of life's dust bunnies - necessary but could be done at any time.

My rock and hard place.

I'm caught between a rock and a hard place and it's really making me sad tonight. I had another one of those conversations with my daughter where I ended up feeling like the baddy. Again I was accused of making her feel guilty. I'm always causing her to feel guilt these days for a variety of reasons that usually start with me saying something like: I guess you haven't read my posts, or, you didn't hear my message, or, we haven't spoken lately - all true. This can be a completely non- accusatory statement of facts, but is received by an audible bristling at her end. I'm becoming so sensitive about this, that I find myself affecting a lighter tone, or worse - wishing I hadn't called at all. Today I heard myself denying that I was guilting her while wondering why she feels so guilty. I actually am apprehensive about going there for Christmas.

The rock, is my calling her (though, she has repeatedly said "you can call me too you know") because I want to hear from her. The hard place, is having my calls misinterpreted and ending in these negative feelings. All I know, is that there is something not right in this recurring dialogue. I sense I'm being driven away by being squeezed into a stereotypical mother-in-law role. Since I don't criticize, don't badger or whine, I like Glenn, and don't interfere in their lives, I resent treading on eggs around the person I birthed, raised and love.

I don't know where this is going, and I would like to improve our communication. If she were a friend, I would walk away because the friendship is not satisfying my needs at present. She is more than a friend, she is my daughter and I can't just walk away. Other women have wonderfully open and generous relationships with their grown children. I thought we had one too, so what happened and what was my role in damaging it? I can't even ask her because she will deny my perception and accuse me of guilting her again.

I do know one thing about guilt. We usually do it to ourselves when we believe we are falling short in some way. I learned in AA that I felt most guilty when I was failing the expectations of the Roman Chorus in my head. The accumulated "shoulds" of all the people I needed to please
throughout my life became my Roman Chorus. My parents were dead, so there was no clear embodiment of a source for my guilt. I'm very much alive in Maya's life so perhaps I have assumed the role of her Roman Chorus. This is not of my making but I may push her buttons unwittingly. I'll have to back off, and she will have to separate me from her Roman Chorus to set us both free to be ourselves again.

Women are very funny people.

If humour be the elixer of life, laugh on! (Apologies to Shakespeare)

Women alone, without men present, are natural comediennes. Yesterday, I had a holiday tea with a group of former colleagues from my pre - retirement days. We convened at a posh tea room in Ptb. that specializes in traditional English teas. Being close to Christmas, the rooms were filled with * ladies who lunch*, and us.

Our stories were so funny and the asides so ribald we were constantly disturbing the dignified calm with our peels of laughter. Fortunately, the owner of the tea room, The Magic Rolling Pin, is also a MNR retiree and knows all of us us well. She placed us in a room on our own where we could do less damage and then came popping in periodically to join the conversation. After two and a half hours of so much laughter, my sides hurt and I came home exhausted and happy. They say laughter is the best antidote to aging. If that is so, I just added a couple of years to my life in one afternoon.