My Day

It drizzled all morning yesterday. By late morning I could count the drops they were so few and far between, and the sky had brightened. I did chores all morning: vacuuming, pitting pears and giving each of my four-legged beloveds a half-hour of my devotion.

By 11:30, I’d been up and busy for six hours and so I collapsed into bed after I fed the brood. It was My Day after all; I could be indulgent if I wished. I got up an hour later and it was raining more in earnest. I was thrilled. I celebrated with a piece of pepperoni and half a pear for lunch.

I watched a movie in the afternoon. Nothing great, but time passed while it semi-rained, and then we went for our afternoon walk, after which, I had a soak in the hot tub. What a great day I had. There were very few demands, and I spent a good amount of time with my feet up—well my left foot anyway.

It surprises me to look back and see how much I’ve integrated into my life these past few years. The hardest thing of all, has been accepting the impact of neglect on me. Seizures, especially when I am with people, are part of my life now, as are being mute often, being barely able to speak at other times, and then sometimes being almost fluent under the right circumstances. 

And then there’s walking slowly, not carrying weight, not exerting, and being very, very careful when I do up my shoes, or put Sheba’s food on the floor, or when I attend to my feet. I must rise slowly and hold on to something for balance. All these issues due to the advancement of my asthma.

All these things are now part of my life and so is having one bad foot. I’ve accepted and adjusted; nothing keeps me from loving life. Most all I do now is to serve life. I feed and care for my pets and my many, many plants, and myself. My life is about living. I have no time for sorrow or regret; I’m very lucky to be a happy and optimistic person regardless of my despair over how my species treats the earth and each other.

It helps that I live in paradise. It helps that there are dogs everywhere, that I’m surrounded by nice and caring people, and that I live and play in the forest. People emote over a water view, but it thrills me to walk down my garden pathway, open the gate and I am delivered into the raw forest with deer, squirrels, racoons, owls, and an extraordinary number of birds. Hummingbirds, Jays and Pileated Woodpeckers being the most amazing, but I love them all. 

At 16:30, the sun came blasting out and the sky cleared. We’re back to another week of sunshine, this time though, with afternoon temperatures in the low twenties. I’ll only have to water every second day, and I’ll get to be outdoors for another week. Hooray!

With sunshine sparkling in the drops of water on the plants, I fed the brood and went for my evening walkabout. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so attached to a home as I do now. I couldn’t love the Tyrell’s place because I slept in the basement, and they were people I didn’t want to be with.

I liked my life with Steve. It was my first true home, but I was not meant to live with someone. I’d never argued with anyone before. I was used to using words to find solutions; all my relationships were in my workplaces. Once I quit teaching and apprenticing at the Arts Club Theatre, I was nearly always the boss where I worked. I had to deal with a lot of people and personnel issues. Part of my job was being the Human Resources person.

But Steve used words to win and to hurt. I’d never done that, at first because I’d be beaten, and later because it was part of my personal ethic to avoid confrontation. (However, I have a ‘bitch within who smokes. I, Chris, can say scathing things in jest as my bitchy smoking alter ego, Candy Stroyou. Her favourite retort to criticism is: “That would hurt had it come from someone intelligent.”)

I loved living in Brewery Creek. It was the first ‘artist live-in spaces’ building in Vancouver. It was somuch fun living there. I was probably the oldest person in the building, but we all partied often. I loved it, but there was no privacy. And then Rob moved in. He was a straight man who was a closeted bi-sexual and I spent ten years with him in a casual relationship that I should have run from early on.

I moved from there to right downtown, right across from St. Paul’s hospital and beside a minor transportation hub. It was crazy noisy there. Sirens blared day and night, and my condo faced the emergency entrance. And those kneeling busses that must expel air to lower themselves for passengers make one hell of a lot of noise—and they came and kneeled on two sides of me all day long.

And then I had my breakdown, and I knew I had to flee the city when I saw a photograph of this house in a real estate listing. I sold my place in four days and moved here. It was a spur of the moment emotional decision that helped me heal a great deal. When I left, I was having around 20 seizures a week, down from having that many a day when all this started. Now, I rarely have seizures when I am alone.  It’s always when I have company.

After our afternoon walk, I came home to enjoy a lovely soak in the spa and then I settled in for an evening of relaxation on the chaise watching a movie. 

Here are some photos of people having fun in Fall.