A Busy Day!

I just recently learned how to film a video in the correct format for Blogger. I tried it last night and it didn’t work, so I posted it on YouTube and YouTube’s insert function works with Blogger. Hence, the film, above, of the backyard. (Click on the YouTube icon to watch it on YouTube in a larger format.) And hey kids! Come back next week and see the edible garden and front yard.

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One of my dearest friends during my entire adult life has ‘ghosted’ me. That’s a new term for me; it appears to refer to a friend who stops communicating with you. It is a derogatory term and I question its fairness. Sadly, we have no tradition of how to say goodbye to a friend with whom attachment has faded away.

It’s hard to end a friendship, but I think it’s wrong to just let a friendship that was once strong and vital just die. Leslie has been an incredible friend to me. She played a key role in finding both my birth mother and father. Could there be a great gift? But she has, by her inactions, signalled to me that I there’s no longer room for me in her life.

Honestly, I think about her every day because it is incredibly sad that she has chosen to withdraw. However, I’ve long had a personal conviction not to be where I am not wanted. To fight for an extension to our friendship, therefore, is of no interest to me. But I can’t just let things die, so yesterday morning I wrote to her thanking her for the greatest gifts of my life and, essentially, saying loving goodbye.

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I’m reading, as you know, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and I am loving it. I shall be sad when it ends. On the cover of the book is, of course, the title and the name of the author. There are also an illustration and a qualifier: the words, ‘a novel.’ 

A novel? I confess that I am rather shocked to think that a collection of letters is called a novel. It’s a form that feels odd to be so labelled. The letters are fictional, so it’s fair to use the term I suppose. But it grates with me. Were it my masterpiece, I would not have had the word ‘novel’ on the cover.

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Just past 7:30 yesterday morning, I was outside staining the deck, and when I was done, I took Her Highness for a lovely morning walk while the stain dried. When we got home, I freaked out because I saw the hose running very slowly to feed my Paulownia. It had been running since 16:00 on Wednesday. I quickly turned it off and hurried to the cistern to see how much water was left. Relief! There was plenty of water left in the cistern, and this morning it was back to being full. Phew!

The rest of the morning was spent raking. It felt good to be finally getting to the yard. It also felt good to be doing work that can be done standing up. Still, somehow, raking hurts my back. Almost everything hurts my back now, so I had to take breaks even though the bending wouldn’t begin until I started with the toting. I worked until lunch time. Yesterday, lunchtime was at 10:00. That can happen when I rise at 4:30, only have a light breakfast and have done a few hours work.

Strengthened by food, I got a lot of raking and toting done. I had to take several rests to let my back heal and to refresh. I tire so easily from the work. But after ten or fifteen minutes of rest, I am always keen to return to the job. Slowly is the way to go. I managed to get almost the entire backyard weed whacked, raked and toted. I’ve only one small part to do, and next I will do the front yard and the driveway. And when that is done, I must clean all the garden beds that are drowning in growth caps.

At 14:00, I had my video chat with Aidan on Zoom. It was our first chat in three weeks as he was in Japan doing work there. We are preparing for a Zoom meeting on Monday with Emergency Services BC. And after that call was done, I took Her Highness for an afternoon walk to tire her out a little so that she’d be content to chill on her own while I went to the library to meet Dr. Tan, the veterinarian who might establish a practice here.

Finally, my busy day was done. After the meet and greet with Dr. Tan, I hurried home for dinner, very pleased with all that was accomplished earlier in the day. My deck looks great (but it needs a second coat of stain), as does the yard. Today, I’ll do the second coat and then get back to raking and toting.

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I heard from Leslie. It was great to get a response, but I can feel the distance. Still, I am glad I wrote to thank her for all she has done for me and to say that it’s okay to leave someone behind.

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Today I took 14,000 steps. My highest is 17,000. In winter, we’re going to be in the low hundreds.

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Steve is off to the Gay Games in Spain. He’ll be gone for a month, and I shall miss our frequent video chats very, very much. 

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I bought a hammock. It arrived and I assembled it. Then I tried it. Afterwards, I thought: Oh well, that’s another write off. This is a relatively new phenomenon, online shopping for me. All my life, until I moved here, I bought only things I could touch, try on, or otherwise judge it. You see the true colour, only in person.

Online shopping became a vital service for me when I moved to this rural island, and I have learned to live with boo-boos. I thought my hammock was one of them, but today, something made me choose to reassemble the stand, changing the angle of the structural arms. Et voilà! Now I fit comfortably, very, comfortably on it. In fact, it’s my new favourite place. Good-bye recliner.

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Further to the hammock…

I had an epiphany, thanks to the hammock experience. Reflecting on it, I had to throw something I know well about myself: I have no interest whatsoever in instructions. Perhaps I don’t like someone telling me what to do. I don’t think that’s the reason.

And then, old age being the time for telling truths before you die, I connected my adversity to instructions to my adversity to homework. I was a bitter disappointment to the school administrators who put me in the advance class. I had no supervision. I didn’t feel responsible to Don and Connie; they took no interest in my schooling. I didn’t like doing homework, so I did the minimum. It was easy to pass. In some courses, it was easy to do well.

I like puzzels; I think that’s why I was good at math. I think that’s why I liked finding things for people. I believe that I love experiential learning. Also, I was rather thrown into it as a child. From age eleven, I had to look after the house and yard, so shopping, and tend to Connie when she visited from the care home.

I had to fix door handles, mow the lawn and do gardening, paint, repair, replace; I had to learn a lot of practical things about buying and choosing trades people and paying them. I was constantly experiencing things that I’d never had to do before.

Whatever the reason, I genuinely feel good about this habit I have. I’ve always thought that my ability to make all these things that I buy work, or put them together, as a tribute to industrial design. (I always used IKEA instructions,)

I don’t think I was truly interested in my education. I went because it was expected by my academic councillors and friends. I should have gone to BCIT (B.C. Institute of Technology). I believe I would have engaged with my education there.

Oh well. 

I had to teach for two years to get my license to teach. From there, I went into the theatre. I f’ing built designed and built one, and found the funding build it. But I did everything on the cheap to build it. I used free and used materials from the many donations from the community and that I found. 

The score that I’m proudest of were the bowling alleys. 

On my way to work one morning, I drove over some pieces of wood on Broadway. That was at about 8:00. At 11:00, I suddenly thought of that wood and realized that it must have come out of the bowling alley that they were shutting down.

I had a wizard for a partner on the theatre project. Moira. Oh, let me tell you: I loved that woman. I never properly praised her in public, and I regret that. But in life, she knew. I could go on and on. She used one phone and I used another and we eventually found the alleys after calling all the industrial towing and removal companies.

They were on a truck going to the dump. Seventeen, sixty-foot, edge-grain Maple bowling alleys. The company contacted the driver, and I paid a nominal fee to redirect the alleys to the theatre site. They became the theatre stage and many counters and tables.

But my point is this: drawing the design, fetching donations, fixing donations, painting and adapting, donations, moving donations: I was always working with my hands as well as my head. I had a self-imposed rule when I had staff: to lead by example. When we had a flood … I was bailing first, long before help arrived. Then, when the staff arrived, they bailed and I sat on a recliner, drank champagne and imagined Tom naked. No, I kept bailing.

The greatest time my hands ever had was making my dresses. They were my proudest achievement because their stories, the actual dresses, and the be-fuckin’-zillions of man hours to make them had my hands busy for two years.

Not long after that, I had my breakdown. Since then, I’ve lost my lust of drawing and making things, but what a great, wonderful time I had when my drive and imagination were still in bloom. The dresses were a great final project.

Soon my hands will help me use a bedpan.