A Terrible Thing Happened on the Way to My New Life

In the midst of preparing to move into our new house and start our new life together something terrible happened in the world.  Focused as we were on the task of cleaning out all the junk the previous owners left us to deal with so we could bring our own things into the house, this terrible thing  barely registered with us.  We heard the news.  And we kept going.  Our own world, our own troubles trumped the terrible thing that happened... Out there.

I finally had a moment to sit down and pay attention to the terrible thing that happened.  Horrified, shocked and deeply saddened, I learned that a 29-year-old man took it upon himself to walk into a night club, slaughter 49 people, wound 53 more people and finally be shot to death himself by police.
Why? I asked myself.  Why does this happen?  How does someone get to the point where this is okay to do?  How much hate does it take to put someone over the edge and choose to consciously kill and maim other people?  Where does all this hate come from?

I felt the grip of fear begin to squeeze my heart.  For a time I sat with this fear.  I watched it grow.  I watched it transform.  Into hate; dark and ugly and consuming.

With some effort I backed away from the hate and from the fear.  I refused to let it consume me.

I don't know any of the people that were killed or wounded.  I don't know the man that killed and wounded them.  But their loss... I felt it.  I still feel it.  I will feel it for a long time, I think.

This kind of thing seems to be happening with frightening regularity in the world.  It's getting harder and harder to hold on to the beauty and wonder and goodness.  I shall not give up.

I know someone that this same sort of hate is consuming.  Beneath that hate is a wonderful, creative and amazing man.  He's an artist of extraordinary talent.  He's a skilled handyman.  He's an accomplished musician.  He has so much incredibly beautiful stuff to give to the world.  And it's all buried somewhere under a thick and putrid layer of hate and loathing and fear.  Now I fear for him.

I fear what all this hatred will do to him.  Will he end up like this 29-year-old?  I don't think he would pull the trigger.  I honestly can't see him doing that.  There is a tender place still in him that repels killing.  I just hope it is tender enough, strong enough to outlast the hate.

I have seen his goodness.  I have seen the love that he has.  I can only pray that it somehow finds its way back to the surface and shines once again.  I can only pray that he finds his art, his love, his grace.  My fondest wish is for him to find peace and for him to know the great joy that truly risking his heart can bring.

My own little thought experiment reminded me of the amazing power of gratitude.  I have so much to be thankful for and as I ticked off all the many, many things that give me joy, the hate and the fear shrunk back into the recesses of my soul.

We all have a dark side.  We all must at some time face the darkness.  We cannot know joy or love without also knowing fear and hate.  Fifty people lost their lives to hate on June 12th.  While I mourn this tragic loss, I also feel compelled to carry on; to be the best person I can be, to continue to go forward with love in my heart.  Perhaps not just specifically for them, but for all of us- including my beloved friend so lost in his own darkness.

When we get settled, I will light a candle for these lost souls.  I will honour each of them and the sacrifice they made.  May it not be in vain.  May something good come of this terrible thing that happened.

What a Day!

What a day!

Sheesh.

I swear I moved more stuff today than we even own.  It was brutal.  It was not fun.

You see, my daughter and I bought a house.  Now typically, when one buys a house, said house is empty of all of the previous owner's possessions and ready to move into.  Makes sense, right?  People take their stuff with them when they move out.

Apparently, not everyone does this.  Some people... like the people we bought our house from, for example... leave all the crap they collected over the years and don't want to take with them behind.  They just leave it.  They make no attempt whatsoever to deal with it.  They just pick through their things and take only the stuff they really like and want to keep.

Last Friday - May 10th - we got the keys to the house.  We were so excited.  I had never seen it before, so I was really excited.  And nervous.  When we entered the house as ours for the first time we were stunned at all the stuff that was still in it.  There was a polite little note from the previous owners explaining that they had left "a few things we thought you might be able to use."

A few things?  A few?

I would hate to see their idea of a lot!

Closets and cupboards were full of stuff.  Food, electronics, instruments, cat food, dishes, vases, decorations, paint cans, tools, cosmetics, candles, plants...  One bin was filled with nail polish.  We could have gone into business with that alone!  It was nuts.

And the more we looked, the more we found.

The crawl space was crammed with scraps of wood and leftover tiles, linoleum and laminate flooring.  There was a pile of tiny pieces of gyproc each about 3" x 12".  A headboard, short lengths of molded plastic back splash, bits of wood and  plastic...  It just kept coming.  And coming.

There were no less than six weed wackers!    Mops and brooms and dust pans and even a vacuum cleaner!  Laundry baskets and laundry hampers.  Three floor fans in various stages of use and repair.  A guitar amp and a guitar.  A computer, a CD player, two sets of speakers, a sub-woofer and other various electronic gadgets.  A hand saw.  A hack saw. And a tile saw.  Clamps and a hammer.  Two socket sets - both nearly complete.  Bags of stuffed toys.  Giant stuffed toys - including a five-foot long neon orange and green squid.  (Which is kind of amazing, actually.)  And garbage!  Literal garbage.

It took three of us two days to gather, sort and organize the colossal pile of stuff.  I estimate that thirty hours of labour went into this wee project.  And about two percent of it was useful and worth keeping.  About two thirds of it went to the dump.  At a cost of $455 to get it picked up and hauled away.  A good pickup load or more is going to the thrift store.

Un-freaking-believable!

I'm exhausted.  I ache all over.  My feet are threatening to go on strike.  My neck hurts.  My legs hurt.  And I just want to curl up and go to sleep.

I took photos of all the stuff and sent them to our Realtor.  I know it isn't her problem, but I thought I would ask if there was any way she could help us get compensation for the costs of dealing with all that stuff from the previous owners.  The poor woman was as shocked and disgusted as we were and is working on it for us.  Not sure what will come of it, but it is certainly worth a shot.  Had there really only been a "few" things, we would have been fine with it.  But this!  This is just ridiculous.

Thursday we get to do it all over again.  At least this time it will be to move our own stuff in, instead of schlepping someone else's stuff out.  I am so looking forward to getting this done.   But right now I'm going to go and tuck my grandkids into bed.  Then I'm going to follow suit and crawl into my own bed.

Good night, folks!

We Got Keys!

I was so nervous!  I mean nauseous nervous.

It was all I could do to hold back the tears and keep myself together.

We've been waiting for this day for ages, it seems.  And it arrived with yet another reality shift that gut punched me like Ali going for the heavy weight title.  I think I may be in shock.

At just after 4 p.m., the son of our Realtor knocked on the door and handed me the keys to our new house.  I had to sit down.  I had to take a deep breath.  In just a few short hours I would be seeing the house for the first time.

I have lived in thirteen different houses during my life.  This house will be #14.  Of all those places, I have only chosen one for myself; the one I left to move here.  I was so happy in my crazy house on Butler Avenue.  So proud of myself for being able to buy it.  And so thrilled that I got to pick it out.  It was a moment I will never forget.

My daughters picked this house.  Of course, they conferred with me during the process, but I got to actually see it for the first time today.

I unlocked the door and, together, Tracy and I carried Bizz over the threshold.  Which begged the question:  Why do grooms carry brides over the threshold?  None of us knew and I will get back to that a little later.

We entered our new home for the first time together.  It's lovely!  Relief washed over me along with a sense of being home again.  It was the same feeling I had when I first walked into Alegria on Butler Avenue five years ago.  The kitchen is kind of small, but it's functional.  I can see us having feasts and celebrations there.  I can see us laughing and crying and loving and comforting and encouraging each other there.  I can see us being a family there.  I can see us prospering there.

The house is relatively clean.  But the previous owners left us a ton of stuff to deal with.  Every cupboard we opened had something in it. There are bags of toys in the rec room.  There is food in the fridges and the freezers. Nick-nacks, speakers, stereo equipment, tools, a vacuum, step stools and ladders, roller skates... Even a guitar!... are littering cupboards and closets.  There is a ton of garbage, too.  We all wondered what they took with them.

Among the useful items are lawn mowers, a fantastic patio set, glasses and some outdoor storage bins.  But seriously, all this stuff kind of left us feeling a bit put out.  It all has to be sorted and distributed somewhere.  Somehow.  We really didn't need - much less want! - the extra work.

We won't be moving in for another week yet.  I'm both loathing and longing to pack and schlepp and sort and organize.  The added work of dealing with the detritus of the previous owners' lives is a bit of dark cloud hanging over us.  But we will find a silver lining in it.  Yard sale!?  Might as well get something for our efforts.

In the meantime I am going to focus on being home at last.  Sharing my life with Tracy, Bizz, Nolan and Jo is going to be fantastic.  (It already is.)

Now back to the aside about grooms and brides and thresholds...

It seems that back in the day, many marriages started out as kidnappings.  The only way a bride was going to cross a threshold was to be carried.  The current tradition, however, seems to stem from the Medieval European custom of carrying a bride over the threshold to demonstrate the bride's reluctance to lose her virginity.  But other cultures in other areas around the world also practice this gesture, not as a means of force or a show of modesty, but rather as a superstition.  It is believed by some that carrying a bride across a threshold will ward of evil spirits and thwart bad luck.

Our version - the double chair-lift carry - was just us being goofy.  But if it thwarts bad luck and wards off evil spirits... Well, so much the better for us.

Galaxy Cat - My Art After Dark Experience

I feel like a kid in a candy store.  As amusing as it may sound to some people, the city is filled with so many wonderful things to do.  The irony of my saying that is not lost on me.  I have shunned the idea of living in or even experiencing city life for nearly four decades.  Now here I am busily scanning the Net for events and meetups that might lead me to the next fun thing to try.

(Still haven't gone ax throwing.  But it remains high on the list.)

On June 7th, Bizz and I traveled to St. Albert to a lovely little wine and tapas bar called Privada.  This cozy little venue welcomed 15 wanna-be painters to an evening of guided art work.  The concept is really quite innovative.  An artist - in this case a young man named Tyler - creates a painting.  Interested participants register to re-create that painting step-by-step.  It's called Art After Dark.

The Art After Dark project that Bizz and I completed is called Galaxy Cat.  In a mere two hours we turned blank 18" x 24" canvases into rather stunning images of cat faces seemingly superimposed over a galactic background.  Our intrepid young instructor patiently encouraged us through the process, making us all feel comfortable and confident.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and one that I hope to repeat.

This is what I accomplished:

For anyone traveling in Alberta - specifically to St. Albert - Privada serves an amazing cup of coffee!  And their wine list is pretty impressive.  

Welcome to the city.

Wow!  I am officially an...

Wait for it...

Edmon-Toni-an!  

After two weeks of intense activity I find myself back in that time warp where things are moving fast AND taking forever.  We are still just over a week from taking possession of our new house and about two weeks from being able to move in. But how did it get to be the beginning of June already? And why is it taking so long to get finally moved and settled. Time has taken on a strange Twilight Zone-ian quality of late. LIfe has a surreal edge to it. I'm fascinated by everything, living in a constant state of wonder and awe.

Visual sensory input reached code overload yesterday. The city is huge. I am in a community of nearly 1 million people and everyone except me seems to know where they are going. I am just along for the ride. And I'm okay with that. At some point I will have to learn how to use a bus. Baby steps!

There is no end to the wonder of this city, though. Every day something new presents itself. Today it was a farmer's market. My big score: Spicy Banana Ketchup! Who knew? It's delicious. And while buying some incredible hand-made soap, the vendor gave me a free Anise lip balm.  

Yesterday, Tracy and I went to a fabulous coffee shop called Remedy. They serve Indian food and the lamb curry was sublime. The mango lassi was incredible! I can't wait to discover more places like this.

Adjusting to city life is going to take a while. For me and the pets. Chessa isn't doing too bad, but Oliver and Kaya are still traumatized. Oliver has been hiding since we got here, though he did come out today for a snuggle and some food. We figure that just about the time they all settle down and accept this place, we'll pack them up and move them to the new house. Trauma times two! Life with three cats, three dogs, a tortoise and two kids makes for a lively time.  

Well, I'm sure I will have lots more to talk about in the coming weeks and months. I'm sure that I could live here for the rest of my life and still not experience the whole city.  

But I'll be giving it my best shot!

Alberta Bound

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything.  It's not for lack of trying.  I've started many posts over the past 9 months or so, only to be interrupted or distracted by other things.  But today I am determined to write something and finish it.

A few months ago I decided to see if I could sell my house this spring.  The idea was that if the the house sold I would move to Edmonton.  It wasn't a solid this-is-happening plan. It was, rather, a let's-see-what-happens plan.  And so with the early snow-melt, I listed my house in mid-March thinking that if it sold at all it would sell in June-ish.  It sold in April!  April 6th, to be exact.  A mere three weeks after the listing went up.

Things got real really fast.

The scramble was on to find a place to live in Edmonton.  My daughters were tasked with that feat and several miles of text threads were generated in the relaying of information back and forth during the process.  There were misunderstandings and tears and happy dances and disappointments and compromises and, finally, consensus.  At what seemed like long-last, though it was only a few weeks, a house was found, a deal was struck and reality got even bigger.

I am leaving Houston.  After 37 years, I am leaving Houston to make a new life in Alberta with my daughters, Tracy and Bizz, and my grandchildren, Nolan and Jocelyn.

Wow!

I'm thrilled.  I'm excited.  I'm scared.  I'm sad.  I'm freaking out.  I'm oddly calm.  I'm leaving Houston!

I'm leaving my wonderful job at the Houston Public Library.  I'm leaving my lovely house on Butler Avenue.  I'm leaving my amazing friends.  I'm leaving my entire adult life so far behind.  And I'm going to miss all of it!

I'm going to be with my kids and grandkids.  I'm going to new adventures and new experiences.  I'm going to museums and festivals and art galleries and plays and markets and public transit and theatres and a spiritual community of like-minded people.  I'm going to be me!

Houston has been good to me.  It's also broken my heart a thousand times.  It's where I raised my family, learned skills, earned a living, made friends, celebrated life events, laughed, loved and cried.

I'm ready for this change.  As big and scary as it seems at times, it feels so right.  To be sharing my life with people I love and care about again is so amazing.  I've enjoyed having my own place and my own space.  Yet having people I love around to care for and be cared for by is just so comforting.  I can't even begin to express how much it means to me to be doing this.  I can't wait to have dinner with my family and talk about our days.  I can't wait to cook meals for them.  I can't wait to encourage them and celebrate with them and even argue with them.  Oh, yes, I expect there will be some of that!  I can't wait to go to bed at night knowing that they are there and they are safe and well.  I can't wait to wake up in the morning and send them off to school and work with a hug.  I can't wait to have someone to hug again.

But first it's off to FanCon in Prince George for a few days of fun with my beautiful and talented daughter, Alison.  If you happen to be there, please stop by Ethereal Earth's booth and say hello to Morticia (me) and Wednesday (Ali) Addams.  We'll be the ones selling fairy art!  LOL

Then, it'll be back home to clean and pack and say farewell to all my friends and loved ones and get ready to be Alberta Bound!

Alberta Bound

Man Magic

So I’ve been studying a bit of Man Magic lately.  Well, maybe not studying exactly.  But paying some extra attention.

What is Man Magic, you ask?

It’s those skills and that knowledge that seems to come so easily to men.  Things like how to fix a car.  And use power tools to build stuff.  And make electronic things do what they do. 

For the feminists out there who are bending treacherously to the right in indignation, I’m not saying women can’t do this stuff; just that it seems to come much more easily to men.  I can – and sometimes do – do some of this stuff, but not particularly well and not particularly easily.  I have to work at it.  My magic is vastly different and comes to me much more effortlessly.

Take electronics, for example.  You solder a bunch of ceramic doodads with bits of copper wire sticking out of them to a green (Why green, by the way?) plastic board, add a few bigger ceramic doodads and a couple of black plastic squares and – poof – a television or a computer or a radio happens.  That’s magic.

One of these circuit boards is from a television and one is from a computer:

And while it may be fairly obvious which is which, how on earth does someone get from that to a picture on a TV screen or an operating system that brings the Internet to life or drives that addictive piece of software that keeps you from cleaning the bathroom or doing the laundry?  I’m tellin’ ya!  It’s magic.

And cars!  The skill and knowledge it takes to make or fix or enhance one is phenomenal.  Seriously, if it were left to me we’d all still be in awe of the wheel.  I’m not sure we’d even have reached the point where we’ve connected two wheels with an axel, let alone attached a cart and loaded it up with stuff, thus moving it around more easily.  Though I might have surprised us all.  Sometimes I do that. 

Anyway, I have always been fascinated by Man Magic.  Not enough to put enough time and effort into mastering it, mind you.   But enough to be deeply appreciative of it.  My rudimentary understanding of it doesn’t even equate to the tip of the iceberg.  It probably doesn’t even equate to a penguin resting on the tip of the iceberg.  And, unlike said penguin, it is likely to slip off and get eaten by a killer whale because it was gazing at the clouds floating lazily overhead and not paying attention.  But my appreciation of it is equal to a hundred icebergs. 

Some years ago, my daughter observed that men can have entire conversations in sound effects.  The speed and pitch of these sound effects somehow translates to clarification and diagnostic wizardry ensues. 

“It goes click, click, wheeze.”

“Not nick, nick, whoosh?”

“Nope.  Click, click, wheeze.”

“Your instamatic optimizer isn’t getting enough power.  Check the oomphalloptic in-take and make sure it’s connected properly.  You might have to replace the OPG coil in the RXZ receptacle.  But it’s probably just a loose oomphalloptic line.  Gotta keep those babies tight.”

(If I only had a dollar for every similar conversation I’ve heard in my lifetime!)

I am a curious person.  Curious in that I am inquisitive, not odd.  (Well, I may be that, too.)  I place a high value on learning and understanding things at least well enough to grasp the fundamentals.  My mind is an encyclopedia of theoretical application, design and function.  I can build an entire house in my head, but no one would want to live in it if I were to put theory into practice.  The magic does not translate well from the mental to the physical when I’m the one wielding the hammer.  I am content to leave that – and most – Man Magic to the experts.  Likewise with electronics and cars. 

I think that what I find so beguiling about Man Magic is the marriage between art and science that is involved.   Cars are beautiful.  Buildings are beautiful.  Machines are beautiful.  They are works of art; functional and productive works of art.  Understanding the processes that make them achievable – even just a little bit – makes them even more beautiful.   Sure they can be messy and loud, but creating stuff is messy and, sometimes, loud.  It’s part of the process.  Try cooking a meal without making a mess!  And the noise is just vibration.  And vibration is energy.  And energy is… everything!

There are times when I wish I was more adept at Man Magic.  It would certainly make my life easier.  And less expensive.  My bathroom would be renovated.  My library would be built.  My stairwell railing wouldn’t be wobbly.  There would be an awesome bench next to my kitchen entry.  And my countertops would be replaced.  And the brown aluminum siding on my house would be replaced with vertical rough cedar siding painted burnt orange with eggplant purple trim.   There would be dark-stained wooden doors at each entrance with stained glass inserts.  But, except maybe for the bench, which I might just attempt as a winter project, this is all well above my level of Man Magic ability. 

I’d also have a 1970 Chevy Nova that I would restore to immaculate perfection.  How freaking cool would that be?  I can see it now, gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun, metallic orange over dark purple with about a billion layers of clear coat.  And it would be loud.  And fast.  (Although not with me behind the wheel!) And it would turn heads and I would be so proud of what I had done. 

Ah, well. 

I close my eyes and then I drift away.

Into the magic night I softly say

A silent prayer like dreamers do.

Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.

- Roy Orbison