THE TREES OF MY LIFE

T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” had measured out his life in “coffee spoons”. It is a sad image of an idle, indolent, wasted life. Most of us would like to think that we could measure out our lives with far more significant markers. Some of these markers might give meaning to our lives, point to key associations of geography, indicate symbolic preferences, something about ourselves and our value systems. As I looked out from my back porch last night at the array of deciduous trees, Manitoba Maple, Poplar, Elm, Peach, Apple, Walnut, Catalpa, Hawthorne just anxious to burst forth their leafy show this spring, I thought of how my life has had many types of markers, perhaps the most vital being trees.

As I child it wasn’t any type of tree in particular, but more the awareness of an abundance of trees when, at the age of seven, we moved from the city to the country. My father loved nature and would take me and my sisters on annual spring excursions into the woods to see the first blooms of white and purple trilliums growing under the maple and poplar bows. In March we would go to a nearby sugar bush and watch the syrup dripping from the taps in the forest of maple trees. We would take our fingers and run them under the sap, licking the sticky syrup, sweet enough even before the boiling process.

As a young bride I moved to Northern Ontario where the triumvirate of Cambrian rocks, spring fed lakes, and large, verdant woodlands, imprinted themselves on my core self. Our home was built on the edge of a Lake and the land was populated by majestic white birch. Even in winter, devoid of leaves, the tall, graceful white columns added a majesty to our surroundings. Their smooth skin was a delight to touch. My children would dare to strip some bark from a tree to make various crafts, miniature canoes, or scribble secret messages on the interior side, to be hidden under rock crevices. Birches are not a hardy tree, and every few years the spring would reveal that yet another had succumbed to old age and the ravages of northern winters. And yet as they thinned themselves, the remaining ones appeared straighter, taller, and more magnificent than ever. I think of them now as anthropomorphised guardians of our lake home for so many years.

Now, in the trimester of my life, the trees that dominate are hawthorne. They thrive both at my home and at the cottage. Their prickly branches intertwine in gnarly, arthritic kinks. A strong wind will clip them of their weaker limbs. But spring encourages bright, white blossoms that camouflage the twisted limbs. Summer is all green and verdant, offering shade and colour. Bright red balls of inedible fruit tease us into fall. And then they drop, and the bare, intertwined limbs seem to clump closer to each other, as if to give reassurance as another winter approaches. They are an ironic tree, appearing vulnerable and yet asserting independence with their needle spines.

By turns, my trees have provided beauty, detachment, meditation, protection, and comfort. And, as I reflect, it seems that each one, that has presided over a period of my life, did so for a reason, and perhaps, in part, as an avatar of myself.

SOOTHE THE SOUL

In my junior years (as opposed to my senior years) we had a lot of ways to “soothe the soul”. We just didn’t realize we needed to answer that call literally. Just as well, since it was too soon in the evolution of a self, and therefore, would not have worked anyway.

I remember dancing to “Give me that ole time Rock and Roll; the kind of music that soothes the soul.” And we did rock and roll, and jump and jive, and jitterbug, at many parties, many times. We were young, in love, and full of energy. Soul music was for slow dancing. Soul food was exotic cuisine. Soul brothers were those gorgeous black men, like Sidney or Harry, who were verboten to young, white girls like me. At that time the term “soul” was an adjective rather than a noun. And why not. We were young, beautiful, energetic, and from some vantage points, immortal.

Only after a certain age, in this case, sixty, the term “soul” became a noun .Only then did I begin to examine more closely the elements that make up my soul and me. Since time immemorial, as the saying goes, “Soul searching” has been a prerogative of the young. And many sensitive, artistic, imaginative individuals have been on this quest throughout their very early years. I feel somehow melancoly for them and their futile search. As the expression goes, “it a takes a village” to raise a child. Similarly, it takes a good portion of a lifetime to create a soul. Before having lived and matured, “soul” is just a word, a meaningless word.

Trying to figure out what career path to take, or how to contribute to the welfare of humanity has nothing to do with one’s soul. Instead it is all about ego. Legitimate soul searching can only begin to happen after the ego has released its grip on ambition, vanity, greed and false altruism.

Today, as I was walking along the beach of my lake house, I felt a sense of awe at the grandeur of nature, the endless landscape of the water that was only halted by the commanding arm of the sky. The winter waves had rolled in more rocks, pebbles and sand.

I reminded of the brilliant novel by William Golding, “Lord of the Flies”. The story begins on a mountaintop, after a plane crash, with a handful of young school boys as the only survivors. The story, which evolves into grim contortions, concludes on a beach. In between, Golding makes boulders, rocks, pebbles, and sand, significant symbols and metaphors. Most importantly, he does so in that descending order, to correspond with the reversal of evolution playing out in the raw, naked edges of the world of these prepubescent boys.

And I thought about my own raw world, the evolution of my children, their ambitions, their focussed lives, just as mine had been. And I looked down at the whole panoply of rocks, pebbles, and sand. And I thought to myself, this experience of mine is so intimate, so personal, so illuminating, and yet, so much larger than me. And I suddenly felt a sense of warmth. Ironic how, when we realize that the world, and specifically, our world, does not revolve around us, there is such a sense of release, of freedom, of that “peace that passes understanding.”

LONGEVITY PERSONIFIED

The word is out. Those of us who think we are entering the last stages of our lives may really only be halfway there. Now, unlike the proverbial childhood journey to grandma’s place, “Are we there yet?” the possibility that grandma’s “place” is still a distance away, is awe inspiring. At the same time, it is not without its challenges.

According to the prominent medical voices of the day, keeping old age at a distance is not a passive activity. We need to be active participants in our own lives. But, I wonder, how does that differ from when I was younger? Certainly, throughout my adult life I was always careful about what I would eat, took regular exercise, and was constantly checking calendars to keep track of family schedules. Mind and body were rarely still. The soul wandered hither and yon. I didn’t much pay attention to that element of myself.

Now, in my senior adult years, I begin to dither. “What day is it?” I email someone, waiting for a response. Nothing arrives. I wonder if they are okay? Did they receive my email? Finally I get a response and realize it is only a day later. Time has this funny way of both expanding and compressing at the same time. What is going on here?It is as if the body is going through new calibrations. This internal control system is rebooting itself and saying something like:

Since you have been blessed to live in a safe, healthy country and you have strong genetic components, and you have lived a relatively balanced life up to this point, we will be reassigning you to track three with current extension options for track four. The Manual is still a work in progress, but we have the outline and the index. It looks something like this:

Eat small portions of healthy food at 3-4 hour intervals. Maintain a BMI of 24.
Get regular exercise. EVERY DAY.
Nurture yourself and your relationships with friends and family.
Get 8-9 hours sleep a night.
Laugh, love, hug, dance, sing, play.
Be mindful of the small moments of beauty and grace in your surroundings.
Drink lots of fluids, including red wine on occasion.

The list seems quite manageable to me. Almost too easy. I understand how living life forward is essential to good health. However, there is still trailing behind me the caboose of a life lived unwisely at times. And then I begin to question whether this second half of my life is possibly an opportunity for atonement, not in any religious or mythological way, but rather, as a time for gathering together the strands of my life, and allowing the soul, that has been waiting on the sidelines for so long, to work as a cleansing agent, to help clear away the grief, guilt, and sadness of past events. It is that element of “unconditional love” that we all carry around inside, taking for granted its presence, shoving it away most of the time in those busy early and middle years. But my soul has been patient, and must have known that at some point I would come to recognize its power and energy to revitalize my inner self. Yes, I am a part of all that I have met, done, said. Indeed so are we all. Now, I realize that it is time to sit still and listen to the inner voice of reassurance and renewal and love. It seems as essential as any of the tangible replenishments in a day.
Do you think they will remember to put that longevity feature in the Manual?

A SECOND LIFE

At my annual medical checkup this year, my doctor informed me that, given my present medical stats, my lifestyle and commitment to healthy living, my family history of longevity, current medical advances, and barring any ugly surprises, I could probably expect to live another 40 or even 50 years.

Needless to say, I walked out of that appointment on a John Denver high. I know, poor example. Or is it? Because, in fact, our lives, long or short, healthy or otherwise, are primarily under our own control. Fifty, forty, even thirty years is a whole other lifetime. So I began to think, if I were to assume that all those years are ahead of me, how would I want to live them?

Like many woman my age, we occasionally reflect on our past lives, what we would have changed, how we could have done a better job as wives, mothers, sisters, and friends. Dysfunctional is a modern social term. Frankly I think it is a very inadequate and damaging word. Along with words like happy, unhappy, successful, unsuccessful, it is meaningless and vague, with as many different definitions as there are individuals, and even then the meanings, like us, continue to evolve. Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are happy in the same way; unhappy families are unhappy in different ways. I prefer to revise the line such that all families are both happy and unhappy in ways unique to themselves.

We become experts at revisionist history, especially our own history. And that is how we multiply the lives we have lived and continue to overlap them with our present selves. It is also how we bury the demons and nurture the best parts of our lives into manageable memories, to help us moving forward. To be honest with myself, if I had it to do all over, I would change many parts of my past life. But, as Lear said, “That way lies madness.” Instead I find myself returning to a new refrain. How do I want to live my “second life?”

I begin by examining those elements of my life that are under my control. What I eat and drink. How much I exercise. Who I spend time with. How I spend my personal time. What projects, challenges I want to explore. Where I want to travel. How I want to share time with my family. How best to be a mother at a distance, and a grandmother at hand.

Suddenly the task of living this second life becomes full of questions and decisions. Perhaps the lingering regrets of parts of my first life are a result of having lived it carelessly and casually, taking so much for granted. Like the euphoria of stock market gains, we think the good times will never end. These glorious children will always be children. Income streams will continue to rise. Love and passion will never abate.

Clichés have their place as short forms to thinking, if only to help us get a head start on the program of living forward. Today is the first day…etc. How can I make each day valuable and productive? What is my idea of a good day? I will assemble a repertoire of moments that have given me pleasure; stock my portfolio with those occasions that provide the best returns; set manageable daily goals and create my own “Happiness Project”, living a life henceforth of least regrets. A daunting task, all this, but one I am fortunate to be able to begin. It may not be the road less travelled; on the contrary, I am hoping I will find many kindred “seconds” and even “thirds” along the way.

MY MOTHER'S VOICE

“You sound just like your mother.” How many of us have heard that phrase over the years? And how do we interpret it? For me, it has been both a compliment and a criticism. "Please, anything but that." Several years ago, my two sisters and I made a pact that we would try to honour the best of our mother, appreciate and respect those features of her personality and character that we admired, and rage, rage against any embarrassing elements that might somehow have made their way to our personal domains.

My mother has always had a youthful, melodic voice. She was the daughter of a Unitarian minister who was admired and respected for his oratorical skills. So, at ten years of age, while other girls were taking ballet or piano lessons, she was enrolled in elocution lessons, and as a result, even with only two years of post secondary education, she spoke with the precision of a Harvard graduate. It didn’t matter if we slouched, or held our fork awkwardly, although those points of etiquette were addressed, but “god forbid” that we mumbled, slurred, or mispronounced a word. “Speak up,” she would say. Or, in one of her scathing, sarcastic octaves, “Did you mean to say…?”

When my mother was in her fifties, she changed careers and realized a livelong dream of becoming a “nurse”. Well, not an RN exactly, but close. A family associate, who needed a temporary receptionist for his medical practice, called upon my mother to fill in for a few weeks. As sometimes happens, those weeks turned into years, as my mother, who had never been one to run an efficient household, suddenly found her niche as receptionist, bookkeeper, witness to patient examinations, and much more. On many occasions she would give needles and apply bandages. And when someone referred to her as “Nurse Ethel”, dressed as she was in her white uniform, she never bothered to correct them.

One day a young pregnant woman suddenly began haemorrhaging in the middle of the waiting room. Once Mom had urgently settled the woman in a separate room and called the doctor, she then quickly proceeded to clean up the mess on the floor. Ironically, her reasons for not training as a nurse had been because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Well, “God dammit”. She would say when retelling the story, "all these years I had been deceived by a myth of my own making."

The patients loved her ribald sense of humour and her "take no prisoners" attitude. You were either a “gorgeous creature” or “a silly bugger”. One quickly learned their place in the Nurse Ethel hierarchy of favourites. If she called you “darling” or “honey”, you knew you had a chance to get an early appointment. The term “sweetheart” could sometimes be delivered ambiguously. As in, “sweetheart, not a chance in hell.” Or, “sweetheart, forget it.” The voice could variously drip with honey or disgust in equal measure. It would be a kindness to say that she “did not suffer fools gladly”. In truth, she just did not suffer anyone she chose to dislike.

One of her favourite stories is of a young man (i.e. much younger than her) who had called several times, without success, for an immediate appointment. She liked his sense of humour on the phone this particular day and booked an appointment at the earliest date possible, concluding the phone call with her most charming, youthful voice.“Honey, I’ll look forward to seeing you next Tuesday.” At which point, he responded that he too was looking forward to finally meeting her. She chuckles as she says, “You should have seen the look on his face when he walked through the door, expecting to see some sweet, young receptionist and, instead, there I was, a plump, middle-aged, white haired grandmother.”

Up until last year, at the age of 93, my mother’s voice still had the youthful, playful lilt that I have always loved. This past year, after 3 bouts of bronchitis, and seemingly incessant coughing, she has suddenly assumed the raspy, sometimes childlike voice consistent with her age. Her sense of humour is still there, the sparkle in her eyes, and language that would make the devil quake, but I miss that marvellous voice. Maybe T. S. Eliot was right. It will all end someday, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

COMPLETIONS

It’s been awhile now since I have had a dream that stayed with me in such a visceral way. Apparently, we all dream in some form or another during that phase called REM sleep, the deep, consolidating, replenishing phase that occurs in the later hours of sleep. Or as WS put it,"sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care." (Or not!). Perhaps that is why those dreams can appear so vivid, and we sometimes awaken still feeling disoriented. This type of confused awakening happened to me this morning.

In this particular dream I had discovered that I was one course short of completing or qualifying for some sort of designation. It obviously had to do with writing, because the workbooks and the test itself were all about language. I felt annoyed, confused, and frustrated. How could this be possible, with an honours degree, a specialist certificate in English, and two graduate degrees, where exactly was the gap, and how had I missed it?

One of the things that fascinates me about dreams is not so much the panorama of events, or the sideshow of images, but more the strong, intense feelings that the body generates. The heart beats faster, or so it seems; the brow furrows; fists clench; the body moans, groans, laughs, mutters. We are in another world, a parallel universe, living or reliving through memories, challenges, past or present problems.

So coming back to my dream, I began to wonder about its relevance or symbolism. Certainly, throughout my early adult life I was always taking one course or another. Teachers do that. But I also loved the world of academia. So while my children paddled in the water with their friends on a summer’s day, I enjoyed a lawn chair in the shade, with a text on whatever topic of literature I was currently pursuing. One of the motivating elements of those summer courses was that I got the reward of a grade that could accumulate into another category in my teaching grid, or another degree. I called it disciplined hedonism. It always felt good.

With this dream in mind, I could also venture into the deep, dark abyss of motherhood, and realize how inadequate my qualifications were in that department. I kept hoping that hugs, hot chocolate and warm cookies would do the trick. It seems to be working with my grandchildren. But one’s own progeny are more complex than that. I am sure, in fact I know, that I missed the grade, so to speak, on more than a few occasions in their young lives. And yet they have emerged as successful adults, by any reasonable standards. So I stand proud of them alone for being who they are.

A person can take full credit for a test score or a job well done. Those are measureable achievements. Children are not. Perhaps my dream was all about the feeling that I am missing a motherhood credential. One of the challenges of the second half of our lives is focusing on what we can change and what we can’t (thank you Reinhold Niebuhr), putting aside the self absorbed activities of youth and focusing on a more selfless approach to sharing our wisdom, experience, and energy with others, especially Grandchildren. Gosh I am trying my best in that department.


While I was chatting with my son last night to wish him Happy Birthday, he asked the usual, “What’s new?” I said that I was trying to complete the final draft of my novel (“You know; the one I have been working on for the past three years!”), by the end of this month in order to have it ready to send to a publisher for consideration. He said, “What novel?”

Now, he knows that I love to write, that I am always dabbling in something, and I have referenced my novel numerous times in the past. But he is living the life of the young, career oriented adult (husband and father), hearing words that don’t register, because his mind is so full of all the challenges and exigencies of his own day-to-day life. (Oh yes, that was me, not so long ago. Okay, I understand. )

I said one more thing to him. “Yes, I want to finish this first novel (with emphasis on first) so that I can legitimately call myself a writer (with emphasis on writer). His mortgaged mind immediately responded, “Yes, it would be good to get an income stream out of it.”

I didn’t choose motherhood, or take courses, for monetary gain. Nor am I under any delusions about making a fortune with my writing. We give birth, get an education, and do whatever else we do, garden, sculpt, paint, write, because it is in our bones, our hearts ,our visceral selves to do so. I write for the same reason that I love, because it is part of who I am. To misquote Jerry Maguire, “It completes me.” And obviously, as my dream reminded me, there is still some "completing" to do.

INTERLUDES

The other day I began thinking about life as a series of interludes, a clever metaphor I thought, something like chapters in a novel. Yes, that’s right. Each of us is our own novel. But hold on. Within minutes, I realized that I was using the term incorrectly.

In actual fact, (I thought, correcting myself), while our life is, let’s allow, like an historical novel, although without the excitement, drama, and, god willing, the dire events that make a novel a riveting runaway bestseller, it is more like a chronological sequence of causal events, many of which are continuous and sustained over a long period of time.

For example, “She was born, educated, got married, lived a married life, had children, raised them, come hell or high water or chicken pox, interspersed, (God knows where she found the time) with a career, grandchildren, retired to a nursing home with visits from offspring, and then she died.” That would be it, and not too much of an exciting “it” at that, if it were not for, you guessed, the interludes.

To assist in clarifying my own thinking, I checked out the definition of my new found word-friend. Here it is:
1 : a usually short simple play or dramatic entertainment
2 : an intervening or interruptive period, space, or event : interval
3 : a musical composition inserted between the parts of a longer composition, a drama, or a religious service

Exactly, I thought, this definition fits my theory perfectly. John Steinbeck’s strategy in his famous novel, Cannery Row, was not only poetic, but also psychological brilliant. While the novel meanders casually through the lives of Mack and the Boys and their relationships with various members of the Salinas Valley community, without anything meaningful really happening, it is the chapter interludes that give the poetry and substance to the novel. So too, I suggest, is the case with many lives.

Let’s take, for instance, the interlude of a holiday. Now that is basic, brief and sometimes forgettable, but it is often the event that a couple or a family will return to again and again, in conversation. Do they narrate the details of breakfast cereal options or the sequence of birthday parties beginning at the age of two? Or even the twelve to thirteen years of schooling prior to work or university. No, it is the intervals between the day-to-day of our lives that sometimes have the greatest impact upon us.

I am not talking about a spa interlude, or a visit to the acupuncturist. I am referring to interludes with heft, those that have an impact on our lives, that give the pauses, and the punctuation. Sometimes they define or change the ongoing chronology of events. At other times they may just be what the purity of the word suggests, an interval, like a dam in the middle of a stream. The water stops temporarily, the natural flow is suspended. But then the pressure of the original momentum itself, breaks through the temporary interruption, and the flow continues. Maybe it’s a protracted illness, a near-death experience, a love affair, a period of sadness, depression even.

A family member went through a heartbreaking event in her late forties, which lasted three years. She now refers to it as her “little set-back”. In fact, once she “emerged” from the noonday demon, as it is referred to, she proceeded to reinvent herself, and to resume the intended chronology of her life with greater vigour and success.

Set-back or set-forward, an interlude can be one or both or more. I took a sabbatical from my teaching career when I turned fifty, (my little version of a mid-life crisis), in order to fulfill a long-time dream to achieve a doctorate degree. It was an interlude that relocated me to another city and consumed me twelve hours a day, for two years. And when it was done, it was done. I was surprised at how relatively insignificant the whole achievement felt. Immediately after, I resumed my teaching career, and my community/home life, as if I had only been gone a weekend. While it is an interlude I recall with pride and pleasure, I think I got a greater rush the summer that I ran a mile, non-stop, down to the end of our country road, something that I had “trained” for all summer with my kids.

So while interludes can be private, individual, shared, painful, joyous, they are identifiable markers in the journey we call our life. Too often I think we look at our lives as a total panorama, full of anecdotes about Uncle Charlie, or the new bike. But for the most part, they become a merged blur.

Perhaps it is worthwhile, as the sunflowers are drying on their stalks, to take one apart, piece by piece and notice the intricacies, the subtleties, the wonder, reflect upon the stages of the journey that make up a single living organism. We might be surprised as to how many (or how few) are in need of discarding and which ones we want to save carefully for replanting in the spring.