Why I love my sunroom, and TV dinners

Today it has been snowing non-stop.  A real snow day.  Hades demands his Persephone now.  No dillydallying. An abrupt grab.
So I have been sitting in my sunroom, painted a nice cheerful  yellow, and with its own heating system providing some coziness on what looks like a full-fledged winter's day in October.  Now, the other place we had provided us with a screened porch- blessed relief from mosquitos and horseflies.  But this home gives me warmth and much more light and a cozy place to sit all winter long.  Which I love, even when winter provides only its dark light.
Now, there should be two yellow and brown chairs, but I am fond of my old slate-blue armchair, and so it remains for now.  It is still a good place to sit and read and drink a cup of tea.  (I have just finished a collection of stories by Edward P. Jones, called All Aunt Hagar's Children. Which I may blog about later.)
My blue chair would probably look better in my living room.  But the living room seems to have enough furniture, although I think it still needs a little bit of wow factor.  I just don't know.... it has a serene feel to it right now.

For supper tonight, nothing elaborate.  TV dinners.  Now, most people may equate the TV dinner with the meal of a lonely only.  Not so me.  Why, a TV dinner is an amazing meal.  The perfectly planned out meal, in perfect proportion, complete with a dessert.  There is something so satisfying in that.  Thank you to the home economic scientists, for developing such an amazing concept.  I always like to imagine that somewhere in the future, space travellers eat their  homely TV dinners.  That, and they are sipping their favourite Starbucks coffees whenever they want.

 The kitchen where the TV dinners are heated up.  Modern civilization. 

Owlish Evenings...

I  keep reading this poem, and I like it the more I read it.  To able to soar, to fly - that is the superpower I would choose.  To glide about at night, with the moon and stars for light, on a nice warm breeze. I remember a book I read as a child, but I can't remember the title. It was about a young boy who had a bottle of pearlized ointment, and when he rubbed it on his shoulders, he grew wings and flew about and had adventures.  I wish I could find that book again.
The light fades quickly now, and it makes the evenings seem more mysterious.  Twilight -  "Laugh heart again in the gray light of twilight". (Yeats)

 

If the Owl Calls Again

  by John Haines
at dusk from the island in the river, and it's not too cold, I'll wait for the moon to rise, then take wing and glide to meet him. We will not speak, but hooded against the frost soar above the alder flats, searching with tawny eyes. And then we'll sit in the shadowy spruce and pick the bones of careless mice, while the long moon drifts toward Asia and the river mutters in its icy bed. And when the morning climbs the limbs we'll part without a sound, fulfilled, floating homeward as the cold world awakens.

The Wistful Garden ...

In my lately abandoned garden, the little garden ornaments wait for me to gather them inside, safe from the cold winter, although I wonder what they might look like if they stayed outside for the coldest season. They do look like they should remain where they are, but I know the damage winter inflicts.

 My "statuary" is nothing grand or indestructible, but they do just fine. See for yourself.

 

This pensive cherub is tucked in by the Henry Hudson rosebush and mock orange shrubs.

This little fellow cuddles his rabbit beneath the Golden Elder.

 Two companions share a secret.

Well, St. Francis does stay outside.  He is  too heavy to move.  Besides, the chickadees like him, and perch in the Polestar  rose bushes surrounding him.

And here is the kind of  secret that the two cherubs might be sharing (although it could be something quite different):

“There are many different stories to tell. It's never the same. Every day weather blows in and out, alters the surface. Sometimes it is stripped down to a single essential truth, the thing that is always believed, no matter what. The seeds from which the garden has grown.”
― From Helen Humphrey's The Lost Garden

What could this single essential truth be?  That the garden also has four seasons, each with its own particular beauty?  That even if a garden is abandoned, it is still a garden?   That the person who plants the garden is sending a message about herself to the world, even if  she doesn't know exactly what she means to say?   

The Lacuna

Well, perhaps in part because of a cold, I have finished Kingsolver's The Lacuna. There was no choice about having to rest quietly, and the novel took my mind off my aches and pains.  It was rather like reading three novels though,because each section was so long. (Not that I am complaining.  I like a long novel.)  A young man's life, from his life with his mother, to his life working with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and then, his life in the Communism-phobic United States. This story was amazing, combining the story of Communist leader Leon Trotsky's exile in Mexico with the lives of Kahlo and Rivera, as seen through the eyes of a sensitive youth, who also happens to have the gift of writing.

 self-portraits of Frida Kahlo

After teaching Grade 8 Social Studies for the first time last year, I too am now fascinated by the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations of long ago.  So it was good to find a character who took those societies from the past and wrote his own impressions of them.  All civilizations change and sometimes fall apart, in no small measure due to the leadership of each.  This is also true of the United States (Truman and Hoover, and a bit part by Nixon),  and of Russia  (Trotsky versus Stalin), as revealed in the novel.

A mural of the Aztec civilization by Diego Rivera

The why of the Cold War is explained very well here.   Ignorance is revealed to be the true evil that bedevils any society.  Do all civilizations fail because of fear of the other?  "Most of them do not know what communism is, could not pick it out of a  lineup.  They only know what anti-communism is.  The two are practically unrelated."  (Harrison's lawyer).   I admit that I found the last part of the novel the most traumatic, the most painful section to read.  Even the tragedy of Leon Trotsky's death must compete with our hero's disillusionment with United States society in those years of J. Edgar Hoover.

 murals by Diego Rivera

 Rivera's  Man at the Crossroads

 
 So thank you, Barbara Kingsolver, for reminding another idealist of the political way of the world.

On Tea, and Leaves of Autumn

It has been just my luck to have a bad cold over the Thanksgiving weekend. Aches and pains and stuffed-up sinuses.  I am so glad that I had that glorious walk last weekend at Elk Island.  It makes up for the cloudy days now.

I drink my ginger and lemon tea, with a soothing spoonful of honey for my throat,  and look out at a melancholy world.  The trees are mostly bare now. Only the most stubborn leaves remain.

I took photos on my walk last Sunday, and have to admire the great variety of dying leaves, how they all have their own particular beauty.  The perfect rounded gold leaf of the poplar, the small bright orange leaf of the wild rose bush - these are expected.  But there is also the beauty of the less spectacular.

Blackened leaf with orange veins.

 

Drying dark orange and spotted leaf

  

Orange and black leaf

   Green-gold and blackened leaf.

 

The urge to wear colours like gold and orange are understandable.  I wish I had bought that dark orange coat at the mall.  Sigh....

And  then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the .... fall leaves!  (apologies to Wordsworth)

The wonderful windy days that bring the fall.

This is the ideal way to spend a cool afternoon in the fall woods, if one could be a squirrel.   Although, as humans, better perhaps with a bonfire, a hot tea, and a large afghan or throw to cuddle under.  And, of course, on a day when suffering with a cold, and accompanying  cloudy weather:  a  comfy chair inside, with a warm shawl, an herbal tea and a view of melancholy autumn.

One of those special places....

Even when I go to the city, I visit those special places nearby... like Astotin Lake in Elk Island National Park.   In the fall, there is no better experience, than to walk the path around the lake, drinking in the glory of the golden leaves, and feeling that fading golden warmth of the sun.

 The path changes continuously, from trim and gravelled, to wooden walkway, but mainly leaf-strewn dirt.  It's like walking through a wondrous fairy wood  with gold and silver light to guide you on the way.

Entering the woods.

 

 

 

 

Ad you walk continuedown this path, the fall colours dazzle.

Afternoon shadows add a mysterious atmosphere.

 

A stretch of silvered beauty.

  A friendly walkway, with many damelflies flitting almost invisibly, but everywhere.

I try to come here at least once a year, and in the fall, to experience the magic of this place.  I have never been disappointed.  Those gold leaf coins are a treasure in my heart, spent in memory throughout the long winter months ahead. 

Autumn arrives....

One of the negative things about being a teacher is that if you love the fall, as I do, you have to give up so much precious time outside, not just during class time, but there is all the planning, etc. to do. Sometimes the sun is setting before one can walk out of the school and head home.  And if you work at a reserve school, you may not even know what you are teaching from one week to the next!  More work!  The horror, the horror!
So those few moments of autumn light  must be savoured as much as possible.  Thank goodness for those bloggers out there sharing their favourite autumnal sights.
My personal reading is now slowed down, and professional journals and classroom texts take their place.  When will I have the time to finish my latest novel? Groan.
When summer ended I was rereading "Between Men", by Katherine Govier, a book which stood out in my mind over the years because of the secondary story running through it - the First Nations murdered in a sickening way because she made a mistake when she went to  look for an abortionist.  This second reading had me focusing more on the main female character, Suzanne, who is "between" men. An older politician for a lover, a younger hothead before that. There is a bit of a Dallas flavour to this novel.  The series was on close to the same time this novel was published, but its only looking back now that I see the similarity.  The winds of change on the Western landscape.
I liked that the former husband reformed.  I guess it could happen, but I wasn't expecting it.  I actually was hoping that she would leave that old cow-town, but, perhaps the message was that the cow-town was modernizing, and so were the people in it. 
What was really interesting was the way that she notices how much the city is growing, and at the same time, how barren it remains.  This is kind of ironic, as I really don't know this city very well myself, but have been there the past two summers, and I too am struck,now in this decade, by how much and quickly it seems to be growing, and yet how sort of desolate it seems.  Hmmm....  Calgary, city of dust and flat landscape, doomed to sprawl over the land, rather than to create anything to harmonize with it instead.
I try to imagine myself living there, "between men", as the protagonist does.  I find the prospect daunting.  I think I still prefer Edmonton, the frontier city.  I walked along the path by the Riverside Towers, I think they were called.  This was all right, but could I live there, by the Bow River?  I  know creeks and that's about it.  I prefer the boreal forest, the poplar and the spruce trees, and the wind.  What captivates me in southern Alberta, though, is the sky and the light. I was born on the Saskatchewan prairie, but left as an infant, yet I think those early images of that world must have imprinted in my mind, and that is why I just might be able to settle in that rolling landscape.  Why I might want to experience an autumn there, just once.

 Northern Alberta, a windy day on the birdwalk.

If the Owl Calls Again
by John Haines
at dusk from the island in the river, and it's not too cold, I'll wait for the moon to rise, then take wing and glide to meet him. We will not speak, but hooded against the frost soar above the alder flats, searching with tawny eyes. And then we'll sit in the shadowy spruce and pick the bones of careless mice, while the long moon drifts toward Asia and the river mutters in its icy bed. And when the morning climbs the limbs we'll part without a sound, fulfilled, floating homeward as the cold world awakens.

Pantry/ Shelf Life

 

Once a year, I clean out the corner pantry.  Everything comes out, and the pantry is washed out from top to bottom.  Then all the expiry dates on cans are checked, out-of-date pasta noodles are tossed,  and so on.  I make a list of what staples need to be replaced.

I like the feeling I get when my pantry is filled to capacity, especially in the fall.  It’s probably the way a squirrel feels, lying in its supply of food for the winter. There’s just this feeling of security, of being prepared.  Because we live in an isolated area, we do a major shopping trip every two weeks, and then maybe one or two smaller ones in between to pick up essentials like milk, bread, and forgotten items.  When there are case lot sales, I tend to load up.

However, as items start to be crammed in willy-nilly, I also forget what is pushed to the back.  The result is items going to waste.  So this time, I reorganized as I cleaned.  The shelf on which I put all my nice holiday dishes is now used for all my pasta storage containers, put where I can see them.  The dishes are on the higher shelves, as they are used less often.  And now the soup cans are in one place, the vegetables in another, the salmon and tuna in another.  As items are used up, they will then be replaced, and only then.  There’s no point in having thirty cans of tomato soup if they are not all going to be used by their due dates. 

It’s a fine balance between making sure that one is prepared for, well, emergencies, and being one of those survivalists, which I am not.   I realize that there was some excessive hoarding going on, and I am going to stop that.  I want to enjoy the satisfaction of a well-stocked pantry, without the frustration of digging for items on crammed shelves. 

My pantry no longer has the pretty display of dishes and glassware, but it is much more functional.  I still have a few little ornaments on display – for example,there is my  little “farmyard” scene up on the wall near the ceiling.  Autumn will be here soon, and I can feel, like the squirrel, a sense of accomplishment, of things being put in order, of being ready for the winter.

 Just as recently as in my mother's " time" (she passed away in 2005),  our pantries were filled with home-made preserves.  As a child, and then when I was older, I picked saskatoons, raspberries, crabapples, chokecherries, and so on.  Summer was the time for canning, and even after I was married, often I would go over to her home and we would can together.  The fruit, jams, jellies, syrups, etc, were placed in her  back closet, to be taken out and used throughout the winter months.  My own pantry contains no wonderful summer memories any more, but it does remind me of my mother. Once in a long while, I make jam, but I haven't had a real vegetable garden in ages.  I think this is because I have worked full-time outside the home for so long now.  And those special times my mother and I had are now gone.

 

 from   “my mother found herself”

my mother found herself one late summer
afternoon lying in grass under the wild
yellow plum tree jewelled with sunlight
she was forgotten there in spring picking
rhubarb for pie & the children home from
school hungry & her new dress half hemmed
for Sunday the wind & rain made her skin
ruddy like a peach her hair was covered
with wet fallen crab apple blossoms she
didn’t know what to do with her so she put
her up in the pantry among glass jars of
jellied fruit ... 







by Di Brandt

(from  Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey)

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