word after word after word
July 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
2 pm
Vaughan's birthday, hurray.
Oh yeah, Canada Day too. Hurray as well.
This past week also saw my first-born's 29th birthday. Another hurray.
The sun shines brightly here on the west coast.
Wednesday, July 10, 2009
9:30 am
 |
Ducks in a row, in the kitchen at the Ritz (Dad's name for his home) looking out on his backyard forest. |
We did have our ducks in a row, and that's what you shoot for in your life: clichés. But seriously.
My brother said yesterday that we've all done a lot of things in the last year that we never had to do before. Some things mundane, some bureaucratic, some fairly heroic if you ask me (he'd never moved a pool table before, for instance, though I'm not sure whether that's mundane or heroic, and some of the mundane things really were heroic, but I'll spare you those details).
On Wednesday we finally emptied the house of the last of the 'stuff' we've been dealing with, including the ducks, which have moved to my place. I hope they'll keep me on track.
Yesterday our father's house became someone else's house.
We still have estate stuff to deal with before we can retire from being executors, and all of us somehow have more stuff piled up in our own places so there's still sorting to do, but tomorrow I'm going for a holiday. A friend will stay in my house and keep my cat fed and the plants watered. When my sweetheart and I get back, I'll settle into life as the elder, no parent's house of mine left to go visit, and no parents left to shield me from that awareness of mortality. Too heavy? Sorry, but it's one of the things about parents dying. And they all do, eventually.
But you know what? It's also freeing, being aware of the finite nature of life. Now that most of the clutter is cleared, I'll have lots of time for contemplation of purpose, how best to live my (remaining) life, studying what I've learned from my parents, whether it was through commission or by omission. What legacy I want to leave my own kids. How much of my junk I want them to have to shovel through. (I think the physical junk is a pretty clear metaphor of how well we're dealing with our lives, and truly, it's sad to see someone lost behind a mountain of the stuff.)
So the upshot (cliché) is I'm fine. Another of life's transitions, where I figure stuff out.
Monday, July 27, 2009
5 pm
I've been to Ottawa, and I've been to Montreal, and now I'm home. More tomorrow.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
4 pm
It's all about the heat these days. But just now I see there's a bit of a breeze outside, which is a teensy change. I figured out that all the whining about the temperature in these parts is because we don't usually have air conditioning in our homes, unlike our usually sweltering (though not this summer) compatriots in the east.
It's been a slow return to life-as-usual since my brief holiday in soggy Ottawa. Life as usual got lost in the last year, because of all the stuff around my father's illness and death, and so now I'm slowly coming back to thinking what it was I was doing, or meant to be doing. Or what do I want to do, now that I've no parents left to worry about, and theoretically, I don't need to worry about my children either, now that they are all adults.
This business of children growing up is strangely surprising. Not that they grow up, but that the intensity of the relationship, is just over. It's different with each one of course, they being different personalities, but it's more and more clear to me how I've been retired from the business. So what now?
My mind is sluggish because I'm so damn hot here at home. It's cooler out of here -- in my car, or shopping, but I don't particularly want to go driving, or shopping, so that's not too good a plan. I did buy myself a little spray bottle, and keep soaking myself with it, which helps for awhile.
I've still got stuff to deal with here, the somewhat repetitive story of my life. I brought things home from my dad's house, which meant I had to make room for it, and there's a significant pile of boxes of antiquarian books that I would like to try to sell. But no energy to deal with any of it. Since getting home, I've plowed through a novel I wasn't enjoying, that I began on the plane-- it's the next book for my book club. I've finished it now, whew, so must find another one to read. Shouldn't be hard. I'll bet the library's air-conditioned!
May & June 2009 entries
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