How Christmas 2020 Unfolded

 

They say that the way to avoid disappointment is to set up no expectations in the first place. Given that this was our Covid-Christmas year, my want-list for December 25, 2020, was pretty slim.

 

The day leaped into possibility, however, when Santa delivered to all Toronto children their dearest wish: he deposited six inches of bright, white snow on the city. The grey and damp Christmas Eve had set us all grousing, but in just twelve hours life was transformed to sleds on hills, snow angels (I made two), and boots trailed through soft powder creating awesome footprints.

 

From there The Day just got better and better. In honour of my birthday, which I share with my great-nephew Nate, our friend Richard, the Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau, and Jesus himself (though some say they got the date wrong), we began the day by popping open a bottle of biscuity Champagne to sip as we unwrapped gifts, just the two of us.

 

The focal point of the two-person brunch that followed was one burrata, two additional cheeses, three kinds of homemade bread, and a bowl of delicious potted shrimp. There was no partridge in a pear tree.

 

Then, in order to make snow angels I put on snow pants, a long, hooded winter coat, boots, hat, scarf, and gloves. DinoVino swept a path across the back deck, as if for the queen's passing, so I could reach the level ground of virgin snow outside our fence, where I made my two snow angels. There would have been more, but it's harder to get up from the angel-making position than it used to be. Two was enough.

 

Back into the house just in time for the Zoom birthday party my children had arranged. What I didn't know was that they created a surprise party by inviting siblings, nieces and nephews, and cousins—a whole Zoom-screen full of people I haven't seen for too many years. Despite the built-in awkwardness of the Zoom format, it was a glorious success.

 

The Day proceeded after the Zoom call, but I won't tell you every little thing. I'll just say that it was a beautiful day, and one that carried me over the Slough of Despond that sometimes accompanies a birthday (Onward and Upward, every year, every year) and allowed me to soar with the angels.

 

I hope all of you had Christmases that were equally surprising in loveliness. And that 2021 will meet our modest but hopeful expectations.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Snow Days

When it snows,

the seed-pods of the Echinacea plants

generously bordering the sidewalk

are topped with snow caps

and each pod becomes an elf

whose only wish

is to make us smile.

 

When it snows,

the festive balls

(plastic but resembling glass)

that I hang on the elderberry shrub

in front of the house

put on comical, conical white hats,

which they sport

until the sun shines.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Playing with Words When They've Flown the Coop

All those "-ation" words could lend themselves to something funny, couldn't they? Imagination is funny (it makes a cloudy day sunny . . . ). Or provocation leads to escalation landing you at the station that you started from.

 

Well, the idea, Ann, is to have it all make sense, not just to incorporate "-ation" words. The situation at the station was intolerable until the destination became clear.

 

Y'know, I used to be able to riff on words this way, and I really enjoyed it. It was both fun and funny. But now? Now, nothing easily springs to mind that is both fun and funny. I wanted the latter in order to lighten the load for us all. But funny is as funny does. (This is based on my mother's invariable response when I would ask if I was pretty: "Handsome is as handsome does." What kind of support is that for a kid? Not much of one.) But I'm not here to bash Eileen. As little as I know about her mother, I could tell, even as an adolescent, that Eileen had never been cherished by her own mother—for whatever reason that might have been—most likely based on her mother's own life. If it's not one thing, it's the mother, as far back as we can trace. Clever remark, with truth in it. And the role of the fathers—as far back as we can trace—is not mentioned. What was the role of the fathers—as husbands and as upholders of the patriarchy in general—in shaping the mothers' reactions to the children?

 

Where on earth was I before we got onto this? Oh yes: funny is as funny does. Our usual family humour now has an edge to it. The Covid malaise is affecting everything. Everyone. You can find, if you're lucky, a thought to smile about, but forget about guffaws. Forget about bursting into laughs that make your stomach muscles hurt. Forget about tears-in-the-eyes laughter with friends.

 

I want to laugh. HA-HA-ha-HA! Isn't that a Broadway song? I love to laugh! Maybe I can coax a little smile. I hate to say it, having said a version of this every week for past two months, but my sourdough starter makes me smile.

 

And there she goes again! She's off with another sourdough story!

 

I take it from the fridge, where it lies dormant, smoothly solid with a quarter-inch of liquid on top. I scrape it into a bowl, which probably feels nicely warm to the starter, and add half a cup each of flour and water. I mix it together until it's more or less smooth, then I put the bowl on top of the chest freezer with a pretty tea-towel over it, and I walk away.

 

When I return, the starter has awakened. It is frothy, with bubbles all over the top. It looks light and lively. I reward it by adding more flour and water, equal parts. It's so much fun to do this that I often keep feeding it all day long and end up with cups and cups more starter than I actually need. But I won't throw it out, of course. I'll just make more bread. I love my sourdough. Does anyone need bread today?

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Accept the Gift (after Jane Hirshfield's "Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining . . . ")

What an order. How foreign the notion of accepting whatever it is that comes. The poet speaks of the jewelled silver bridle for her bull, but my bull's bridle would be of braided silk, strands so soft and warm, so comforting, that the Beast would welcome its bridal bridle.

 

But for me? For me to accept the unexpected? That will require deep breaths, trust, an overall recognition that gratitude is always appropriate—nay, necessary—when gods give gifts. And what better manifestation of gratitude than the full-hearted acceptance of the gift, no matter how strange, no matter how unexpectedly frightening. Gods' gifts don't always answer prayers but may represent the next level—a path we with our limited vision would never have been able to foresee. Accept what will take you beyond, for that will always be where you need to go.

 

 

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Against Despair

If despair is one's middle name

(usually written as just D only,

so as not to give too much away)

if despair, as I say,

has been the default position for decades,

then how does one combat it?

How learn to step away

and find the inner passion ready to emerge?

 

Can we learn new tricks?

I dispute every suggestion

for overcoming despair

and yet am seduced,

at least a little,

by the idea that change is only

an action away.

Action animates creativity

(our birthright)

which can

(may)

defeat despair.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Can Weeny Hits Be the Answer?

"Mid-80s" used to mean the decade that came after the 1970s. But to me now mid-80s means I'm getting' old. This week my friend M (who is my age, give or take a year)

and I were discussing age. The older you grow, the less clear you life's purpose becomes. The roles and activities that once animated you become physically impossible or just fade into the woodwork. Who are you now and why are you here? These questions are worth looking at.

 

As M and I talked she mentioned her jigsaw puzzle, laid out on a table. Sometimes, just glancing as she walks by, she will spy the piece with the slash of yellow on the edge that she's been looking for. And when she finds it serendipitously like that, she said she experiences a "weeny hit".

 

And there we had it. In these mid-80s days when our reason for living might be a bit hazy, all we need to do is to watch for weeny hits. You can rename them to your own taste: itty bitty hits. Tiny hits. Teeny-weeny hits. But I'll stick with weeny hits.

 

Think of it. A day can move along from weeny hit to weeny hit, each a splash or sparkle of delight. Which is, of course, life. Meaning. Enough to live for. I'm keeping my eyes open from now on for the weeny hits I might once have overlooked. Since my tendency is always to simplify and consolidate, focusing on weeny hits seems to be the ultimate answer. AN ultimate answer.

 

Now I'll move from the potential emptiness of aging to the superficial, my default playground. And with me the superficial—which could be the surface of anything at all, right?—is most often found in the kitchen.

 

I daren't bring up sourdough again. We've worked that vein of ore to extinction. I could cite yesterday's freezer search for the elusive two boxes of black beans—which turned out to be (the search was protracted and thorough) not two but three boxes. We devoured two of them that night as refried beans for a Texas nacho platter.

 

And that meal was preceded by oysters. Our Nova Scotia daughter arrived for a brief visit with a box of 50 Lucky Lime oysters, so we have been shucking a dozen and a half oysters and popping a bottle of sparkling wine to begin each meal. I must admit that oysters and bubbly every night can provide me with a very substantial weeny hit.

 

 

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A Blueberry Story

Several nights ago DinoVino and I had to dig into the chest freezer to retrieve a pork roast from the deep depths. While we were there, I pulled out a large bag of blueberries because I wanted to split it and put a small bag of berries into the fridge freezer for easier access. I set the large bag onto the stool beside the freezer and we continue with our rearranging.

 

An hour later I went to bed to read. An hour after that I turned off the light to go to sleep. My mind goes through a lot of winding down as I drift toward sleep—what will we eat the next day? What appointments do I have? What will I wear? Do I have to wash my hair in the morning? You know: winding down. I was almost all the way down when I pictured the bag of blueberries on the stool. I tried to take the picture on beyond to the business of pouring some of the berries into another bag and then putting the two bags into their respective freezers. But I couldn't get beyond the memory of the blueberries on the stool—of course, with good reason.

 

I leapt out of bed and roused DinoVino from whatever noir film he was watching. Together we found the bag of berries on the stool, only partially thawed, and dealt with them as we had planned. I went back to bed, fully awake now, and had to find a soporific book to read for fifteen minutes before I could calm down enough to drift again toward sleep.

 

 

 

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Making a Deal

 

Come on down to Edith's Organ Emporium!

Come on down!

I'll make you a deal.

The devil's here and ready.

A deal with the devil's in the offing.

He'll deal.

Deal!

Deal, damn it!

I'm gonna pitch you a deal.

The devil's pitch sticks fast.

A fast deal is a done deal.

Deal me a grape.

Peel the banana until you slip on it!

Deal me a peel.

Deal me a pair, three of a kind, a royal flush.

Flush with new deals we'll make it through.

Through the Depression.

I'm depressed.

I'll make you a deal!

 

 

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Day of the Dead

The jack-o-lantern's teeth

are like abandoned gravestones.

The roots of the cemetery trees

blindly creep through the coffin wood

to reach the dense nutrients of bodies

committed to the ground

and arrive, these roots,

at tibia and fibula and skull and, yes,

knucklebones.

Roots and trees revel

in the oneness of all

and the unbiased way nature feeds one child

from the bones of another.

Nothing wasted.

Nothing lost.

All feeding all

and so on and on and on.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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The Handmaidens of Guilt

Covid-19 has put a spotlight on could-a, would-a, and should-a, the handmaidens of guilt. Six months ago, when everything changed, limitless opportunities opened up. Let's posit a grace period of, say, three weeks, when we were adjusting to the lack of routine and the loss of schedules. But after that period, surely it was time to pull ourselves together and make good use of this unprecedented gift of time.

 

Some people took action immediately. Took advantage of on-line classes to learn Mandarin, for example, to study art history, to take up the guitar at last. I know a woman who has researched, chosen, and distributed online a poem every day, along with an equally carefully researched photo or art piece to accompany the poem. Every day. I can't imagine the dedication required. A neighbour used this time to build (with the help of a contractor) a new deck and pergola overlooking the ravine behind his house.

 

In my own case I actually contemplated opening the lid of my abandoned piano just to depress the keys in no particular order or, even scarier, to take out a piece of music and devote myself to learning it. Re-learning it. I was able to withstand this temptation and the lid has remained quietly closed.

 

But what an opportunity this would have been to re-learn French. Once I knew the language. In fact, I taught it for eight years. But that ended in 1968, and it's now been more than fifty years since I gave any thought to irregular verbs.

 

If I'd applied myself, I could have knitted half a dozen sweaters since March. I could have sewn an entire new wardrobe. Now wait! This last wouldn't have been possible because no fabric stores were open for the first three or four months of the pandemic, and I have carefully (thank you, Marie Kondo) whittled my  fabric stash down to small lengths that were perfect for mask-making but not at all useful for sewing a new wardrobe.

 

So here I am, ruing the fruitless passage of all that time. I could have been busybusybusy, making progress on so many fronts. This is where the Guilt Sisters come in: could-a, would-a, should-a. But invoking them is just a reflex action. I think I should bring them in. But I don't really feel that way. I feel liberated. Free from having to produce in order to prove my worth. My take-away from these six months is a new-found indolence that transcends guilt. I am content to do nothing.

 

Not nothing at all, but nothing compared to how I lived for most of my life. Now, at the end of a day, I look back and see my tiny but sufficient accomplishments. I got up, washed, and dressed. I drank my chocolate tea while reading the Globe. I made the bed. I sewed a few masks. I prepared our brunch/lunch. I watered the back yard (that's five minutes right there), and I planned dinner. In the early afternoon I took a walk and then I read for the rest of the afternoon, until 4:30, when it was time to start dinner.

 

This pretty much describes my workday. On Friday and Saturday I did three or four loads of laundry, hanging the clothes out on the line to dry.

 

The highlight of each day—the great difference from my past—was the moment when I would boldly take a book and sit on the deck and read. No apologies. Just going outside to read for the rest of the day.

 

I am not under any hardship. I have learned a new way to live. And I won't ever be going back to my days of endless lists and productivity. I'm saying bye-bye to the handmaidens of guilt.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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I Do Not Know What I Know

If you take in these words

you will change not your life

but your awareness of your life.

 

Already these words fade from my memory,

maybe because they stretch

my understanding beyond what I can absorb.

I want these words in my heart:

I do not know what I know.

 

The true, if I understand this correctly,

enters not through the mind,

our self-appointed regulator,

but by some other, more subtle sense.

 

These words are precious seeds

to plant in my soul's now-fertile soil.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Breathe with the Wind

The wind is practical, saying:

"Just breathe."

Not "if you breathe you will be healed,

or wise,

or even calm."

Not "breathe to find the pot of gold at rainbow's end."

Just breathe.

 

Like virtue, breathing is its own reward.

It fills the belly

and then the lungs

with air.

That's what breathing promises:

breathe and you will find air.

Pretty basic. Straightforward.

Breathe and you will find the elixir of life.

 

All those other benefits are add-ons,

bonuses designed to overcome your reluctance

to breathe in the beauty of this moment.

Bonuses are good

but not essential.

All we need to do is breathe.

And maybe, as the song says,

also smile.

 

 

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Just Singin'

One day, walking across the long bridge on my way from Dearborn Street to a restaurant in Yorkville, I found myself singing. Now, there was a time, maybe ten years ago, when I always sang as I walked. But then I stopped.

 

So imagine my shock when melodies tumbled up from my depths, through the rusty cords of my voice-box, and flowed out into the frigid wind, countering the traffic noise with full-throated sound.

 

Song! I'd forgotten how much delight (just like joy) I took (I take) in creating melodies, cadences, bridges, modulations. Sometimes I forget how simple it is to live; all I need to do is just give myself over to delight.

 

 

 

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This Tranquil Chaos

At home. Quiet. Undisturbed by visitors or duties.

Does this make for a tranquil life?

Can I sink into what is,

even though my what-is

differs from the more chaotic lives

I sense around me?

What happened,

I have to ask,

to that early-on nub of a plan

to journal briefly every day

about the feelings stirred within me

by this wretched scheme

to make us woke?

Eh?

That tiny light of a plan to record

my thoughtful and honest emotions?

Where'd it go?

Down the tubes, is where,

conquered by the stronger desire

to crack open another book.

 

 

 

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Doubt

I have no doubt I'm full of doubt.

Doubt is in me. Of me. Doubt is me.

What more is there to say

once I have acknowledged (admitted to all)

the extent to which I doubt?

Doubt love.

Doubt goodness—and even goodwill,

the weak little cousin of goodness.

Doubt the future

not because it is unclear

but because the trajectory toward it

is only too predictable.

Doubt the past, muddled as it is by memory.

Doubt this insistent present

in vain urging me onward.

 

The remedy for doubt?

If there is one,

it probably involves hoisting and bootstraps,

grit and happy faces—

and all of these are in short supply,

having been squeezed out of the picture

by doubt.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
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Gnu News

I knew a gnu. I knew a few,

in fact.

I'd ask my gnu for facts,

for acts of news,

for what was new among the gnus.

He'd tell me this and that,

a précis of the news,

omitting what was actually

grim. Not for him

attacks on facts.

For him what mattered was the true,

as it grew

(when nurtured, fed, and watered

by the few who knew a truth or two).

My gnu (this won't be news to you)

had screwed his head on, truly,

and told a few home truths.

Out loud. I was so proud.

 

 

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What Can I Say Today?

This bounty of time—what a gift it is for us. Not for everyone, I know. I find myself affirming over and over my awareness of our privileged status through this pandemic: no children at home, a comfortable house, and the joys we are reaping from Dino's overstocked pantry and his collection of 16,000 films on DVD. We're in clover.

 

We are both enjoying freedom from our usual heavy schedules. Our laundry load has lightened. The absence of dinner parties means no tablecloths and napkins to wash and iron. No one comes to the house, so the towels in the guest bathroom are good for a whole week. I wear the same clothes every day, never having to devise some moderately dressy outfit to decorate the public self. We spend much less money: no public transit, no meals out.

 

On the other hand, I can't deny that such a quiet life leaves me with little to tell you. Is there news from the Rialto? None. News worth carrying from Ghent to Aix? None. News that's fit to print? Still none. I'm stranded high and dry, tide going out, previously submerged boulders now dominating the muddy flats.

 

Yet here comes a story. Yesterday evening I took the little bowl of sourdough from the fridge and fed it (half a cup each of flour and water). Within an hour it was bubbling and light. Before I went to bed I fed it again—this time one cup each of flour and water. Lest you think I'm careless with my sourdough (though I definitely am), I'll tell you that I had a plan. This morning I gave it one more light feeding (half a cup each) and when it bubbled I set aside a fat cup of it to go back into the refrigerator where it would subside into sleep mode.

 

The remainder of this yeasty batter (a little over two cups) I used for bread. To it I added a cup of water, then flour: the rest of my Red Fife (an Ontario heirloom wheat), some unbleached white, some millet meal, some "Scottish oats" (oats milled to a cross between oat flour and steel-cut oats). About a tablespoon of salt. A glug or two of olive oil. And then I kneaded it in the stand mixer until it was smooth, though still fairly moist. I knew I could always add more flour if I needed to.

 

The variations on the best way to make a sourdough loaf would fill a book. We even own a few such books. But I long ago discovered that for me, when it comes to sourdough, the simpler the better. The super-precise measurements that some recipes insist on are beyond me. It isn't that I can't do it but that I won't. I long ago decided that the only reason for such nitpicking was to create loaves that are consistent over various batches. In other words, if you are baking for customers and need to ensure that your loaves will be the same, batch after batch, then precision is all. I will never be doing that, however, so I am liberated. The instructions that work for me say to add equal amounts of flour and water to your starter, then let the starter stand until bubbly. That's it. (Some rules, however are not to be broken: don't ever put anything except flour and water into your starter!)

 

My favourite technique is the one I described earlier: gradually build up your entire starter with successive additions of flour and water (equal parts). Once you've built it up to about three cups, then leave it for several more hours or overnight. In the morning extract and refrigerate a cup of it to be your permanent starter friend and use the rest of it to make the day's bread.

 

Many sourdough instructions tell you to discard all but one cup of the starter when you remove it from the fridge. Discard it? Throw it away? Are they nuts? No, don't do that. You could, if you wanted, give the discard to a friend who needs some starter, but you'll run out of interested friends within a few weeks. Feed all the starter (see my technique above), then save out a cup for the next time and use the rest for bread.

 

If, when you use such a thrown-together technique, your bread doesn't meet your highest standards, then use it for croutons or crumbs. Or freeze it and feed it to the birds in winter. Never waste it.

 

After all, what better way to watch the expansion of time than to immerse yourself in the evolution of a sourdough loaf?

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Slow

Boy, is that ever the word of the day

(this day, yesterday, the days of my life):

Slow.

I could itemize the decades of

Fast

that signaled my life,

but that would get us nowhere.

For is that not the irony?

The faster you go,

the more nowhere you end up.

 

So I'll not review those long years of

Fast,

but will bring us

(not quickly but in due course) to

Slow

and its life-changing properties.

Detractors tell me sometimes that

I haven't changed at all.

That I am still doing, still running,

still too fast.

How little they know.

How little they see.

My inner engine barely moves.

I sit and contemplate

the workings of my soul.

I am still.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Having Fun

What do you do for fun? Now, there's a question from the blue, and one we might not want to answer.

 

"Fun" is a loaded word. To me it's kind of like the verb "to party", which apparently means simply to drink to the point of drunkenness. I don't party well. Even normal parties (where the goal is conversation, not drunkenness) scare the living daylights out of me. Thus, I'm always the first to leave. The death of the party, so to speak.

 

So what IS my idea of fun? A one-on-one conversation, perhaps. While both my daughters were visiting during early January, we spent four hours, just the three of us, sitting in the front alcove, talking.

 

Anyway, there's my answer: a long, heartfelt conversation is fun. Breaking the edge-ice along the sidewalk is fun. Drawing a cartoon strip (thank you, Linda Barry) is fun. Reading a book is fun. Doing the morning puzzles in the Globe is fun. Talking is fun.

 

My most recent insight into joy (related to but not the same as "fun") is this: I look at my life and say, "Where is the joy?", because I can't pinpoint many moments of sheer joy (this is obviously just a memory problem). And then (I'm slow to reach this point) I realize that the verb "enjoy" means literally to bring joy to something. To wrap it in joy. So the trick is not to search for elusive moments of joy from the past but to en-joy the moments that are there. If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with. Make every moment a joyful one. Pollyanna, may I present Deepak Chopra.

 

So I'm out in the kitchen filling the quart measuring cup with water to pour into the new Brita filter and I think, "I really like doing this." The truth is that I like doing mundane tasks. If you do mundane things with a willing heart, then they transcend the physical and become part of your spiritual life—the forward motion of your spiritual life. And by extension, as you move forward spiritually, surely you can also advance along the emotional plane. Onward and upward! Up in the air, junior birdman! Keep your wings upon the ground.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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