A Light in the Darkness

The light I want to kindle in the darkness of our being is the light of laughter. I can blame this on (or attribute it to) my father and the atmosphere of humour that he created in our home.  Sometimes the humour was more biting than was healthy, but still, there was a lot of laughing.

 

I want the relief and lightness of laughter for all of us, and I must admit that I have an aversion to what is not light. This comes uncomfortably close to superficiality, doesn't it? I'm thinking here about forms of entertainment. When it comes to movies, for example, my husband is a fan of noir (sometimes literally noir, as in black-and-white, with most scenes set in impenetrable shadow). The movies I like—virtually the only ones I can watch—are the screwball comedies from the 1930s. I'll accept a few more recent films, such as "Some Like It Hot". I obviously prefer to steer clear of reality in my movie-watching, and I recognize that this is not necessarily a good thing.

 

At bottom, I counsel lightness and brightness. Wit and cleverness. And an openness to risibility in all things.

 

I wish this for everyone now and during the coming year.

 

 

[Apologies for the late delivery of this Scene. The combination of Christmas, birthday, and Sunday knocked all my routines into a cocked hat. Compliments of the season to you all, including but not limited to those who celebrated a birthday on December 25--particularly the Baby Jesus, my great-nephew Nate Johnson, our friend Richard N., and my own self.]

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
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Lights of the Season

At six in the morning after a frosty night

the two east-facing windows

are patched with ice

and the neighbouring condo's security lights

make subdued blobs of stained glass

for my pleasure.

 

Through the west window

the lighted evergreen across the street,

dwarfed by its house,

kaleidoscopes through my sheer curtains

into shimmering colours.

 

In the evening we sit in the alcove

at the front of the house,

dimly lit by our Christmas lights

and unseen by the world,

and reflect.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Opening the Windows

Surely it's all about opening the windows.

As if, at birth, our little selves transport

from the limitless reaches of the Multiverse

to individual glass houses

closed on every side

and our task is then to learn to open those glass walls

and thus to reclaim our birthright

(so rudely and deliberately hidden from us)

and this constitutes the lesson:

difficult for all of us

but more difficult for some

(and who knows why THAT is)

but here we are struggling with locks and bolts

and desperate, sometimes, to find again

those open vistas, those expansions,

that we remember being within our reach, once.

Oh, if we could just get these durned windows open!

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
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How My Cousin J.T. Was Born

It's not a memory but the memory of a story, yet another story told about me as a baby, all of them emphasizing my unfriendly nature from the early days, the baby from hell, the disrupter of family peace.

 

In this particular story I am eleven months old. For some reason Myron and Eileen have taken my big brother, then three and a half, and gone off for the day. (Surly me imagines a much-needed holiday from difficult Baby Ann.)

 

I am left in the care of Aunt Jeannette. Jeannette is eight and a half months pregnant with her first child, who will be my cousin J.T. Her story (and it is her story because I am only eleven months old and will remember nothing) is this: as soon as my family leaves the house I look at Jeannette and begin to wail. I don't know whether she tries to comfort me. Maybe I won't allow it. I am not yet walking. Having seen her I crawl away from her, crying, into the next room and then the next. Gradually my tears stop though my breath is still ragged. Crawling through doorways brings me in a circle back to the living room where Jeannette sits. I see her, burst into tears, then turn around to crawl in the other direction--away from her. Only to find that "away from her" leads directly to her again.

 

This, according to Jeannette, goes on all day long. The circular path from room to room always brings me back to her. And then I scream again and go away from her again. And come upon her again. And scream.

 

My family came back to me that evening, or so they tell me. And later that night J.T. was born. Jeannette always insisted I brought on the birth by making her day so stressful.

 

Whose point of view shall we take here? Shall we imagine my beleaguered family who needed a brief vacation? Shall we put ourselves into the mind of poor Jeannette, assailed by her screaming baby niece? Or shall we provide some sympathy for an unhappy, abandoned baby?

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
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