Tuesday, October 30, 2012

where children fear to tread....




i come from a people that believe the dead do not always rest easy. the ghosts and shadows that have passed on continue to inhabit our daily lives. i prefer to entertain all of this as not backward thinking but rather traditional folklore. i grew up in flurry of signs, superstitions and forerunners. i am sure you are familiar with some of the more common ones - itchy hands foretells money coming, a dropped teatowel indicates a visitor. and burning ears meant you were the subject of someones conversation. a few of the more obscure ones included whistling after dark which made the wind blow. or whistling women at any time caused the wind to change direction. crows had to be counted and a fate determined. a bad omen could be softened by spitting on the ground. no money aboard the boat, especially any thing involving the number 2. never turn a bucket upside down and for christ's sake don't sit on it; for if you do you can kiss the fish goodbye. never look back at a hearse. birds in the house - certain death or birds tapping on the window - certain illness. really, i could go on forever.......

we played in the cemetery a lot especially when certain berries were present. we ate tea berries in the spring. i have no idea of the real name or even if they are edible. but we ate them because there was nothing else yet. no blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, fern roots which we called bananas, sea snails we called periwinkles or apples. a lot of our play involved finding things to eat. that said, we played among the graves, eating our tea berries and making up stories of the people who lay below the mounds. we speculated endlessly on the tiny unmarked baby graves in the back corner. we picked flowers and cleaned gull shit off the stones. we tried to find clues about inhabitants by tracing our fingers around the granite engravings and we would pick out spots to be buried. around dark we would dare each other to lay face down on the grave of someone who had had an untimely or violent death. soon we would start to hear things and the creepers would come over us. we would run for dear life out of the graveyard making sure to close the iron gate so none of the spirits could escape........

we regularly tied to call forth the dead. we held seances and secret meetings to try and raise somebody, anybody. we chanted, tried to talk in tongues, danced around fires on the beach. god knows what we would have done if they had responded - pissed our pants most likely. we wore out more than one ouija board. in the evenings we watched as our parents played uptable. where they tried to make a card table rise without touching it.. overall we were a people determined to keep a channel open between this world and the next.........

the telling of ghost stories permeated every layer of our existence. we eavesdropped when the adults told them to each other and listened entranced when they were told to us and we in turn told them to the younger children to scare them and keep them loyal. pirates, hidden treasure, ship wrecks, pacing widows with the spyglass, the phantom light that followed boats into the harbor, the restless spirits that walked the village looking for something. overall, the quiet men told the best tales - low and earnest they recalled sighting a ghost ship in the fog. the sails in shreds, the hull creaking and the cries of drowning men. these somber stories would leave us - hearts pounding and afraid to fall asleep......... 

we often combed the beaches that surrounded us looking for coloured seaglass, food, seal jawbones, and treasure. Sometimes we would come upon a rubber boot or a glove. we would encircle it and stand arguing over who should pick it up. would there be a skeletal foot or hand inside. we would scare the bejesus out ourselves thinking of what we would find. would the hand grab us in deathly grip or would the drowned soul appear and drag us into the sea to join him. it was serious stuff and we spent a lot of time poking at the object with sticks trying to get a sense of what was to come. usually one of us would grab it, eyes closed and fling it further down the beach. if nothing emerged we would eventually muster the courage to pick it up, disappointed when it revealed no bones or ghosts. we always left it where it lay......... 

i wonder sometimes why our lives were aligned so closely to the after world. was it because we lived from the sea and kept ourselves close to portents that helped protect us from such a demanding mistress. just like ancient tribes that prepared their hunters with spirit dances and rituals, we practiced our rites and tried to appease the gods. when i grew up i moved away from the sea and came to live on the prairie; there i found the air empty and oddly light. "where are your dead?" i wondered. "do they pass over without a fight?". i started to realize that people are rarely lost here on the land - they just die. where i'm from no one says all hands died, they instead say all hands were lost. and the lost can never rest.

bev

Saturday, October 20, 2012

pull up a stool......






sweet mother of jesus i have to write a blog post. i must stop this madness. i have been sick but really i think i've lost my nerve, i'm intimidated by all the great writers and posts i've been reading lately. i read things i don't understand and wonder why i thought i could ever do this. i am no writer, i'm just a girl asking the world to listen to a story. self doubt is filling the room so right now i must bury my face into the pillow and do it for my resume. (yes, i know that's about sex but ...)

 i just wish i were brave.

like
when i was a little girl my aunt bertha had a metal plaque on her kitchen wall that read "if you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit." this is one of the first things i remember being able to read and thus it took on near biblical meaning. it  became in a way, my golden rule.  so with that in mind  i will try to tell you a story.......

recently
after being in bed for over a week with the flu,  my husband dragged me to outpatients at the hospital. i was so, so sick but not so sick that i couldn't listen to what was going on in the next cubicle. you see, even when i'm in the depths of despair i can not mind my own business. i was placed in the room nearest the nurse's station and thus quickly found myself in the know. as it turned out, the gentleman next to me was constipated or "compacted" as we refer to it in the medical trade. his condition was discussed with great earnestness by the nurses and doctor. so with his, not 1 but 2 rectal exams completed my new friend was ready for the remedy phase of the program. first he was placed on his side, then a fleet enema was performed. we all waited patiently but  - no response.  some 30 minutes later the the high fleet enema was launched. i would like to add that the junior nurse carrying out this procedure was given the how-to instructions by the older nurse only moments before performing this magic trick. i strongly believe, given a visual on the apparatus i could have managed it - that's how detailed the tutorial was. but again, despite these seemingly heroic actions- no response other than a return of clear fluid .

 i began thinking, where is this clear fluid collecting. what have we done next door to prepare for success. What, if anything is on hand to receive the goods. the very word compaction suggests this business could inflate when it hits the fresh air. i don't think a sauce pan is going to do it. and why oh why are they keeping this man on his side. i'm just saying, it's not everybody who can shit lying down - never mind on their side. i know "on my side" is not my optimum position when having to do my business.  this gentleman, whoever he is has to be in distress.  he has not made a sound since i got there and considering his condition and the number of times he's been interfered with you would expect something - some tiny "ow" or "oh my"  trust me, i strained to hear what was or could be happening.

sadly, i had to leave without learning the outcome of my new friend.  it seems you can't just stay on to see how something is going to turn out. as the dr. wrote out my prescription i wanted to offer him some advice. i wanted to  say "doctor,  how about a cup of coffee and some squats for our friend next door or at the very least we should flip him on his back and assist him in doing some mock air biking" the grateful doctor would then say, "thanks patient #18, i never thought of that.  here's some medical marijuana to go along with your antibiotics"



ta da
don't judge too harshly, i'm creatively compacted.
bev