My mind to your mind....

One of my friends quoted his father as saying,"Legend has it that if you can't sleep at night, it's because you're awake in someone else's dream."

So here I am, at 3:40 a.m., asking you if I'm awake in your dreams, please, please, put me to sleep.  It can be as normal as in a nightgown in my own bed, or lying on a loveseat with my feet hanging over the edge or as bizarre as on a giant rock in the wilds of Westeros, with a direwolf at my side.  But I beg you, put me to sleep.

If you leave me eyes-wide-open in your cozy dream, I will continue to get up in the middle of the night, running the dishwasher, reading books, drinking wine, eating cherries and raspberries, deciding to cut my hair, re-stocking my pantry by size and colour of content, silently but vituperously ranting about the government, adapting all my recipes with raisins to recipes with craisins, and planning a wardrobe made up entirely of things which touch my body only at the shoulders.

Do the right thing. 

The Point

OK, what is the point at which society declares, "Woman, you are officially batty.  Stay in your room and keep quiet!"?

Sadly, I think I reached it this morning in the shower, when I discovered that I was shaving under my arms with the plastic protector still on the razor.  When a similar thing happened with my toothbrush a while back, I wrote it off, thinking that the toothbrush plastic was teeny and invisible.  The razor plastic is about 2 inches wide and pink.  And to make matters worse, I realized this was happening for the second time, which clearly explained why I thought my underarm hair was getting way too healthy.

I'll be the quiet one with the e-reader in the back bedroom.

This evening of May 19th, 2012

I get so distracted I can't tell my left hand from my right.

Surrounding me tonight as I sit at my kitchen-counter/office:

• The edition of Vanity Fair with newly-released photos of Marilyn M
• Three new books I picked up for Julia, but will have to read myself first because I'm such an awesome book-chooser
• The dishes that have been used and piled up on the counter since I started the dishwasher
• Newly-installed pantry with mirrored doors (you never know when you might be tempted to take a photo of yourself, or need to open a new jar of peanut butter)
• The thumb drive I put through the washing machine which may or may not be totally tanked but I'm loathe to find out about 
• An empty wine glass and two-thirds of a Rogers Dark Chocolate with Caramel Filling bar---the balance must be restored!
• An avocado begging to be guacamoled
• My e-reader, just stashed
• Fifteen silver and/or crystal bracelets that keep needing rearrangement so that I can feel creatively justified
• The memory of a book I saw today telling the real story of Downton Abbey with glorious illustrations
• The phone which I should be using to catch up on my siblings
• The e-mails which none of my siblings have sent me which has caused me to need to phone them
• The melancholy which I'm feeling about not having seen Julia and Emma this week (I did get news of Phoebe, and had a visit from Robyn)
• The absolutely black and silent TV screen on which I had half-expected to watch Turner Classic Movies this evening
• And, just a click away, Facebook and Google+

Hallelujah!

I woke up this morning with a blog post entirely written in my head and waiting to be transposed to the ether.  I had the punctuation down pat, and the table format chosen.  I had balanced, rather cleverly I thought, the amusing with the traumatic and the content with my obligations to family and friends.

Then I realized that if I were to actually get at it, I'd be here for an hour or so, telling you how my dreams and my reality have a precarious and fascinating-only-to-me relativity.

You have been spared.

The Power of Symbols

Yesterday Dave and I walked over to the Canadian War Museum to take part in a ceremony in which one of our close friends was being honoured.  He was one of fifty NATO veterans awarded the Diamond Jubilee Medal.

It was a moving ceremony---military-like but not intimidatingly so---attended by families and friends whose pride just made the large room, in which we were surrounded by tanks and other vehicles of war, almost warm.

I tend to be flooded with memory when I am at that museum.  So many people I knew and loved are represented there and I wasn't surprised to feel teary when Merv walked up to be medalled.  I was surprised though when one of the veterans, a woman in her forties, in a wheelchair, passed us.  She alone of all the veterans was wearing the blue beret, the NATO beret, and seeing it brought back vivid memories of my father, who was always so proud of, and thankful for, his service in the Congo.

That, rather than his WWII service, seemed to define him, seemed to make clear his beliefs and his determination to be a just and thoughtful world citizen.  He would hate to hear me say that because he was modest and wouldn't think of himself in those terms, but that doesn't stop me today.  I only wish I'd had the clarity to see him that way when I was younger.

So this morning, I'm thankful to Merv, not just because he spent his life in such an honourable way, not just because he's been so important to our family for such a long time and not just because he was cute enough to be introduced to and to marry one of my best friends, but because he provided an opportunity for me to feel close to my father, in a very unexpected and profound way.

I TAKE IT ALL BACK!!!!

Impulsive, forgetful, myopic, overly dramatic, easy-to-rise-to-anger, emotional, sadly unknowledgeable about URLs and posts and access. These are all characteristics that led me to whine about having lost posts I wrote years ago and sincerely thought were unattainable.

My posts are not lost.  My then-seriously-ill friend has access to them all.  I think that when she and I first talked about this, I focussed on "ill" and forgot to take "smart, ingenious and other-centred" into account.

Calm, relaxed, emotional, overdramatic, still sadly unknowledgeable about URLs and posts and access.  These are the present characteristics that are leading to all things good in my life, except for the anger at the soulless owner of "Lornainwonderland.net".  And I don't stay mad for long.

If you blog, you'll know how I feel

This is a sad tale of loss, stupidity and greed, and only two of them are mine.

A long, long time ago, I read the blog of a friend---a young woman who is full of life and good humour---and decided that I could probably manage a blog myself.

My first post was a bit fearful; I wasn't sure why I wanted to write, I wasn't sure I knew anyone who would actually read if I wrote, but that was back in the day when lots of people were starting blogs and reaching out to people they didn't really know but seemed fascinating.

After writing my first post, I filled out the profile which asked about favourite books and movies and music, and within minutes, someone who shared my interest in a band listed there had written me a funny note, that was just intriguing enough to make me go over to her blog and read her posts.  I don't know how often it happened that I read something interesting in the comments of a blogger, clicked on the writer's link and ended up with a new friend.  And they really are friends, the ones I've been delighted to meet in person, and the ones I still hope to meet one day.

I continued with that blog for about 6 years, and I loved it.  I loved writing it; I loved the comments I read; I loved that I was writing about my family and friends, chronicling things I found profound or silly or witty, and that I'd be able to look back on these posts and perhaps interest my grandchildren in reading stories about our family and friends.

That blog was where I told things as they happened and as I reacted to the things going on around me; where I babbled on about all the happiness in my life, and where I wrote about my mother's death.  I often went back to the archives to help me remember how I'd felt about something or to check what a friend had written in the comments.  I loved it.

A mistake, a technical and horrible mistake happened and I could no longer use that blogsite, but a friend helped me to move it to a dot net site.  That friend got seriously ill, and when the time came for me to renew with the host, because she was acting as my webmaster, I had no opportunity to renew the site even though I spoke to someone representing the site who could have helped.  I didn't know the username or the password, and even though I could tell the guy what was on almost every page, he wouldn't let me renew.

I understood, but was heartbroken.  And honestly, I didn't really believe all the stories were gone.

Recently, I wrote to the person who now uses http://lornainwonderland.net/  He or she is using it to host a blog about kitchen design, and naively, I thought might let me buy the URL---after all, what does www.Lornainwonderland.net do to pull in people interested in kitchens?

I got an answer back that I could buy the URL for a mere $700.00.  I'm sickened and disappointed, but not acquiescing.  I think I'd rather not have put my heart on my sleeve like that.

A timely confession

I always thought of myself as a pretty capable multitasker.  Today I have to admit, openly and without prejudice, that those days are gone.

Case in point: this morning I made my coffee while I toasted my whole wheat bread  and I brushed my teeth while the two machines took their time; then I ate toast and marmalade very neatly sweeping the crumbs into the sink while using my e-reader; then I went in to turn on the shower as it sometimes takes a while to get hot water since our hot water tank is 13 floors up from us; then I listened to the news and made my bed while waiting for the washer to finish the first load; I chose my clothes and laid them out on the bed, ready to jump into when I got out of the shower.  That would be the shower that had been running for 20 minutes.  That would be the shower that runs in the apartment of a green building.  That would be the shower that would have set off the fire alarm if I hadn't wiggled, slick as an eel, through a 6 inch opening while shooing the steam back into the room with a giant towel.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  Amen.

Mature is the new crisis

For the last few days I've been offline, offphone and pretty much out of contact with people.  It was intentional---a stab at clearing up.  Clearing up my house, my brain and my spirit.

I had thought I had a pretty good control on two of those three, but time alone (Dave was with one of the kids for a few days) proved me wrong.

I thought that 4 years ago, we had done a heroic job of downsizing only to find that there are anomalies all over the house.  Why do two people in an 800 square foot condo need a 12-piece dinnerware set augmented by rice bowls, dessert bowls, kind-of-fancy hors-d'oeuvres dishes; 6 sets of summer sheets, 3 sets of winter, 4 king-sized bedcovers, myriad copies of new and dated magazines, 6 complete sets of towels plus six towel orphans; two hatboxes full of envelopes, 32 pens, two staplers, 4 cosmetic bags, 7 bottles of various kinds of shampoo, 3 of conditioner, two bottles of Windex, a basket of useless, frozen things I couldn't even recognize; 6 different largish machines that play music, 5 chests masquerading as coffee tables, full of tablecloths, napkins, doilies, candles, giftbags and clothes that need mending?

And that was just the practical stuff.  I didn't even look at clothes and gewgaws.  I know what and where they are.  I have plenty.  I didn't count them in the Big Cleanup.

When it came to clearing my brain, I failed.  Two days of furious thinking, writing lists, rethinking, making promises and setting goals and I'm still not in control; same for the spiritual cleansing.  All I learned from this is that I'm old, I can't seem to come to grips with that, and I'm just as confused spiritually as I was the last time I did an attitude check.

Dave is coming home today, the kids are all coming for dinner, I have been up since 6 trying to stabilize my sinking ship and the only thing I'm clear on so far is that I'd like a big roast.  And I'd really rather someone else cooked it.

Will the circle be unbroken?

I don't think of myself as a time waster.  I know that there are those who, seeing me in my robe, reading books and drinking wine, may think so, but their perspective is warped by ignoring the fact that I'm retired.

This morning, though, I did waste time, and I did it right here at my laptop, trying to take a more original approach to a post that has been buzzing around my brain for a few days.  Aha, I thought, I'll hang it on a series of photos.

Over half an hour later, having looked at darling photos of my grandchildren, stirring family poses, exciting old trip pictures and photos I can't remember taking, I realized that was not the right approach.

Never mind, I said, that was a shallow topic anyway.

What kind of thing could I blog about that wasn't shallow?  That profound enigma occupied me for quite a while, then I thought I'd just take a quick look back at the change I'd made in the theme of the blog only yesterday....did that, hated it, and started trying other templates.  Went through all the standard offerings, tried to remember how to customize the blog, did some research, went back looking for some of the photos I'd seen two hours ago, but couldn't find them, also couldn't find the change I'd made yesterday and hated every possible theme.

Had coffee.  Again.

Gave up.  Hope I haven't wasted your time.