 My grandmother Theo's cameo. It might be an image of Amphitrite, Goddess of the sea. Given all the years Theo spent on the water working on lake boats and canalers, it’s fitting. The cameo is costume, but I love it, and in the last few weeks, I’ve been wearing it pinned over my heart. I’m working on something I know she would love, and I am sure she would be proud of me. Inside the box below are pieces of her jewelry and a scarf Theo wore often. It blows my mind how much it smells like her. I can bury my nose in it and be transported. My uncle sent it to me with a note. I only open it occasionally because I don’t want the scent to disappear. It's the Hope Diamond of this house. That’s her recipe book dressed up in a scrap of wallpaper. I imagine her sitting at the kitchen table and covering the black binder. Finding her own joy in the midst of six kids. Mostly a single mother because Harry was working on the Great Lakes nine or ten months of the year. One small way she made her daily chores more beautiful. A homely piece of household art. It’s full of recipes she scribbled on scraps of cardboard and paper, newspaper clippings, and pamphlets from the ’70s from Robin Hood and Quaker Oats. In red pen she's written 'Good!' at the top of a recipe for Scalloped Potato and Tomato with Cheese, there's a Peach Schnapp's Cake with my aunt's name on it, and at least a dozen recipes for fruit cobblers — a staple recipe when you live in the Niagara region and have a small posse of children. The photo of Theo was taken in 1960 at Nickel Plant Beach in Port Colborne — apparently one of the nicest beaches in Ontario, still. According to my uncle she'd pack some of the neighbourhood kids in the car and while they were in the water she'd sit on the beach, smoke Peter Jackson's, and read. We had a laugh talking about the fact that Theo couldn't swim two strokes. Good thing the kids never got in trouble. *** Publishing on my website is delicious. I share Mandy Brown’s enthusiasm in Coming Home. “Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.” "but if you are a gracious host joy comes back." The Wonder of Stevie. I played an episode and the next day played the album spotlighted in its entirety, and so on through six episodes. What a body of work. Lots of dancing here and BIG respect. Evil is a song for our times. So is the violence he sings about in Living For The City. Keanu Reeves delivering solid advice on people in Destination Wedding. *** All the songs came to me when I was out for a walk on Thanksgiving day. Sometimes the music comes in a rush — along with some of the words — on the day I publish last week's story. 202420152023Comments are closed.
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