Little Old Lady … in Waiting

Tag: Choice

  • The Richness of Retreat

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    “Silence is also a conversation” – Ramana Maharshi

    “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth.” – Albert Einstein

    I have never lived alone, and at 59 and a half, I can count on one hand the number of nights I’ve spent alone in my home.  So, when my daughter announced that she was off to Australia for a fortnight, and asked if I might cat sit, I decided to embark on a private retreat of my own, a silent, mind-spa staycation, an experiment in the single life, an escape to a ‘room of one’s own’. The setting was LOLIW perfect… posh, urban, ceilings to God, a spiral staircased brownstone apartment in the heritage quarter, the dream home of a much younger version of myself.  The street was Orange, the mood, indigo, and the first song I danced to, with abandon, in far too many years, was Yellow.

    I have always shared living space with close friends or loved ones.  I have never experienced the kind of solitude and silence that singletons exalt in daily, the bliss of soundless mornings, the peace of uninterrupted afternoons, the effortless, evening meal for one, or the coveted hours spent in one’s own sweet company, time whiled away without reference to the wishes or inclinations of another living soul. To keep one’s own good counsel and consult no one else (save an agreeable cat with excellent manners and clear boundaries) on how best to spend the day…what a gift to give yourself, perhaps most especially as a little old lady in waiting. There is a magic to be mined, an enchantment, a real richness of experience to be savoured in retreat. 

    As with any adventure, I overthought and planned every minute detail down to the quick. I packed separate bags for the gym, for work, and for pickleball. I made sure to include enough loungewear and smalls to avoid even the notion of laundry, and a series of comfy sweaters and toasty wool socks, as you do, unfamiliar with the heating in my new abode, a Canadian girl down to  my bones. One can’t be too careful when it comes to creature comforts.  I prepared and packaged enough food to last me about ten days, individually portioned, so I wouldn’t be troubled with cooking or cleaning dishes during my retreat.  I planned to supplement my defrostables with a few evenings of restaurant meals, I was on vacation after all…there were friends to be met, and those naan nachos from Thandi’s are a siren call that cannot be ignored.

    My car was already packed the morning I set off to drive my daughter to the airport. I kissed my husband and hugged my son and small geriatric dog goodbye.  A little old lady herself, I had a quick word and cuddle with my last true dependent.  I let her know it was alright if she had an accident or two in my absence, as the menfolk aren’t as attuned to her bathrooming pecadillos, an easy concession as I wouldn’t be there to look after any mess.  I wished her well and promised to make it up to her.  We settled on half my breakfast bacon for a period no shorter than one year, and a promise that she could come away with me next time.  Oh yes, spoiler alert, there will be a next time.

    After imparting a steady stream of last-minute motherly advice to my savvy, world travelling daughter, advice she did not need, but tolerated as best she could, I watched my baby pass through security, before discarding whatever illusion of control I still harboured, and then, mentally slipping off my mother cape, a favourite cloak, I turned with a little tear in my eye, before going dark, the start of a full-blown smile forming on my lips. I was a stranger in a strange land, alive to the endless opportunities that waited for me. I decided on a quick stop to Costco (I mean …I was in the neighbourhood) for a few emergency supplies…ready made bacon, the Christmas fruitcake (singletons host friends too) and then it was straight back to the little uptown palace I would call home for the next two weeks, party of one.

    I made my escape in mid-November, an excellent time of year for retreat, just at the onset of the introspective months of the Canadian winter, but before the circus of Christmas pageantry that engulfs most matriarchs in December and doesn’t let go until after New Year’s day. For the first few days I sat in a kind of meditative slumber, wonderstruck by the tidied rooms, the luxurious silence, the fragrance of aloneness, the cadence of a single set of steps. I floated from room to room, I listened to the voice of a girl set free from a set of inherited instructions for living, a voice that spoke softly at first, but eventually commanded my entire attention. 

    Most of what she told me is private of course, you understand, what happens on Orange stays on Orange, and anyway it would probably be lost in translation.  I can share that I never once felt lonely during my retreat, that it took several days to miss the loved ones I live with, and if there were any monsters under the bed I slept in alone at night, they kept to their dark recesses and didn’t intrude on my peace. Suffice to say, I was away long enough to remember that there is no better counsel than your own, there is no truer friend than yourself, and if you’ve been neglecting that friendship, then it is time to take yourself away for a long overdue conversation, the kind where you listen more than you speak. Our words can physically influence the world around us, most especially the words we recite incessantly to ourselves silently, in a closed circuit.  The truth is that every cell in our body is listening to us, which makes the quality of the interior dialogue so critical. Do we settle for questions like, “what’s for dinner?” or even “where to travel next year?”  or do we ask ourselves how we might best build joy today? Or “what exactly Elliot meant when he wrote, “I grow old…I grow old…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind?  Do I dare eat a peach?’

    If you, like me, prefer Elliot’s poetry to a cookbook, these are the essential rules of retreat. There must be quiet. Your mind must be calm and unleashed from the concerns and demands of those closest to you.  So much of our action in life is economically or socially determined. Even love can feel like a Chinese finger trap some days. As we get older the claims of our immediate environment, our preferred living arrangement, can be so pervasive that we can actually lose sight of ourself in the family photograph, beneath the Wifee sweatshirt, behind the sacred veil of motherhood, to the woman who waits within like a nested Russian doll  We can become so consumed with what we perceive as the requirements of daily living; nutritious meals, a tidy home, daily exercise, the social scene, that we forget ourselves and our real work, discovering and exploring the beauty and mystery that lies within.

    Finding a quiet place to stoke your inner fire is an essential and sacred ritual, an absolute necessity for every little old lady in waiting. If you can’t get away for a dedicated retreat, then lay claim to a certain hour every day, a space of time inviolate to family or friends, where the news of the world cannot reach you, and where you do not recognize or acknowledge what is owed to others.  A space where you are free to simply experience who you are, and what you might be, a place of creative incubation, a venue to challenge your everyday assumptions, to grow, to follow the winds of your own inclinations, to feel your courage, and to care for yourself, like the treasure you are.

    At first it may feel like you’re wasting time.  If that is your experience, at least initially, I would encourage you to hold fast, it is, after all, your time to waste. We have a limited lease of time apportioned to each of us, and whether you spend that time truly awake or asleep in the detritus of daily living is entirely up to you.  Life has no pause button or rewind setting.  If you read this blog post all the way to then end, each of us is 5 minutes closer to our demise than when you started.  If you can stay present to this moment, if you can be here now, and genuinely engaged in pursuits that bring you joy, then you know the secret to a beautiful life. So often we become embroiled in activities we do not relish and have not chosen for ourselves but believe are required of us.   Fresh from my retreat I have begun to question everything I habitually tell myself needs doing. I engage in small acts of rebellion as often as possible.  I eat cereal for dinner some nights, my bed often goes unmade, sometimes I skip the gym to write or read …there is a feathery owl atop my Christmas tree this year, slightly askew, and it has never looked more beautiful to me.  I hold space for myself to wonder and to consider questions outside the realm of my daily routine. “Do I dare eat a peach?”

    It’s true that to create a pleasant and harmonious environment in our lives together with loved ones we need the cooperation of all those we choose to hold close in our immediate circle, but pleasure carried within ourselves, within our own body and mind, and within that part of ourselves that has no name, that is our business alone. This dark season of early nights and twinkling lights, I wish for you a happy retreat…I invite you to cast your eyes to the wintry sky, to stand alone sometimes, to “look at the stars and see how they shine for you.”

  • A Curated Life

    “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

    “Those who commit to nothing are distracted by everything.” – Bhagavad Gita

    I’m twelve weeks into a “down to the studs” reno of my basement. We are getting there…almost ready for paint and wallpaper …yes…that’s right…I said wallpaper. I happen to like wallpaper…just not the 50 year old striped job that lined the stairwell leading from my kitchen to the lower level of our home. I’ve hated that patterned stairwell since we moved into the house almost fifteen years ago. That’s a long time to abide an abhorent passage in your home. So…ankle deep into quasi-retirement, and my baby moving out to a beautiful space of her own; it’s got me thinking about embracing a less lackadaisical, more curated life. I refer here not only to my immediate setting, and decor choices in my home, but also to a more bespoke aproach to everything I allow entry into my mental and physical space. How we spend our time and who we choose to spend it with are weighty considerations indeed, particularly as the sands of time accelerate through the LOLIW hourglass.

    I am a woman who has always known what she loves. I’m never at a loss for how to spend my time. My baseline is reading in bed, followed closely by reading upright in well lit rooms, rooms with doors to discourage the detritus of day to day discourse. Toss in a daily walk, a few writing hours, and few games of pickleball (a smattering …mind), and maybe a sprinkling of meaningful communication with friends and family and you have the basic components of my perfectly appointed life.

    It won’t surprise you to learn that with respect to decor I like to sit in spaces that smell and feel like 19th century reading rooms. Jane Austen meets functional, animal-friendly, old-world elegance and comfort, with Rembrandt lighting in the shade of expensive cognac and furniture made to last let us say, longer than me. I like plain lines…nothing busy…smalls piles of books in every conceivable nook, and walls overfilled with art that makes me think and feel.

    Approaching 60 it seems long past time to take charge of my decor and embrace a more curated lifestyle. With more time at home to play and ponder and be, its important to invest in our space and make it conform to our notion of how to live well. Out with the acquired furniture that found its way into every corner of the basement (granny’s telephone table, the uni trunks, the side tables the dogs used as chew toys, the wedding art, the chairs I reupholstered one time too many…gone). What would your space look like if you started from scratch… what gets to stay, what gets dumpstered in the night?

    To curate is to carefully gather sift, choose and organize so that everything is handpicked, assembled, and edited by you. This might mean the dedication of an old bedroom to a fly tying workshop or a yoga studio or a writing room. The downstairs grand room might be reworked as a cozy british bar, or a working library, or a music or pottery studio. Adult spaces like day nap chaise-lounges in light colours might be positioned near full window walls for stargazing with telescopes or simply to watch the dancing autumnal leaves or the spring rains pelting your garden seedlings to life, or the magical snow that falls on Christmas eve.

    Of course lighting is everything… my mother taught me that. She liked rose tinted bulbs for evening ambiance, strong enough to read by in the after dinner hours but not so bright you can see the skin wrinkles on your LOL hands as you turn the pages…its a delicate balance ladies. A comfortable seat by the fire built for you and yours is essential for the long Canadian winters, perhaps a dartboard, a drinks cabinet… you get the idea. It’s time to focus less on containment of mess and sticky fingered childrearing chaos, and more on zones of comfort and joy for the soft bellied adults who remain. Don’t forget a posh pillow for the geriatric dog.

    Take your time visioning how to create yout LOL space.. explore your options…think about what you want your home to provide now, and build it from the inside out. There are no design rules that can’t be broken except one, namely, abandoning your own ideas on beauty and functionality. This is your home we’re speaking of, you have only yourself to please so if you want to string eddison lights from the rafters, share space with too many plants or cats or books, create an industial feel by painting the piping black or steel coloured… do it. If you want to showcase some macabre collection of antique surgical instuments or early century pharmaceutical elixirs (weirdo), now is the time to make your space into a reflecting pool for all your darlings. An invitation to your home should always feel like an invitation to you.

    Outside your home it’s equally important to curate the spaces you decide to inhabit. In rertirement if you don’t decide how you’ll spend your time, others, well meaning friends and colleagues, will ensnare you in their version of a life well lived. The siren call of casual work, the escalating addictive properties of pickleball, best resticted to promote injury preention, the silent scream of the sour dough starter and its incessant demand to be fed. That little white bread baby isnt the boss of me.

    A few years ago I read a little book called “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” which espoused a pretty basic but essential philosophy with respect to time management and boundaries. Summarily, the author suggests that in an age where we are inundated with information and competing demands on our attention, and very often incompacitated by overstimulation and endless options, its important to decide to live deliberately and in accordance with a few key individual values and interests and spend our time and ultimately, our lives, accordingly. The book advises adopting a maximum of 5 things to give a fuck about. Thats not a lot if family and healthy living are 1 and 2. If reading, writing and pickle ball are my 3,4,5 then maybe maybe pottery and painting, knitting and felting, are curated out of my daily living line up…at least this year. Every LOLIW must choose how best to spend their time. Maybe you’ll make your garden and greenhouse your second home from May to September, perhaps you’ll join a rug hooking guild or a choir or an arts collective during the long winter months. Let your interests drive your pursuits and don’t be cajoled, or convinced to spend your time in settings that don’t meet your individual criteria for comfort and joy.

    A quick comment on mental space. I live so much of my life in my mind it’s important for me to dine on a steady diet of images and words that resonate with meaning. I hold space for vetted novels and films and converations with new and old friends who know secret things. Stories and stimuli that bring comfort and joy and occasionally cast out to higher things. While I have just as much of an unseemly fascination with Ed Gein and his skin suit pursuits and niche decorating vibe, I’m not sure I need to absorb the 8 episode narritive of the man who was the inspiration for Psycho, The Chain Saw Massacre and Buffal Bill. I mean I guess he didnt eat anyone …so thats good…right? My point is that curating that series out of my mental space and protecting my inner sanctum and sleep hygiene is probably for the best. I don’t need a visit from Gein in my dreams at night. But if real crime horror is your LOL jam, maybe Ed Gein gets a pass.

    You are the gatekeeper of your mental and physical space. Guard your boundaries, with knitting needles if need be. Allow entry only to what you decide to give a fuck about. Design a space and a life dedicated to your passions… an art room…a dream kitchen…a library…a pocast studio… a music room. It’s waiting for you beneath the debris of a lifetime of collecting the residue of other people’s idea of how to live well. So if you’ve been neglecting your mental and physical space like I have, begin an inventory of everything that you find beauty and comfort in, then drag the rest to the curb and begin again, consulting no one but your own inner curator. I believe you’ll find her taste is unerring.

  • “What’s for Dinner?”

    Edinburgh Tea Biscuits

    As a little old lady in waiting I try not to think about what’s for dinner anymore. For years it was the first thing I thought of each day, even before my feet hit the ground. I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about food, too much of it. What’s best to eat, when to eat, what not to eat, what to pack for lunches, the daily miracle of coordinating, mandating and delivering family dinner at the table, the sometimes dubious nutritional value of said dinner, and the fallout of loosing the family dinner battle. What should I eat to maintan a healthy BMI? What does a healthy diet means beyond the parameters of the food pyramid? Which diet is best: vegan, vegetarian, low fat, low carb, high protein, one meal.. three meals…four, ‘one potato, two potato, three potato, four.’

    As a woman who stayed home for a dozen years and felt the full weight of the domestic hausfrau experience, food purchase, prep and delivery was a significant part of my work day. Suffice to say, I’ve steamed my way through several rice makers and peeled enough potatoes to feed the whole of Ireland. I’ve menu planned and scrutinized thousands of grocery lists and contemplated how best to infuse two growing humans, with as many fruits and vegetables as possible, a herculean task in an age of ‘lunchables’ and packaged candy in the shapes and flavours of actual fruit…highly processed, heavily marketed frankenfood. I take pride in the fact that my daughter refers to us as an “ingredient family’, where very little comes from a box or is overly processed (notable exceptions – yogurt, cheese and bread…we’re in the 21st Century friends… I draw the line at kneading, churning, aging or vigilent attention to temperature). There is very little that is instantly consumable in my cupboards…all food stuffs require some sort of preparation: rinsing, dicing, slicing, roasting, toasting..or a quick commingling in the Ninja.

    For my 50th Birthday I decided to hang up my apron for good. Back to work outside the home for a number of years, I was ready to resign from my second job as menu architect, head chef, prep chef, pastry chef, bus boy, dish diva, and lunch maker. Happy Birthday to me. I explained to my family that I would cook only if the spirit moved me and that dinner was no longer to be expected by any of my spoiled, unskilled, hangry housemates, especially on days when they arrived home before me. Looking back it was the death toll for the family dinner, that and competing schdules. The kids were both in high school at the time. Ten years later, on the road to 60, I can report only mixed success in divesting my culinary role…I blame myself, and my misguided attempts to safeguard my family’s heath, protect my kitchen, and reduce ceiling splatter and any permanent damage to appliances.

    “Whats for dinner?” is a kitchen query that still eminates from my hungry adult children in the late afternoon from time to time. Shoulder deep into the fridge or pantry, desperate to make the ingredients on display coalesce into something approaching a satisfactory meal, but too inexperienced or myopic to see the beauty of ‘breakfast for supper’, or the fact that chickpeas are really hummus in disguise. I think it’s important to acknowledge here that my husband is too clever to ever broach the subject of dinner. When the kids do slip up and ask whats for dinner, I smile a happy little boundary smile, and if I’m not hangry myself, I might suggest cereal, or eggs or pb and j’s. At other times I simply repeat, “dinner” with a slightly stupefied, quizical brow, as though they were speaking in some foreign language… a look I learned from my husband, a master at navigating family life with minimal effort on his part.

    The subject of supper aside, as a little old lady in waiting…who am I kidding here…at all stages of ladydom, I have given a great deal of thought to my diet, in an attempt to consume nutrient dense, high volume, low caloric-load foods, to look good in my jeans, to avoid suburban square arse syndrome, a hideous plague of middle age, and later, as a nurse, to avoid carcinogenic foods like processed meats and cardiac villains like trans fats, and more recently, to restrict inflammatory culprits in order to reduce pain…that’s right…I’m going after the sugar and simple carbs, to reduce the meno-pot, the 10 or so pounds of fluff floating around my mid section. No, its not there to protect our organs as we age. Closing in on 60 it’s time to quit the cake … not the wine though (maybe ditch the fruity sugary stuff), but wine’s a living whole food ..its not processed… its allowed to age. LOL to LOL no one is taking the wine off the table.

    Dessert, however, and the bread basket I believe are a fair trade for decreased joint pain, ease of zipper glide, improved meno head and energy levels, and potentially increased longevity with greater functionality and mobilty in the last quarter of our lives. After a lifetime of exhaustive and ongoing research on the topic of food and diet I can recommend only three books on the subject that form the genesis of my LOL approach to food. The first, Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food – an Eater’s Manifesto” can be distilled in a simple maxim: “Eat food (real food), not too much, mostly vegetables.” Next, Savour: Mindful Eating – Mindful Life by Thich Knat Hahn which encourages a mindful reverence when eating and a grateful appreciation of all the work and people involved in bringing food to your table. Lastly, French Women Dont get Fat by Mireille Giuliano, which promotes a self awareness of individual food challenges and suggests a highly customized self-taught approach that respects your personal food picadillos and preferences. No foods are off the table for les femmes francais.

    I’ll be honest and say that if I get to choose my last meal, one final opportunity to taste, smell and enjoy food, my pedestrian pallette will no doubt yearn for a tea biscuit made by some proper little old lady…perhaps of Scottish descent. I’d lather each half with a generous mound of clotted cream (the kind from a jar imported from England) and lemon curd (also imported from the British isles…not the lemons mind). I love simple carbs and homemade sweets. I grew up on them. Cheap, easily portable and quickly put together, some of my fondest childhood memories by the Bay of Fundy in the wilds of the Maritimes, star these cheerful oven baked ‘rib stickers.’ My mother taught me that there isn’t much a good tea biscuit or pan of fudge can’t cure…except maybe diabetes. I know sweets are not recommended on anyone’s food pyrimad, even the ones heavily influenced by “Fat/Sugar/Salt” pressure groups …yeah …they’re out there, doing a sweet business with their sugar-coated promise of a 10 second dopamine high that will keep you coming back for more. Hanging onto my fifties by my fingernails, I have grudgingly come to accept that my dear old friend, bread, the plain sister of the sweet family, is nothing but a nutritionally void filler… bread is bad, and I’m finally ready to embrace a life without sugar laden simple carbs.

    For this little old lady in waiting, dinner for the foreseeable future is some variation of fruit and veggies, legumes and lean protein, like fish, quinoa, nut butters and beans. I’m allowing for reevaluation at age 80 depending on the efficacy of a clean diet as regards pain management and cognitive capacity. There may come a day when tea and toast and biscuits lathered in cream become a mainstay again but for now this LOLIW is off the edible dopamine drip and opting for foods that promote less fluff, more energy, a clear head and ideally a pain free active lifestyle for many years to come. That’s what’s on the menu.

  • In Conversation with Margo Beckwith-Byrne

    At the grand dame age of 65, Margo Beckwith-Byrne self-identifies as a ‘little old lady’ proper, although her trim, athletic figure and sporty lifestyle are characteristic of a much younger woman. An avid tennis and pickleball player, Margo is a spitfire that punches well above her fighting weight in any given scenario. She is confidant and decisive, and a natural born manager of men. On the personality tests that assign an animal archetype I’d guess Margo is more at home in the shark tank than the petting zoo. She is spirited, and salty, and strong…she’s had to be strong. Widowed at 42 when her husband went out for a swim on a family vacation and never came back in, she became a single working mom overnight, her kids were then 2,5 and 7.

    Equipped with a B.Ed. in Home Economics, Margo taught for two years in Labrador City before transferring her skills to work more in keeping with her natural aptitudes and temperament. She became a boss.  With the mind of an engineer, and an innate understanding of process and efficiency, Margo started her career in business, first at the Saint John General Hospital, where she very quickly assumed a supervisor role, and later in HR, first at Fundy Cable and later at Labatt Breweries, as an HR Manager.  Her last job was as Senior Vice President at Wyndham.  She was downsized at 54, which today she describes as a gift, one she did not recognize at the time.  An astute businesswoman and investor, Margo never worked another day, and is a poster girl for how to retire well.

    About a year ago, Margo visited the ER with what she describes as stomach discomfort and was eventually diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. Since then, she has undergone surgery, and chemotherapy which she says is “the most miserable thing you could ever do.’ Margo tells me she is lucky because the cancer she has, MSI-H, is rare and responsive to her current immunotherapy. Her cancer-versary is July 31st.  She shares that the hashtag for colorectal cancer is ‘KFG…Keep fucking going.’  

    Margo speaks with the clear-cut, resolute voice of a woman who has found her truth, and in the process of documenting her wisdom, I caught myself re-evaluating a little of my own inner engineering. I am grateful for what she shared with me on a sunny afternoon, at her beautiful home that overlooks the sea.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born a Saint Johner and I grew up wanting to leave.  I had children, and then I wanted to come back.  I went to school first at St. FX and then finished at UNB Fredericton … I really liked sewing, I liked making clothes, I didn’t like cooking so much, but I ended up with a B.Ed. in Home Economics and after that I knew very quickly that I didn’t want to teach.  What was important to me at a young age was financial stability and so I spent the rest of my life trying to achieve that. There were lots of twists and turns but ultimately, I spent my whole life believing that happiness and contentment lay in things outside of me, and now I realize I was wrong.  Not everybody is afforded the knowledge that it’s not the external circumstances but rather the internal…because maybe they don’t achieve as many of their material goals, and I was very lucky to acquire mine, only to find out it doesn’t work. Some people still think it’s that car they’re saving for that will bring you happiness… I know it’s not that. 

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    I know it’s cliché, but it’s not giving a fuck about the good opinion of others. Hands down… the best.  Fuck you all!

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Your body breaking down. Not being able to physically do the things that you used to be able to do.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Let me flesh it out this way. I wish when I was young, I had had a better sense for how good I really looked.  I spent a lot of time in my youth wrecking vacations, get-togethers, events, thinking about my weight. I resent that time now. The focus growing up in my house and with friends was often about, ‘Are you fat or are you skinny.’  And the thing is, when I look back at my life, I was never fat, but it’s all relative.  Your appearance was more important than any kind of achievement.  I still have high school friends who’ll ask, ‘is she fat or skinny’. I was like 125 poinds and I would be obsessed with my weight.   Recently when I had to weigh in for chemo, the nurse said, ‘that’s great you haven’t lost any weight,’ and my natural thought is well fuck, and I’ve been exercising my ass off.  I guess I’m answering the question in reverse, but I’d like to go back and tell my younger self that no matter what you weigh or how you look, you’re still beautiful. They say youth is wasted on the young.

    But what do I wish I could retain, to answer your original question, my memory… I wish I didn’t have to write everything down to remember it.  But I guess the flip side of that is I can be humbled now because fuck…I can’t remember anything. Some days even with the ball in my hand, I can’t remember who’s serving.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Oh my god… again it’s going to sound so cliché but, happiness is an inside job. It has nothing to do with your external circumstances. I’ll give you an example, someone came to my house and looked out at my view and said, ‘oh my god you must be the happiest person in the world to be able to look at this every day,’ and I looked at them and went, ‘are you out of your fucking mind?’ because ‘wherever you go, there you are.’  I don’t strive for happiness…happiness is relative and the word is overused.  I strive for peace and contentment, and I recognize that it’s a moment-to-moment thing, and the minute I move past where I’m at, to the future or to the past, I lose the present, and that does me no service, nor is it of service to the people around me.

    The other interesting thing that I’ve learned, and I’m going to try and not come off all Christian when I say this, but so many things in my life I have orchestrated, worked hard towards, and wanted so badly, that achieving the result was all I cared about, with the belief that if I achieved that result I would be happy. Things would be good…I’ll finally have what I wanted.  But the things that have brought me the most joy in my life, were unexpected things that I did not orchestrate.  So, I’m gonna say it two different ways… now, I don’t try to determine how the day will unfold… I let the Holy Spirit do it, or to be more universal, I let the universe decide because to quote the Desiderata, “No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    “The great way (life) is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” (Seng-ts’an, the 3rd Chinese patriarch of Zen)

    Or Michael Singer, who I love, his take on it is “Life is not difficult for those who prefer everything.”

    Let things come and let them pass through. It’s resistance, our free will to resist, to hold onto all that stuff, that’s what affects us and causes pain.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    Oh, you know I have a favourite word, ‘Fuck.’  It’s so versatile, it is the most versatile word on the planet, and I like it even more that it’s harsh and it’s disapproved of. 

    Describe your perfect day.

    You know I thought about this, I thought about this long and hard, and I don’t have one, and I’ll tell you why. My mother said something to me years ago and I never really understood, but I do now. She said, ‘I am only as happy as my unhappiest child’ and I thought about that and thought, oh my god, she’s right, and no matter how I try to separate myself from the lives of my children in a ‘they’re on their own journey…it’s not my journey…they need to experience whatever they experience and the universe is there to teach them,’ it’s a lifelong lesson for me.  But if you want to know what I love doing everyday- it’s playing a racquet sport and knitting.  I think for me it’s like working a Rubix cube or something…it’s a puzzle. When I’m playing tennis, every game is fresh and different and challenging. When I’m knitting, I can’t knit the same thing over and over again because I’d be bored out of my mind. I like a challenge, and I like to keep my hands busy. Also, I guess I better say this in case my kids read this, I love spending time with my grandchildren…preferably without their parents around.

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    That would be Anthony De Mello.  I discovered him in 1992, after he died, in 1987. He wrote a book called Awareness. I had been reading Wayne Dyer, but De Mello took me up to a whole different level.  He was a Jesuit priest who woke up one day and thought, the Catholics don’t have all the answers so he incorporated Hinduism and Buddhism and every other ‘ism’ that you could possibly imagine and was basically the first person who helped me understand that it’s all the same.  All religions, at their core, they’re all the same.  And I read his book a million times and gave it to as many people as I could find.  When my husband, George died, De Mello was instrumental in getting me through it all.  It helped me understand the cosmos on a different level.

    We would talk about how he got to where he is, his whole philosophy of life, death, and everything in between.  Now that he’s dead, I’d ask ‘How’s it going on the other side?’  The book, Awareness was released posthumously, it’s  just snippets from talks that he had, and it gave me a whole new lease on life, a whole new way to experience joy in ways I didn’t understand before and it started me on a journey of self-awareness.  I would love to know how he got there.  Here is an example of a story that he told.  He was a Jesuit and a professor, and he travelled extensively, and he was in a rickshaw somewhere and the guy pulling him had TB and had just pre-sold his soon to be corpse for science, for the sum of 10 dollars American. De Mello wrote that the driver was a happy man, and thought he himself, was miserable, always complaining, and so he asked the man why he was happy, and he said, ‘well, why wouldn’t I be, what’s not to be happy about?’ And for De Mello that was a beginning of understanding.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    My grandbabies, my sports, and my kids. 

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Guilty…I don’t feel guilty about stuff… ever,  so I can’t really think of one.  Maybe lame TV, I mean I’m watching Agatha Raison right now which is really poorly done but set in the Cotswolds… so I don’t care. I like lame tv and lamer murder mysteries and I mean really lame, like Midsomer Murders lame…because I can knit and not pay attention.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I certainly do, but not in the way we experience it.   Do I think that the avatar Margo goes on? No.  Do I think the consciousness that is watching Margo as she goes through life, the consciousness that neither lives nor dies, continues…yes I do. When I wake up from a dream sometimes, I really have a hard time trying to figure out whether it was a dream or reality.  Sometimes it feels like real life, starring the Margo avatar, the life that we think of as reality, is actually just another kind of dream.  I believe that when we die, we just wake up and go ‘God, that was a rush, what was that about?’

    I remember watching some three-year old’s get into a fight and I remember them being upset and thinking…that’s just kids.   Well, that’s how a higher consciousness is likely looking at us and thinking oh, that will be over soon, don’t worry about it.  I mean how can you possibly believe and take seriously anything happening on this planet when you know that there are billions of other galaxies and multi verses… and you’re gonna take this seriously, I mean, come on. I always thought if Merle Haggard’s mother died when he was 21 and in prison she would have died thinking she was a failure as a Mom.  Ultimately, he ended up a rich, country western singer. Why worry about kids…you don’t know what their journey is gonna be.

    What does life after death look like…It’s impossible to imagine. When I look up at the stars on a really clear night, I say I’m not even gonna try to figure it out. I have no frame of reference. The Buddhists have a saying, something like ‘when the Sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger, or something like that.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I don’t want a eulogy at all.  I’m not interested in the traditional experience of death. I am not arrogant enough to think that anything I say or do will matter anymore than it did when my great great great great great grandmother said whatever she said. I mean the framework that humans have established, the goalposts for life… buy a house… go to school… all that stuff is just a concept that we all agreed on.  It’s like money, money is only worth something because we’ve agreed that it does, and assigned it a value, but if money means nothing to me now, then you saying it has value is meaningless to me. 

    I never understood Jesus in the desert, when the devil comes to him and says you can have castles and all the money you want and Jesus goes, ‘yeah, no thanks, I’m good’.  I never understood that.  Now I get it.  Because no matter what you get…a big house…a fancy car…then you’ve gotta work your ass off to keep it and worry that its gonna go away. So instead of it being something to aspire to, it’s a thing that loses its joy.

    One of my favourite quotes from when I was in leadership is, “Of a great leader they will say, we did it ourselves.”  So, if I shaped anybody, or if I influenced anybody, it wasn’t because that was my intention.  If they got something out of anything I ever did, power to them, but that was not my intention.  I’m just doing my dance and if other people benefit by my dance, good for them, even if all they’re saying is ‘I hate that dance.”  I never ever wanted to be a leader, but I certainly was someone who wanted to control things, and those are two very different things. It’s funny, every now and then my kids will say, ‘you were a good mom,’ but ten years ago when they were teenagers, they were saying something else entirely…it’s all relative, and it’s all irrelevant.

  • Death, Dying and other Unmentionables

    With apologies to Edward Gorey (The Gashlycrumb Tinies: Edward Gorey’s Alphabet of Death)

    “Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes” – John Donne

    “Memento Mori” (Remember Death)

    I’m not saying I think about death a lot, but my best friend’s husband has nicknamed me ‘Terminal’ Sylvie.  Perhaps a dozen or so years working as a palliative care nurse has left me marginally more noir than what strict social mores decree, but working adjacent to the dying, holding space for their final insights and experience, and catching glimpses through the eyes of those close to death, is a life-altering awakening. It’s difficult to capture with mere words, but as a little old lady… in waiting, let’s just say I feel a certain readiness to share what I’ve learned from the front row seats, as close as anyone can get without taking to the stage themselves.

    Those near death understand a secret thing that we do not. Once you’ve been assigned an expiration date, you come to fully understand that there is nothing that we can truly own, nothing tangible or material that we can keep, there is no permanence, there is only the love we give away, the investment we make in others, and the ripple effect our actions have, for good or ill, is our only real legacy.  Between you and me, I’m hoping for a bit more time to invest my ‘goodwill’ stock and watch my portfolio grow, but I know that nothing is promised.  I try to stay awake to the end game and challenge myself never to overlook an opportunity for kindness.  My record is sketchy at best, I’m a work in progress, of course, but I caution you now, that treating death as a taboo topic and putting our heads in the sand is ill advised, at best.  A good death takes a little planning, and that starts with one irrefutable truth – that no matter how healthy or fit, rich, or connected (spiritually or otherwise), clever or credentialled you may be…no one is getting out of here alive.

    Let’s start with the easy stuff – a quick review of the logistics.  A few years ago, I attended a national palliative conference in Ottawa. There were a lot of very interesting and learned speakers there, but the lecture that got my complete attention was a presentation entitled ‘Getting ready to go.’  The lecturer provided some significant demographic data that suggested that the death trajectory as we currently know it, complete with nursing home beds, hospice care and access to in-hospital palliative care, may not be available to us.  That is to say, we don’t currently have the capacity to accommodate the glut of Boomers that will die in a very concentrated time period.  There is no more room at the ‘End of Days’ inn.  The lecturer advised looking for community resources as we will almost certainly be dying at home. So have a look around you…know any docs or nurses, maybe have your kids practice injecting an orange or two … just thinking out loud here.

    The lecture also included a detailed inventory of ‘good death’ questions for review.  Do your kids know your passwords? Have you got a will, a DNR, a POA (medical vs financial)? What are your thoughts on MAID?  Does you religion dictate that you suffer before death?  Do you understand that if you lose cognitive capacity, MAID is no longer an option for you? Perhaps better to consider your position sooner rather than later and more important still, to communicate your ‘last orders’ to your substitute decision maker.  You have a substitute decision maker… right? Isn’t it a kinder thing to consider your options now before your children or SDMs have to bear that burden?  As a palliative care nurse, I’m reasonably confident that I can keep you comfortable as you lay dying, but my ability to comfort or mediate the pain and sadness of your friends and families sat beside you, holding vigil through the long days or possibly weeks as you lay dying… I know no medicine strong enough for that.

    It’s important to have a think about what constitutes a meaningful life and what factors detract too much from that ideal to be tolerable for you, individually.  It’s a very personal decision.  If you’re asking me, I’m thinking I could possibly tolerate a little incontinence, I’m already acclimating to the indignities of cognitive decline (the forgotten pickleball scores, the word-finding, and could any of us LOLW get home if we didn’t have our key fobs to find our cars…just today I watched a friend open the door to an SUV that wasn’t hers…pretty funny actually, and tolerable I suppose. I’m going to go on record here and say I could, in theory at least, endure a modicum of pain (reserving the option to change my mind at any time on the pain piece…huge fan of pain management…give me the drugs – all of the drugs). However, if I was confined to hospital with no chance of returning home, or if I developed a dementia that meant I no longer recognized the people I love, then maybe a nice little hospital acquired pneumonia isn’t such a poor prognosis. Maybe comfort measures only at a certain point is the most humane treatment option.

    Talk to your kids or your appointed decision makers about what you want and, more importantly, what you don’t want.  I promise you that if I brought you to work tomorrow, even for an hour or two, you would be on the phone with your loved ones by the end of day. Think about who it is you want standing around your deathbed. Invite them to dinner, open a bottle of wine… maybe three. If possible, wait for the dessert course before you dive in to the deep end…ask about their day, tell them how much they mean to you, and as you cut into the pie, begin the difficult but essential conversation about what a ‘good death’ would look like to you. A mildly uncomfortable dessert course now, will spare your loved ones from having to make unthinkable decisions on your behalf at a time when all they’ll want to do is hold your hand, share a laugh about pie night, and find the strength to say goodbye.

    Now, to the really important bit.  It’s been my experience that those who make a happy end…those who die well, are those who live well, investing themselves in the people around them, and in whom others depend.  The best death scenes I’ve witnessed are alive with love and rife with family folklore, where stories are shared of times well spent, and laughter erupts, and perhaps some tears as loved ones share their memories from over the years.  ‘The day I met your dad…the day you were born…remember that big snowstorm…the camping trip from hell…’ or any number of Christmas poemics.  I remember a famous local watercolourist whose family met in his hospital room every day at 5…Happy hour they called it.  The wine was poured liberally, a hand-picked playlist in the background, the dulcet tones of Vera Lynn, ‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places…‘, the dying man, the guest of honour, enveloped by his chosen few, every afternoon the same bespoke soundtrack, storytelling and laughter, until the music stopped.

    All we accumulate in this life, the acquisitions… the accolades…. they mean nothing in the end.  It’s more about kindness brewed on darkest nights, and passions discovered and developed in ourselves and encouraged in those around us.  What is most important in the end, are the broken hearts we helped to mend, our fortitude, our dedication, and our prowess as a friend, and all the little beauties we cultivate in whatever sort of garden we decide to tend.  What matters most I think, as you take your last breath, is the love you gave away and the joy you helped create, in the time you were here.  It’s our only job really … to love and be kind, if we can, and I have found that those who die well, with peace and with grace, find the time to be kind despite the many burdens they face… some even in their last hours and days. I will never forget a gentleman who rang his call bell at change of shift, with no ask or agenda, only to serenade his night nurse with the most beautiful rendering of ‘Fly me to the moon’ that I will ever know. I can still hear his voice a decade later, and I pray I’ll find it in myself to sing a little song in my last hours, to know such grace.

    For me death is only a door to an unseen place, a speed bump between this world and what comes next, ‘it is the last unprinted snow‘ (Stoker). I think of it as a final adventure, a quest, a magical mystery tour. I know for many it may seem scary… the travel restrictions are untenable, you travel alone, no company, no carry on.  I think the only thing we get to take are the string of moments when we are fully awake… the Fly me to the Moon occasions of human connection, a cache of all the unspeakable beauty we are capable of conjuring … a steadfast heart, a gentle word, an earnest ear, the softest kiss.  All the love we give away is the only investment we need ever make, and the only prayer we need ever pray.  But if, like me, you’re looking to hedge your bets, to grow a little more in the time you have left, there are three little questions I like to ask now and again: am I honouring my gifts, have I learned to love true, and is the world a slightly better place, even a smidgeon, because there was you? If you can answer these questions with any degree of satisfaction, I can almost promise you a beautiful death, where a parting glass will be raised in your name and those who loved you best will stand together in the “coke machine glow” that was you and mourn the loss of your incandescant light.  In the meantime, dig out your rolling pin…it’s time to make pie.

  • On Mothers, Mothering, and the Mother Choice

    “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone

    “You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars” – E.E. Cummings

    Author’s Note:

    The decision to become a mother and the experience of being a mother is highly individual and personal.  My thoughts on the matter are based solely on my own experience of being mothered, becoming a mother myself, and a recent discussion with my adult children about the pros and cons of choosing to become a mother (parent).  The following essay is an opinion piece, not intended to critique or explore anyone’s choice or experience but my own.  It is part love letter, and part cautionary tale, as written by a little old lady…in waiting, the mother of two twenty somethings who recently asked, incredulously, “If you got to do it all over again, would you still choose to become a mother?”

    This post is dedicated to everyone who has ever asked themselves if motherhood was for them and, however they answer, a celebration of the right to choose and define that role on their own terms.  There are many ways to mother, and we need not be corseted by traditional paradigms.  As every mother knows, there is a bottomless well of love inside to bestow on all those whom we choose to call our own.

    A few months back I was walking into a glass fronted store when I caught my reflection in the entrance.  It was my mother’s face that stared back at me, and not my own.  It shocked me at first, and then a feeling of such unexpected happiness and peace came over me, as though she was there with me for a moment, and covertly always close by, watching over me, even when she “walks invisible”. My mother passed away suddenly almost ten years ago now, a massive hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 82.  She was old, I guess, but I didn’t know it.  She had survived breast cancer and open-heart surgery and she was very much alive and present in my life, my companion most days, and my first and closest friend always. There are days when I miss her so badly, I surrender to the emotion, I crumple, and after a time I rise and try to remember everything she taught me about life, including how to be a mom.

    My mother, like so many women of her generation, stayed at home with us when we were growing up, and her constant companionship and attention informed our understanding of our worth.  Surely, we must be important if we could command so much of her time.  In those early years our family did not have much in the way of material wealth, but I was blissfully unaware. I felt like a princess because that’s what I saw in my mother’s eyes when she looked at me.   She didn’t work outside our home, so our humble abode was spotless. There was always a home cooked meal for dinner, and most days a cookie as big as your head when I got home from school.  And so beget a lifelong addiction to sweets … but that’s another post.  It’s always the mother’s fault.

    My mother took her work seriously.  She saw her role as the keeper of the home and the keeper of our hearts.  She never cared if we earned good grades, or made AAA sports teams, but she was hard core when it came to the inner workings of our moral compass.  She was always our True North and is largely responsible for what I have come to refer to as a strong Catholic sense of guilt.  We were just as rotten as other kids, of course, but Mom made sure we learned how to feel bad about it afterwards.  She was a master class in empathy and a maker of men who will, 9 times out of 10…perhaps with a little prompting, attempt to do the right thing…if convenient, especially with the promise of a sugary treat for good behavior. And I guess if we’re talking world peace and the survival of the planet and, you know,…the human race, there can surely be no more important work, no higher goal than making sure the next generation feels a bit bad about not being good.

    My own daughter, aged 24, has a slightly different take on the whole mothering concept.   She recently returned home from her first peer group baby shower with a serious case of “ick”.   Although she was happy for her friend, near bursting with an almost fully baked baby, she was a little disgusted by the idea of body sharing with what she currently considers a kind of parasite, and as a qualified nurse she is more than a little horrified by the idea of the coming out party.  It doesn’t take Psych 101 to understand in my small, Catholic guilted heart, that as her mother, I must be to blame.  Did I overshare when I recounted her own birth story, that in the absence of an epidural, if I could have gotten off the birthing gurney and thrown myself out the window, I would have.  Too much?  I mean it was still one of the best days of my life…right?  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that pregnancy, labour and delivery are the easy parts. 

    The truth is that I felt very much the same about becoming a mom when I was in my 20’s. I’m still not sure what happened to make me change my mind: falling in love, the biological imperative, socialization, FOMO.  I don’t know how it happened… well, I mean, I know how it happened …I’m just not sure exactly when or how the idea first came for me. I only know that when it came it was a complete knowing, not some indifferent or half-hearted decision.

    “Would I do it again,” they asked me, would I choose to become a mother knowing all that I know now about the sacrifices, the highs and lows, the weight of the responsibility and the constancy of the relationship?  Of course, I told them what every mother must, that knowing and loving them as I do, I could never choose differently.  But a little later that same evening I gave their question a more rigorous and honest consideration.  I thought about what I had willingly given up or done without to accommodate the mother role.

    I spent 12 years at home with my kids in their formative years.  I had never mentally prepared myself for that kind of mothering, I had my mom set up to be the 9 to 5 Nanny, but after her heart attack, it became clear that I had just landed a full-time position well above my aptitude test.  Let’s just say I wasn’t a natural. I had never really learned to play, I had the patience of a gnat, I hated crafting, and organized sport remains a mystery to me to this day.  I had only the vaguest understanding of toddler milestones.  Looking back on those challenging years I will admit it wasn’t all idyllic or Instagramable.  Being a mother is, without a doubt, the hardest job I’ve ever had.  It’s a learn-as-you- go deal with no gentle onboarding.  The hours are unacceptable, the pay is shite, and the performance reviews can be eviscerating.

    The pragmatics of mothering, the meal prep and lunch bags, the homework, the chauffeuring and learning to tolerate the child centred activities: the birthday parties, the bowling alleys, the soccer fields and hockey arenas… all of that can be managed.  For me, by far the hardest part of being a mother is that you’re “only ever as happy as your unhappiest child.”  The scraped knees and fevers, the broken hearts, the car accidents, and the plethora of little wounds that befall our children are far more agonizing than anything we could experience ourselves. The mother bond is like a Chinese finger trap and cuts deep when tested.

    Despite all the hard graft of mothering, the blessings…the gifts far outweigh the grievances.  I am not the person I was before I became a mother.  My children changed me.  Mother love is the fiercest, most intense, highest frequency, unconditional love that we can experience.  No one… no one will ever love you like your mother does.  Motherhood is a transformative experience.  It taught me humility and patience, it showed me how little we can control and how much we have to be grateful for every day we get to spend together.  Even as adults my kids continue to help me grow with their contemporary take on what constitutes a life well lived and their insights on how we should best spend our time. To be clear, I am in no way suggesting that cohabitating with twenty somethings is easy.  It is not.  But the Zoomer zeitgeist does keep things interesting.

    In short, being a mother, in my experience, is both the best of times and the worst of times.  Would I choose to become a mother again, with the perspective of time, and the convenient memory of a woman well past the heavy-lifting years of mothering – an emphatic, “yes.” Adding up all the mom hours I have logged over a lifetime, do I sometimes wonder what I might have accomplished had I spent that time in pursuit of projects more in keeping with my natural inclinations  – again “Yes.”  Do I crave a more serene environment with less shoes at the door, fewer dishes in the sink, with more time to read and walk and wonder, without consideration of anyone’s needs but my own?   “Perhaps.” Do I sometimes fantasize about an alternate life where I am a lady of leisure and letters, in Rembrandt-lit rooms filled with books, reclining in a Chaise-lounge overlooking the sea… CBC radio my only company?  Of course, I have…Moms are human beings too you know.  Did I live up to the bar my own mother set?  Did I do my job well?  Am I the True North that will help guide my children in making decisions that align with their values and beliefs when it is my time to “walk invisible?”   I hope so. All I know for sure is that I would rather be a merely adequate or average mother to my two darling descendants than an excellent anything else.

    If you’re still searching for the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, take some advice from a little old lady in waiting – make dinner, wash the dishes, clean the house, do the laundry, and if you still live at home, maybe take yourself out for the day.  Give your Mom some time to herself, time to remember the woman she was before you owned her entire heart, in the days before your chapters of her story, when she belonged only to herself.