Little Old Lady … in Waiting

Tag: Memory Keeper

  • In Conversation with Dr. Cheryl Fury

    I met Cheryl Fury on the page before I met her in person. A published academic and popular history professor at UNB, I was first introduced to her irrepressible humor in a series of side-splitting social essays for The Reader, the weekend magazine of the Telegraph Journal.   Her writing was belly-laugh hilarious, whether chronicling the Pokeman world of a boy mom, or narrating a ferociously funny tale of a well-deserved weekend away with her girlfriends, her essays invited you in for a close up look at the busy, messy, unruly life of a thinking woman in her prime.  Her pieces were fresh, honest and recognizable, her voice unique, her writing capturing the unsung work and experience of a modern, educated woman in the heavy-lifting years of motherhood. Her stories were my story, and the story of a cohort of women raising children, managing careers, and working to preserve a life of the mind.  Her essays told the well-kept truth about what Irish actress, Jesse Buckley, recently called the “beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.” She made me laugh out loud about the sticky-fingered, crayon coloured life we lead for a time, and I will always be grateful to her for that.

    Fast forward 20 years, Cheryl is an ageless, fit, and still very funny little old lady in waiting who runs 10 k a day, a sports enthusiast who played soccer until age 50.  Modelling a spiky, blond pixie cut and a triple-helix ear stack, her t-shirt reads, I incite this meeting to Rebellion.  She had me at hello. A tenured professor of history, and a Fellow at the Gregg Centre for War and Society, and the Royal Historical Society (UK), Cheryl grew up in Fredericton and earned her PhD at McMaster University.   She teaches courses in European and British history including early modern women and queenship, as well as modern Europe, with a special interest in the Holocaust and Fascism. Specializing in the social history of English sailors in the 16th and 17th centuries, she has published several books on seafarers, the men of the early English East India Company, and her current project examines the relationship between diet, disease and disorder on the high seas in the early 17th century. “Me and my sailors have a long, long romance,” she smiles.

    Cheryl is also a Holocaust educator who has worked as an editor on a number of research projects and a memoir with survivor Vera Schiff, who passed away a few years ago. Cheryl took part in a March of the Living Tour in Germany and Poland in 2010.  I asked her which of the concentration camps was the most horrific.  She told me that Majdanek in Poland was by far the worst. “There is a big concrete mausoleum at the back of the property that looks like a space ship…it holds seven tonnes of human ash.”  Cheryl also recalls an unsettling visit to the Wannsee Conference House where in 1942 the Final Solution of the Jewish question was first announced to the Nazi elite.  She describes a beautiful space right on the river, with people out in paddle boats waving on a sunny July day.  “It was so surreal…I had to leave…we had the lunch menus of what the Nazis dined on after the announcement.”

    I asked the history professor if she could encapsulate the lesson to be learned in the Holocaust, or a wisdom teaching that survivor, Vera Schiff, would want her to share with the world.  “Vera always quoted Edmund Burke,” she tells me. “The only thing that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

    Professor Fury’s top tags in online student assessments include, “hilarious”, “amazing lectures”, “tough grader”, and “get ready to read,” with 100 percent of respondents stating they would take her course again.  Cheryl smiles recalling one student who wrote “overrated.” She laughs and suggests that maybe that’s true too.  On her role as an academic, Cheryl has a lot to say about the blight of AI on campus.  “Chat GPT has some amazing uses but it’s not a good tool to find academic sources. It both astonishes at times and then makes stuff up – like a smart but bad, possibly drunk boyfriend.”

    “My role, I hope, is to cultivate independent thinking, writing and researching skills and now, more and more, the ability to identify what is real and not real in the age of AI. Learning how to check facts and cross reference is critical.  In the current moment, the world is so unbelievable that it makes it doubly hard to separate fact from misinformation, so the ability to check credible sources and have an interior base of knowledge is essential.”

    With no plans of retirement, Cheryl jokes that there are days when she and a fellow academic flirt with the idea of managing a convenience store or some little book nook where they can be their own bosses.  At least, I hope she is joking.  It makes me sleep better at night knowing that there is a strong, clear, and tolerant voice on campus competing with Chat GPT for the minds, hearts and souls of the next generation, entrusted to remember our history lessons.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born and raised in Freddy Beach. Played some soccer and some music. Had some schooling and some laughs.  Really like dead people.  Got married and became a boy mom.  Much professing.  Still love all those things.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Knowing who you are. You’ve figured it out. You’ve got your life partner…you’ve had your kids. You’re kind of watching them find themselves and you’re just so much more in tune with yourself… you know what makes you tick.  I know who I am in a way I was still trying to figure out when I was twenty.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    The lack of metabolism.  Watching various body parts expire their best before dates. Maybe in the 16th Century when we expired a little earlier…maybe that’s really what’s supposed to happen. Today whenever something starts to hurt, I don’t even hesitate, straight to physio…I’ve got coverage. I still run…I do it to run off the crazy.  I don’t even enjoy it at the time, I hate it…I run because it centers me.  I do it for how I feel afterwards.

    What would you title this chapter of your life?

    Embracing Your Inner and Outer Crone.

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

    I think that I’ve retained the things that I really value.  I have a lot of  childlike joys in my life like my love of Halloween, something that I’ve carried with me from childhood, only now I have more money for animatronics. I loved playing Pokeman Go with my kids and I still play it. I am a top shelf Pokeman Go player.  I love Disney…I love The Grinch. Now I can afford like an 8 ft tall Grinch for my front yard. So, there are a lot of things that I truly loved in my childhood that I’ve carried along with me.

    I would say that I’m definitely more jaded at this point in my life.  I’m not the cock-eyed optimist of my youth.  I’m no longer thinking ‘Why can’t we all get along’ or ’surely humanity is moving in a better direction… women are getting more rights, right?’ I mean humanity is kind of losing its mind right now…its collective knowledge of things, and it may have to go and re-experience those things.  Our parents and grandparents could have told you that fascism is a bad thing… that totalitarian regimes aren’t good for the humans, but we’re seeing this resurgence of the fascist-curious, and many countries are flirting with the far right… and then hopefully pulling themselves back at the last moment because they have that collective memory.  

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

    Kindness.  I think kindness is the most important thing in life. That’s what makes the world go round.  Not everyone needs a lecture on the Industrial Revolution from me, but you might need a kind word, on a given day in particular.  So, leading with kindness is important to me and I would hope that my kids would get that more than anything else…to be kind to people because they need it.  We’re all going through God knows what, especially now. 

    Also, that less is more.  I’m not trying to swing for the fences anymore.  When I teach students, I’m not trying to dazzle them with every fact and statistic and every bit of my knowledge. I want to give them a basic interest and the idea that it gets more intricate the farther up they go in terms of courses and years at university, but it’s usually the simple stuff, and the basic stuff and maybe something a little funny or quirky that gets their attention, or the occasional bit of profundity if you’ve picked it up along the way…you drop that into the conversation and give them something to chew on. I always advise young academics to keep it simple, keep it entertaining, tell people a story…hook them with a good story that reveals something about humanity, and if they’re intrigued they’ll come back for more.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    “Well behaved women seldom make history.” I think you have to be a shit-stirrer, whether you’re male or female, or gay or straight, most of the time our rights are not given to us on a silver platter. Along the way you may have to get in the streets.  The first time the government tried to turn the university into a polytechnic I took my boys with me into the streets.  I was fighting for their education and the education of all their friends.  It’s not necessarily a comfortable place for most of us… to pick up a placard and get out there, but sometimes that’s what you have to do if you want to advance the ball, especially these days when we now have to defend things that we’ve held dear for years.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    “Shit” That is my most frequently used word because shit can be a good thing, shit can be a bad thing, or it can be sort of a neutral thing like, “I don’t know shit,’ or ‘that’s some good shit,” and “that’s some baaaad shit.”  I mean really, it’s all shit…it’s truly one of the most versatile words.

    Describe your perfect day.

    I tend to think it would be some sort of turbo history nerd adventure. Some sort of haunted castle somewhere that I could explore, some backrooms that nobody else has seen.  Or it could just be a day outside with a bonfire and a bunch of guitars, friends and family and several bottles of prosecco. And I like my own company too, so sometimes a good day is when there is nobody in my house and I can have supper at 3 in the afternoon if it suits,  and if I want to stay up until 4 in the morning with the music going that’s fine too …I’m not disturbing anyone. 

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

    Well, I lost my mom quite a few years ago so it would be her. I want to catch up, so she would be my obvious first choice. Just a check in…I’m sure she does that anyway but it would be lovely to have a more productive two-way conversation.  But if it wasn’t her…I mean clearly, I’d like to have some conversations with Jesus but I’ll save that discussion for your afterlife question.  I would like to talk to certain historical figures to find out if we have things right.  I mean, I would really like to know for sure what caused the fall of Ann Boleyn. Those sorts of conversations would be pretty cool.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Knowing that my kids are becoming who they are, finding their vocation and jobs that have meaning for them. I also love my work. It’s so much fun to get into the archives and have a really good day there. Of course, there is a lot that is boring detective work as well but some days you find a great letter or something and it’s amazing.  I really love the old book smell too…it’s like a drug.  Just the idea of working in the same rooms as people like Karl Marx once did.  I also have a childlike fascination with Halloween.  The planning for Halloween 2026 is already underway.  You always need new gear, new animatronics, new costumes.  I love being scared…I love ghost stories. 

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    I don’t have a lot of guilt in my pleasures anymore.  In my 20’s I probably wouldn’t have admitted I liked some Abba songs but not now.  Things that might make people embarrassed like playing Pokeman Go or certain types of disposable pop music…you know what…if it’s a good song I’ll put it on my running mix and take it off when I get tired of it.  I’ll listen to it if it gives me pleasure. Micro pleasures are what help us survive.  My last sabbatical, my side quest was to source the perfect cup of coffee for me.  And, for me, its Jingle Java from Piccadilly coffee in Sussex. It’s seasonal, its only available around Christmas, so I literally get pounds of it and freeze it.  There is nothing about it that I identify as particularly ‘Jingly’…unless I’ve had six or seven of cups that is…and I flirt with other brands but Jingle Java is my preferred cup of coffee.  Its ruined me for pretty much everything else. 

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

    I absolutely believe in life after death. There has to be justice in the next life for some of the really bad actors. I mean I don’t think that hell will look like fire and brimstone and things like that, but I do think that there is some place of perdition if you’ve been just an absolute arsehole your entire life, that there is something nasty waiting for you in the afterlife.  I choose to believe that because if I think that people are going to escape all kinds of consequences in this life, that really bothers me a great deal.  You know conversely, I look at some people and, my god, they just can’t get a break in this life, and they’re the nicest most jubilant people and have all this joy and no reason to be joyful.  They are just a light to everyone around them.  They don’t have anything, and they would literally give you the shirt off their back.  There has to be a kind of payoff other than the good regard of those around them.  I tend to think there is something good waiting, and it might not look like various theologies tell us, maybe it looks a little bit different for everybody.  Like for me it will probably be going around interviewing all these historical figures and learning what really happened in the Russian Revolution, for example.   My heaven will be full of puppies and kitties and all kinds of critters.  I choose to believe, and if I’m wrong, I won’t know it.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    “That ass though.”  It’s not original, I stole it from Facebook, but I’m taking it.

  • Embracing the Crone

    “The crone must become pregnant with herself, at last she must bear herself, her third self, her old age, with travail and alone. Not many will help her with that birth.” (No Time to Spare – Ursula K. Le Guin)

    “When howling gale is rattling doors, or call of lonely wolf is heard, or cry of raven on the wing, or crack of frost upon the ground, tis she, tis she, tis she. (Calleach – Siobhan Mac Mahon)

    Less than a week before Christmas, when family matriarchs are customarily exiled to Santa’s sweatshops, wrapping gifts like Edward Scissorhands, and frosting shortbreads until our collective glycemic index reads “critical,” I decided to take a night off from the Christmas chain gang. I ventured out on a dark and stormy night, in the company of a close friend of comparable vintage, to attend a workshop that promised to introduce, depict, and interpret the power and majesty of the Crone, a feminine archetype, traditionally the last in a triad, after maiden and mother.  The Crone, often portrayed in our culture as a warty hag, complete with kerchief and shawl, is cast as the most powerful as well.   A sage, a witch, a guardian, a memory keeper, a storyteller…these are just a few of the crone synonyms we might try on for fit, as we move into this last, magical, and mysterious phase of feminine folklore.

    The workshop was led by a woman who called herself a ceremonialist, a Cailleach, or “veiled one” in Gaelic mythology, who helps people transition through significant life events.  Like so many formative moments in a woman’s life,  it began with a fairy tale and the promise of a little-old-lady felted doll of our own making by night’s end, so we charged our tenuous social batteries, did battle with our homebody hearts, discussed whose eyesight was least perilous for an after dark adventure, packed a journal and a sacred object, as directed (Jesus …will there be sharing), and set off on our quest to Encounter the Crone.

    Sat close to the sea in a small conference room, the wind outside serenaded us like a siren call, a slow whistling sea shanty, and the doors rattled loudly, heralding the night’s import, like the ghost of Christmas past. We were offered tea and invited to sit around a makeshift altar decorated with bones and stones and candlelight.  We added our own holy relics: jewelry passed down from our mothers, artwork, a pinecone, a bird, a doll, the shell of a sea urchin, a heritage Christmas angel, and a witch stone, known for its magical protective properties. We were 12 women together, artists and academics, nurses, and teachers, travelling in the dark, a winter’s walk to honour our experiences, mine for meaning, and navigate together a transformation to feminine elderhood, a privileged freehold of wisdom and authenticity, sovereignty and self-possession. The magic in the room was a palpable thing…not enough to levitate… first time out mind, but strong enough to elevate us all.  I’m certain it surprised no one in the room when the lights went out and we were forced to close our circle prematurely, but not before we built something true and lasting together.

    The fairy tale recited so beautifully by our host was the story of Vasilisa the Beautiful, a kind of hybrid Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel.  Our heroine, Vasilisa, is gifted a tiny doll with magical properties from her dying mother, that protects her throughout a perilous journey to safety.  Spoiler alert she lives a full life and eventually returns to her origin story, living out her days as an elder in the forest.   The tale is simple but rich in imagery and metaphor.  We were asked to share the images that lingered in our mind’s eye.  The death scene between mother and daughter and the gift of legacy, chicken legged furniture, the impossible task of finding poppy seeds in dirt, a metaphor for discernment, and a fire torch crafted from a skull, the instrument that leads to the story’s denoument, all had honourable mention.

    For me, the lasting power of the story was not an image but an incantation.  Vasilisa called upon the power of the doll reciting, “Little doll, little doll, drink your milk my dear, and I will pour all my troubles in your ear, in your ear.” The notion of a talisman for the storms of life, a mother’s magic, an enchantment to conjure a place of safety in our darkest hour, when we’re not sure our own strength will hold; to call on the inherited love of our ancestors and open a portal of protection, or peace abiding….definately worth the price of admission. Were we leaving the workshop later that night with such a prize in our possession, a felted doll infused with magic, a protective cloak spun from our collective sacred offerings? What sorcery was this?  I started thinking maybe I should leave the house more often, even as a tempest raged outside, and Christmas at ours, still only half conjured.

    Properly incentivized we turned our attention to working with archetypes.  We chose a role from the alter at the center of our circle. Interestingly no one chose the same archetype.  There were so many wonderful choices.  I passed on Hag, and Old One, Elder and Witch.  Hearth Keeper and Herb Wife didn’t quite fit either.  We had a Weaver and a Word Witch, I remember. My friend, selected Sage.  A new grandmother, she is interested in legacy building and passing down family tradition and wisdom.  I picked Storyteller.  I’ve always been addicted to story.  It’s my preferred way to learn.  For me it’s high art, allowing us to live a thousand lives in one, a talisman against loneliness, a cure for myopia and polarization.

    After sharing our selections and thoughts around the archetype alter, we moved, some of us more tentatively than others, to worktables set up for needle felting, a dangerous, dexterous art, that comes with small sharp stabbing needles and raw wool to be shaped and prodded into small objets d’art, a felted little old lady…in waiting.  I wish I could tell you there was no blood lost but I’m sure I wasn’t the only hag there to stifle a silent scream that night as the needle pieced my presumably pre-loved stabbing pillow, and caught the delicate skin beneath my fingernail.  Maybe the bloodletting is part of the spell, maybe human sacrifice is the elixir that makes the doll magical.  All I know is that I stabbed my doll a thousand times or more before she came to life in my hands and the stabbing was oddly therapeutic (“psycho -killer…qu’est-ce que c’est”). I plan to continue my felt making education and have already created a companion for my doll, but maybe I’ve shared too much. Still, friends are important…even felted friends.

    The power went out when I was attempting to style my doll’s hair.  Every woman will understand the import of such a moment.  Our felting mentors came to the rescue and held cell phone flashlights for us to finish this crucial phase in the work. Suffice to say, I was never so happy to own such unruly, unkept tresses. It was the work of a moment to complete the effect and even in the dark I recognized the crone I held in my hands as my own, a story keeper and maker, a sovereign in the final decades of her reign, confidant in her unique gifts, generous in her attention to those she held dear, and determined to live intentionally, according to her values and passions until her last moments in this realm. 

    I was afraid the storm raging outside would prevent our eclectic circle from sharing our thoughts on the dolls we created. Insatiably curious, I had an almost visceral need to know how the others would answer the last question on the agenda for the  night, “If your inner doll could speak to you tonight, what would she say?”  One doll spoke of cultivating more trickster energy, to seek opportunities to laugh and have fun, another counselled that there was always something new to learn and explore, others said to ask for help and not to imagine we can do it all ourselves, that it’s ok to be messy, to rest, to be steadfast, to practice unconditional self-love, to keep moving, to offer guidance, to stand in the wind, to practice childlike wonder, and to embrace and celebrate all the beauty within.

    I know the doll is just a small, symbolic, hand-built ornament, but it feels so much bigger than that to me. I know we make our own magic, but I also know that there was a wisdom teaching waiting for us in the dark that wintry night, an introduction to “crone-ology,” a threshold for letting go of all that no longer serves us and a turning point in the pages of our story.  You may cackle, but I have plans to build my doll a small house with a door that opens with ease, so whenever I need to hold her close and feel my mother’s magic near, I’ll find her waiting for me there, her spell unbroken, a warm cloak of protection against the storms of life.