Allow Me To Lie To You

Husband is going on Imposed Restriction to Winnipeg. Those five bland, bureaucratic syllables will mean absolutely nothing to many of you so let me put it in terms you will understand. He is moving to a big, scary city filled with raccoons and bicycle thieves and dogs with horrible eyebrows, and he his going without me. I am remaining here until the house sells. Or something falls out of the sky, obliterating said house and thereby freeing me, like a pasty northern genie from a newly renovated, reasonably priced, 4 bedroom suburban bottle in a good location, close to schools and shopping.

We are fine (we are not fine) with this. It will be fine (it's not fine). 

But we will be fine (we will be fine).  

Let's define the word fine, as I am employing it here. Fine is not good. It is not peachy. Fine is not even okay or acceptable. Fine is what you become when you consider all of the alternatives and decide, despite distance and turmoil and having to live so far away from your very best friend that your heart aches just typing the words, fine is just how it has to be. Fine is a state of mind. It's a verbal shrug while you're trying to smile and hoping no one hugs you at the wrong moment and breaks your dam, because excessive and unexpected public mucus is certainly not fine. 

How do I know this? Because we always are. Twelve years of supporting each other through floods, loss, sickness, house sales, moves, endless home renovations, mysterious nocturnal flatulence, and Meeker have taught us that we will, always, be fine. 

Even when things are not fine (things are not fine). 

I Can't See The Difference. Can You See The Difference?

I don't think I will ever understand Humanity. The greatest philosophers throughout history have struggled to define what we are, asking not "why are we here" but "who is really doing the asking?" 

They have wrung from the paltry flesh of our race a score of definitions that encompass soul and ego.  Such feeble attempts that the best and brightest of us could muster describe a race yearning to be more than the sum of it's parts; a tribe of naked children who stand in the muddy ruin of their crumbling world and still strive for grace.

None of those learned minds, not one of them, considered that we might simply be apes. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

http://www.edgeboston.com/news/news/179952/japanese_women_flip_out_over_'handsome'_gorilla

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Reward Offered

Just the thought of you

Alone

In the darkness

Lost

Makes me fierce

Makes me brave

Drives me to feats of heroine-ism

For you I would battle dragons 

I would walk through fire

I would speak in public

If it meant saving you

Finding you

My precious

My only 

Missing coffee mug

Assimilation Complete

There is a certain skill set that goes along with being a military family member. As discussed, one must master the subtle art of resilience while at the same time balancing on the knife edge between stability and total blithering panic. One must learn every climate zone, and which ones will definitely kill lilacs. One must acquire a taste for the regional cuisine, be it beef or bento box. One must, of course, blend in the with the locals while attempting to add one's distinctiveness to their own. 

"You will wear a cowboy hat and we will learn how to tie a fashionable scarf."

It is also vital that you love your country. I am not talking about the sort of love that builds a bunker, stocks it with Pepsi and Twinkies, and points all the guns at the door...

"It's my God-given right to arm myself and my children, my chihuahua and the wife's parakeet."

..that's not patriotism, that's paranoia. And, let's face it, under planning. Everyone knows when the revolution comes it won't be because your god was better than their god. It will be because the last fresh water lake in North America was sold to a guy in Holland, for apparently highly valuable and yet still completely undrinkable gold and diamonds. He will sell it back to you by the drop for your last Twinkie and your daughter's untainted kidneys.

I remember having a point at one point...right. Love of country.

Loving my country isn't something I think about everyday, because I am not a crazy person. Shut up. It's just something I do naturally, when I am confronted by my fellow Canadians who haven't quite figured it out yet. It's a strange experience, having to explain what patriotism is to someone with the same blue passport. As gently as I try to describe Canada to a "countryman", it always seems to shock the person, who is busy making snide comments about the concrete in Winnipeg, the snow in Alberta, the heat in Ontario, the rain in BC, the Toronto in Toronto. Their point is usually something like "Here is infinitely better than There. Hnur hnur hnur." 

Mine is consistently "Here IS There. Love it or get out."

You have to love your country with the kind of love you hold for your partner or your family. You have to love all of it. Every dusty, windswept, drought-ridden, hail-riddled, flooded, fiery, quaking, rocky, salty corner of it. Passionately and with forgiveness for the parts you  might wish were different, yet you defend all the same because the imperfections are what make your country beautiful. 

Proud to be a Real Canadian

Blending In With Albertans

Facing Disaster

I come from a province where the worst natural disaster in it's recent history was a snow storm that prompted the mayor of Toronto to call in the army to help with the heavy lifting. I am not attempting to be snide, Ontario snow is really quite heavy and even occasionally deep and abundant. Why, I can recall tens of days when I was forced to shovel for upwards of twenty to twenty-five minutes at a go. Imagine the savagery. I even got a blister once.

Albertans, however, seem to be made of sterner stuff.  Tornado? Just tighten the ball cap and keep fishing. Hail? If it ain't biggern yer mama's Shih Tzu then quit yer whinin', Nancy. Floods may change the landscape, uproot your house and destroy your livelihood but, by damn, the Stampede will go on. Temperatures that dip below -40, then soar to 40-plus inside of four months aren't even to be remarked upon. Do not even get me started on the general apathy held for drought. It is dry here. Move on.

But then there's wildfire. Ah, I thought, here is something that Nature can deliver which will finally tighten the Albertan sphincter. With the ignition of the current and devastating wildfires on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, not 40 km to the north west of our fair town, I expected at least to hear some comparisons to wildfires of days gone by or how things used to burn hotter in the good old days. Indeed, everyone is very serious at the moment and there is a general sense that things could actually, just maybe, possibly get very bad. 

Last night I spent two hours taking pictures of everything I own, including the camera I was using to take the pictures, and packing a go-bag with clothes, pet food, important documents and my copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide. When I finally opened the front door and stepped out, I expected to see a flurry of similar activity up and down my street.

And yet...

The kids are still at school and the lawns are still mowed and there is a big fish fry planned for the weekend after the rodeo. People are still going about their business as usual, and only occasionally glancing at the western horizon where a towering white cloud has been building for days. They are still making summer plans and having coffee dates and backyard barbecues.  

Albertans are not fools. They seem to know that it isn't time to worry yet.  They understand the danger of wildfire and it's disastrous effects but with their usual reserve they are also living their lives, not unconcerned but not frantic either, in this dusty province caught between prairie and paradise, because that is not just what Albertans do, it is who they are. 

Mirror, Mirror

I turned forty back in March. It was fantastic! ...I think. I was heavily medicated at the time. Although not because I was turning forty. And why is that number so significant, anyway? Just what is the very big deal? I feel no different today than I did the day I turned fifteen or twenty. To prove it I stood in front of the mirror, on the morning of the day I turned forty, naked and armed with clarity of vision and a vat of industrial grade moisturizer. In my grandmother's words, you can never be too moist.

Hmmm.

Is that really my ass? Ooo, collar bones and shoulders are very nice, this season. Those freckles are going to be classified as adorable and not skin cancer so let's move on. Breasts, two of, (honk honk) seem okay. Sublime actually, but focus dear, focus. Tummy... umm. Well, we can work on that. Wait, when did I get my mother's hands? Have my feet always been this weird? Seriously, what the hell is with my ass?

It was a long 20 minutes. Lot's of twisting and chasing my tail and ridiculous faces. I discovered some changes I didn't know had happened, some things I like, some things I will accept, others I will try very hard to change as healthily as possible, for the sake of the Me who will be 60 some day. On the whole, I like what I saw. The lines around the eyes are new, but when I smile my best smile at the me in the mirror I can see right away that I have laughed them there. 

I still don't understand why the age of forty holds such significance for some. I have been razzed and chided and generally poked for turning another year older, as humans are wont to do, but in terms of why that number seems so important, I am afraid I am still mystified. And just as likely today to buy gum whenever I find money, as I was when I was eight.

Under the category of things to change for the sake of Future Me, I know what needs to be done, I just have to make sure I do in a healthy and lasting way. The goal I have set is a realistic one: make sure I can keep up with Husband. Now that is motivating.

 And I've also made a promise to add a few more laugh lines, for good measure. 

Friday's Coffee is Full of Grace

Have you ever been so mesmerized by the sweet folds of cream as it swirls through your morning coffee; become so lost in their silken dance that as you stare into their depths you forget time until only those drifting ribbons hold any place in reality and you ache to decipher the patterns of their motion, straining against the sensation that a deep mystery is about to be revealed, such that you become so entranced you forget to drink?

Me neither.