201115 Who am I? asks Mumma Yaga

    

Nov. 14

I took Fig down the street for a little walk after supper, and the corner neighbours have put their christmas lights up, the same arrangement they had last year - my favorite: strands of many-coloured lights, wrapped round the branches of their several trees. Last December Robin loved going to see them, to stand under them and look up. People have been taking advantage of the warm weather to get their decorations up while it's nice. I suspect there is also an increased sense of community, following close of the heels of Halloween, that is inspiring them. Covid-19 has made us more aware of our connection as a neighbourhood.

I walked up the driveway past the Forester that will carry K and I to our new life (for a few months). I imagine that the car's eyes are closed: an absurd expensive symbol of that uncertain future, it is sleeping until December 8th; when we will climb in it for almost the first time, to drive the 700 kilometers to Mansonville in winter, hence the all-wheel drive. I remember another winter drive, December, 1983, when we came from Edmonton to Toronto to make our home here. I had never taken that trip in winter before. We crossed the dry frozen prairies, barely snow-blown, dusted, and the deep forest north of Superior, so deep in snow. We stopped at Agawa Bay and breached the drifts to go and see the Lake. I remember, too, the culture shock of Highway 400; it was dark, just before supper time as we traveled down the six lanes of cars and snow and onto the 401 West (even more lanes) at rush hour. We went to my mother and father's house and the first memory that always comes to me of that trip is going back out into the dark with K to pick up Chinese food for dinner.

I continue in a crisis of identity, plunged deeper by the plan to return to Quebec. Three years ago I quit working to become a full-time caregiver to my grandchildren, and in September I retired from that to being solely a grandmother. I discovered in the spring that I love this house and its trees and the street we live on. The house seemed to come awake to me: there is a long-established place for all the standard needs and go-tos. I saw that I did love the pictures and the treasures on shelves: I stop each day now to really look at some of them. I suddenly saw that it is, after 30 years, our home. K, who has worked long days away at an office for all of our marriage, has, since March, been at home all day, Tamar is at home 24 hours a day too, and Robin and Indre; Nick has become a household member again. In April I began this blog, which I love writing, I returned to my mosaics and my music; and K and I went on an adventure together, our holiday in Quebec. 

Now we are "defying gravity", jumping off into space.* I am struggling, or perhaps falling; I can't find anything to hold on to, except K. I barely know myself.

*****

Where is Walden Pond? My friend, a writer, mentioned the book recently and I think it's time I read it. Thanks to the World Wide Web, (why do we still use that moniker - WWW dot website? It takes so long to say WWW.) I can immediately learn that Walden Pond is in Massachusetts, on Route 126, about 360 kilometers due south of Mansonville. K and I are fact hounds and before google we had dictionaries, encyclopedia and atlas, quotes, history and literature reference books. They are now mostly gone or (I hope) stored away. 

*****

It is bedtime and Indre is being the dinosaur train! I had forgotten about it. I used to be the dinosaur train (from the children's show of that name) at bedtime and take Robin piggyback from "front room station" past "kitchen station", a brief stop at "bathroom station" and then finally to the "green room station" to bed. -"Thank you for riding the dinosaur train, please make sure you take all your belongings with you." Indre is doing the whole thing for Robin. The way their relationship awes me, you would think I had not had four brothers, one three years younger than me just like Robin and Indre. These two little people, whom I hope will be family for each other for many years, love each other, they are learning how to love each other. They think about their sibling, are aware of the other's feelings. spend hours sometimes playing a game of wild imagining or tame, time-travel or playing house with their dolls and child-sized kitchen. Since the pandemic restrictions, they have only become better at playing together and relating.

Thank you for visiting. Keep on keeping safe.

Mumma Yaga

* Defying Gravity, from Wicked, 2003