The Doldrums

I'm on dry land, but if I were at sea, I'd be listening to the creaking of the boards.  I'm in the Doldrums and that can be boring, but it does make one think.  You learn a lot about yourself when you live alone, and I haven't  in 38 years, not that you don't discover a few things in marriage too.  After Jim died, I was stunned, too busy to pause and then moving, driving and visiting until the last couple of weeks.  Now, I'm comfortable and resting, but having to kick start my days by making an effort to discover what moves me when I don't have anyone else in the car or the bed or the house. It's a luxury to be so idle and it appears that this is going to be my winter of living frivolously.  I often think I'd rather be back with Jim and teaching, but as that won't happen, I'll indulge myself until I can settle into Vernon and see if I can find some way to work and contribute there.

I remember one of Jim's friends told me that while talking about how they spent their time commuting to work,  he said he listened to certain CDs and Jim thought a while before responding, "I listen to Jan".  That was an exaggeration in the name of humour; we didn't commute together often, but there's no denying that I was always quicker with comments than Jim, so in our conversations, I contributed the quantity if not always the quality.  Now I'm discovering that without Jim's company I'm spending more time at the computer.  I'm so used to saying whatever comes into my head that I'm now writing it.  I'm discovering that some of Jim's judgements of me that I thought were unjust and jumped to contradict when he mentioned are in fact true.  I do often talk without thinking and I don't have a good sense of direction.  I'd like to admit these things to him now when I can't and the only solace I have is that he was so sure he was right in these matters that my admission of them could not possibly have reinforced what was so solidly held.  That's why I contradicted him in the first place.  And if he were here, I know I still wouldn't admit them.  We deserved each other.

I was upset on the morning of Nov. 16 when I phoned to wish dad a Happy 91st Birthday.  My mother who is rattled by the telephone at the best of times was just on the point of calling the doctor.  The phone's ringing threw her into such a panic she could hardly talk when she picked up the receiver. My father was in pain, and they wanted to get him an appointment.  I hung up, let her phone, called back, found they had an appointment for 11:30a.m. and so waited until late afternoon before phoning back to find out what was wrong.  In the interim, I worried about him and wondered whether I would have to cancel my il-starred trip to the Mayan Riviera, first a gas explosion and now my dad's health.  And I hadn't really wanted to go in the first place.  It turned out dad had a bladder infection, and by the time I talked again with them, they had been out to lunch and were preparing to eat some chocolate cake.  The Energizer Bunnies are back.

If you've read this far, you deserve a dark chocolate truffle, but as I can't give you that, here are a couple of pictures.  I finally did get myself into gear today and drove to look at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre outside of Vernon.  It was cool in Kelowna when I left, but sunny, and I didn't put a jacket over my sweatshirt.  As you leave Vernon for Silver Star, you begin to climb immediately.  Within about 5km. of the city limits, my ears were popping and the road was wet and dirty with recently dumped sand which sprayed up the car and clouded the rear window.  There was a light dusting of snow on the hillsides which got thicker and thicker until I finally turned off for the 2km drive into the cross country ski area.  By this point, the snow was weighing down the tall thin spruce by the roadside and the road itself was narrow with a surface of hard packed snow lightly sprinkled with sand like a Starbuck's cinnamon latte.  The ploughed banks were fresh and high enough to show tracks where one of 2 passing cars had had to ease over.  The sign at the lodge said that the temperature at 8:30a.m. had been -9.5 and it didn't feel much warmer than that at the time.  It was a sobering experience to be so quickly immersed in winter, and I have to admit I was happy to drive down to fall again and merely look at the brochure I had picked up.  The Mayan Riviera is starting to have more appeal.

But I will come here after I've had a bit more time to adjust to the reality of winter.