Living alone

Since July 1, I’ve seen a full moon and impressive fireworks, gone on 3 hikes and 1 bike ride, attended a birthday barbecue, organized my finances with Dave Acheson, started the path at the side of the house, had Bert and Peggy for dinner and ngiven 2 classes at Immigrant Services.  When you put 8 days into one sentence, it sounds as if your life is a whirl.  But it’s not.  It is at least becoming a life and not a bad one.  I symbolically acknowledged this by finally getting rid of all the cardboard boxes I’d saved from the move in anticipation of an immanent return.  They were stacked in the 1/3 garage that now has the sign ‘Jim’s Eccentricity’ on its door.  I pulled them out, cut them up and used them to make the path at the side of the house.  With paving stones on top and bark all around and between, they don’t look bad.  Mo, her big garbage cans and her SUV for carrying the bark made the project possible.

I didn’t choose to live alone, but now that I am in that situation I’m discovering there are positive aspects to it.  Today in my class at Immigrant Services I was brought up sharply against the worst of the alternative.  After one hour of working on my student’s difficulties with verb tenses and the formation of questions, we took a break.  We began by going to the washroom, and, as I was drying my hands, I noticed that she was leafing through the brochures that are set up in a rack near the sink.  She took one on abuse, folded it and put it in a pocket.  As I made our tea, my mind was on what I should do.  The part of me that likes the clarity and objectivity of teaching language urged ignoring it, but something made me think that I was there for more than that.  If I didn’t try to talk with her about possible problems no body else would know about them to ask her.  So when we got back to our desk I took a few sips of tea and got up the nerve to tell her that I had seen her take a brochure on abuse.  What followed was an hour of talking, some crying and a decision on her part to get professional help.  She is married to a very angry man.  She’s managed it for many years, but it’s hard for me to imagine how.  I was able to talk to one of the social workers at Immigrant Services and set up meetings for the two of them.  The social worker is a lovely woman.  She will assess the situation and decide what additional help is needed.  All of this will be done during the hours when we are supposed to be studying English because her husband would be furious if he suspected anything.  Her daughter will be in town for the second meeting, and I’m sure she will help her mom explain the situation.  Both the daughters have suggested she should do something for years, but she had no idea how to start.  It’s not going to be easy. 

Life is much more complex than verb tenses, unless your talking about Korean verb tenses

The view from one of the lookouts on Sunday's hike up Estekwalan Mountain.

Another view from Estekwalan, showing the haze that the weather reporters say is caused by smoke from the fires in Colorado blowing north and west ?