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What I did on My Vacation (from blogging)


I wrote. Mostly that is what I did. Poetry for the Poetry Federation of Canada’s all call for submissions for nine new anthologies. The titles of these anthologies have me a bit stumped because they came with no content direction what so ever. The poetry of birth. The poetry of seasons. The poetry of relationships. A wide berth for interpretation could mean just about anything. I chose the pedestrian path and took the titles literally, but alas, it turned out that I had missed the deadline (I think I got the email informing me about it a couple of days prior), so I ended up just picking the best three and sending them to the magazine sponsoring the anthologies.

            I also polished another piece for The Daily Globe and Mail on the recent lice saga (which we appear to have recovered from – thank the lord/universe). I am struggling with a piece for Canadian Living magazine. 500 words on My Canada. I am not sure that any part of Canada is “mine” yet, but I don’t know that I can call any place I have ever been “mine” in the way that some people refer to homes or favorite haunts. I feel that the place I will call mine I have yet to step foot on.

I found out that one of my short stories didn’t make the cut for a rather avante garde literary magazine out of Calgary, so I turned around and submitted it to a Sci-fi/Fantasy mag here in Edmonton. Probably a better fit.

            And finally, I began scouring my blog for a piece that I might enter in a memoir-writing contest. This in addition to attending a writer’s group meeting where another member supplied me with three more contests that are possibilities.

            Oh, and I wrote my first cover letter. Next is the query.

            And you know what I discovered about this? That it is fun. More fun than blogging and reading blogs and mindless message board voyeurism. Hmmmm. Rob started a blog the other day on his “net” history and conclusions he has come to concerning it. I still like blogging. It’s not the same as my writing for contests and submissions. It fulfills something different but I suspect that I will not be an everyday blogger once I start to get the hang of how this getting published thing really works. I still like reading blogs but I am down to a certain select few that I read consistently. I really need to start using the RSS.

            One thing I did not do was return to my novel. By the rules, I should have begun my read through and second draft about a month ago, but the topic matter is so depressing. I find that even a fictional account of my widowhood too heavy for my soul at the moment. I also did not finish my cat lover story because I want to make it a part of my sci-fi short story series and haven’t found the bridge between what I started and where I want it to come out. Patience. Patience.

            I did work on the links to my wordpress blog. I did finally get the ball rolling on getting all the beneficiary stuff changed on my existing pensions. I did find and semi-organize (they are all in one folder) my tax info for 2007.

            And…..drum roll……..I got Rob to help me purge and organize the cabinets in the kitchen.

            What?! That sounds like a non-important agenda item to you, dear readers? Au contraire, mes amis. The cabinets (like the refrigerator) have been harboring out of date (by years) foodstuffs and all manner of non-used and non-essential items that, if not taken care of now, will simply demand attention when the move to Texas is glaring us in the face or worse, will be waiting for us next summer when we are back to finish getting the house ready for sale.

            I have been wanting to do this for a while, believe it or not, but the problem is that I am not always certain when my cleaning and purging help is needed, wanted and/or helpful because much of what there is doesn’t belong to me.

            I tread a very delicate line when it comes to rearranging or packing away or pitching. I don’t want to push. I don’t want to dredge up memories or be the cause of hurt feelings where Shelley’s things are concerned. It’s hard for the girls to visit and see so much change. It’s hard for Rob to go through things all the time. And it’s hard for me because I am torn between wanting to help, protect and at the same time start carving out areas that reflect me. Shelley had a distinct décor style that is evident in the plants and wall hangings and color scheme and the way that all space is occupied by something. But for me, plants get dusty and the die when not watered and aren’t all that great for an asthmatic to have around. I like my walls sparse to totally bare. My favorite colors change too often to slap them on a wall, so I usually go with light colors that are barely colors at all. And I like room. I love room. Room to walk around or dance around or sit on the floor with newspapers or writing papers or books spread out all around me. It could just be my lazy Sagittarian side but stuff just invites dirt to settle on it and then it needs to be cleaned. Not much stuff equals way less cleaning. And, I like the freedom that space provides.

            Rob and I talked about the cleaning and the impact of Shelley’s things on us both. He had worried about how I felt and honestly aside from one small teary breakdown this last summer, I haven’t been bothered. I worry more about the impact of change and paring down and giving away and tossing on him and the girls than I think about the impact on me. He reminded thought that what I see is a reflection of a lifestyle that he and Shelley were transitioning away from around the time she became ill and that had that not occurred at that time, things would be much different.

            It was nice though to clean out spaces. I am beginning to like the downsizing and the lack of stuff. I think now about what I truly need in terms of the material to feel satisfied once we get to Houston, and I realize that it is not an extensive list.

            So now it is Friday again. Katy has the day off because of the teacher convention and we are heading into Sherwood Park for the morning. First stop is Beaners, a hair salon for little girls. She was promised a visit during the lice escapade (of which the saga is far from over as a new lice alert pamphlet came home with her from school the other night). Then it’s off to the mall because she is growing like a weed and needs new tights and has Christmas money to spend. I need to browse the magazine rack at the Chapters and perhaps grab a chai at the Starbucks (okay, not perhaps – definitely). Afterwards I need to hit the gym and there is ballet today too.

            Whew. A lot done and a bunch still do to do

The Barbie Coat


My mother made a little pink coat for my Barbie doll when I was about ten years old. She made dresses and pants too. I rescued them from a basement purging Mom conducted the summer before last. She sold many of our old Fisher-Price toys, collectors items that she could have made real money off of on eBay were she not a complete Luddite when it comes to the Internet. The clothes were in an old play suitcase that I used to us when we would take little trips. They were musty from years under the basement steps and Katy eyed them dubiously when I told her enthusiastically that they would fit her dolls. She clearly had reservations about allowing these smelly old rags anywhere near her dolls, forget about on them. But, I took them back to Des Moines with us and washed them a time or two and though a bit tattered, they served.

The dolls’ clothing was a mixture of regular size dolls and Barbie clothes. Some of the doll clothing was for baby dolls and some were made especially for the Crissy and Velvet dolls that my sister and I had gotten for Christmas one year. Do you remember those dolls? The ones with the I Dream of Jeannie knots on the tops of their heads that you could pull the pony tail out for long hair and wind back up inside them with a round knob on the back? My father didn’t understand why any of our dolls needed more clothing than what came on their backs, so my mother ended up finding patterns and buying material, snaps, buttons and ribbons to make doll clothing for us. If my father had known how much the materials cost or the amount of time Mom put into the creation of these tiny wardrobes, he might have just let her take us out to buy the extra clothing for which we were clamoring.

I was reminded of just how much went into each piece when one of the buttons came off the pink coat and needed to be sewn back on. Rob took the tiny pearl-like thing from Katy and immediately handed it off to me, pronouncing it to microscopic for him, and it was very, very small. The head of a pencil eraser is bigger than those buttons. As I worked on replacing and subsequently tightening up the hold on the other buttons, I marveled at what close and intricate work this was with a needle and thread and how skilled a seamstress one would have to be to cobble together such tiny garments on a sewing machine. My mom had a Singer machine in a stand alone desk that she could fold the sewer into before closing the lid atop it. It was rarely every put away when I was young. Mom sewed, it seemed to me, all the time. She made clothes for our dolls, us, and herself. I think there was even one point when darn near everything she wore, she had cut from a McCalls or Butterick pattern and sewed together herself.

The two (miserable) years I spent in 4H, I learned to sew as well, but I never loved it. I found it tedious and thought the clothing made me look frumpier than I knew I was. No one wore homemade clothing when I was 12, except for the halter tops that nearly every girl I knew, younger and older, were wearing but which I was not allowed. I don’t know if it was because I was wearing a bra by then (a training one but according to my parents – that counted) or because I was fat and neither of my parents could stomach the idea of my pudgy (not little – I was already 5’ 6”) self’s rolly flesh showing (and in case you think I might be putting thoughts into their heads, my younger sister was allowed to prance about the neighborhood in halters and bikini tops until we were both well into our high school years). But, I just didn’t see the point of sewing your own clothes unless you were good enough at it that no one could discern your homemade from the store bought. That is just a gift. Mom had it sort of but I didn’t and still don’t.

Mom got her sewing gene from her mother. My grandmother’s doll clothes and tiny quilts still survive and Katy has several of them today among her play things. She likes the blankets especially and I have to admit that I love the fact that they have survived and she is playing with them. Same goes for the Barbie ward robe and doll clothes. There are many kinds of heirlooms but the ones I like best are the things that a person uses and then passes to the next generation for their use too.

Being an Expert


Of all the experiences in the world that a person might covet for his/her resume being looked to as an expert on anything widowed is probably not one many would want. But, in the last few weeks I have begun to realize that I do know a lot of things about widowhood that other people – fresh or isolated in their grief – could use. Not benefit from mind you because I think you benefit or not from advice or resources or whatever depending on something inside you (it’s what you do with the time as it passes as Alicia reminded me the other day). 

I had already decided  to include a blog roll of all those blogs being written by widowed people I either know through the YWBB or their blog or learned of through blog links I found at various blogs. I have included it on my new WordPress site along with the links to a few message sites for the widowed. And I decided to do this for two reasons. First having to do with a woman I met at hospice group named Julie. She is just a year out this last weekend, having lost her husband in a car accident. She has two children in the expressive arts program with Katy though they are older. The first time I met her I was struck by the anger inside, but this last time I was able to talk with her at some length and realized that like me, she is just terribly isolated. She hasn’t anyone to share her feelings with who will understand what they are and where they come from. The second reason was an email I received yesterday from a fellow blogger at NaBloMo who had started reading me and found the link to my first blog at Spaces and requested access to it as it is no longer open to the public. When I denied it, she sent me an email explaining that her request was in order to help a good friend who’d lost her husband a year ago and had asked her if she knew of any blogs written by widows because she was feeling alone. 

Feeling alone. The over-riding theme of being widowed young. 

I wrote  the woman back to give her the link to my new space, and some information about the widow bloggers I read and the sites I have/do visit. I didn’t allow her access to the Spaces site. That site is closed permanently and only I have access. When I first started writing here, I  provided and active link to it but the animosity and curiosity at the YWBB surrounding Rob and I brought too many people here and to the Spaces site. It made me uncomfortable. My first blog is raw and confused and very in the moment. I never self-edited and used it more to think my way through things as they arose. While some people might relate, others could easily take things way out of the original context (because I often didn’t share that) and not realize that much more of what I was going through was actually being written on the YWBB through my posts (though oddly – out of 1600+ posts I only started about twenty and after the first anniversary of Will’s death I mainly posted to share concrete experiences with people and offer advice in the guise of what I learned and what I would do. When I did share my own thoughts – it only caused trouble, so I rarely did.). My posts at YWBB are gone. It’s a good thing too. Although I often got PM’s from people thanking me for things I posted (one woman overseas told me she cut and pasted my “Annie-isms” in a folder because she found them so useful), I don’t think much of what I wrote was original or profound or even helpful but on an individual scale.

So, for anyone who is reading to discover the hidden meaning in widowhood or the possibility of finding Zen within the experience, or anything else, I offer you The Widow Blogs. There are as many approaches to traversing grief as there are snowflakes. I have found many women, and a few men, out there who have much to share and say – and more eloquently than I.