Thoughts on a Drive to Ogden Point

... detail from painting of Richard Adams Pilling ...

Duncan was meeting a friend at Ogden Point, which is one of the breakwaters on the Pacific Ocean. Rebecca was dropping him off, so for an outing I hopped in the car with Rebecca and all three of us chatted on the way to the ocean -- he and the friend were going for a walk and a pre-ordered schnitzel, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes from the German Club – order the day before, pick up between 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm. I hopped out of the car for a quick photo at the waterfront on a cold blustery winter day. The wind went through my braided hair puffing it up as though it were a wig. The wind could only make his hair lazily sway, so slowly that when the wind blew east, his hair was still on the west wind’s sway.

On the 20-minute drive home Rebecca and I begin to talk about some of her morning meetings. one of which was themed indigenous Intellectual property (over songs and family ceremonial objects for example). I entered the conversation with Rebecca with a bit of in trepidation. On our drive to the waterfront with Duncan she had thrown three large words, back-to-back into the conversation. I didn’t know any of them, had to stop her, and then when she explained each, I had to figure out what all three in the same phrase meant. We had to tell her we are not her interlocuters, only her family.

At any rate, on the way home I had questions about what belongs to everyone, what belongs to groups, what belongs to families, what can be bought and sold and whose decision is it to do these things. Transsystemic Rights over Property – that was our topic. I'm lucky. When I can't understand a concept, I can ask the professor directly. “Professor?”

Some of trans systemic law issues are hard for me to understand. If I put things back into what I understand in colonial law to see the issues more clearly, then I can make the transition back, whether the two line up of thought are similar or not. That isn’t what matters to me; what matters is that I can understand both ways of thinking.

... owned by Moiya Wood ...

So, I was thinking about the dispossession of my father’s property, in particular. There was no song he owned, and nothing that belonged to the family.

On the matter of songs, I have probably sung as many songs as most. When I was bored in church, I would often open the hymn book and memorize all of the verses of a song. I know must of the songs, so there must have been quite a few down moments.

When I had a family and we would be in the car on long drives, I would make sure to teach new songs to my kids. I had done my homework. I had a small book of Canadian folk songs in the glove compartment. The book was held together with an elastic band. The first page was page 3 and the index at the back was missing everything after the letter – P -. The cover was long gone, the top right-hand pages were folded dog-eared and the contents of the whole book would separate into two pieces if I weren’t careful. I didn’t ever think of replacing the book, since it did its job -- the index a good place for me to find the name of a song I hadn’t taught yet.

So, I was still worrying about the idea that there are songs that can’t be sung … because there are property rights, copyright rights etc. on the song.

... detail from painting of Richard Adams Pilling ...

Rebecca told me that the songs she is thinking about are ones done in performance, where money is exchanged. I've never really thought about the problem of music as a business, having never sung a song for money.

To return to the selling of the contents of a house, and what parts of it belong to the family, I remember that when Doral sold his house, he no longer needed the contents. 

He told his children to come and take what they needed. I don’t know of many other people who have dispossessed themselves of the lifetime of coming-and-going 45 years in a house that way.

Wyona and Earl were not in a position to come and take anything, Glen and Richard had no place to store things, so everything was distributed to 4 others. 

At any rate, everything was divided up, and taken from the house, whomever in the family came by took what they needed or wanted.

... detail from painting of Richard Adams Pilling ...

Moiya took a painting of Richard Adams Pilling standing beside his ox team and his wagon as he drove it around the province in celebration of the Alberta’s 50th Anniversary. 

And lucky me. 

When I go to Moiya’s house I can stand on her stairs and look up at his face and wonder if I would know him to meet him. 

But I know she owns the painting now, not the family.

To get to think about what belongs to everyone, and what belongs to individuals, and to try to sort out the difference with Rebecca in a 20-minute drive is quite the gift.

Arta

Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #60 Water

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

I have always loved water.

Glen Pilling gave me words for why: water, the gift of life.

The gift of life is what I see in the forest when there has been rain, what I see in the lawn after a downpour, what I see in the Spring as the crocuses pop up in the small foothills that lead to the prairies.

I love the water on the garden vegetables, water for the sweet peas, a sprinkler for the children to run through in the summer time, a small stream that comes out of the woods and runs down the gravel into the Shuswap.

I will always remember a raft trip down the Bow River, a once in a life-time event from me, riding on moving water.

In my early twenties I took a ride on a barge up to Anstey Arm on the Shuswap, long leisurely hours, the barge docking and unloading provisions for small cabins on the lake.

Just last year, I have stepped into a boat with my siblings and driven by Art Treleaven

Water colour fom the Daisy Series by Wyona Bates

He was giving all of us a drive by the shore of the lake, looking toward the highway, a reverse view of the water that I get in a car on a drive to Salmon Arm.  Yes to the view from the water.

I watch the Bow River as I travel west through the Rockies, seeing its size diminish until it is merely a brook. I think to myself, sometime I will trace this stream up to its headwaters.

I love to wash dishes, the warmth of the water, at the same time, the joy of easy removal of food.

I am never in a bathtub or a shower when I am not overwhelmed with happiness– the power to rinse my own body and the wonderful warmth of the water.

Right now during Covid, when I rinse the soap from my wrists and the backs of my hand, I am grateful for water.

I use water for cooking. I use it to make bread, to boil pasta, to steam carrots, to test if candy is at a soft or a hard ball stage. I use droplets of water to test if a frying pan is hot enough to put a steak on.

I love to stop by a fountain in a library or a mall or a grocery store, turn that spigot and have a stream of water arc up so that I can catch some on my lips.

I am just putting it out there that I have a lifetime of rich memories around and about water.

Arta

Three Hours of Writing a Day

Two Humming Birds
Painted by Wyona Bates

Rebecca told me she is trying to do 3 hours of writing a day and that she will report back to me at the end of the week.

I am curious about where one finds three hours to write.

In my day book, I can pencil in writing, and book off from 8 to 11 am.

By the time I get up, dressed, eat and do 6 simple exercises for my new hip,

I look at the clock and the whole morning is essentially gone.

Now that is not to say I am unhappy having a skill level where I can do all of these things on my own. It is just that the work of daily living gets in the way of this task I have given myself of writing for 3 hours a day.

Does cleaning off email messages count as writing? Ones like, “you are receiving this message because you are signed up to ACADEMIA and have read the following articles so we think you might also be interested in this one?” And then the new article does seem interesting and I do want to read it.

Or how about the alert “Your Capital One bill must be paid". Nope. I can’t really count taking care of my bills as writing though it does keep me out of interest collecting on those debts if I don’t pay them.

I want to respond to notes from old friends. As the months go by, either they or I loose our power to write as I would like to. But I guess when I say I want to spend 3 hours writing it is three hours above and beyond what I do when I get into my email.

I must go after those 3 hours and find them in the day. Right now, they are doing a disappearing act for me.

And what about the odd pieces of paper on which I have put random notes for me to remember for when I do sit at the computer. A collection of those erratic thoughts are be stapled together, in some haphazard condition and then taken to the computer and there goes another couple of hours goes by as I putter with them. Satisfying to complete that task. But it doesn’t fit into that category that I am now seeing is pretty finite: write on a certain topic and don’t let any interruptions happen – as one writer said, “focus on your task, even if there is a dead body in the sink”.

I know I have been working very hard. “Very” is a word I try hard not to use. But I am asking myself, am I really doing anything productive during the time I spend at the compter, and will I wish some day that I had kept my eye on my own agenda. Anyway, I do have the excuse that I have barely gained clarity of mind from the operation. Those high level drugs are good for healing, but not that good when it comes to writing and being full of them.

And I also know my job it to let the tiny muscles heal, but to move enough that I don't get a blood clot. Still... I wonder if I could write 3 hours a day. It is possible. The children next door can't come over for they are too rambunctious for me yet. So I am truly alone.

I ought to be able to find 3 hours a day for writing.

Arta

Two Hands on the Walker

Winter Scene of the Shuswap
Painted by Wyona Bates

I had my two week hip replacement appt.

I passed.

I have a precaution for the next 5 weeks: keep two hands on my walker.

Fiona, the physiotherapist, looked me straight in the eye and told me that – twice.

Two hands on the walker.

She must know that I have an impulse to push it to the side and try to walk on my own. I also want to find ways to carry objects all over my house, objects that have been in one place for years and years. Suddenly they need moving.

Mary has been here with me. A godsend. She leaves tonight to take care of her own little family in Lethbridge. She leaves me with chili in the freezer and two different Indian meals, which she says she has cooked enough of that I will get sick of the trays she has put away for me. Hard to believe that could happen. My wash will be done up when she leaves. She has sorted through cupboards with me. She has re-arranged furniture which is going to add to my comfort. Everyone should have a hip replacement with such help.

Arta

Crying Under the Stairs

Marcia popped by today.

Cabin where Marcia spent her childhood summers
Print from Original painted by Wyona Bates

She had dropped Zach off at William Aberhart High School and wondered if there was anything she could do for me while she waited an hour before she going to her hair appointment.

I told her I did have some things in mind that are really difficult for me to do, but slightly ridiculous. So superficial that I even hate to ask someone to do them.

The problem for me is that I can’t carry stuff easily from one place to another while still keeping both of my hands on my walker.

Marcia picked up a broom and started to sweep and told me to make a list of what to do when she was finished. It wasn’t hard to had items to my list of wants when I saw the whirlwind job she can do on a kitchen floor with a broom. I kept adding things to my list: sweep my stairs, put away dishes that I don’t need to use, fill my water bottle and take it to my computer, sort my music books so I can get at ones I want for the little children, put away my laundry, sweep the bathroom, move the Winston’s Dictionary to a high shelf for I don’t need to get at it right now – she did it all. And she added jobs I wouldn’t have thought of.

“Can I scramble some eggs for you– enough that there will be leftovers for tomorrow,” she asked, “and with or without pepper?”

As she was moving the step ladder around to do some of these jobs, she reminded me that she had just swept the steps that she cried under when she first went to university. That was a lot of years ago. She was away from home for the first time, leaving before her mother had even had time to teach her how to do her own laundry. As a first timer in Calgary, she was losing her way home from the university, she was at the university trying to find her way to her first-year engineering class rooms, and she was living with cousins and an aunt and an uncle and eating out of a fridge that was absolutely new to her. She had a lot to cry about in that first week and she choose to do that weeping under the basement stairs she was now back sweeping.

The basement stairs have a long history. Doral used to sleep there – he tells his kids his parents used to make him sleep under the basement stairs, just like Harry Potter. Connor’s bed was there while he went to university. Now that space under the stairs houses two filing cabinets and extra laundry detergent.

Back to Marcia.

If she had called me and asked if there were something she could do for me, I would have told her I didn’t need any help. That I am good. But popping by and grabbing a broom? How welcome was that.

I have a free-standing mirror in my bedroom which belonged to her. Whenever Marcia gives away furniture, Wyona and I find places to tuck it in our homes. That mirror is one of those things. Calling it “our mirror”, Marcia wiped it down and gave it a good shine – something I have been planning to do for months.

If Marcia ever drops by and asks if she can give you help for 45 minutes, give her full range of all of her powers. She is pretty amazing.

Arta

Decorations for Funerals

Wyona had plenty of red decorations.

“That is because there are extravagant red decorations around funerals in China as well,” she said.

... Alice studying Chinese brush work done by Wyona ...

When I was there for five years, it didn’t matter to me – the New Year or funerals, if I thought they were beautiful, I bought them all.”

Wyona sat the children down and pulled out long scrolls on which there were pictures of bamboo done in water colour.

I did these when I lived in Malaysia,” Wyona told the kids.

“You did not,” said Michael. “You got that off of the internet.”
The more Wyona affirmed that she had done the scroll work herself, the more he declared back to her that this is the kind of thing people can easily get off of the Internet.

I don’t think she ever convince him that he was speaking with the artist. She will be long dead and gone before he changes his mind on that one.

Arta

Bus Route #715, Montreal

Wyona with a paintbrush in hand 
Winter 2017 Series

The forecast for today was for 7 above with rain.

That feels like a summer day in Montreal.

I walked into the subway for my 10,000 steps, hoping to get most of them in the underground malls.

The information person told me that the biggest mall was the at McGill station.

 I am absolutely urban.

 I would rather get my steps on the concrete than on the grassy strip of land beside a rural road.

As well told me to get off at Place d’Armes to catch the 715 bus (Old Montreal).

Getting off here was a mistake the next man told me and sent me off to Berri Uqam.

These are the days when being retired is the best. Time doesn't matter.  Around every corner, an adventure.

I rode the Bus # 715 first of all, looking at the houses on the left, the falling raining drizzling down my window. The next time I did the route I looked at the houses on the right. The third time I circled the route I looked out the front window, the windshield wipers of the bus making clean sweeps across the pane of glass as I enjoyed Old Montreal looking straight ahead. On the fourth round, the bus driver called back to me, “How many times are you going to go around the route. You can’t go around all day.”

Wyona
Hummingbird Series 2017

“I can’t?” I thought to myself. “I have a bus pass for the entire month.”

I am not going to fight with a bus driver.

I called back to him, “Just one more time.” And around I went.

That ride was a great alternative to a Hop On-Hop Off bus. 

I asked Catherine for her “tour Montreal” books so that I can figure out what it was that I was seeing on the ride: statues, harbours, bridges, parks, and historic buildings.  I couldn't name any of them.

Arta

Wyona-Death Come Quickly or Herb Robert

While weeding at the lake I often come upon this lovely little fragrant flowering pink plant.  I went out a few days ago and picked some wild flowers to paint. This plant was one of them.

You can find this plant among the other wild flowers I picked from our path down to the lake. It is at the top of the painting.
I searched on line over a dozen websites looking for this plant. I asked the expert neighbor, Glen next door and he only could say he thought it was a weed. Too beautiful to me to be a weed.
Until I found it tonight...I took the plant over for Janet to see because she has never seen it.

Here it is up close. It is called 'Geranium robertianum, Herb-Robert', Red Robin, Death come quickly, and Stinky Bob in Washington; a noxious weed.
In traditional herbalism, Herb Robert was used as a remedy for toothache and nosebleeds. Freshly picked leaves when crushed and rubbed on the body the smell is said to repel mosquitoes. It was carried to attract good luck enhance fertility. I just love the long tapering and beaklike flower/seed.