All About Me

All About the House Next Door
a home-made cake for Alice's fifth birthday

 Lunch with Lorraine Wright included an all-about-Arta talk.

I couldn’t tell her everything, though I tried. 

She had three questions of me, all of which she might have asked at any lunch.

The first was how are you doing in these pandemic times?

She asked me the question a number of ways and each time I added to an already privileged gratitude list: I have access to any kind of food I might wish for; I have fabulous books stacked by my side waiting to be read; I have access to the internet, to read, to send messages, to blog; and I have learned enough Zoom technology that I can go to Zoom church with people. I give myself a 10/10 on the scale of possible happiness.

She asked me again how I am doing. I had to think if there were any chinks in my happiness scale, and there might be one – Richard, Miranda, Michael, Alice and Betty live next door. Now four of the five of them have gone to the lake, so my previous happiness scale might be down a bit. I explained to her that not only do they live next door, but I have an open invitation to eat with them every night. Every night. When I told Lorraine this, I looked into her eyes, just as I look into the eyes of anyone I tell this to. I want to see how amazement registers on people’s face. Lorraine just leaned over, put her hands on mine and said, “Arta, you are at 11/10 on the happiness scale.”

All About the People in the House Next Door
... 3/4 or the cake gone and everyone is full...

Lorraine’s second question to me was about the church. How are you doing with the church, she might have asked. I don’t remember the exact formulation, but I tried to capture the intent of the question. I told her that in the past two months, I have had the best job in the church. She asked me how so. I told her that my new bishop telephoned me one night and before he could do much more than identify himself on the phone, I had interrupted to tell him that I am fine, not to worry about my family-of-one during these hard times, and to take care of those needing his outreach, and I assured him I would call on him in times of need.

I couldn’t even have interrupted myself; I went on and on for so long. When he got a space to speak, he said, “Actually, I wasn’t calling to ask if you needed my help, I was calling to see if you could help me.” An instant review of my skill set, and I couldn’t think of what he might need that I have, but I am all in for helping where I can.

Bishop Hampshire: “Will you help me produce a bi-weekly newsletter for the ward?”

Arta: “I think you have the wrong person for that.”

Bishop Hampshire: “No. I think you are the right person.”

Arta: “Bishop Hampshire, I think you are wrong. And I think all my children would tell you that you have the wrong person. Whatever made you think I could help you that way.”

Bishop Hampshire: “I don’t know you well. But your name came to me as someone who might help me.”

Arta: “I do blog. Why don’t you go out, take a look at what I do there, and get back to me. I don’t think I am the person for you. I know I don’t have the skill set for what you are looking for.”

We said cordial good-byes. In 10 minutes, he got back to me saying yes, he had read enough of the blog to believe I was the person who could help him.

In the interest of making a long story short, here is why I think working on the newsletter for 13 issues was the best job in the ward.

1. I had a direct email-line to the bishop, anytime, day or night. No subject was off-limit, no opinion unheard. “No opinion?”, I asked him. “No, he said, “if you have an alter-opinion, I want to hear it.” I tested him out. He was true to his word. Her is open to hearing every side of a story.

2. I interviewed people about their lives and heard details that seemed so precious to me, so dear, ideas that were so full of experience and maturity and wisdom.

3. I got acquainted with the other person who does the behind the scene work: Natalie Berg. In 100 years I could not have imagined our spring-winter pairing, me in my 80s and she in her 20’s. For me a deep friendship occurred with her.

4. The pandemic times require forward-thinking. Bishop Hampshire has created a weekly 4 page newsletter and seen that there is a facebook page for our ward. I don’t know what to call him. The newsletter did publish a photo of him beside his motorcycle. #BikerBishop could be one handle for him. Or how about #ProgressiveBishop. Find a ward keeping up with ours as far as maintaining social connections are concerned. I think we are onto our 15th Issue of Ward Newsletters. Maybe I will just say #BelovedBishop, #NewsletterBishop, #COVIDawarnessBishop.

All About the People in the House Next Door
... is this slice the new normal for a birthday cake? ...

I liked this ward job.

Dale Hampshire made me feel as though I had something to contribute.

 I made a mistake.

I was giving up my exercise time, and my family blogging time because I was figuring out how to do such an open-ended job.

The ward newsletter was on my mind most of the time.

Always there were questions in my mind: is the newsletter creating diversity? are we finding an expression for all of the voices in our ward? is the newsletter maintaining focus on the personal in people’s lives? do the columns help us to know each other better? are we hearing the voices of the children? the teens? the graduating students? the mid-career adults? are we valuing artistic expression as much as literary work?

Actually, the questions were weighing heavily.

Who wouldn’t want a job like that?

I had to give it up.

If I get my own life under control again, that is the job I hope someone will ask me to do again. So that is my answer to how I am with church. Bring it on when I have time.

And that is the end to some of the questions asked and answered at lunch.

Arta

Lunch with Lorraine

... a quick after lunch shot captured by a waitress ...
Lorraine Wright and Arta Johnson

Yes, I had lunch last week with Lorraine Wright.

On my eightieth birthday (did I really just type that? –80th birthday!), Lorraine emailed me and said, “Let’s have lunch.”

I thought people only said that – you know a touch of the arm, let’s have lunch someday, but then nothing happens (on your side or theirs).

But Lorraine and I really went to lunch.

Rebecca and Catherine have both called me to see how the meeting was, Catherine twice, once because she was sure I had only told her the first half of the story of lunch when she called the day before, which was true. This was a lunch story that requires a long telling.

Lorraine picked me up at noon on 26th avenue, after spending some time on 25th avenue trying to find me. I did say I would be waiting outside for her, and I was – but on my own avenue. Neighbours couldn’t help Lorraine find my place. I live in a gentrified neighbourhood where families and renters don’t know each other. Only the correct address will do to find me.

I spent an hour getting ready that morning – I changed my earrings and necklaces three times (from coral to pearls to silver), my scarf twice (light-weight for warmth, then silk for beauty), and I couldn’t decide on which of my two long red coats to wear– the hand-me down but hand-made and still fashionable one of Wyonas, or the new red boil wool coat, yes, new but I paid 70% off so I can still feel good about wearing it.

At 11:30 am Lorraine texted me: come casual. I texted back – oh I am dressed up like I am going to a funeral. She texted back: casual, please. I complied, which meat a wardrobe change.

Lorraine had in mind a lovely restaurant she had been to last year in Bowness Park on the lagoon, a which place which carries memories for both of us.

She moved to Calgary when she was about 10 so she can remember skating there, and having hot chocolate in the concession – the space that is now, “Seasons of Bowness Park.

I recommend salmon with bok choy in lemon grass sauce.

The restaurant is on the edge of the lake.

A canal runs alongside the outdoor patio where we ate.

To the east is that large structure in the middle of the lake, the structure I remember was a fountain and at night, coloured lights would be there, and people canoeing in the twilight under those lights. 

When I was young Bowness Park also had a large merry-go-round with horses moving up and down on poles – rides much cheaper than at the Stampede.

What a thrill that I can only remember from the past, stepping onto that wooden platform in Bowness Park, finding a horse to ride and then the gentle lurch as the Merry-Go-Round began to turn. I sat on that horse and waved to all of the parents as I circled by, them waving back.

Lorraine and I began lunch with a pink salmon entrée, the fish sitting on braised bok choy. Dessert was a chocolate bomb, so beautiful we had to ask the waitress to divide it for us – hard to get something like that exactly in half when the chocolate on the outside crackles under a knife and the mousse inside is so soft and velvety. That dessert came with a second mango gelato dessert which we also shared, a dessert “on the house” to celebrate my birthday.

We began to talk. Lorraine told me about retiring from the university, leaving the joyful days of lecturing and the hard work of marking papers with the attendant grief that sometimes comes to students when their marks don’t meet their expectations.

At the present time, Lorraine lectures all around the world, sometimes for extended periods of time, but she leaves the marking behind for others – that is the perk of retirement. She lives in that lovely Kensington area. What is there not to love about having fresh markets close, a large chain grocery store near-by, the best walking paths in Calgary. She has two large windows in her apartment, one facing south to the city centre and the other facing in another direction at a 90 degree angle. Lorraine wouldn’t know that I am a window person –I want to live in a glass house.

Lorraine relayed stories about her dearest friend, formerly Dr. Wendy Watson BFF, now Wendy Russell. Who doesn’t feel like Wendy’s dearest friend when they are in a room with her. I laughed and said that I, too, feel close to her from the Facebook page. When Wendy talks her words spread to the loving hearts of those who watch her. She is 25 years younger than her partner. That is a lot of years.

Seasons of Bowness Park
We were seated front and centre, just over the guard rail.

Lorraine told me about coming back to Canada from Columbia when the borders close due to the Pandemic.

On her holiday in Columbia, she was watching CNN one evening and Trudeau was telling all Canadians to come home immediately. 

Lorraine was already coming in 4 more days, but she phoned to ask the travel agent about moving the date closer, and she unexpectedly got on the last seat of the plane that was leaving Columbia the next day.

The last plane.

On coming back, Lorraine talked about loving friends who had brought her food during that 14 days of isolation, and yes, for those of you who know him, Sheldon was one of those helpers. As Lorraine’s blogpost told us, she had been struck with an overwhelming desire for popcorn – which made me laugh when I read that, laugh when her friends made a special trip to bring her some, and laugh because I have my hot air popcorn empty into my largest cooking pot – and that is the right amount if popcorn for one – me.

I loved to talk to Lorraine about her newest work, Fear During Social Self Distancing or Self Isolation: Even Fearing the Disappearance of Popcorn, which was following with that wonderful essay about funerals in the pandemic, rites that have lost their power to heal when they are electronic – a by-product from the technological power of Zoom to keep us all in separate rooms, when instead, we want to be together.

She deepened my understanding of that post with a story of a dear personal friend whose funeral Lorraine had talked at.

What Lorraine told me about why she had loved that woman is what struck me deeply. 

These hard COVID-19 times have mixed up in them our social losses, and our fear of permanent losses.

Many times, Lorraine made me laugh. She is so funny and once she got me with her humour … really got me.

... entrance, sprinkled with picnic tables ...
Seasons of Bowness Park

At about 5:40, well, exactly at that moment she looked at her watch, pointed with her finger to its large digital face and said, “Oh no, I have to get home for George. I have to go now and cook dinner for him.”

 I was instantly heart-broken that our time together was over.

I could hear the determination in her voice that our time had to be closed off immediately because of other obligations.

Then I wondered if I had committed a social faux paux, maybe not enough social distancing and perhaps she wanted to distance herself from me, so this was a gentle brush off.

... tableware ready for patron's use at ...
Seasons of Bowness Park

Then I went to wondering who is staying over at her house – does she have a dog she has to feed, since she had said she has been thinking about the joy of having an animal?

I wondered if she had an uncle, or a brother I didn’t know about named George who was staying over.

I looked back to her face and she held still, frozen, her finger still on the face of her watch. 

Or maybe she was giving me a chance to get away. But of course, I didn’t have to go, nor want to go.

 Then I caught on. She was re-enacting moments she might have known where a lunch companion did have to leave for home. But I am not that person.

Lorraine had seen fries come by many times, being delivered to other customers. Each time she saw those fries, her head would turn to follow the waiter as though she wished those fries were coming to our table. She made me laugh doing that. At 6 pm Lorraine called the waitress over to ask her if anyone needed our table. The answer was no. Lorraine asked her to bring us a serving of the fries that we had seen passing out table for the past few hours. “Regular or upscale”, the waitress asked. I knew that my sister, Wyona, would have order both to make a taste test comparison. The waitress thought just the upscale would be enough for us, so that is what Lorraine ordered. I can say that those the fries brushed with an aioli sauce and topped with freshly shaved cheese are wrong, just wrong, … still delicious.

Don't Get Married ... Unless ...... good reading for ages 15 - 80 ...

I wanted to tell Lorraine how much I loved her book, “Don’t Marry Unless…” and she wanted to know which parts.

I could tell her because I know the pages of that book, back and forth.

I want the story of her clinical practise to be in the hands of my grandchildren, long before they begin to date.

She extrapolated with stories told to her which had led about her to some of her larger conclusions, stories that deepened my understanding of how complex some issues can be when they involve relationships, extended relationships, even blood relationships.

Lorraine wanted to know a few short sentences about all of my children, since she does know them all. I like to tell such stories: 8 people x 4 ideas = 32 complicated sentences.

On leaving the restaurant, Lorraine drove slowly around the park. Some of the roads have been closed off. The parking lots were full, people peeling out of their cars, the adults strolling together in twos, pushing strollers, carrying their picnic suppers, children all over at the play equipment, laughing and calling to one another, seemingly living in no fear of the world of the pandemic.

I hope in my lifetime there will be another lunch with Lorraine, an 8-hour lunch.

Arta