 |
| From This.... |
I had the strangest dream.
I dreamt Husband and I were living in a village in Somerset in a pink
cottage. Sheep roamed the field next to us, and in the spring lambs bounced across it like puffy ping pong balls. Peacocks called at the backdoor for mealworms
before bedtime. The countryside was surreally
green. We knew lovely people and went to
parties lit with fairy lights. We walked for miles, learning the
landscape. But then I woke up somewhere
else entirely.
 |
| ... And This |
This new place is grey
and bleak and in the throes of a mostly snowless winter. The landscape is brown and the trees
barren.
 |
| To This.... |
And I am in a house, a very
familiar house, where I had an unpleasant childhood. And lo and behold the architect of that
unpleasantness, Cranky Pensioner, is in a room in the house, wizened and ancient, and while not
entirely his old self, there are definite glimmers of his irritable stubborness. Welcome to this new reality. While it is a temporary reality, I must still remind myself, it is the journey, not the destination, that is important. I think I smell a life lesson.
 |
| ... And This. |
Sister has been here for great chunks of time since our
mother died, and now Husband and I are performing our tour of duty. Returning to your childhood home for a length
of time is a fraught situation... on many levels, and apparently a very popular past-time. Just Google 'dysfunctional family films' and watch as relations return to the fold, and explode.
Anyway, rather than dwell on the fraughtness,
better to dwell on the absurdity. Husband and I went from lurid greenness to bleak grey; from the countryside to a suburban
sprawl, from BBC I-Player to TV-Ontario, from available and affordable organic everything...
to the opposite of that, from peacocks to feral cats, from umbrellas to mittens, from
living on a country road busy with tractor
traffic where we had some wonderful neighbours, to living on a suburban street full of
commuters where we know virtually no one. Quite an adjustment.
 |
| Farewell |
 |
The Whitaker grass-
hopper
Says Farewell to the
Pink Cottage |
Cranky Pensioner remains Cranky, even as he lurches towards
ninety-two. You can take the boy out of
the war, but you cannot take the war out of the boy, especially when the boy
was fifteen when Nazis occupied his home town, and so you end up with someone
whose world view is dictated by fears from the past; a life defined by
war. When Russia recently nibbled away
at the Ukraine CP was beside himself with joy at the prospect of military conflict.
War is his comfort food. It's how he
lives every day of his life... how he always lived every day of his life. Each new twenty-four hour period lies before
him like a minefield to be navigated. Every fluffy cloud has a
black lining, but much to his surprise our arrival has revealed a silver lining to CP, something entirely unexpected.
 |
The Whitaker Grass-
hopper meets snow. |
Cranky Pensioner has fallen in love... with Husband. Husband is the son he never had, another male
presence in the household where formerly he was the sole man among three women. CP has a
buddy. Someone he can watch soccer games
with. As a dyed in the wool misogynist he
now has someone whose advice he can actually seek and take, though this is rare
since CP will be the first one to tell you he knows everything....
EVERYTHING.
CP has turned into Stanley
Kowalkski bellowing for Stella. He
wanders around the house shouting Husband's name; wanting to share things like
his inexplicable hatred for Lionel Messi, his utter contempt for men with
beards, (even when he himself has not shaved for a week and is sporting one), his undying devotion
to Roger Federer, his love for kittens, his belief that raccoons are pointless, and his befuddlement on learning through commercials that women shave their legs
and underarms, though I am certain he was in possession of this information as a younger man.
 |
Patient Chilled
Husband |
Patient Husband has heard the same war
and work stories so many times that I can see his lips moving while CP tells
them. Since Husband is tall, and CP has
shrunk, they make an unlikely duo. The Goliath
and the Gnome. Still, it makes CP happy
to have Husband around. Just the other day they were out together shoveling the
dusting of snow that graced the ground for mere moments. Husband plows the snow like a madman leaving
the edges for CP to clean up.
 |
Coping Mechanism
One |
Husband is
trying to finish something he's working on, but CP follows him like a persistent
puppy, making work difficult. Now
Husband has to hide to work... which isn't too difficult with CP's flagging
vision. The other day Husband lay motionless
on the bed and CP mistook him for discarded clothes. In order to complete his project Husband may
have to remove himself from the house entirely, perhaps take himself to the
local library. Such are the pitfalls of
popularity.
 |
Coping MechanismTwo
Back to School |
Husband and I are staying within walking distance of our old
high school... we went to the same high school at the same time, but never knew
one another. We go to the same library
we went to as kids. I haven't lived in
this city for thirty years and it is weird to be here. Husband and I are two Alices fallen down the
rabbit hole, here to care for the Mad Hatter.
We miss the Pink Cottage, and we will return to Somerset.
 |
The Silver Lining;
a Relatively
Snowless Winter. |
As I see it, the best way to deal with this new strange chapter is to embrace it as yet another interesting and educational left turn on the peculiar road that is life. Wish us luck.
