Tag Archives: Gifts Of The Journey

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Stalking The Great Beast Of North Cornwall

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Saturday was so light and bright that John and I packed a couple of sandwiches and took off for a coast path walk. With all the cold winter weather we have had this year, I was dying to feel the sun on my face. After noting what time John hoped to leave, I grabbed my backpack and camera, filled up a water bottle and headed for the car. It is rare that I am in the car waiting for John, but I was so ready see the ocean and stretch my legs that I slapped together my standard lunch of peanut butter & jelly on toasted wheat bread and took my place in the passenger seat. Yes, you heard that right … my place in the passenger seat.

Although I do drive here from time to time, I don’t generally (read, never) drive when we travel together.  This type of control would have been hard to relinquish a few years ago. The truth is, there is an art to backing up in the narrow lanes here especially in a car with a clutch and a gear shift on the left hand side of the car, oh yeah … and add to that, the fact that the steering wheel is on the right where I am used to having my passengers sit. John doesn’t insist on driving and would certainly be fine with my taking the wheel, but for some reason I am okay with just enjoying the ride.

I drove a great deal in my earlier life. It went with the job. I was always in traffic rushing to the next sales call, trying to look composed and put together as I dashed in and out of hospital parking garages while struggling under the weight of giant bags filled to overflowing with medical literature, drug samples, and company freebies. These days, I am content to move a bit slower and last Saturday was one of those days. We started our walk in a new place, one known for having had Thomas Hardy walk across its sandy pebble beaches during his courting days with Emma Gifford, the woman would become his wife. I did not know that bit of history when I asked John if it was named Strangles Beach for any sinister reasons.

There were a few unusual things we saw on our walk. John is trying to show you something we see in places at times along the coast path. Can you guess what it is used for …

If you answered, ” So dogs can get through the stile, silly ” then you would be right!  Okay, maybe silly was not a required part of the answer.

When we went to step up and over the stile, we discovered someone had left some pretty deep foot prints. We spent the next few minutes of our walk trying to decide how it was done.

As we were heading up the path, John nodded in the direction of the hill above and said,  ” Look at that ”  So I closed my left eye and squinted in the direction he had indicated. I only wear one contact to adjust a distance vision deficit. Simply put, I am short-sighted and if something is more than 8 to 10 feet from me and I’m not wearing glasses or contacts, it’s a big blur. I have yet to experience the long-arm syndrome that seems to begin to plague many people in their late forties, so I just wear one contact for distance in my dominant eye and nothing in the left one leaving me able to see close up without the reading specs I would need if I had a contact for distance in each eye. I have had no problem with my squinty eye method until lately.

As I near my next big birthday decade this fall, I may soon have to concede that two contacts are better than one especially if I want to be able to distinguish things like the blobby shapes on the hillside from a distance.

After realizing that I could not tell what he was seeing that was so fascinating, I crept up to the side of the hill, approaching from behind to get a better look at what John assured me were not just sheep.

Climbing into the bracken and prickly gorse bushes, I saw something curvy sticking up that looked like a horn of unusual size for animals found in the fields here where we’ve walked. (Can you see it? ) Right … well I barely could, so deeper down the side of the hill ( mountain cliff ) I went until I was able to see a bit more.  I will be back a little later today to show you what I saw.

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Music & Memories In A Full House

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John and I drove to Exeter earlier this week for MIJ’s funeral, passing Dartmoor where we had spent hours in the past walking the moor with MIJ and Ray. We arrived early and found there were loads of people already there, clustering together in small groups in the way that people who know each other tend to do especially at sad and solemn events.

They were dressed in a variety of ways and it was easy to distinguish MIJ’s walking club buddies in boots and comfy clothes, from her belly dancing friends who jingled softly when they walked, the dangling coins on their belts moving in response to the motion of their hips.

MIJ was very specific about her final arrangements and although I had an idea from Ray of the simplicity of the ceremony to come, I was still slightly unprepared for such an unusual service.

You can see in the photo I discreetly snapped from the back of the chapel that her coffin was made of wicker. Instead of expensive flowers, she asked that Ray pick a few wild flowers if there were any to be had and although you can’t see them clearly, there is a small collection of snowdrops along with a shell from her garden and several other types of flowers that Ray had picked that morning.

What was most moving to me, causing me dissolve into tears at first sight was the image of her hiking boots near the foot of her coffin. A few years ago she had asked John to put three or four songs on a CD to be used at her funeral one day. This music made up the bulk of her service with just a short bit of verse, a poem she had written that was read by her son. I wish I had a copy of it to include in this post, but the one below made me think of the simplicity of her service and how little fuss she wanted to be made.

I have to say that for a brief moment when her coffin was carried in, I imagined MIJ sitting atop the coffin balanced in between the flowers and the boots in a dress I like to think of as her dance hall look from when we went to a fancy dress party on New Year’s Eve. I swear I could just about see her riding up there with her legs crossed wearing a flirty smile while surveying the room to see who had come to say goodbye. 

Life Goes On

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower

Nor inscribe a stone

Nor when I am gone

Speak in a Sunday voice

But be the usual selves

That I have known

 

Weep if you must

Parting is hell

But life goes on

So …. sing as well

~Joyce Grenfell

Ray & MIJ (in her dance hall dress), & Me – 12/2008

 

 

 

 

 

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Reaching For More

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If you click on the photo above you can see a mix of postcard messages and photographs from a visit to Scotland in 2004. I fell in mad, mad, love with the area the year before while on vacation with my daughter Miranda. At the time of our visit in 2003, I was on the cusp of making a major career decision and I was scared as most would be of doing something I might regret. Deep inside most of us know when it is time to make a change, but we find ways to rationalize not moving on.

Miranda and I traveled a bit that year doing an Outward Bound experience in Colorado, followed by our trip to the UK which included a few days in Amsterdam and Barcelona. It was during this break from my job that I began to enjoy my life again and somewhere along the way, I got my smile back.

By my second visit in the spring of 2004, I had left my corporate job and was taking some time to figure out what to do next. As I traveled around Scotland, I bought postcards in different locations and wrote messages on them before mailing them back myself in America. Friends who had picked up my mail and looked after my cats while I was gone joked with feigned huffiness that they had not received any postcards, but there were about ten waiting for me at home. The card below is one of the ten and underneath it you can see a message I wrote to myself.

I wrote the words above after taking a wrong turn at the end of the bridge that connects the Isle of Skye to the rest of Scotland. A wrong turn put me in a position to capture the image below reminding me that sometimes leaving the path is a good thing.

Today a blogging friend of mine left her corporate life behind for a new one. Some of you may have seen Mariellen’s comments here at GOTJ. If you have not been by her place you should, she’s a great writer with tons of life experiences to share. I can’t wait to see the new directions she will go as she begins this next phase of her life. If you have a minute, I bet she would appreciate a kind message of support over at her place.

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The Real Worker Bee

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Now while I would never think of John as just a worker bee, (which would make me the queen, right) he is definitely the one who makes things happen here. As an example, do you see those hats on the wall … last Saturday I said quite casually, ” What do you think about a long wooden strip here with pegs to display my special hats from home ? ”  A few hours later, I was putting three generations of my family hats on a lovely hat rack made by a man who makes me feel like all I need do is ask.

I loved hearing about your projects yesterday and would like to do a post with links to your blog or include a photograph of your projects here at GOTJ. You decide, but I think it would be fun to have a community Show & Tell page. If you’re interested, leave me a comment below and I’ll be in touch.

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Believing Can Make It So

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The Before Picture

This chair belonged to John’s parents. He inherited it after they died and has had it for about 13 of its 25 years. The chair does not really go with the living room as it exists now and John would tell you that he has never been in love with it. In fact, we tried to give it away to his niece Liz and her partner Tom when they decided to move in together, but they politely declined citing lack of space. They are in their mid twenties and I think perhaps having something that looked like a ” grandma chair ” was not what they had in mind for their first place together. Since John didn’t mind the idea of giving it away, he was also okay with me using it in my new space.

Feeling that my new studio needed more than just the daybed or desk chair for sitting, I decided to update the chair and make it a bit more funky. It had a faded polyester velveteen fabric that was a rusty, orangey-red color and several people pointed out that it fit the color scheme for my space. I felt like it needed reupholstering so I set out to make it happen. As is my way, I believed it was possible to do it myself.

It sat in the living room for a while with my fabric choice, a lime colored shade of green draped over it, and later in my developing space as it was being finished. When friends and family stopped by to have a look at our renovation/extension progress, they would see the chair and I always mentioned that I was planning to reupholster it for my studio.

I cannot tell you how many people said, ” Oh, you know how to reupholster furniture …” or something similar. Well, I did not know how to do it having never done it before, but like many things, I never assumed for one minute that it was beyond my ability. My response to those who asked was usually, ” No I haven’t, but I can work it out.”

I did consider that being a tufted chair would make it a bit more difficult, but the hardest part was taking the old tacks and staples out. After John watched me digging and yanking staples for several nights in a row, he encouraged me to give it away thinking it was too much bother. Suggesting that I quit in the middle of a difficult project only motivates me more. It’s like one child saying, ” Go on, I dare you …” to another child.

He walked into my studio space last night to find me hard at work on my chair and after seeing the tufting, said with some surprise how good he thought it was looking. My goal in sharing this story is two fold, one is my excitement in working it out for myself and the other is to encourage others to take a chance on trying new things even if you don’t know how it’s done. I think believing you can do it will often carry you along while sorting out the details of how to do it.

My ” new ” chair is almost complete and I will be back in a few days with some photographs that show the steps I went through as well as the finished product.

I would love for you to share an example of something you did that people questioned was possible or perhaps a project you have been considering.

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The Day The Antiques Roadshow Came To Lanhydrock

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The first time I visited Lanhydrock it looked like much the photograph above. John and I went early in the day hoping to get a good look at the gardens and although there were more people about than you see here, I managed to get this shot with the family alone in the middle pane of glass as they walked up the path. I love how tightly they stayed together and I have to say I was holding my breath hoping no one else would rush in as I waited for them the hit the spot I had in mind. We are fortunate to live close enough to ride our bikes to Lanhydrock and it remains one of my very favorite of the National Trust Properties that I have had the good fortune to visit.

Two years ago this summer, Lanhydrock played host to the Antiques Roadshow and John graciously agreed to go along with me as I brought a few pieces from America in for a closer inspection and evaluation.

We thought we should get there early because of expected crowds so after parking the car, we joined what looked like a group of early birds like us and headed for the main grounds.

Is this the back of the queue? Looks like I spoke too soon about beating the crowd.

Hmmm … that woman looks familiar.

Yes, it’s Fiona, Fiona Bruce!

It seemed as if Fiona was everywhere that day, but John remembers one place in particular when he tells the story of our afternoon at Lanhydrock. (I’ll say more about that later) We did a fair amount of standing in lines as we waited to have the items I brought appraised, but with all the activity going on there was a lot to see.

Notice the man with the green bag on the dolly or sack trolley as John would call it …

I had to sneak a quick picture of what looked like a carved stone of some kind.

The fancy ceremonial necklace on this man tells me he is the Mayor of Bodmin. Well, it really tells me he is the Mayor of somewhere, but I assumed it was Bodmin, based on Lanhydrock’s proximity.

After waiting patiently, I finally got a chance to learn a bit about a painting I had bought in America. It is painted on silk and I bought in an antique store about 10 years ago. I’ve kept it covered and in the closet for much of that time as it looked so fragile and old. (That is me on the right.)

This is the painting. It is signed, I.Weiss and bears the date Jan 1, 1841. I paid $28 for it and it was appraised at 200 to 300 BPS which translates to about $300 to $450 US dollars. Not a bad investment for a pretty piece of work.

Who’s this … why it’s Fiona Bruce again … and the story I said I finish that John likes to tell about our day at the Roadshow… well, when we were waiting in one of the lines, our line was blocking the path and when Fiona Bruce needed to break through she came straight to where John was standing and made eye contact with him as he stepped to one side to open a pathway through the line. As she passed in front of him, she smiled and said, ” Thank you.”  So if you asked him about the day, he’ll be more than happy to tell you about the ” conversation ” he had with Fiona Bruce.

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The Light Of Friendship

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I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are places on the moor where clumps of trees stand so tightly together that it is possible to step in through an opening and find yourself in a dark place with no light. Moss covers the rocks that line the forest floor, but you cannot see the beauty of the green or even your way clearly, without the light that sometimes manages to find its way in.

Your words and support over the last few days have been like a light in the forest working your way into my dark places. We think so often that we are strong on our own and there have many times when I have had to be, but the kind way in which you reached out to me through your comments was deeply appreciated and something I needed. It meant a great deal to me and I wanted to be sure you knew what a difference it made. Thank you .

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Marilyn Jefferies 1949-2010

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I took this picture on our last walk on Dartmoor with Ray and MIJ. I had already snapped a few shots of the cross when MIJ stepped into the shot. I took two or three photographs with her back to me wondering if the cross marked a grave or had been placed there as a memorial of some kind. I know now that many of the stone crosses on Dartmoor were placed there as guideposts to let travelers know they were on the right path. It seemed appropriate to use this photograph today.

Ray called this morning. John was out so I took the call knowing before I answered what he was going to say. He told me that MIJ had died about 7:00 this morning and that she seemed peaceful and appeared to be in no pain.

He said that he had just finished writing a poem for her and had turned to open the curtains as it was just beginning to get light. When he turned back, he could see that her breathing had changed so he took her in his arms and held her as she slipped away. That’s the way he said it, ” I took her in my arms and held her, and she just slipped away.”

As much as MIJ loved Ray, I cannot think of anything she would have liked more than to be held by him at the end.

Ray & MIJ on Dartmoor – November 8, 2009

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Waiting

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I took the fuzzy picture above from a fair distance through our kitchen window. It’s a view I see at various times of the day as Fudge, the cat in the picture sits waiting for his owner to come home. John says he is only waiting for his next meal, but he is out there at the end of the drive twice a day, just as he always was before his owner died a week before Christmas.

Several neighbors have taken turns feeding him, but when I try to coax him over for a little snack, he runs away. The man’s daughter lives several hours from here and does not know what to do with Fudge. He won’t go with her and he won’t stay put. As far as we can see, he likes to roam. He keeps his distance from people … sometimes even those like me with hand out for comfort and a bit of food to nourish. I keep reaching out, but Fudge cannot bring himself to be comforted or even fed by someone he doesn’t recognize.

I on the other hand, wanted to say how much I appreciate the kindness of  all of those who stopped by … even the new names that I do not recognize yet. Your messages of support and encouragement after reading this post were a great comfort to me as I am sure they will be to Ray when I am able to share them with him. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts.

As for Fudge, if you live in Cornwall or close by and would like to take in an independent outdoorsy cat, I can put you in touch with the right person.

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The Last Walk – Measured Steps

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Our friend MIJ is desperately ill. She won’t get any better and it is really bad now. That knowledge sits so uneasily with me that it stays with me in the back of everything lately. I pester John for answers he doesn’t have and ask him to call her partner Ray for updates when I know there is not going to be any good news.

Twenty years ago, MIJ had breast cancer with a reoccurrence five years later, but with good medical intervention and diligent followups it seemed unlikely that this would reenter her life, at least not in this way. In November, she turned sixty with the kind of energy you would expect to see in an athletic forty year old. As active as I am, I always felt pleasantly tired after one of our five hour walks around Dartmoor, while MIJ never showed any signs of fatigue.

She has been in so much pain that Ray said she has given up and her doctors are now focused on just keeping her as comfortable as possible. Already a tiny slip of a woman, her weight loss is shocking when friends stop by to see her and it has been difficult to find the right dosage between controlling the pain and allowing her some lucidity in the short time she has left.

From everything we hear, she is receiving wonderful care from a compassionate medical team who spent weeks searching diligently through symptoms that were so unusual that they thought she might have something they could treat … something with a different outcome than the one she has now, a terminal diagnosis.

Mid November was the last time we saw her. I wish I had known it would be our last walk, I might have talked of other things. From all appearances, everything in her life was fine. She’d just had her sixtieth birthday becoming eligible for her state pension and we discussed the ways a bit of extra cash would be useful to her travel plans. After retiring at 58, she and Ray would often go off for six weeks at a time, walking and camping in conditions that while beautiful, would have left me grumbling. When we saw them in November, they were planning a trip to Nepal with a departure date of next month, and I listened to her explanation of why they were going there and putting off the New Zealand trip I knew she had been dreaming about.

She also told me in great detail of the new kitchen installation she had decided to go ahead with. MIJ has a doll house of a cottage and had wanted to make changes for some time, but had put it off, concerned as are most people on the edge of retirement, about money. The kitchen was finished about a week after MIJ went into the hospital. She never even had a chance to use it. My mind fixates on things like that. I tend to get stuck on thoughts such how she won’t ever cook a meal or wash a dish in the new space. I think about how she will never see New Zealand or swim again with her grandchildren. I keep thinking about how sad it all is and what she will miss.

I have been getting stuck there lately thinking about the twenty years she won’t have, but John encourages me to shift my thinking by gently reminding me of the twenty years of living she has been able to have since her first cancer diagnosis. In those years, MIJ has seen her son marry and have children of his own and she has been able build memorable relationships with her grandchildren who are old enough now to remember her when she is gone. Having twenty more years meant she had time to meet and fall in love with Ray eighteen years ago and travel to places she might never have seen had she been traveling alone.

When I came back from America early in December, I anticipated we would see Ray and MIJ for New Year’s Eve like we did last year, but around the time I began to think we should call them to make a plan, Ray called us to share the bad news. They were with us on our wedding day and I thought we would have more time. That’s often the way it is. You plan for a future that may not come and put off the things you might do or say differently if you only knew that this moment might be all you would have.

It is so natural to say, ” When I retire, I shall do ____ or when I get a new ___, I’ll be peaceful and happy,”  but if anything ever illustrated the point that we should not wait to do the things that matter, the finality of death does in it in an unmistakable way. It is that period at the end of the sentence, the full on stop that says, ” Your time is up.”

As Ray watches over MIJ in the hospital, I find my focus shifting to what we can do to help him. MIJ is getting all she needs now and is barely able to communicate more than a few words a day. He is at her side, all hours of the day, staying late into the night to keep her company as she gets ready for the final part of her journey.

Looking back over my photographs from our last walk together, I saved this one although I wasn’t really sure why at the time. It is not particularly pretty like many of the others that day, but in looking at it now I can see a future that was not apparent to any of us three short months ago.

MIJ, as you can see, walks on ahead while Ray waits, looking off in another direction. She is getting closer to the end now and I feel such sorrow thinking of her dying in a hospital bed. A still and quiet MIJ is so unfamiliar that I can’t quite get my head around it and my mind looks for something more comforting. I find it by picturing her walking, looking as I remember her best and thinking of these last days as measured steps, where MIJ is only going on before us, on a last walk alone.