Streetcar among the condos in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

They’re taking away parts of my beloved public transit in Toronto. I feel like I’m losing some of my close friends. When I was a kid, it was an adventure to ride with Mom on  Toronto’s buses, streetcars and subways. Now, some routes are on the proverbial chopping block and some bus  services in Toronto have already had hours reduced.  It’s all in the name of cost-cutting from Mayor Rob Ford and his executive council cronies to eliminate Toronto’s $774 million budget short. Mr. Ford commissioned an outside study to find services to cut and they’ve come up with a list of possibilities to the off-key tune of $740 M. Nothing is sacred. When he gets done, Toronto will not be recognizable. I am saddened.

One of the bus lines recently cut back in hours is the Broadview 8 bus – one that I took with my Mom and Dad as a child. We lived a skip and a run (depending on where the bus was when you were trying to catch it) from a couple of bus stops. Today, I can take that bus as part of my route home from wherever or if I’m visiting friends in my old stomping ground, when the bus is actually running.

I’m someone who not only depends on the TTC to get around,  but I actually enjoy riding on a bus, streetcar and subway. The scenery is interesting and varied: outside, all those condos springing up, parks, gardens and quaint old shops along the streetcar routes in particular; inside, that lady next to me texting madly or the fellow swaying to the sound (dare I say “noise?”) emanating from those buds in his ears. There is also the nostalgia factor – not just personal, but the TTC history.  TTC stands for Toronto Transit Commission but way back before even my time, Toronto’s transit wasn’t all one big service – it was several, and some were private. Do we want to go that route (pun intended) again? That’s something else being considered.

Riding on the buses, streetcars and subway with my mom was a lot of fun. As I write in my memoir:

The bus stop closest to 139 was just around the corner on O’Connor Drive – that is if you walked left and the TTC hadn’t moved its trademark red and white sign to the far side of Don Mills Road. If we saw the bus coming, we had to decide quickly if we could reach the stop before the bus or if racing to the next stop, one and a half blocks west, was a better choice. We were playing transit roulette, with the streetlights at Don Mills and the driver’s whim to wait for us or to continue on to the next stop.

Once we boarded the bus, we continued with the rest of our travels. Long languid rides on streetcars out to Long Branch in Toronto’s west end. Short hops on buses to shop on the Danforth. Streetcars jam-packed with sugar-fuelled kids and yawning parents returning from a day at the CNE. Swallowing hard on a long bus ride to the orthodontist. Or doing the freezing changeover from subway to streetcar inside the makeshift wood shelter in the middle of Bloor St. east of Yonge St. All before the Bloor subway line opened in 1966.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

However, not all rides were fun back then, as I write:

When I was 10 and 11, I wore braces on my teeth. The orthodontist had an office on Eglinton Avenue just east of Yonge St. Perhaps if we had travelled by subway, the journey might have been different, but Mom insisted on taking the more direct route.

We are sitting on the Leaside bus, this time going in the opposite direction from the Danforth. As it clips across the Leaside Bridge and then diverts through the factory area on Brentcliffe, my mind and soul are elsewhere, clamped in the dentist’s chair. The dentist is tugging at my braces and picking at my teeth; my mouth is wide open and I want to retch. The bus sharp turns back onto Laird Drive. I jerk up and the contents of my stomach start to follow as far as my throat. I must look whiter than the fat in the bacon because Mom opens a window.

“It’s okay. We’re almost there. We’ll be off the bus in a few minutes.”

I swallow hard, clutch my stomach and wish I were in never never-never land. The bus halts at the stop before Yonge St. I jump off, with Mom right behind me. She steers me towards an alley by one of the buildings and I lurch forward, open my mouth and pour out breakfast, lunch and snack. Mom hands me a tissue, and while I wipe my mouth and sniffle back vomit, she murmurs calming words.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

And that about describes how I feel about these proposed service cuts. I’m even feeling sicker about the proposed cuts to the public libraries but that’s fodder for another post or we’ll be here till Christmas 2012 (not a typo).

If you want to read more about the proposed cuts to Toronto’s service, go to http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/07/21/toronto-service-cuts-report326.html. I’d prefer to have a bit more of a hike in our property taxes than the 3 per cent we’re getting next year and a TTC fare increase. We received no property tax increase or TTC fare hike for this year and one revenue resource – the vehicle registration tax – was given the boot. Duh. Note to Mayor Ford and cronies…potential revenue down the drain.

Cheers (I think)

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Rhubarb - not from my garden or Mom's but from Arthur's clip art online. See blog roll for website

Rhubarb follows me around. Maybe it’s in my Mommy genes. Mom grew rhubarb the width of her garden. I grew rhubarb in my Aurora garden until it dwindled from neglect. Rhubarb is in my Toronto garden – although not in its original place on the far side of the house. With the help of a neighbour, it got moved to the main garden area in the backyard – more sun and it’s in my face so I have to pay attention.

But except for the eating, what I do with my rhubarb is way different from what Mom did. One of her “processing tools” scared me so much I had to come up with something simpler and safer. As I write in my memoir:

The pressure cooker and a big blue-and-white speckled canning pot are steaming on the stove. Both contain water that would boil over in hell, but Mom is preparing to create her version of heaven – rhubarb and strawberry jam. I feel like the angel earning her wings as I hover nearby and try to catch her instructions drifting through the steam.

“Sharon, you have to boil the jars first,” she says. “Boil the water first and then carefully put the jars in the pot.” She covers the large pot and the pressure cooker.

I’m still standing away from the stovetop. The pressure cooker terrifies me. It appears like a miniature steam engine puffing away on the stove, and ready to blow up in my face any minute.

“Why isn’t the lid on tight?” I ask, pointing my finger at the pressure cooker, but still remaining a few feet away from it.

“That’s so the steam can get out and we’re boiling the jars to sterilize, not cook them.” She sees me staring at the lids and thick rubber circles lying on the tables. “Those are the ring bands that go around the neck of the jars to seal them.”

“Oh,” I reply.

Mom is using the standard Mason jars, but I remember she took her chances with reusing jars that once held mayonnaise and store-bought jam. After the regular washing in the sink, she gave them the boiled-in-the-pan treatment.

While a whole lot of boiling is going on, Mom opens the stairway door and retrieves a basket of strawberries and rhubarb from the steps. She carries it into the kitchen, dumps the fruit into the triangular-shaped colander in the sink, and runs water over it. She pulls out a couple of sharp knives from a drawer and goes to work on the ruby sticks. She hands me the paring knife to prepare the strawberries.

“Don’t slice them across the top like that. You’re missing some of the berry. Dig in with the tip of the knife and then put it under a bit and lift up the leaves. Here, Sharon, I’ll show you.”

I let her finish as chopping doesn’t appeal to me. Neither of us has any clue that in less than a decade, Mom’s fingers will be too curled and swollen from arthritis to chop the meat on her plate, let alone fruit for jams. All the plans and prayers in the world won’t change this from happening. 

But right then, I’m waiting for those jars to sterilize so I can do the real cooking – the rhubarb and strawberries. When the jars have boiled to safety, Mom removes them and stands them up on the small kitchen counter by the sink. She pours the water into the sink and when the fruit is sliced, she dumps it into the speckled pot. I stir it with the wooden spoon. The steam rushes into my face and I don’t mind that it mixes with the summer heat in our non-air-conditioned kitchen. I can see the hard rhubarb slices dissolve to shreds; then the strawberries go soft. Mom mutters something about pectin to thicken and sugar to sweeten and both land in the pot. I pay no attention to amounts; just keep stirring round and round inside the pot.

“Is it ready yet, Mom?” I ask.

“Give it a few more minutes.”

More stirring. My right hand feels tired and my gastric juices reach high anticipation.

“It’s got to be ready now, Mom.”

“A few more minutes. Here, let me check if it’s sweet enough.” She takes a spoon from the drawer, scoops out some of the rhubarb strawberry mixture and slides a bit of it into her mouth. “Hmm. Needs a bit more sugar.”

“Let me try.”

“Wait; still needs sugar.” She pours more of the white stuff in, guides my hand in a fast stir, then says, “Ok.” She hands me a clean spoon from the drawer.

I dig the spoon deep down into the pot, but most of what I collect falls off. I open my mouth wide and shove in the spoonful and . . .

“Ouch. That’s hot.”

Of course, not too much makes it into the jars. Mom decides to make rhubarb and strawberry pie and some of the mixture in a jar in the fridge gets spread on toast in the morning for her, Dad and I to gobble down.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

Today I  skip the pressure cooker and mason jars. I cut up the rhubarb, wash it, toss some in a pot, add a little water, put it on the stove (medium heat), and stir  off and on until it is soft. Any extra I freeze raw in bags for winter’s use  – just thaw, heat and eat . Or make rhubarb pie or crisp.

Anybody else have some rhubarb stories or recipes to share?

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child's black raspberries and bush up close

My black raspberries are out in abundance. Every day I’m out there picking and picking raspberries. I learned a few summers back to dress for the occasion if I didn’t want want my arms and legs to resemble being mauled by a tiger. So, out I go wearing jeans, a long-sleeved blouse, running shoes and a floppy hat, and later dripping sweat.

There’s an art to reaching in and around the heavy bushes to get at the ripe raspberries without dropping the yogurt container I use to collect the berries. There is also an art to pruning the bushes in the fall and my Mom seemed to grasp it automatically. As I write in my memoir

Mom tackled bushes, in particular, her raspberry bushes gone wild, down the other neighbour’s side of the garden and behind our garage, ready to tango with the hedge dividing garden from lawn. Mom marches out with the pruning shears and cuts branches in snips and starts.

“They’re getting all over the place,” she mumbles. Snip. Snip.

I watch in bewilderment, no idea how she decides. She just knows.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford).

I sure don’t know what I’m doing when I prune the raspberry bushes in the autumn. I prune the branches that bore raspberries the past summer because they are done. I also prune any growing too thick. Somehow, I really missed something last fall as this year’s raspberries are too bushy.

Not complaining – I’m getting more berries and I’m sharing with my son and his girlfriend and my friends next door…and eating lots and freezing lots.

But all this raspberry picking has taught me some lessons – many can be applied to life in general and running a small business in particular. So, here are the lessons of my black raspberries.

1. Patience

2. Persistence.

3. Generosity and sharing.

4. Dressing appropriately for the occasion.

5. Preserving food for winter, which could also be saving money

5. Eating fresh berries well within the 100-mile diet.

6. My bit for the organic movement – I don’t spray my raspberry bushes.

7. Health benefits from eating raspberries – high in antioxidants and may help prevent cancer. See http://www.naturalnews.com/black_raspberries.html for more information.

8. Health benefits from picking raspberries – the zen effect of the continuous picking of the berries and being out in the garden away from traffic – cars and people.

But I won’t have the benefit my late Mom had – properly-pruned bushes making it easier to get at the berries.

Here’s the rub – I have many more berries to share and enjoy.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child ponders that banking situation

Yesterday I had an experience with my bank that throws out the usual premise of  “big banks, big bucks, low concern for the lowly customer.” It might have been because I was polite when I complained instead of my usual storming in and shouting.

To backtrack. It was the first day after the long Canada weekend and I expected somewhat of a lineup inside the bank.  I had to go in as I had to get into my safety deposit box. When I arrived, counting a couple of older adults (well, older than I am), nine people were ahead of me, including the two standing at the only two working tellers. This bank branch has four teller wickets. A third teller, a fellow I’d never seen before had the “another officer will be pleased to serve you” sign up and was busy doing whatever tellers do when they close but still have to finish up. The lady ahead of me in line told me she’d already complained – to a loan officer as the manager wasn’t in and that third “teller” with the closed wicket was really a teller. I waited in line 20 minutes and during that time counted 12 people and one dog behind me in line.

The teller usually takes you to the safety deposit boxes, but because they were so busy she had another staffer do this. Clearly, he’d never done the safety box detail before and I had to instruct him. I maintained my civility with him and the tellers – none of this was their fault.

And maybe deep down in my subconscious I remembered another visit to another bank years ago right after my mother died. Her pension cheque had just arrived and my godmother-aunt came with me to deposit it in my now late mother’s account. I had no idea if I could do this but my godmother said it was okay as I was just depositing it into her account, not cashing it. And I was going in as me, so my name would be on the deposit slip. In my memoir I write about this scenario.

What I do remember is something else connected to money. Mom’s pension cheque for August arrived just after she died.

My godmother takes me to Mom’s bank…

“Just fill in the deposit slip in your mother’s name and deposit the whole amount,” my godmother says. “Don’t even tell them she’s dead. You can do that in a few days when the cheque clears the bank.”

I hold my breath, keep my mouth shut and pass the deposit slip (copy made for my records) to the teller. As she looks at it, I imagine someone, God, my conscience personified, but definitely not my Mom, shouting in the teller’s ear.

“Julia Langevin is dead.”

The teller rubber stamps the cheque and the deposit slips, gives me one, and puts her copy and the cheque in her drawer.

The cheque clears. Of course the estate lawyer has to notify the company issuing the cheque of her death. They write back instructing me to return the cheque if it hasn’t already been processed,

(excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

The key words above are “if it hasn’t already been processed.”  The key word’s for yesterday’s bank incident could be “how to process.” I decided to phone head office and complain about the branch situation. No contact number was on the bank’s website so I phoned the general 800 number in the print phone book. Here a fellow told it me was the office of the president for complaining, and gave me a phone number…the French connection. Despite my French maiden name I can’t speak much French. So I left a cryptic message in English and checked online under the bank’s name and “president complaints” and found the English phone number.

I phoned and a pleasant man answered and took down my information. I made it clear that I gave full marks to the two tellers who were trying to cope. He replied, “thank you.” He took my name and phone number and said he would get back to me. I expected to wait a few days but it was more like a few minutes. The problem was one teller quit unexpectedly on the Friday, the third teller was a student who could only come in for the morning, and a new manager was coming in on Wednesday. And this bank representative apologized to me for the bad service.

So, is this a case of the old axiom of catching more flies with honey than vinegar? Or can bank employees – even connected to the president’s office – be polite and quick to sort out the problems?

Take your pick. Now, if only my bank balance could increase that easily.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only child writes

My late Mom sure had the right idea for a little girl with no brothers and sisters but a Bully for a friend. In my memoir, in Chapter  4, “Protecting the Princess,” I write:

She (Mom)must know that the others treat me like a pariah. On sunny summer mornings, she parks me outside with my colouring book and crayons at the card table on the front veranda. I sit there in the slowly receding shade from the house and carefully pick out crayons to colour in the trees, flowers, people, and cartoon characters of my vast colouring book collection. Boxes holding only eight crayons are not good enough; I prefer at least 24 crayons because then I can pick out different browns for the hair and different greens for the grass and trees. I pull out a crayon, lift it to my nose to inhale the waxy smell, then apply it to the drawings of people and places. I make sure my crayon stays within the outline and that I shade evenly. No wisps or coloured lines scattered all over the page. Already I am realizing that I need some order in my life. But not without the spontaneous sweetness of nature. Often I lift my head from my shading to stare at the green grass and trees along the block and listen to the birds tweeting. Occasionally, a neighbour strolls by. We don’t wave or say “hello,” but I sense the peacefulness, not just between us, but overall. The neighbourhood is quiet now and I need to absorb this. It is more than just breathing – it is my reboot into living after confrontations with the Bully. Of course, I don’t figure this all out then. I am just content to soak up the moment without any angry outbursts.

I know now that Mom sensed this need and this was her way of getting me back in gear. Perhaps she realized that because I had no brothers or sisters, I had to go it alone. Perhaps she felt guilty because she and Dad had not “given” me a sibling. It certainly had nothing to do with Dad’s cancer because the summer of his diagnosis was still a few years down the road.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford).

So, what’s stopping I or anyone else from doing a reboot? I have finally finished planting and transplanting in the garden and weeding is never-ending. I’ve started sitting out on the backyard patio or the veranda – not to colour with crayons (I still like the waxy smell), but to read a mystery or memoir book or the newspaper. It is my way to connect with nature, with summer and even my youth. As I grew older and moved away from crayons and colouring books, I would sit out in the backyard or on the front veranda and read an Agatha Christie or teen novel – whatever I borrowed from the library. Often I did this instead of studying for high school exams. It was a way to de-stress and disappear into another world, not mine. The characters in the novel might have had difficult situations to deal with but they  would be solved by novel’s end. And they were not my problems. The big key to reading fiction is escapism. And most of us need some of that in this aggressive fast-paced technological world. I could add many more adjectives but you get what I mean.

Take the time to reboot in your garden. If you don’t have a garden or a balcony with containers of flowers and herbs, go to your nearest park or public garden. And sit. And read. And just absorb the surroundings. Reboot. Your psyche will thank you. So will your family, friends and anyone you come into contact with. Beats an angry you flying off the handle at every slight or big conflict.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Steam engine like those that fascinated and frightened Only Child when she was much younger. From http://www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk/trains/5-steam-engine.htm

Train travel is in my blood. When I look at all the security hoops of air travel, the current Air Canada customer service employees’ strike, and the high gasoline prices at the pumps, trains look better and better. As many of you have probably read in previous posts, my late father worked for CN Railways (then CNR) as a timekeeper. So, Mom, Dad and I rode the rails for free for our holidays. Back in those grey ages, trains had something else to draw me in – steam engines.  I write in my memoir about encountering a steam engine during one of these trips to my grandfather’s farm:

No steam engines on this train to Guelph – it rolled along pulled by one of the new whippersnappers called a diesel locomotive. But I get my steam engine at Guelph. We’re waiting outside on the Guelph platform for our train to Palmerston. I’m showing Darlene all the tracks way out beyond the station behind us. I see activity between two trains parked on parallel tracks. One train puffs a little steam; the other seems at rest except for the dollies of huge mailbags wheeled from it to the little puffer. The now familiar PA voice broadcasts, “Train #34 for Toronto now boarding on platform 2, Train #174 for Hamilton on platform 3, and Train #… Then I hear it … a distant whoo-oo, whoo-oo that steadily grows louder and then chug-chug- whoo-oo as another train rounds the corner. I put Darlene to my left ear and my right hand over my right ear; my purse dangles by its strap from my right arm. Thick charcoal smoke whirls up and behind the chimney top of the massive black engine charging into the station. The smoke resembles a cloud of dark incense, but smells like soot mixed with tar. This engine leads like a big black God with a stern round face who commands respect and suddenly I feel back in church. When this God grinds to a halt, its mixed bag of followers – mail cars, baggage cars and passenger cars – stop. I remove my hand and doll from my ears and fight the urge to kneel down. Mom grabs my arm and leads me to another trainman standing by another of those steel square footstools.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, Chapter 7 – Riding the Rails with Dad, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford. Darlene is/was one of my dolls.)

Of course, something else besides steam engines is missing from train travel today – all the routes to and stops at the small towns. Heck, many of the train station buildings are gone for good and for the small towns that still are on railway routes, the train station is like a tiny box, smaller than my living room. And these stops are often “flag stops,” i.e., the train doesn’t stop here unless someone gets off or on – and that information goes into the railway’s computer system, another change from coal and fire and water tanks along the way for those steam engines.

But some things about train travel remain – the more relaxed atmosphere inside and the scenery outside the window. Take the Canadian Rockies. An airplane-view in the sky shows small bumps below and a definite disconnect. Going through the Rockies by train puts you right there. And what about going through farmers’ fields on the Prairies and in southwestern Ontario? For those used to 21st century “essentials,” you can hook up to WiFi (or not) on trains; you can read, look out the window, talk to your seatmate, or snooze. And there is more room to put your bags – you can even bring them on board even though some railways limit the number. You aren’t patted down before getting on although signs in the larger railway stations do give security notices that you may need to open your bag for checking.

Then there are the old railway stations still left and open – from the huge Union Station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to the smaller unique ones in Stratford and Kitchener, Ontario. Unfortunately if your are going to Grimsby and Strathroy, Ontario you get those box-stations.

So, like every summer vacation, I plan to take the train and enjoy despite one physical feature of them that remains – the narrow steel steps onto the train and the precarious and small steel footstool to hoist yourself and all your baggage onto the train.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

and teaches Memoir Writing workshops

for the Toronto Public Library. Next one: June 15/11

Danforth/Coxwell Branch http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca

One of the places in North Toronto Only Child was trying to find

Lately I keep getting lost when I venture somewhere in the northern parts of Toronto. Before I leave, I make sure I have the address, check it out on Google and Mapquest and even ask for directions from the person I’m going to see. I might as well be wearing a blindfold. Is there some reason I’m not supposed to be travelling “up north in Toronto?” Or is there some other deeper reason, like maybe I’m feeling lost in some part of my life?

Perhaps these current electronic guides  just don’t cut it like my late Mom did. Mom and I would travel around Toronto together and I don’t remember us ever getting lost. As I write in my memoir You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons

To get around in life you need guides, signs and a healthy dose of paying attention – on all levels.  As Dad was to riding the rails, Mom was to city transit. Travelling by the feat of my public transit savvy really began when Mom and I trekked around on Toronto’s buses, streetcars and subway. She was my guide. I just didn’t realize then how much of a guide.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

In the here and now, I had quite the “merry” journey trying to find my new opthamologist’s office. Armed with the online map printed out and the knowledge that I visited that medical building seven years before, I headed “up north.” When I stepped off the TTC bus and started walking towards the specific street I didn’t recognize the area – more tall buildings had sprung up. Okay. But I saw no street sign; however did turn and walk along that street  until I decided I was in the wrong place, so headed back for the bus stop, boarded the bus back to where the medical centre street crosses the bus line. When I got off I had to take stairs down to this street and had no clue where to go from there. This street crisscrossed many other roads and street numbers didn’t help. I started asking others. An older lady going for a walk had to literally show me the winding way. Yup. You guessed it. I had been on the right nameless road before – if I had continued another block and a half I would have found the medical building. I arrived late.

A couple weeks later when I headed to my new lawyer’s office – again in North Toronto – I had no trouble finding the building with its number big and bold on the side, which I saw once I could figure out how to exit the subway station. However, getting to the actual building proved a big problem as I came to  an overpass but I stayed on the same street because that was the building’s address. As I neared the building I couldn’t see how to get from the sidewalk to the actual building as there was a slight hill with trees and grass up from the sidewalk to the building and no way in. I kept walking and finally found an entrance on a  side street. I arrived late.

Yesterday I had to interview an optometrist for a story I’m writing for a magazine. After lunch with my son and his girlfriend, they dropped me  at a subway station before they headed up further north to visit Martin’s dad. This “getting lost” must be family-contagious because Martin took the wrong entrance to  the subway drop off — yet he had been there many times before and said he always got the entrance wrong.

Continuing in this vein, when I exited the subway, I started walking in the wrong direction. Because  I was early I had decided to surface a stop before and check out a small shopping mall. I finally found it but when I wanted to go back on the subway I couldn’t find the passenger entrance to the subway, just the bus entry. I walked north a block and found the subway station’s back entrance. Because entry was automatic, I had to use my pass electronically and it didn’t seem to work – another passenger had to slide it through and, of course, the revolving door magically opened then.

The optometrists’s office? No problem finding it or the mall it is in.  I arrived 15 minutes early.

I’m beginning to see a pattern here. As an only adult-child. out of necessity, I’ve become used to manouvering my way around alone. Obviouusly I need a guide like my late mom. The question is who? Sure, I did get lucky in a couple of the above instances and with the third (the lawyer’s office building) my own persistence paid off.  Maybe the lesson here is to be open to help from unexpected resources. Certainly many of the expected ones don’t pan out. I ask my friends for help and sometimes I receive a no. True, they have their own lives to lead and unless they break promises made to me I can’t hold it against them.

Or maybe the answer is to tap deeper into my own instinct and not panic. Especially as on my way to and from grocery shopping later yesterday my intuition was bang on about when buses arrived – including one showing up three minutes early.

Or I could stay out of North Toronto.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child's memories of garden past summer of 2010

It’s cold and gray outside and the date is APRIL 19, not NOVEMBER 19. Some places, such as Calgary, Alberta, have snow. What happened to spring? I want to garden outside and am weary of contenting myself with almost daily tours to see if the tulip and hyacinth plants have grown another fraction of an inch and if there are  any bulbs (a few, not open). The chives started poking above the ground late last week and I grab hunks of it to add to baked potatoes and  other culinary creations. Then I do a tour of the inside-the-house plants – the coleus and others that I hope to place outside sometime this spring. It might have been the best year for my indoor plants but the jungle inside isn’t good enough for now.

I am my late mother’s daughter and it’s in  my genes, in my nature to garden. When I was growing up we were out in the garden planting seeds now. As I write in my memoir:

In April, when the first tulip showed its face in the flowerbed under the living room window, Mom had to get out in her garden and do her vegetable, fruit and flower business….

So on this April day in 1952, “Princess Sharon,” age three and a half, with arms crossed, stands between the hedges overseeing the family garden. Dad planted those hedges to separate garden and lawn, and I, his princess, am raring to go gardening. At my shoes, rhubarb sprawls to the left and right, like flat green feet extending from the bottom of the hedge. I’m wearing a cotton dress with large flowers scattered throughout the material and Oxford-like white shoes and socks. The garden itself appears bare and white like sand on a beach except for the couple bent over their shovels, turning the soil from back fence to hedge. I cart out my small shovel and dig in, but I make only small dents compared to Mom and Dad’s efforts. Mostly I hover, watch, and listen.

(Excerpt from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford).

In this April of 2011 I am certainly doing a lot of hovering, watching and listening. The latter for the birds – few and far between but I did see the first robin in late March. I also have the excavation by the side of the house (to fix the basement leak) to “hover, watch, and listen” over. But that work is almost done. And maybe I should be thankful the weather has been awful (except for a couple of days of warm grace) – otherwise I might have been ranting about not being able to get at all my gardening because of the mess of earth and tools all over my patio and some  spreading out onto the back lawn.

We were definitely spoiled last summer – the most perfect summer with weather beginning hot in April and lasting into the fall. Thanks to El Nino. What do we have this year? No Nino? Last summer I knew it wouldn’t last/couldn’t repeat itself and to savour it day by day.

Maybe that’s the key. Find something special about each day and enjoy and savour it – one day at a time. After all I did start my tomato, pepper, nasturtium, marigold and peony poppy seeds indoors over the weekend. They and other plants will eventually get outside. And the tulips, hyacinths, pansies and chives are growing (slowly) outside. Patience is a virtue – one I never cultivated.
Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child's late father under the rose archway

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So if you’re stuck or flying all over the place about what to write in your memoir, you might want to look at old family photos – one at a time.  In my Memoir Writing workshops we do a couple of exercises with photographs. Some participants who don’t bring a family photo get to pick one of mine and superimpose their own family situations on it. And it is surprising what they can remember even with someone else’s picture. In one workshop, a woman was moved to tears looking at a photo of my parents and me in front of my childhood home.

And that’s what we do with the first exercise – no not cry, well, not at first. We look at the photo and list the memories it evokes and the feelings we experienced with it. As we do this we can ask ourselves questions as prompts. I list the memories and their emotions on a flip chart and we talk about them. In the next exercise we write the actual scenario as it might appear in a memoir using both narrative and dialogue and our own unique style. That is, if we haven’t done that in the first exercise which often happens. This means the photo has really sent us deep into our memories. Then we read some of them out loud. Many are very powerful.

Let’s look at the photo of my late dad under the rose archway situated at the entrance to the backyard where I grew up. My list of memories and emotions include:

Dad -  How does he appear? Like a guard to the rose garden. Old, like he was my grandfather.  Emotions/feelings: love, security, and even sadness (at both my dad and the rosebushes long gone. The deeper emotion is that it is all in the past, all gone, except from memory and the photo).

The archway and rose bushes – more my mom than dad because the rose bushes were her babies. Mom fussed over blackspot, cut off the dead roses and pruned the bushes. And the colours (the archway ones were a deep red) and fragrance. I also remember another rosebush on the other side of the yard by the neighbours0 driveway. I write about this in my memoir:

“The leaves have too much blackspot,” she says. “And this rose is finished.” Snip, snip go her clippers, then, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Swenge.”

I stand beside my mother and nod a “hello” to Mr. Swenge. Old, heavyset, and banished outside by his wife so he can smoke, he stands silent in his driveway on the other side of the fence. Between puffs on his cigar, he nods, and continues to stare at us. He gives me the creeps; he’s like a harbinger of what’s to come on our side of the fence. I stick my nose in the rosebush, but all the sweet flowers in the world won’t overpower the cancer connection with smoking. The multiple rosebushes and the other scented bushes seem like a rectangle of protection my mother’s subconscious dredged up. However, smelling the flowers doesn’t keep the black spot from attacking my Dad’s lungs and brain. Why are daffodil sales used to collect funds for cancer research? If it’s their colour, yellow, supposedly the colour of healing I can tell these researchers that it won’t work. Although yellow is the colour of the radiant sun, the yellow roses, forsythia tree and tulips my mother grew didn’t keep cancer away. When I combine the paltry results of my mother’s tulip-bulb planting, the life cycle of the forsythia (yellow flowers first, leaves second), the roses (red, rose, pink, white and yellow), maybe mother’s garden was sprinkled with omens of the disease and its future colours of hope. Certainly the cause permeated throughout, not just the neighbour’s cigars, but the cigarette and pipe smoke my Dad inhaled and exhaled. As a garden grows based on what you put into the soil, so can cancer grow from what you (or your environment) put inside your body.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

As you can see I got carried away into the narrative. Everyone’s memories and narrative will be different in perspective and in what actually occurred. Even with common denominators such as the writer’s age, era he or she grew up in, etc., something will differ. And the telling will also be different – it could be humorous, serious (or both) filled with dialogue, mostly narrative, told in present tense, told in past tense, perhaps include some poetry, and the emotions can range from anger to laughter to sadness. The characters will all be unique and the situation will come from your memory and your perspective in looking back.

So haul out an old family photo, immerse yourself in it, and start writing.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child ready to write that book proposal

A reader of this blog, Tara Benwell, who just published her novel came up with an interesting motivator to get her novel to press. Until she accomplished this, she vowed she wouldn’t buy any new socks. Which got me thinking about my memoir. I  have finished writing it but getting the query and the accompanying book proposal to a literary agent is my stumbling block. Maybe I’m spoiled because the first agent and the first publisher to express interest wanted to skip the preliminaries and look at the whole manuscript. Although both rejected my book, they had some positive feedback (which I acted on). Now, I’m heading into unknown literary agent territory and non-fiction books require a book proposal. I seem to be taking too much time to complete the book proposal. And therein may lie the problem which we writers have – finding the time to actually write. Although I’m not going to give up buying socks until the job is done, Tara got me going. What are the bugaboos that can get in the way of writers finishing writing that novel, memoir, synopsis or book proposal?  Here are some I’ve come across and possible ways to tackle them.

1. Too busy doing what others want instead of writing your book. This can include too many family demands, and a bane of freelance writers and editors (guilty here) – bowing to client demands that go beyond the parameters of the job and your contract/agreement with the client.

2. Social media overload (guilty here but with e-mail and surprise, surprise, business, not personal, e-mail). Social media is necessary to do business these days but you need to pick and choose what best suits your career/business marketing strategy. And on the personal side – how much time spent tweeting or texting could you use writing?

3. Downright procrastination – no matter what you are doing instead of writing. (guilty here.) First you need to acknowledge it – say out loud “My name is —– and I am a procrastinator.” Then look at why. Are you scared if you finish that novel, memoir, etc. it won’t be good enough? Try putting the editor in your head to sleep when you are writing. Editing/rewriting can come later. Or do you get writer’s block when you stare at that blank computer screen? Try freefall writing on any subject, word, even a sound to loosen up. Or go for a walk, take a shower, or pull weeds in the garden (if spring ever arrives). All can get you thinking about ideas.

4. Keep a time log or diary of everything you do from when you get up to when you go to bed. Do this for a week and see what your time-wasters are.

5. This one is important enough to put as a separate point. Pick a time and day (evenings, nights, early mornings, weekends, weekdays) when you could actually sit down and write. Don’t pick early mornings if you are a night owl. Write it down – in your “to do” list, in your Blackberry – wherever you keep track of your day’s schedule. You will be deleting some of your time-wasters – at least for some of the time. Think of it as making the best choice for you. For example, you  give up texting your friends for hours Monday and Wednesday evenings for writing a couple more chapters in your book. Which brings me to my final point.

5. Let your family, friends, clients, etc. know what you are doing. And tell them diplomatically. Remind the client about the work parameters. Tell your friends and family you aren’t ditching them, just re-organizing your time because you are writing a book but you will still spend time with them. Note: for family chores: can your partner pick up the kids from soccer practice sometimes? Or if you’re a single parent, can you arrange with other soccer parents to take turns? How about getting your children to do a few household chores (increase their allowance if necessary). You might want to consider hiring a cleaning person once or twice a month if your budget can afford it. Think creatively beyond that box you are stuck in.

As for me, I’m cutting back on business e-mail time and adding in “finish book proposal” – it is started – to more days each week.

But I won’t give up my coffee and ice cream.

Read Tara Benwell’s blog post at http://www.tarabenwell.com/Tara_Benwell/Blog/Entries/2011/3/25_And_then_there_were_socks.html.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Two of Only Child's many cousins. The one on the right is the Canadian family genealogist.

The upcoming Memoir Writing Workshop I’m teaching for another Toronto Public Library branch is filling up fast. That tells me memoirs are still high on the trend list. A Google search of  “Memoir Books 2006 to 2011″ produced a hit list of 5,300,000.  This continuing popularity gives me hope about getting my own memoir You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons published.

What about memoir writing itself? I’ve covered some ideas on what to write in previous posts (See http://onlychildwrites.wordpress.com/2010/05/). But writing a memoir isn’t just mining from your memories. Research is involved and sometimes where to begin can overwhelm you. Do I go through all those unsorted family photographs? Do I have to become a genealogy expert? Should I talk to family members? Do I…?

Hold it right there. Before you do your version of a chicken-with-no-head, focus. Make sure you have narrowed down what you want to write about in your memoir. Subject matter will determine research. If you’re writing about an area of your childhood and/or your parents, you might want to talk to family members to get the bigger picture. Maybe someone in your family is doing the family genealogy. On my mother’s side of the family, two family members – one close (as in relationship and in distance) and one in another country are researching family history.  Neither knew about the other until another cousin met the United States-based one and connected him to the Canadian one. This connection brought out one point. The Canadian cousin was researching both the Strauss and Schefter sides of my mom’s family. The US distant cousin was researching only the Schefters. On my dad’s side of the family, a cousin once removed (I hate that expression; sounds like the person was kicked out of the family) is doing a bit of research. If I hadn’t talked to several cousins (Although I have no brothers and sisters, I am blessed with many, many cousins) I would have been blindly going where no one has to go. (Sorry, Star Trek fans. I’m one, too).

As I seem to be wearing my teacher’s hat today, let me list some of the things you can do when researching for your memoir.

a)     Sort through old photos, diaries, letters, etc. for what is relevant.

b)    Read the diaries and letters you keep out. Make some notes.

c)     Talk to relatives (the older the better), especially the family genealogist. Bring a notebook, digital recorder or laptop to take notes. Or communicate via Skype and webcam, Facebook or e-mail.

d)    Talk to people with the same last name (yours and your mother’s maiden name in particular) even if you don’t think you are related.

e)     Look at the photos and see what stories they trigger about the family and friends in them. Bring photos when talking with relatives, preferably someone in the photo(s). Or post them on Facebook or on Flickr for online checking with family members.

f)      Visit the cemetery or cemeteries where your dead relatives (including those ancestors) are buried.

g)     Look at photos of the house where you grew up and see what stories that triggers.

h)    Revisit the “scene of the crime” that old house. See if you can get an appointment with the current owners. Compare house stories.

i)       Library – (Disclaimer: I am not a librarian – ask a librarian for more info on what to look for) Some things you can use here – books on areas you want to cover. Digital and micro-fiche records of old newspapers which might have stories about your family, and the time period you are writing about. Your memory isn’t 100 per cent.  If you have a library card, you can access digital files of newspapers from your home computer. Micro-fiche records of the ownership history of the house you grew up in, or at least the lot number may also be available at your library.

k)    If you must do some genealogical research, try: http://www.genealogy.com/index_n.html and Church of Latter Day Saints  (new site) https://www.familysearch.org/ which links to (old site) http://www.familysearch.org/eng/

Those are just for starters.

And for those in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area (shameless self-promo here) I will be teaching that Memoir Writing workshop at the Bloor/Gladstone branch of the Toronto Public Library, 6.30 p.m. March 31. Check out my website http://www.samcraw.com and/or the Toronto Public Library http://www.tpl.ca.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child reads a memoir excerpt at a CAA Toronto Branch public reading.

To tell or not to tell that is the question facing memoir writers. I’ve touched on this before in a previous post

http://onlychildwrites.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/writing-a-memoir

However,  it’s worth revisiting with some more info. The topic has come up recently in one of the LinkedIn writing groups I belong to.

1. Do you let family members see what you are writing?

2. Do you even tell them you are writing a memoir?

3. Should you get legal advice before you get an agent or publisher or self-publish?

All can provide conundrums but the first two often roll into the third point. It can depend on your content, for example if you’ve been dismissed from a job for cause and you are going to write a memoir of your time at the company, yes, get legal advice. Is there anything in your memoir that could be construed as slander or libel? For this one, it is a good idea to get someone else to read it so you get objective feedback. As a freelance book editor, I have to scrutinize what I edit for possible copyright and libel problems. But, and this is a big “but,” I always put in the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer and it might be best if they have a lawyer check the manuscript over after it is edited. For one memoir I was editing, I took another step- I suggested that a chapter and parts of another chapter had to go because even layperson me could see that the author would be in big doo-doo if he let that get published. He was self-publishing so relying on the wisdom of a trade publisher wasn’t an option. He agreed with me and I removed the offending material. I also suggested he take the edited manuscript to a lawyer specializing in libel and he did. About a page and a half needed to be tackled – some removed and some needed the wording changed.

You really don’t want to be sued for libel. Depending on where you live, the person being sued may have to prove they did not libel anyone and that can take on many branches as well as be darn expensive.

1. and 2. points tie in together. To help, here are my guidelines from what I’ve experienced from getting some family flak and asking other memoir writers.

a) Consider if you will need genealogy help and/or family story info (including stories and documents) in your research. If you don’t tell your family what you are doing they may wonder why all of a sudden you are asking questions about Aunt Maude or Uncle Bob.

b) Remember that everyone’s memory of an event and/or person is subjective. What cousin Clare may remember about that infamous argument between Aunt Maude or Uncle Bob at the family barbecue 30 years ago may differ from your version. How to get around this? I use a disclaimer in the beginning of my memoir that reads in part:

“Interactions between myself and my parents, other family members, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, etc. are as true as my memory recollects. I have taken a bit of liberty with dialogue as that is something you don’t always remember word-for-word. But the actual connections that instigated the dialogue happened.”

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, Copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

I also use pseudonyms for all but my parents, one grandfather, and me. Some memoir writers change a few of the details but I’m not sure how truthful that is. Another way around this is to narrate some of the different viewpoints of the specific incident – although you don’t want to do that too much or the memoir could become tedious to read.

c) Showing a chapter to family members. This one is a two-sided issue. Singer Anne Murray showed all her subjects the content in her memoir that concerned each of them so as not to offend. That’s a bit drastic to me. But, you might want to consider showing one or any chapter (or part of a chapter) where you want to check  your facts – like dates, who was present. But be careful here. It needs to be presented as an “I’m just checking the facts about this incident…”

Bottom line – each individual memoir writer has to decide for himself or herself. But I would let your family know you are writing a memoir, briefly what the focus is, and perhaps ask if anyone has any concerns. You can always use pseudonyms. And if you have even a smidgen that there might be something libelous in your memoir – get a libel lawyer expert to read it.

And for those in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area (shameless self-promo here) I will be teaching another Memoir Writing workshop for another branch of the Toronto Public Library, the Gladstone/Bloor branch, 630 p.m. March 31. Check out my website http://www.samcraw.com and/or the Toronto Public Library http:// http://www.tpl.ca.

I’d like to read what others have to say here. Please comment.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child with her parents in "younger" times

One of my friends recently said, “Growing old isn’t for sissies.” She’s right. I’m seeing and hearing about so many older adults having miserable lives because of health problems. Whether we like it or not I suppose that is somewhat the norm for the 90 plus crowd. I say “I suppose” because one of my uncles died in his late 90s and except for a flu bout and having to slow down some, he was in good health almost until his death. He wasn’t a blood relative; unfortunately that side of my family haven’t lived that long or those that made it past 90 were in poor health.

But what is scaring me is hearing about younger older adults (those 60 to 75) who are having health problems and because of them their lives aren’t pleasant. A colleague’s sister is in a nursing home – she is 67. My brother-in-law had a stroke in his early 70s;  he lived for a few years after that – immobile and unable to speak. Then there are my parents – my father who had cancer from age 59 to his death at age 66 and my mother. She died suddenly of a brain aneurysm brought on by falls due to her arthritis. And her arthritis cost her her job. I write about this in part in my memoir.

Rheumatoid arthritis battered her feet first with swelling, aching and distortion. When the arthritis spread to her hands, her boss switched her from typing to proofreading. And another disease with a hard-to-remember and an even harder-to-spell name also invaded her body. Scleroderma…

She is on a mini-leave of absence, when one day I walk into the house and find two strange men with her in the living room. They’re both sitting on the chesterfield, one on either side of its designed split. Mom is in the pink chair by the bookcase as if the World Books standing guard behind can lift her up beyond the swollen foot propped on a footstool. The conversation stops and the two men stare at me with blank smiles on their faces…

The men say, “Hello,” and nod, and then one continues the conversation.

“Julia,” he says. “I know you are a valuable employee but we need to know if you are coming back to work.”

“I don’t like to say it, but I have to,” the other man says. “It might be better if you retired now.”

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, Copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford)

Mom lasted a few more years. She was 63 when she died.

On a less personal level, check out Statistics Canada http://www.statcan.gc.ca/search-recherche/index-eng.htm. Do a search for “Seniors Health Statistics” and you will find statistics on the consequences of falls, chronic conditions of seniors living in the community, and many more. Scary stuff.

So, as I approach my parents’ ages of dying, I become more reflective but also more practical. That and the big eye scare in December has prompted me into estate-planning mode. I am also on yet another big sort-and-purge around the house. You have to plan for these things.

However, it’s not all  doom and gloom. I’m continuing my writing, editing and writing instructing  – not only are they my livelihood, but they are my passion. So are gardening and reading. I’ve escalated what I do for my health. Beyond the nutrition and diet, I’ve started walking 30 minutes daily unless snowstorms interfere – then it’s shovelling the white **** (begins with “c”). And tonight I’m starting a weekly Yoga class  and getting a 10-minute walk each way – if this incoming snowstorm hasn’t hit full blast by then. I may shake my shovel at the sky before I dig in ( two or three sessions) to the 30 centimetres or so expected by late tomorrow.

How are the rest of you doing with getting older?

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only child contemplates pain and stress

How many of you are living with chronic pain? Maybe it’s from arthritis. Maybe it’s fibromyalgia. Maybe it’s back pain. Maybe it’s  – God or someone forbid – cancer.

My late father died from brain cancer but before he died he spent six and a half years from diagnosis to death and much of that time in excruciating pain. Some of it I saw and heard – I was a child then.  As I write in my memoir:

But with his second cancer stint, Dad … starts vomiting. Mother tries everything from toast to tomato soup, but nothing stays down. I hear him heaving in the bathroom. Mother and I draw no comfort from each other, she the fussing worried wife, and I scared back into my pea shell, not much protection for a 12-year-old.

Then Dad gets recurring headaches that escalate into one big throbbing hurt at the top of his head. It must be torture to bend over the toilet bowl to puke out his guts while his head drums to the same painful beat. He becomes weaker and spends most of his time in bed. Our family doctor sends him to the hospital, this time St. Michael’s.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2011 Sharon Crawford).

My pain is more from an aging body fed up with all the stress and other stuff coming at and in it. So…I’m convinced I have to deal with the stress. Ideally I’d like to get rid of the stressors and stop  them coming at me. I’m one of those people who believes in tackling the problem head on – once I stop waffling about what I need to do. I have never found that just changing my attitude gets rid of the stress or stressors. They are still here until I do something about them.

Doing something, however, I’ve learned, also means having a goal, a passion in life and focusing on it. I actually have more than one passion – writing and gardening. I am also learning that relaxing methods (like meditation and Yoga) can help to at least lower the tightness in the body and help the mind get to “clear” (although just temporarily) so that you can think better and focus on what you love to do. Another important thing to lower stress is getting enough sleep, which I’m finding difficult to do. Usually I don’t have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. My problem is trying to find the time to get ENOUGH sleep – not easy when you are alone with no partner, siblings or living parents and have too much to do. Yes, I have a son and friends who help, but none of them are here day-by-day, minute-by-minute to help – they do have their own lives to live. I’m grateful for the help I get from them.

So, I’m trying to delete some activities from my life – not easy when emergencies such as computer or house problems jump at you out of the bad blue. However, I believe the bottom line for me is taking control.

Which gets me back to tackling the problem(s) head on.

Excuse me while I deal with the latest computer problem.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Christmas tree looking for an angel

Looks like December is shaping up to be a busy month socially – and that’s from a hate-winter freak who wants to hunker down inside (except for forays outside to shovel snow – yeck, get groceries – although I’m stocking up, and go for walks).  There are four Christmas parties/gatherings, a birthday dinner (mine, tomorrow), coffee with an old school friend, and of course, Christmas Day. I’ve been preparing for all this bit by bit – perhaps taking the longest to get the Christmas decorations up – still have a few more to get outside. Weather and time-restraints are the culprits here. Heck, yesterday, an unusually warm day, I roared around finishing up the garden and yard clearing. And complaining loudly about it – not the doing but the timing. As I wound down to the finish, I smartened up. This was probably my last chance to do any garden/yard stuff until next spring and here I was outside on a beautiful day complaining.

So I started to think about Christmas activities and Christmases past and to come. I don’t recall it being a big race at Christmas when I grew up. It  was more pleasant overall and my parents and I didn’t just sit at home for the Christmas season. Sometimes we went for Christmas dinner at an aunt’s and uncle’s on Dad’s side. Sometimes my mother’s youngest sister, my godmother, and some of her kids came down between Christmas and New Year’s for a short visit and dinner. And my mother was adventurous in her Christmas cooking – goose or duck,  instead of turkey. Then there was the alternate visits with the Armstrongs – the neighbours across the street – our family and theirs took turns annually for an evening of talking, watching Christmas movies on TV and stuffing ourselves with “delicate” sandwiches with the crusts removed. And of course, there was the tree and Christmas Mass. Mom wouldn’t let me open the presents until we returned from church but she did let me raid the stocking. Among other things, “Santa” always brought an orange.

But I think it was Mom, Dad and I doing things together, like wrapping the presents and decorating the tree that hit the core of what Christmas meant to me as a child. As I write in my memoir, You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons:

When Dad drags the Christmas tree into the house, I inhale the pine fragrance. It fills me with anticipation made longer and harder to hold inside as Dad attempts to fit the tree trunk into the stand.

“Get in there,” he mutters in between loud grunts and even louder bangs with the hammer. “Julia, can you hold onto the end for me?” This to my mother.

I can’t watch the agony, so after Mom and I haul up the boxes of lights and ornaments from the basement, I sit in the kitchen and listen to the wall clock tick away time. “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,” but it is only the green radio. I poke my head inside the living room.

“Is it ready yet?”

“Patience,” Mom says, handing Dad a screwdriver.

“It’s coming along.” He twists the red tree stand. “Okay, Julia, let’s push it up.”

And my parents heave the tree up to its majestic six feet, spreading dark green bristles in the corner by the archway and just brushing the mantle. Finally. I crouch down and dig into the box of ornaments.

“Wait a minute,” Mom says. “The lights come first.” And she and Dad twine the lights throughout the tree and I hold my breath one-two-three until I think I’ll pop, as Dad plugs in the lights and . . .

Nothing. One light has burned out and the only way to find the culprit is to remove each light, one at a time, and try a light that you hope might work. It is worse than waiting for Santa Claus. But when the miracle occurs, when the lights shine red, blue, white, yellow and green, throughout the tree, Christmas leaps days closer. Mom and I tackle the ornaments. I’m like a dog given the “yes,” for a walk, prancing around, reaching my paws down and up, and placing big coloured balls, small bells, and white plastic icicles on the sharp branches. Mom and I wrap tinsel – thin wavy light and big gold, which almost hides the lights, but they sparkle through. Then, I suck in my breath and look way up while Mom stands on the stepladder and places the angel in the top spot.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home: Deconstructing the Demons, Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford).

I’m still looking for an angel for my tree this year. The angel from my childhood is long gone, long broken. Its replacement, a glass one, fell to its shattering finale at the end of last Christmas season. So my tree (all two feet of it) sits on an end table with a long top branch reaching up to the sky as if hoping an angel will fly down and land on it. It has bright red LED lights and miniature decorations and yes, it is a fake tree. But it’s the intention and what  it symbolizes that count.

What it doesn’t symbolize is rush-rush-rush-rush. I need to turn on my Hayley Westenra Christmas CD Winter Magic because that’s what it is all about – the magic of Christmas – yes, getting together with family and friends, but also savouring the in-between silence.

What says you? How do you spend the Christmas season?

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child teaching workshop

The past couple of weeks I was immersed in teaching memoir writing workshops at several Toronto public library branches. One workshop was a straightforward memoir writing gig; the other was called Blogging Your Memories and involved a PowerPoint presentation. Both have roots in my childhood, particularly with one thing about my mother – she showed me how to teach and that I could teach.

In my February 12, 2010  post, http://onlychildwrites.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/only-child-teaches-mom-to-play-piano/ I talked about teaching my Mom to play the piano when I was 13. But that same year I had a grade 8 history class project and Mom was instrumental in  helping me make it a success.

As I write in my memoir, You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons:

I decided my lesson would tell the story about how each province entered Confederation and I was going to make it more interesting than a history book. I wanted maps, drawings and background history of the history. As she usually did with my school projects, Mom dug in and accumulated some of the research materials, a habit she’d picked up when I needed information about other countries for school projects. In those Internetless days, Mom visited consulates in downtown Toronto as well as travel agencies. In grade six, she had ordered the whole collection of the World Book Encyclopedia, from a door-to-door salesman. But World Book was no scam – it had detailed coloured maps and detailed text. I used it as part of the background for my Confederation lesson.

After I put the whole lesson together, Mom and I do several dry runs.

I prop up my maps on the dining room table. Mom stands at the other end in the living room and I start my spiel. We also do the dry run in the kitchen, where I go through the whole lesson, using my illustrated props and pointing with her long dressmaking ruler. She doesn’t tell me to talk slower or speak up; she listens, nods and smiles. When I am finished, she doesn’t need to say anything. I know I’ve done a good job and pleased her.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

Thanks to Mom’s patience and encouragement, the lesson went over very well in class. I think that’s where I got my love of teaching, although like my Mom I didn’t go into the teaching profession per se. I got into it via my writing and editing. I continue to learn lessons as I teach.

Each of my Memoir Writing Workshops had either a father and daughter duo or a mother and daughter duo.  Each daughter was helping her parent write his or her memoir and came to the workshop for some direction on how to do this. My approach here was to focus but also to remain open enough to be creative – a fine balancing act which I’ve had to learn in writing my memoir. The child/parent duos reminded me that without our parents there might be no family memoir and also showed me (and also reminded me) the beauty of parent and child working together on a project.

I also learned that there are many circumstances that evoke memoir – from the funny situation of two friends posing with a big wooden bird to a woman who lived through the Holocaust and had no family pictures except the ones inside her head. When we did the picture exercise, she had to go within  for hers and taught me that not all picture memories are in print or electronic. Many live on in our hearts and souls.

I also learned that there are different approaches to writing a memoir. One participant went in for the more creative way to write her memoir. Many wanted to write their whole life instead of focusing on one area but I hope I at least showed them how to focus on that, rather than change what they write about.

The Blogging Your Memories workshop was a whole other situation. First, I had to relearn Power Point and then how to do a presentation. I followed the old journalist’s rule – ask, ask, ask. Three experts, including my computer techie son, got bombarded with questions but I listened. And I put together my workshop and did a trial run at the library with the librarian’s help. At the actual workshop only one computer glitch occurred. Fast fingers here tried to go back too fast in slides and the program shut down. Fortunately Auto Save came to the rescue and I could proceed.  But my students taught me much with their rich range of topics to blog and all their questions kept me on my toes. One participant gave me a real workout with categories and tags for your blog posts.

Each workshop had around a dozen participants and the librarians were also pleased with the workshops. They want me to come back in the spring and do more.

I will oblige. Besides sharing my knowledge I will also learn more. All thanks to my Mom’s incentive and encouragement.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Only Child and barbed wire July 1950

The Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday prompted me to think about gratitude. The self-help and new age gurus tell us we need to express our gratitude daily – write it down, maybe five things we are grateful for. Period. Well, I do a different take on it. Yes, I do a daily gratitude expression of what I’m thankful for, but I also add what I’m not grateful for in my life. I need to get that balance – life is not all good; neither is it all bad. I need to deal in reality. Blame it on my journalist background where you try to be unbiased and get a balance in your stories – unless you’re writing an Op-Ed (Opinion-Editorial) piece. Or it probably goes back to my childhood, to my mother, with her somewhat offbeat take on honesty.

In my memoir I have a chapter called “Mom’s Ten Rules of Honesty” and after I go through that I add:

Mother’s honesty didn’t just encompass telling the truth; it covered people’s basic integrity and how they dealt with the screw-ups, bad times and bad luck that always pop up in life. Nothing is certain except taxes and death, but the trick is to wind yourself through the days, months and years until you die – without falling into the muddy waters.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Deconstructing the Demons, copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

Or it could also spin off from my grade 6 teacher who told us, “I’ll give credit where credit is due.” Over the years I’ve added “and discredit where discredit is due.”

Now I can hear some of you thinking, “Why doesn’t she just accept what is?” That is good to a certain point. However, if we all accepted everything in our life then certain big changes would never happen. For example, what would have happened (or not) if  Terry Fox merely accepted he had cancer in his leg and left it at that? What if he didn’t take his cancer a big leap forward and start his walk for cancer research? Just doing the proverbial lying down and accepting our conditions in life and doing nothing about them doesn’t help us or others. Methinks if we do that we often end up ranting and complaining about our plight in life.

Of course we can’t go out and try to change everthing. The key may be the old serenity prayer  which goes something like this – God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I don’t read anything here  about accepting everything.

And so I do my gratitude/non-gratitude list daily. And I do work to change what I can in the latter. But sometimes  it is a long road getting there.

What do others think?

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Streetcar and highrise in Toronto circa 2005

A  recent comment by mystery writer Maureen Jennings (Murdock Mysteries)  juxtaposed with yesterday’s book launch by outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller got me thinking. How much change should cities go through? How much of the past should they keep?

Anyone like me who grew up in a city or town during the gray ages (195os, 1960s) can probably remember “how it was” back then compared to “how it is” right now. Do we like the changes we see? Was the past really better? What do you think?

Speaking personally, I liked the more intimate closeness of a smaller Toronto but I also like the multi-cultural aspect of its now diverse population. When I was growing up, Mom and I would get around on the Toronto transit system. Before the subway was built, that meant long rides on buses and streetcars and freezing our tushes while waiting for them in winter. (I still do that now.) Mom and I used to go shopping on the Danforth part of Toronto – then populated by greengrocers and butchers and those dime stores called Kresge’s, Woolworth’s and Metropolitan. It was awesome for a little girl but sometimes intimidating…

I look up Pape but the bus still isn’t visible at the turn in the road. When it finally arrives, we climb on board and ride the rest of the short trip to one block north of the Danforth. The bus loops into a dead-ended Lipton St. with a two-foot high stonewall at the end…

…Like today, the Danforth proliferated with green grocers selling fresh vegetables and fruit and a butcher’s shop, although unlike today, the owners of the former were Italian, not Asian. Mom would buy a basket of peaches or plums.

But the butcher’s shop captures my curiosity. Mom opens the door to a clanging bell; we step in, and my feet feel as if they’re traipsing through Grandpa Charlie’s barn. I look down at…

“Sawdust,” Mom says. “That’s so the butcher can sweep the floors easier.”

I stare down at the floor, but don’t see any pieces of meat there. As Mom grabs a number and waits her turn I look up at the shoulder-high counters. Behind glass barriers lie slabs of meat in various hues of red and pink. I recognize only bacon, as I’ve seen its striped pink and white fat curling in the fry pan for Sunday breakfasts at home. My nostrils flinch at an unfamiliar odour mixed in with the sawdust, but this is not like the smell of the chickens bawking around in Grandpa’s chicken room. This smell is more animal, more immediate and ripe, and I’m not sure that I like it.

“A pound of medium ground,” Mom says.

The butcher, wearing a blood-stained apron that one day was probably white, picks up stringy medium-red worms. I want to gag.

“For hamburger,” the butcher says, with a big grin. I frown. I need to get out now.

Of course, I eat hamburgers, as a kid, as a teenager, as an adult, including at McDonalds. They always have to be cooked, almost burned. When I am 50, I give up eating red meat for five years because it bothers my digestive system and I give up ground beef forever. And I never get over the squeamishness of handling raw meat.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home Part 1 – Deconstruct,  copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

Some things don’t change completely – they just transform. The new “dime stores” are the Dollar and Dollar plus stores, thanks to inflation. Most are small and cramped but if you look hard enough you can find some bargains, but usually over a dollar. Butchers no longer sprinkle sawdust on their shop floors. The subway now runs along the Danforth and the particular strip of the Danforth I go to is called Greektown, but has many different ethnic restaurants. That is one benefit of a multi-cultural city, but then I often lead with my stomach cravings.

So what did Maureen Jennings say? It was at the Bloody Words conference in June where we were talking about the TV series (Murdock Mysteries) based on her Murdock mystery books. She said  the show is taped in various southern Ontario cities and towns, not just the series’ and books’ setting of Toronto. Why? Because Toronto is such a mixture of old and new buildings that it is hard to get a scene with just old buildings.

And maybe Maureen hit the cusp of the answer to my earlier question. Perhaps it is better to combine old with new, but at the same time being careful what is knocked down and what is put up. Sometimes upgrading old buildings for new uses is a better answer.

Last evening while on the bus, I thought these newer buses with their wide street-level exits that can be lowered and places for wheelchairs and scooters are better for everybody. I mean, I no longer fall out the back door when leaving – something I used to do on the old buses with their steep narrow stairs and the door closing on my back.

And no, I wasn’t drunk – just klutzy.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only Child Writes

Look-alike car

I’m looking for some Karma – you know the what goes around comes around. Or if you were raised Catholic like  me, the “as you sow, so shall you reap.”

I really believe in Karma – but I’d like to see it in action – personally. Often when something happens in your life – good or bad  – whether it’s something you do or something that occurs – you don’t see the Karma.

Last Friday evening while out running errands with a friend, I got hit by a car in a mall parking lot. My friend was already over at her car and I was still walking towards it when I felt a smack on my left leg. When I looked up I saw this small black car roaring off. Immediately I started chasing it and swearing at the driver. She (and I am sure it was a “she,” and that’s just a gut feeling) continued racing around the parking lot, turning around on the other side of an aisle. I charged up that aisle, yelling away (I’m sure the two women getting in a nearby car thought I’d lost it) but I never caught up. My little 5’1″ frame is no competition for a moving vehicle.

“Did you get the licence plate?” my friend asked.

“No,” I said. I’d never thought of that.

I was lucky it was only a tap on my bare calf – I was wearing capri pants because temperatures were up in the 80s Farenheit. But I was furious. How could the driver not have seen me? I was in clear view almost in the middle of the aisle.  She wasn’t backing out but driving through the parking lot. And to make matters worse, a few minutes before when she was attempting to back out of her parking space around the corner in the lot, it looked like she didn’t see me and might hit me. I moved back. Was this an early warning of impending danger? I didn’t listen.

When I climbed into my friend’s car I shouted, “God, if you do exist, please get this person. I don’t care how; I leave it up to you. But I’d like to know.”

As I mentioned before, you hardly ever find out. But I did – twice – one for something rotten that happened and one for something good that I did and continue to do.

The rotten occurrence also concerned a car. (Feel free to figure out that significance. Clue: I don’t drive.) It happened 15 or 16 years ago when I worked for a publishing company. One of the other employees there volunteered to drive me to work each day. She was continually late – but she had a small child and had to drop her off at daycare on the way to work, so I said nothing. Two or three times I was running late – literally – putting the garbage out as she arrived at my driveway. After a few months of driving me to work, one day when she picked me up, she said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m not driving you anymore. You’re always late.”

A few months later, Ms. Driver broke her ankle and had to get someone else from work to drive her to and from work.

When I tell this story I either get a big smile or a “Huh? You mean because she stopped driving you she broke her ankle.” Obviously the latter individuals don’t believe in Karma.

And my good Karma? I run the East End Writers’ Group, a writing group, and through the group I help a lot of writers (and learn a lot from them, too). The East End Writers is celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall and when I asked for help in putting it together, a couple of members volunteered. One designed the flyers, another is helping with distribution and may even be able to get us a mic for that evening.

What goes around comes around. And I wonder if  for me it all goes back to my mother and her eccentric ideas of honesty. In my memoir I call them “Mom’s 10 Rules of Honesty.” One in particular, in relation to the girl that bullied me in school, comes to mind.

In grade three, The Bully sits right in front of me. When Mrs. Roberts isn’t looking, she swivels around and talks to me out of turn. However, her biggest sin is cheating with the numbers. When we complete an arithmetic exercise, Mrs. Roberts says, “trade.” The Bully crouches over my assignment, purses her lips, picks up her pencil and scribbles – x, x, x – beside my correct answers. Meantime, I, blessed with my mother’s streak of honesty, also mark x, x, x, but alongside The Bully’s incorrect answers. When we trade back, The Bully crouches even lower and turns the x’s into Ö’s. At home, I whine to Mom.

“You have to tell the teacher when she cheats,” Mom says. She’s sitting in the chair under the living room window and I’m standing in front of her like I’m the bad girl in school. “Next time, she cheats, tell the teacher. Then tell me and I’ll give you a quarter.”

Money talks for me. The next time the Bully messes up the math marks I raise my hand and rat. When I return home, I tell tales out of school and claim my reward, not just 25 cents, but my admission to the honesty/money seesaw.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Part 1 – Deconstruct. Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

In case anyone is wondering, my leg is fine. As for Karma – what do others think? Personally?

Cheers.

Only child writes

Only child school photo at age 8

The first day back at school can be scary. There are worries about what the teacher will be like, who will be in your class, will you fit in, and the age-old question that has bothered girls of all ages – what the heck will I wear.  Of course, some students miss all that because now they go to school year  round, a concept I find disconcerting. Although these year-rounders get a few weeks off here and there, it is not the same. How can you have a normal school year if you don’t have summer vacation in July and August?

Back in the grey ages when I went to school it was from September to June with two months off for good or bad behaviour. In grade school I actually anticipated that first day. I could smell the lead pencils and text books, feel the exercise books we wrote in (no laptops then), see the blackboards and hear the squeak-scratch of the chalk across that blackboard. But it wasn’t all good times. I felt some dread about fitting in, especially with no brothers or sisters to stand up for me (or tease me). Then there were the teachers and I had some doozies from the old bat who blinked non-stop to the nun who bullied me in grade 2. I write about her in my memoir.

In grade 2 we applied our Grade 1 reading skills in exercises.

“Turn to page 12, exercise A,” Mother St. Helen says. She stands behind her desk. She holds the exercise book, alternating between glancing down at it and over at us. “When you are finished it and exercise B, you may quietly bring them up here for me to look at.” She sits down.

For the next 15 to 20 minutes the only sounds are the flipping of pages and the scratching of pencils. I read through each question and write down my answer or draw the picture required. Some of the students finish quickly and line up at Mother’s desk, so now I hear her occasional, “That’s wrong. How do you expect to pass Grade 2,” and “Good.”

I have now completed the work, so pick up the exercise book, which is the size of a thick colouring book and climb out from behind the desk, walk up to the front and line up. Nora and Michael stand in front of me and as Mother looks at Nora’s work and says, “good,” I think I also have done all right.

“How do you expect to pass grade 2?” Mother asks Michael.

I hope I have done all right.

It is now my turn. I say nothing as I place the open exercise book before Mother. She presses her lips together as she follows along on the page with her pencil. When she reaches the bottom, she jerks the book at me.

“What’s this?” she asks.

I look down and read out loud. “Draw an X.”

“The word isn’t ‘X;’ it’s an ‘axe.’ ”

I have drawn an “X.”

“Stupid,” she says. “You should know better than that.” She whacks the pencil against my nose.

Tears well up in my eyes. My face must be turning red because Mother is looking a little strange for Mother.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

I can’t speak because I am too busy pretending tears are not sliding down my face.

“I’m sorry. Come down to the lunchroom after school and I’ll make it up to you.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home – Part 1 – Deconstruct. Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

Shortly after that, this nun disappeared from my grade school but if I thought I was well rid of her, I was mistaken. She returned in full fury as school principal when I was in grade 8 and made it her business to boss me around.

All this may sound tame to what kids have to put up with in school these days. I’m talking high school when I refer to the violence, the gangs and lockdowns. I live in Toronto and we’ve had murders inside and outside Toronto schools – not a lot and not on a daily basis, but because it happens is enough to raise the fear factor and make me glad I’m out of it and my son is out of it, although there were some rumblings in the high schools when he attended  in the 1990s and that was in Aurora, Ontario.

These are just my thoughts on the first day back to school in 2010. What do others think? Any hair-raising personal stories? Any heartwarming personal stories about that first day back at school?

And I really did not like the sound of that chalk scratching across the blackboard. And chalk is so messy and dusty.

Cheers.

Sharon

Only child writes

Some of Only Child's cousins

A recent story in Times Magazine by Lauren Sandler, “The Only Child: Debunking the Myths,” has raised the ire of some readers, some with large families. (See http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?ID=6709 for one of these). Personally, I could never have raised a large number of children – I didn’t (and still don’t) have the stamina or the resources (support and finances). But… and here it comes… others can do it. I’m not saying everyone with many children makes a good parent – heck, some parents of only children aren’t good parents, either. And I  must admit, when I see an unruly bunch of siblings acting up and the mother and/or father seems to have no control, I wonder “what were they thinking?” However, I have seen a lone child acting up in a supermarket and mom or dad unable to control him or her. So, it is really a two-sided story.

What do you think?

Although I grew up an only child, I had cousins from large families and I sometimes found it disconcerting inter-acting with them. But I also had some good times with them. In my memoir-in-the works, I write about visiting my eight cousins on my godmother’s farm. Remember, I’m a city gal.

As the sun slides down in the evening, Jimmie and Karl decide to teach me how to chase the cows home. Jimmie stretches the barbed-wired fence wide so I can climb through without ripping my arms or shorts. I appreciate that because back home, while tearing after my friends, I tried vaulting a fence and the rump of my shorts stuck and ripped.

Once through the barbed wire, I stare at big beasts with mottled black and white skin and bodies remaining stationary, except at either end – the tails sliding back and forth keep me mesmerized. How can they chew the weeds and grass bits so matter-of-factly while their eyes seem to dig deep into my head? They must know how frightened I feel.

“They won’t hurt you,” Jimmie says. “Just don’t run at them and startle them. Come on.”

Jimmie strolls forward, as if he has no concerns and Karl follows. I guess I see the cows through their eyes or maybe I’m frightened they will find out that I’m a scaredy-cat. I follow, picking my way around the black deposits scattered throughout the pasture. The cows become benign pets that we must set on the right track. We chase the herd from one field to another. Karl opens the gate – and the cows come home, not quite roller-skating, but close to it, because they suddenly surge in the gateway, and settle down for the night in the pasture by the barn.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home, Part 1, copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

We cousins didn’t always get along perfectly. Sometimes the numbers “won” over the only. There was the time a couple of the girl cousins and some cousins on their dad’s side of the family  (not blood-related to me) played a trick. They convinced me that one of these other cousins was a twin to an elderly lady in the household. And despite her looking decades older, I believed them. Of course, they had fun at my expense when they told me the truth. I felt humiliated, stupid and gullible.  As I think about it now, I believe part of my gullibility was due to being an only child with little experience in sibling to-ing and fro-ing. But I suppose things like this happen in most families with more than one child.

As for that Times story, check it out at http://www.time.com/time/ (enter “The Only Child: Debunking the Myths” in the Search Box).

Cheers.

Sharon

Only child writes

Two stories published in this CAA Toronto branch antholog July 2010

At first glance my two stories just published in an anthology have little to do with the memoir I’m writing except the theme – death. The death of my parents looms in my memoir as that is part of its focus – growing up an only child in the 50s and 60s when your dad is dying of cancer and when he’s gone, it’s mom’s turn. In Gathered Streams, the Canadian Authors Association Toronto branch  anthology hot off the press from Hidden Brook Press  there is something connected to death in each of my stories. As I said when reading at the Book Launch July 18 at Toronto’s Bar Italia, “Both my stories are about death. One is actually in a cemetery. I chose to read from the more serious one.”

And that’s where my stories steer somewhat away from the memoir’s theme. The title alone of the short story tells you that – “My Brother’s Keeper.” The story is about a twenty-something woman, Claire, dealing with her older brother, Danny’s suicide. I’m not going to go into a big discourse, this post, on suicide, except to say that a cousin committed suicide and I attempted suicide over 25 years ago. However, after someone from a distress centre helped bring me back,  I decided to train for and volunteer for that telephone distress centre, which I did for five and a half years. These facts put together gave me the story idea but it is not about me or my cousin. What I find interesting was getting into the head of a woman who isn’t an only child and who has a very dysfunctional mother. I don’t consider that my late mother was dysfunctional – but she certainly was an eccentric character. So was my dad and maybe more so.

My other story in the anthology is a personal essay – a humourous look at how I felt taking pictures in the dead of winter (any pun intended) in a cemetery. And this one is all true. I have the photos to prove it. But again it shows how things can evolve from a certain premise. I went to the cemetery with the intention of photographing unusual gravestones. I did some of that but also got mesmorized by the trees in the cemetery. And I had to overcome my feelings of  “I shouldn’t be here doing this; it’s disrespectful” as well as deal with deep snow (it was February) hardened by an ice storm a few days before.

So where does all this hook in with being an only child? I think it shows that as an only child you have to develop some resilence; you have to move yourself forward to do things, often without support from others, certainly no siblings or in my case as an adult – no parents. Not all only children do this.  However, having siblings doesn’t guarantee support or even making and keeping many friends. I know one woman with several siblings who isn’t really close to any of them – at least from what she’s told me. She also hasn’t developed a network of friends and other support in her life, whereas I have – not overnight, but over the years.

And that may be the bottom line – what you have inside you helps determine how you fare in this life. But that’s fodder for a future post.

Go check out Gathered Streams at http://www.canauthorstoronto.org/anthology.html

Cheers.

Sharon

Onlychildwites

Dad standing under Mom's rose archway

I’m convinced I got the gardening bug from my mom – with a smidgeon from my dad and his proprietary outlook on lawns and trees. In spring, summer and fall I live for my garden so you can imagine how I feel in the bleak days of winter when everything is dead outside. Sure new-fallen snow is beautiful but it is nothing compared to the colours of flowers, the fragrance of herbs and the yummy vegetables and fruit in my garden. Right now I am above head level in black raspberries and I don’t even mind going out in the heat (well, early morning and late evenings) and picking them. I give away some of the extra raspberries  to my friends and also freeze some raspberries. My neighbour’s six-year old son has developed a fascination for picking berries and it is not uncommon for him and his friends to bang on my front door and ask, “Can we pick some raspberries?”

It all started when I was little -maybe around three and a half when I remember Mom and Dad digging in the garden in spring and I would watch…

On this April day in 1952 Mom and Dad are halfway through their spring ritual of turning the soil from fence to hedge. I cart out my small shovel and dig in, but I make only small dents compared to Mom and Dad’s efforts. Mostly I remember hovering, watching and listening.

“Albert,” Mom says. “Be careful around the strawberries.”

She thrusts her shovel, no nonsense-style into the soft sand. Her black oxfords sink deep and the once-white socks are splattered with sand. She hides her body under a flowered housedress. Having a baby at 41 and the indignities and intricacies of middle age has remodelled her into Fraulein Frump.

You couldn’t blame her for taking precautions when digging. The boys behind us, including Tom in my class who defended me against The Bully, stole the strawberries and raspberries, or so mother said. She never caught them in the act, but the remains not present the day after added up to more than a hungry posse of black birds or sparrows. And years later, when Tom and I reconnected, he admitted to the deed.

Then the planting begins. My clumsy digits bury the tiny carrot seed in the row of sand, which my mother carefully indents using the rake handle. When she hauls out the bean seed packet, she has her instructions ready.

“This is the top of the bean.” She pats it with her index finger. “See, it’s curved in. That’s where the bean plant will sprout. You plant that part up or the bean will grow down.”

And so, I swallow my impatience and become the obedient daughter – please the parent and the world will bow to you. I have a lot to learn but I suppose my young age and the results of my gardening actions could excuse my naïve expectations in life. The beans usually grew…up, up towards the heavens, if you believe in fairy tales like Jack and the Beanstalk.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home, Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

I guess it was Mom’s farm background that pre-disposed her to growing a lot of vegetables and fruit. And yes, she had many raspberry bushes but hers were red raspberries and she just knew how, when and what to prune. Me, I know when (fall) and sort of know what (the dead branches, obviously) but whatever I do or don’t do the bushes seem to increase the next spring -  not complaining – I am grateful. I don’t know where Mom got the original raspberry bushes, but mine grew wild in my Aurora backyard and when I moved back to Toronto, a friend helped me dig up three plants and transplant them to my Toronto backyard. The strange thing is these bushes grew to below my knees in the Aurora backyard but here, well as I said above, they are giants. What do I expect living on a street with the word “garden” in it? I have truly come to my calling, my avocation.

My Mom didn’t just grow edible plants. Sometimes I think her rosebushes were her babies.

The rosebushes spread everywhere – front, back and if Mom could nurture roses through asphalt, the driveway would no doubt harbour a rosebush. Below the veranda, in the corner by the driveway, Mom has installed a trellis. When I sprawl in the green Muskoka chair on the veranda, my nose inhales the sweet aroma of the yellow roses poking through the trellis.

In the ‘50s, we could hold a wedding in our backyard at 139 – the deep red roses climb and entwine around the white archway attached to the white picket fence beside the driveway. As I yank open the gate, the fragrance overwhelms me. But my kid eyes absorb the colour, and as I skip through the backyard, I count the rosebushes winding through trellises against the back of the house, the side of our garage and the neighbour’s garage. My mother’s roses grow high and their scent permeates my nose, skin and right into the core of my heart and soul. She constantly frets over a hybrid tea whose blossoms exemplify the species name, although I don’t recall the actual name of the rose, just Mom standing by the fence and fingering the rose-coloured petals.

“The leaves have too much blackspot,” she says. “And this rose is finished.” Snip, snip go her clippers.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home, copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford)

My garden is a mixture of perennials, including roses, vegetables and herbs and like my mother’s garden, my garden is all over. But I mix. One of my tomato plants grows next to a rosebush in front; I have lamb’s ears, yarrow and black-eyed Susan in with my vegetables. Although I have a herb garden with lavender, parsley, sage, oregano, echinacea, basil, blue flax. chives and rosemary, I also have chives and sage growing in my flower bed at the bottom of my veranda and basil, rosemary and leaf lettuce growing in a big pot on my veranda just outside my front door. This makes it quick pickings for dinner garnishes, especially on rainy days.

I think I’ve expanded this gardening gene I inherited from Mom. But the fruits of this inheritance may have stopped with me. My son has no interest in gardening. That is left to his girlfriend – she has the potted plants on their balcony, including a nasturtium and pepper plant I gave her.

As for Dad’s proprietary gardening, let’s just say he kept the lawn cut and watered and gave my girlfriends and I “hell” when we yanked the leaves off the trees for “food” for our dolls. At least we didn’t steal the strawberries.

Pink Yarrow and Red Rose by curb

Cheers.

Sharon

only child writes

Dad and Mom

First of all I do not normally see ghosts. But I believe in them and that others can see them. I just know that my parents’ spirits are hanging around, especially Dad’s for some reason. Sometimes it happens near his birthday (June 4) or date of death (November 15) but not always. Well, it happened again over the past weekend. One of the VIA Rail employees’ unions was threatening to strike. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my Dad worked as a timekeeper, not for VIA rail, but CN (or CNR as it was then called) when the CN ran passenger trains. Well, as a railwayman’s daughter, I love to ride the rails whenever I can when I travel, so of course news of a possible strike got my dander up. Without thinking, I said (in my mind), “Well, Dad, I guess you’ll have to hover over the negotiations and make sure there is no strike.”

The union and management reached a tentative agreement. Who’s to say whether Dad’s spirit had anything to do with this result. But I’m darn sure his spirit did with the VIA Rail engineers’ actual strike in late July, 2009. I had tickets booked for a holiday to visit family and friends in southwestern Ontario later that week. I even picked up the tickets on the chance that there  wouldn’t be a strike. When the strike started I was pleading with Dad’s spirit to get in there and stop it – after all he had been a railroad man who dealt with trains running on time. I guess he didn’t want his daughter stranded or taking the bus, or maybe it was just in the air, but the strike ended a few days later. And I took the train during my holidays.

The biggie is something that happened on the 40th anniversary of Dad’s death. I’m going to quote this one from Book 2 of my memoir You Can Go Home.

On the 40^th anniversary of my Dad’s death, I wake up just after dawn to the sound of a door closing. Something breezes through the hallway. I know it is my Dad’s spirit, but his message seems to have many interpretations. The broad one is that he and Mom are there, in spirit with me, in my current house.

(Excerpted from You Can Go Home Book Two Reconstruct. Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford.)

Fact, fiction of fancy? Like I say, I don’t see ghosts but I believe in them. I have also had some interesting experiences in synchronicities. Then there is the anniversary factor. And Dad’s 45th is coming up this Novenber. So I wonder…

Anyone else had experiences seeing or hearing your deceased parents’ spririts? Please comment.

Cheers.

Sharon

onlychildwrites

Sharon reads excerpt from her memoir

I couldn’t have done it alone. I got help writing my memoir about growing up an only child of elderly parents in the ’50s and ’60s when your dad is dying of cancer.  The help came from my East End Writers’ Group – a writing group I started 10 years ago because I couldn’t fine one in my geographical area. I’m seeing my past and writing about it from my point of view. It’s subjective and often writers get too wrapped up in their own prose or poetry and literally can’t see the forest for the trees. Those leaves and branches can block what seems obvious to others listening to and/or reading your work.

For example, my memoir blends in some social and other history of the times. “Blend” is the key word, not go on and on about the history. One chapter I’ve quoted from in a previous post (“Time is Not on My Side,” 2009/11/20) “Riding the Rails with Dad” tells how Mom and I travelled with Dad on the CN railway my Dad worked for. I wanted to put some history of the CN in the chapter but got really carried away. The critique was “you have too much history.”  So, I cut, cut and re-blended. The idea was to keep in some parts that tie in with Dad’s time at the railway and our travels. Gone went a whole diatribe on steam engines, except what I experienced as a little girl. Stayed were some of my Dad’s peculiarities relating to working for CN. One was his obsession with being on time – after all he was a timekeeper.

Another chapter covers tales out of school. Some suggestions focused on rewording and some on verb tense. In and out of school I was bullied a lot by one girl whom I refer to as “the Bully.” One of my classmatess, Tom, sometimes came to my rescue, but sometimes he teased in the process.  Originally I wrote :

“Four times a day, including lunchtime, the Bully and I do the 15-minute walk to and from school, often accompanied by other classmates dawdling up Donlands. Some like……turn west along O’Connor, but Tom, the strawberry thief, continues on wih the Bully and I. The Bully teases me and I’m too timid to tell her off. Tom, disgusted by her behaviour, slashes back at her, telling her to ‘leave Sharon alone. ‘ And no, that doesn’t reward Tom with free strawberries. In class, Tom, who sits kitty -corner in front of me, listens as the Bully taunts me. I blink to stop the tears from sliding down my cheek. Tom swings around and stares mournfully at me with his baby blue eyes.

‘Don’t cry,’ he says.”

Excerpted from You Can Go Home. Copyright 2010 Sharon Crawford.

Comments on this passage included: “Tom disappears,” brackets around “I blink to stop the tears from sliding down my cheek,” (for a reword), a grammar correction for “the Bully and I” (with “I” crossed out and “me” substituted. And I call myself an editor? You can see the subjectiveness creeping in here).

Of course, I fixed the grammar error and reworded the business with the tears to “I blink to try to keep the tears inside.” But I didn’t do anything about Tom disappearing. The chapter focused on my grade school days – or tales of the most momentous occurrences – good and bad – not Tom, my friend and classmate;  he was only part of the whole.

So, you don’t have to change your writing just because a member of your critique group says so. What I find is that if a number of them agree on one point I better look at it and it probably needs at least some tweaking. Also any critique is worth examining because even if you don’t agree, it might trigger a better way of writing something.

Writing critique groups are good also to find flaws in point of view, verb tenses, the balance between dialogue and narration, setting and time problems. The list goes on. But the critique is not all about finding the baddies – it is also pointing out what is good in your writing and also keeping the critique constructive, not destructive. We can get enough of the latter in the form of rejection letters from literary agents or publishers <g>.

My East End Writers’ Group (www.samcraw.com> is an in-person group meeting once a month. But there are many online writing critique groups. Either can work – whichever you are comfortable with. But check into them carefully to find out what is required of you. If they are asking you to critique 10 stories for your one, you might want to give them a pass. It’s a given that you’ll have to do some critiquing of others’ work, but watch the ratio. Also watch the tone of the critique – if you can, ask others who belong to the group, what it’s like, or if it’s an in-person critique, you can sit in for one session and audit it. Some critique groups focus on one writing genre, others are mixed. Some focus on one writer’s work per session and require you to read and critique before the session. Some meet weekly; some monthly, and of course the online ones may also have submission number and time requirements as well.  So be aware of the group’s requirements and if you are comfortable with them.

I certainly have benefited from critiques received in my group and also from listening to and critiquing others’ work.

Cheers.

Sharon

onlychildwrites