Auto Thoughts

In every way it’s been a week of contrasts. Moments of blue sky and sunshine, smelling faintly of spring, have vanished as if wiped from a slate to be followed by angry grey clouds boiling over into little chips of snow flying erratically about, never landing, whirling as if suspended in a mini-tornado.

It’s a long drive out to the Fir-Draped Cabin, located on Nym’s parents’ property. Note how the abode just gained capital letters, maybe because Dad always refers to the home he and Mom lived in when I was born as the Rose Covered Cottage, a place made even more legendary by an abundant strawberry patch in the back yard. Apparently I refused to eat anything but strawberries for months at a time.

In reality, the cottage was of pre-World War I vintage, one of its rooms was sealed off – reputedly containing the effects of the landlady’s son who did not ever return from that war – and the only heat came from an antique furnace in the basement. To get into the dirt-floored basement, you had to go outside and climb through a sort of hatchway. The furnace ate vast quantities of wood and Dad would brave the morning chill – or frost, as the case may be – to light a blazing fire before Mom got up with me. Calling what amounted to a shack – the only available housing in post-World War II Nanaimo – the Rose Covered Cottage was to smother its inadequacies with semantic charm – a trait that’s been handed down to me and for which I’m grateful.

I’ve made the scenic drive to the Fir-Draped Cabin three times in the last four days. The road winds ever on through coniferous forest and around rocky outcrops patched with moss, providing plenty of time for thought. Those intense moments Virginia Woolf calls “moments of being” flash through my mind as I drive.

I remember Wumbles’ first night at home. Women were pliant as sheep or cows or some other slow-brained, commonly herded animal back then. We didn’t question the rules, just meekly shuffled into the hospital, got wheeled into delivery rooms blazing with harsh light, and allowed our newborns to be carted away shortly after their birth. You didn’t feel the baby was really yours until you got it home.

So, on that long ago first night, I fed Wumbles and popped her into the regulation crib – which Piglet and I had painted pastel green and adorned with lamb decals – about 11:00 p.m. Babes in the woods ourselves at 20, Piglet and I fell immediately into bed, exhausted, assuming we’d waken at the tiniest sound from Wumbles. Instead, we awoke simultaneously to see sunlight sifting through the curtains and the clock proclaiming 7:00 a.m. Without a word we looked at each other, aghast, our feet hit the deck in unison – thump! – and we dashed to Wumbles’ side. She was just waking up, her eyes slitting open cautiously, letting in only glimpses of her strange new surroundings. Piglet and I were relieved to the depths of our souls. Wumbles didn’t sleep through the night again for many a moon.

I remember Creature’s rapid arrival. 11:40 p.m. saw me trudging up the hospital corridor towards the delivery room, royally irritated that none of the medical personnel had believed me when I told them her birth was imminent. Six minutes after midnight – voila – enter Creature, stage centre – looking remarkably like wee Finn does today.

Nym’s mother had a family dinner on Sunday and I took a pile of Creature’s baby pictures with me. We all marvelled at how much Finn looks like a little Creature. At first, Grandma Nym thought I’d managed to snap him in an assortment of outfits and race the photos to a developer. She was so breath taken at my presumed efficiency it was almost painful to disillusion her.

“I did wonder why he was wearing a pink blanket bag,” she said.

Telltale puffy redness rimmed Creature’s eyes. I quickly learned she’s upset because nursing Finn isn’t going as well as she thinks it should. She’s sore and frustrated. Fortunately, although I could offer little more than a neck massage, I do know one of the world’ leading authorities on the subject, the Queen of Too Much. I owed her a phone call anyway and she graciously agreed to give Creature some tips. The Queen also ordered me to race right out and buy a copy of The Womanly Art of Breast Feeding, a command I obeyed instantly. Never let it be said I had to be pushed into a bookstore.

Calling from Vancouver to check in, Tickles reported glumly that he had a piano gig with a singer no one’s ever heard of. Instead of a drummer or bass player, the logical choice for turning the duo into a trio, she’d hired a guy who plays ‘cardboard box.’ I’m intrigued. How does he coax sound from his instrument? With a drum stick? A soup ladle? A well-tempered fingernail?

On Monday, I stayed with Dad so Mom could get her hair cut and see the family doctor for advice. Dad slept most of the afternoon, his breath coming in a laboured, hoarse-sounding rale, sending an icy splinter through my heart. Mom returned with the doctor’s recommendation.

“He says we should organize hospice care,” she told me. “They’ll come to the house. Dad won’t ever have to into the hospital again.”

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered cloak upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.

And Dad is still so very afraid of death.

I am pulled between opposites, distracted to absurdity. The other day at work I sent an instant message to one of my colleagues, a rather repugnant man about my age. “Give me a sex,” I typed in response to a question. All I can do is point out that the ‘c’ and ‘x’ keys are right beside each other on the keyboard.

Contrasts indeed.