Get your sparkle! Part 5
It is a much-concealed fact that those of us who live alone are always talking to ourselves. Or hey, this is also a secret, even with ourselves. Yes, it’s possible to pass happy remarks in a solo conversation like I found myself doing earlier today in the vegetable garden. I was there to grab three kale leaves for my breakfast smoothie. Any more kale than that, and the smoothie gets too grainy. While I was in the veg garden, I noticed on top of my generator there was scummy water. The puddle wasn’t hurting anything, I’ve double-tarped the genni to protect it, and secured the whole package with bungee cords against gale-force winds. But the top tarp looked unpleasantly like it would soon start to sprout life forms.
The day was sunny. I could pull off the tarp, hose it clean, let it dry and fold it up for the summer. Well, it’s still only spring, but it’s my betting we’re done with power outages for the season. The island may lose power a few times in the summer, but it’s never been long enough for me to pull out the generator. It was time to put away the genni for the year.
But, breakfast. I need to make it and finish it because this morning I want to go to church. I was up early so I could walk Ms Furface. That’s done. I am an irregular attender at the Anglican Church on Pender, a small, often lay-led congregation where I go primarily to sing hymns, though the people are wonderful and I confess I love the hugs. All week long I’ll hum the hymns we sang at church.
“Focus, Z,” I tell myself.
I’m hungry but here’s the generator, asking for love. In fact, I need to start the genni later. That engine needs to run for a bit before I put it away for the year. Dear friends are coming over this afternoon to help me remove some drywall scraps from under my cottage and cut them small enough that they’ll fit into another friend’s truck. It’s my intention to ask them to help me move the genni back into the carport; it’s too heavy for me to drag. The generator has wheels, a handle and weighs 120 lbs. Think of a kid’s wagon with two wheels. Taller people than me have better leverage to get the wheels rolling. You have to tilt it up. Good luck for someone my height.
So why am I still standing in the veg garden, looking at the genni, dithering, with my three stems of kale in one hand? Where’s the sparkle in this? “Huh,” I say to myself. “Remember what Leslie always said?” By this time, I’m moving in a purposeful way toward the gate and shutting it behind me. “She said, ‘Let’s just jump off one bridge at a time.’” At that point, I’m standing over the compost heap, stripping greenery from the central kale stems. I agree with myself, I agree with Leslie. One bridge at a time. It was funny when she said it years ago and it’s funny now, but more than that, it’s useful advice. Then I come to, realize I’ve been babbling, and laugh.
My mom alerted me to the fact we all talk to ourselves. For ten or fifteen years, she used to organize the annual thrift sale at the Unitarian Church in Vancouver. It was a job she loved. She started off by helping and graduated to be the person in charge of volunteers. It was a big church and big sale; it took months to organize. “I used to worry I was the only person who ever talked to myself,” Mom confided. “I was worried everyone would think I was . . . squirrelly. Peculiar. And then, when we were downstairs at the church, processing our donations for the sale, I’d hear my volunteers. And every single one of them would be chatting away to themselves, walking from room to room, putting items where they should go. Every single one of us talked to ourselves, I should say. So I realized it was all right, that was part of what we did, living alone.”
Something Mom didn’t mention was how ridiculous this talking to ourselves can sound. I laugh at myself many times a day. As best I can, I try to make this kindly. Here I am, a person, upright in the world, doing what I can.
Do I keep my kitchen clean? Check.
Walk my dog? Check.
Give her medication as necessary, wash off her current leg infection with antibacterial soap, dry the affected area, wait ten minutes, apply antibiotic ointment? Check. Now that Kira has figured out I’ve been concealing her antibiotic pills in expensive canned dog food, and she spits them out, do I take the pills and massage them down her throat? Check. In my defence, I show my dear dog I have a tasty couple of tablespoons of canned food out on a plate for her, and all she has to do is gakk down the pill. She gets the message.
But that good humour. There’s enough dreadful stuff going on in the world, I figure we have to be kind to ourselves and others. Literally and figuratively we need to be upright, but can I also ask myself to be gentle? Sure, I never get done in a day what I want to, but as best as I can, with each small thing, can I act with integrity?
Oops, I forgot to send a text to a friend, telling her I admire the way she kept on singing in a choir performing a challenging classical piece. There was so much hard stuff going on in her life and there she was, doing something uplifting. Let me do that now.
Then I set up my new clothes rack on the deck. The ancient wooden clothes rack from the island’s free store I used to use finally snapped into three pieces last year. Now I admire the new stainless rack, hang up laundry, and say, “Good work.” I listen to myself and laugh.
This is my Get out of Jail Free card. Pass Go. Here I am outside, marvelling at the magic of the North Star dogwood that’s just coming into bloom at the bottom of my garden and the kindness of people around me. Isn’t that what we’re meant to be doing with the minutes of our days? And if we happen to make editorial comments to ourselves on this as we go along, so be it.