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TIMKEN

(cont from July 2 2004)

It would be many years before he would equate the boy and their leaving The Big House. It should have been obvious
Boy arrives one day. Next day his mother and he moved into town and into the boarding house.
Oh, he supposed, it might not have been so sudden. His mother must have had to find the boarding house - or so he would think until he found out she knew someone there who offered her sanctuary - leave the house where she had spent most of her life, leave behind a parent. Pack belongings. But there were few possessions in the suite in the boarding house. Did she know it was a temporary sojourn? It was the obsession with such questions that would drive Timken many years later to journey back in time.
At the time he did not see the boy as their reason for leaving.
In spite of what his mother must have been experiencing, she had thought of him. She remained kind. She did not grab and drag. Well, except for that first time when the boy appeared on the pathway leading to the side porch and stared at Timken. And Timken had stared pleasantly back until he became aware that his mother had appeared behind him. And after an instant - or was it many moments - was it in silence or had words been exchanged - she did grab Timken's arm, pull him to his feet from his seat on the steps, pull him to a vanish inside the house.
But there the grab and pull had ended.
If panic or anger or confusion or hatred or any of the other more interesting emotions were driving her, she did not let their heat scorch her son. She cloaked these with her determination. Made it an adventure.
"Why?" asked Timken as he watched her pack their clothes.
"Oh, it's time for a change, I guess. Time you learned to ride a street car. Time you saw how city people capture some country and call it a park. Time you had a room of your own."
She made a big show in the rooming house of making him a bed in what was really a walk-in closet. The addition to the huge old house had been made that long ago that such was still a feature of the design.
But he didn't like the walls so close. Not being able to see the sky through a window. Not liking how the slats on the foldout bed creaked.
The second night he crawled back into bed beside his mother and for the rest of the year there he slept. The bed stayed in the closet but the clothing crept on their hangers across the bar and over the space.
The most trauma he experienced around the move was being left with a friend of his mother's while she went about several trips to do with the move. He had no memory of being left with anyone before, at least not in a strange house where his senses had been so assaulted he closed down. The second time he said, "No," and gave her his immovable look and she sighed and shrugged and did not insist. Went off to phone and give some excuse to excuse him from where he was supposed to be. Later he would wonder why he was not left with the person some thought was his grandfather, the owner of the Big House, the figure so much there but so much always in shadow. Later he would understand the disapproval.
His first impression of the rooming house was that it loomed. It would have sat grandly back on its city lot when it was first built around the turn of the century, proudly balanced with land front and back. An addition to the front in the twenties or so had taken a chunk from the front property, destroyed the pleasant dimensions of both structure and garden.
It loomed. Even the trees that had grown up against the addition across sixty or so years did not soften the cold squareness.
Oh, some attempt had been made to match the 'new' with the 'old' all those years ago. Some notion had added a gable, a sloped roof. In that nook was where his mother would sit for much of that year. She would soften it for herself and him and for most of the residents.
But he didn't know that as they got out of the taxi and he stood in front of her and stared at the house. His squat form effectively blocked her way. The taxi driver had unloaded the luggage. It was not more than she could carry but she stood and stared along with him.
The original verandah that had extended the width of the house and could have provided roomy seating for double the number of the rooming house inhabitants had become a narrow porch along the left side of the addition with stairs that meant to be welcoming but were a bit mean in the attempt.
There were chairs set out along that porch inviting people to sit and rest or converse. Few did. It felt like a tunnel, the view into a large thick privet hedge that in spite of seasonal pruning usually encroached on the porch. The chairs encroached also and anyone passing by had to excuse self from anyone seated because their legs would be in the way of passersby. It was a nuisance to draw in legs or feet. It defeated the purpose.
Timken would alter history quite soon into his stay by turning all the chairs so they faced the street in a line and became his train. From then on people would sit on the porch. Oddly. But in comfort. If they wanted to talk, a deux, they would turn a couplet of chairs to face, each to each.
For his first sighting of the house he could see no detail, no welcome, no reassurance.
He had yet to see how cosy his mother had made their two rooms on the second floor in the Impossible Wing. If he had been able to sort through the looming whole for a comforting part he might have noticed the multi-coloured shawl that his mother wrapped around him when he was ill or fretful, telling him that it had magical powers, noticed it where she had hung it in the front window of their suite, a signal, a beacon. But he did not see it.
So he stood and stared and ignored her slight nudge with her knee against his back to get him moving. She had picked up the suitcases by now.
"I hate it," he said.
"Me too, " she replied, matter of fact. And pushed kindly past him and started up the short walk to the narrow stairs with the slightly too high risers.
He grabbed the end of her sweater as she passed, stuck his thumb comfortably into his mouth and moved along with her.
At the instant his thumb entered his mouth he became aware of the look on the face of the old woman, the very old woman, who was watching them from a front window in the addition on the ground floor.
A jolt went through him and the extraordinary feeling of being a man, not a child. He popped the thumb out and never sucked it again.
The old woman, the very old woman, did not linger on his face; it was as if she was reassured. What she did do was rake vision over his mother as if assessing this person who had brought him.
His mother had felt the gaze - who couldn't: it had that searing quality - and noted her reaction in the first of her 'journals' in the rooming house, this one on the back of an envelope, the kind with a clear window, the return address of the city, the kind of envelope a utility bill came in.
Sept 4
First comment was he hated it. And Mrs. Poughkeepsie peering out at us.
"Yucky smell," she whispered once they were inside. She had used a key and not needed to knock which he found both disturbing and comforting. It was as if his mother had entered into a conspiracy with the unknown and this frightened him but beckoned him as well.
The hall was dark: the tunnel porch and privet hedge were greedy with light.
Timken made himself unaware of the smell. He was offended by unpleasant odors and had early learned to avoid them, even to avoid making them. He had vomited only once that he remembered. That had been enough. And, as a baby, he was often constipated until a thoughtful doctor had suggested to his mother that she toilet train him and Timken gratefully gave up diapers and his bowels returned to normal.
Now he had tuned out the smell of cooking; it was frying spinach, one of many culinary experiments. It was his eyes not his nose that were the vehicles of world perception but as yet the dimness and his resistance to go from the general to the specific were preventing this avenue of awareness. So he reverted to second best. Touch.
He touched his tongue to the radiator handle in the foyer as his mother turned to close the door and then stooped to pick up the luggage again.
"Leave them, Arie, I'll get Cousin to carry them up," a voice was coming along the hall.
Neither the bodyless voice nor his mother saw him lick the fluted knob that was missing half its shape. It tasted rough and red although it was painted black and its surface worn smooth.
April 19
(on the flyleaf torn from some book and tucked into an envelope with some clipped recipes and an article from Reader's Digest on pica; written when Timken was three years old)
This morning he licked the cement block by the cellar stairs. It's all mossy. He licked my elbow when I was lifting the roast from the oven (tried sausage stuffing: too greasy). He licked Daly's keys. He licked something he found in the yard but when I called out to him to ask what on earth it was he laughed and threw it into the bushes before I could see what he had. Apparently I needn't worry since he doesn't eat the things, just licks them.
(She was amused more than alarmed by his licking tendency. He'd never tried to lick something dangerous like the side of a moving car or money (you just never knew what it had shared a pocket with). Ridiculous humor. Kept worry on the edge, sort of. She had deeper worries that she did not want to think about.)
The owner of the voice dissolved out of the gloom, sucked out of the dim hallway. Timken's first vision of the chatelaine of the house was rounded by his mother's shape in front of him. She had braids. He had never seen a grown up woman with braids before. And these were fat plaits of hair that poked with an attitude from the side of her head no matter how close or how tight she twisted the hair.
Timken stared at those silhouette of braids that gradually became clearer as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light.
"Well, this must be your son. Didn't think you were bringing him 'til later. Uh, leave the cases, Arie. Cousin will take care of them. Uh, well, hello." She wiped her hand on her blouse - she had an apron mentality but no apron practicality - and stuck her hand toward Timken.
He would have done the polite thing and offered his hand back, he knew what was expected, his mother had put down the cases again and stepped out of his way, but as she did so she was introducing the apparition. "This is Megan Nederquist," she said, only as she said it wondering if she should have said Mrs. instead but somehow she doubted it. From her so far brief acquaintance with Megan the lack of formality seemed appropriate.
In the time it took for Timken to hear the introduction and absorb it, he lost it. His hand in a thrust to shake fell to his side. The giggle that erupted inside of him raced for release and reached his lips in a chuckle. He tried to contain it and couldn't. The attempt at restraint made him fart. Laughter poured out the other end.
His mother looked at him in wonder, the other woman in surprise. His mother knew he would explain himself later and was quickly searching for something to ease the situation now. The other woman hoped this new tenant's son wasn't a little terror. Or a bit mental. She would find he was neither.
He slightly rectified the situation by regaining composure and saying, "Sorry", finally putting out his hand to her still extended one and gripping it sincerely. With the other hand he was trying to wave away the smell of his "bum burp".
Later, in their rooms, inspection over, routine planned but not established, Arie would remember to ask him about his behavior. And he would say, very seriously, "Her name is funny," and try to keep his lips straight.
"Well, a bit, I guess," Arie would concede. "Nederquist. I think it's Scandinavian. Remember when Celia went on that trip last year and brought me that little statue...?" - she waited on his nod: she needed her tangents acknowledged. "And Megan is a bit out of the ordinary, but I don't see why you found it all that funny."
"I thought you said Me Again, Never Kissed," he told her and as she heard this and started to smile they both laughed.
"I hope I can keep a straight face around her from now on, you bad boy."
Before very long she would be able to share with Megan why Timken had disgraced himself and put the situation to rest.
"I been kissed lots, sonny," Megan would then wink at Timken next time she saw him.
"Like a little girl," he would find suddenly escaped from his mouth as he once more stared at her braids and Megan would be startled for a moment and then shrug. "Arie's kid says the darndest things," she would tell Max, her husband.

Posted on July 08, 2004 at 08:48 PM | Permalink

It would be many years before he would equate the boy and their leaving The Big House. It should have been obvious
Boy arrives one day. Next day his mother and he moved into town and into the boarding house.
Oh, he supposed, it might not have been so sudden. His mother must have had to find the boarding house - or so he would think until he found out she knew someone there who offered her sanctuary - leave the house where she had spent most of her life, leave behind a parent. Pack belongings. But there were few possessions in the suite in the boarding house. Did she know it was a temporary sojourn? It was the obsession with such questions that would drive Timken many years later to journey back in time.
At the time he did not see the boy as their reason for leaving.
In spite of what his mother must have been experiencing, she had thought of him. She remained kind. She did not grab and drag. Well, except for that first time when the boy appeared on the pathway leading to the side porch and stared at Timken. And Timken had stared pleasantly back until he became aware that his mother had appeared behind him. And after an instant - or was it many moments - was it in silence or had words been exchanged - she did grab Timken's arm, pull him to his feet from his seat on the steps, pull him to a vanish inside the house.
But there the grab and pull had ended.
If panic or anger or confusion or hatred or any of the other more interesting emotions were driving her, she did not let their heat scorch her son. She cloaked these with her determination. Made it an adventure.
"Why?" asked Timken as he watched her pack their clothes.
"Oh, it's time for a change, I guess. Time you learned to ride a street car. Time you saw how city people capture some country and call it a park. Time you had a room of your own."
She made a big show in the rooming house of making him a bed in what was really a walk-in closet. The addition to the huge old house had been made that long ago that such was still a feature of the design.
But he didn't like the walls so close. Not being able to see the sky through a window. Not liking how the slats on the foldout bed creaked.
The second night he crawled back into bed beside his mother and for the rest of the year there he slept. The bed stayed in the closet but the clothing crept on their hangers across the bar and over the space.
The most trauma he experienced around the move was being left with a friend of his mother's while she went about several trips to do with the move. He had no memory of being left with anyone before, at least not in a strange house where his senses had been so assaulted he closed down. The second time he said, "No," and gave her his immovable look and she sighed and shrugged and did not insist. Went off to phone and give some excuse to excuse him from where he was supposed to be. Later he would wonder why he was not left with the person some thought was his grandfather, the owner of the Big House, the figure so much there but so much always in shadow. Later he would understand the disapproval.
His first impression of the rooming house was that it loomed. It would have sat grandly back on its city lot when it was first built around the turn of the century, proudly balanced with land front and back. An addition to the front in the twenties or so had taken a chunk from the front property, destroyed the pleasant dimensions of both structure and garden.
It loomed. Even the trees that had grown up against the addition across sixty or so years did not soften the cold squareness.
Oh, some attempt had been made to match the 'new' with the 'old' all those years ago. Some notion had added a gable, a sloped roof. In that nook was where his mother would sit for much of that year. She would soften it for herself and him and for most of the residents.
But he didn't know that as they got out of the taxi and he stood in front of her and stared at the house. His squat form effectively blocked her way. The taxi driver had unloaded the luggage. It was not more than she could carry but she stood and stared along with him.
The original verandah that had extended the width of the house and could have provided roomy seating for double the number of the rooming house inhabitants had become a narrow porch along the left side of the addition with stairs that meant to be welcoming but were a bit mean in the attempt.
There were chairs set out along that porch inviting people to sit and rest or converse. Few did. It felt like a tunnel, the view into a large thick privet hedge that in spite of seasonal pruning usually encroached on the porch. The chairs encroached also and anyone passing by had to excuse self from anyone seated because their legs would be in the way of passersby. It was a nuisance to draw in legs or feet. It defeated the purpose.
Timken would alter history quite soon into his stay by turning all the chairs so they faced the street in a line and became his train. From then on people would sit on the porch. Oddly. But in comfort. If they wanted to talk, a deux, they would turn a couplet of chairs to face, each to each.
For his first sighting of the house he could see no detail, no welcome, no reassurance.
He had yet to see how cosy his mother had made their two rooms on the second floor in the Impossible Wing. If he had been able to sort through the looming whole for a comforting part he might have noticed the multi-coloured shawl that his mother wrapped around him when he was ill or fretful, telling him that it had magical powers, noticed it where she had hung it in the front window of their suite, a signal, a beacon. But he did not see it.
So he stood and stared and ignored her slight nudge with her knee against his back to get him moving. She had picked up the suitcases by now.
"I hate it," he said.
"Me too, " she replied, matter of fact. And pushed kindly past him and started up the short walk to the narrow stairs with the slightly too high risers.
He grabbed the end of her sweater as she passed, stuck his thumb comfortably into his mouth and moved along with her.
At the instant his thumb entered his mouth he became aware of the look on the face of the old woman, the very old woman, who was watching them from a front window in the addition on the ground floor.
A jolt went through him and the extraordinary feeling of being a man, not a child. He popped the thumb out and never sucked it again.
The old woman, the very old woman, did not linger on his face; it was as if she was reassured. What she did do was rake vision over his mother as if assessing this person who had brought him.
His mother had felt the gaze - who couldn't: it had that searing quality - and noted her reaction in the first of her 'journals' in the rooming house, this one on the back of an envelope, the kind with a clear window, the return address of the city, the kind of envelope a utility bill came in.
Sept 4
First comment was he hated it. And Mrs. Poughkeepsie peering out at us.
"Yucky smell," she whispered once they were inside. She had used a key and not needed to knock which he found both disturbing and comforting. It was as if his mother had entered into a conspiracy with the unknown and this frightened him but beckoned him as well.
The hall was dark: the tunnel porch and privet hedge were greedy with light.
Timken made himself unaware of the smell. He was offended by unpleasant odors and had early learned to avoid them, even to avoid making them. He had vomited only once that he remembered. That had been enough. And, as a baby, he was often constipated until a thoughtful doctor had suggested to his mother that she toilet train him and Timken gratefully gave up diapers and his bowels returned to normal.
Now he had tuned out the smell of cooking; it was frying spinach, one of many culinary experiments. It was his eyes not his nose that were the vehicles of world perception but as yet the dimness and his resistance to go from the general to the specific were preventing this avenue of awareness. So he reverted to second best. Touch.
He touched his tongue to the radiator handle in the foyer as his mother turned to close the door and then stooped to pick up the luggage again.
"Leave them, Arie, I'll get Cousin to carry them up," a voice was coming along the hall.
Neither the bodyless voice nor his mother saw him lick the fluted knob that was missing half its shape. It tasted rough and red although it was painted black and its surface worn smooth.
April 19
(on the flyleaf torn from some book and tucked into an envelope with some clipped recipes and an article from Reader's Digest on pica; written when Timken was three years old)
This morning he licked the cement block by the cellar stairs. It's all mossy. He licked my elbow when I was lifting the roast from the oven (tried sausage stuffing: too greasy). He licked Daly's keys. He licked something he found in the yard but when I called out to him to ask what on earth it was he laughed and threw it into the bushes before I could see what he had. Apparently I needn't worry since he doesn't eat the things, just licks them.
(She was amused more than alarmed by his licking tendency. He'd never tried to lick something dangerous like the side of a moving car or money (you just never knew what it had shared a pocket with). Ridiculous humor. Kept worry on the edge, sort of. She had deeper worries that she did not want to think about.)
The owner of the voice dissolved out of the gloom, sucked out of the dim hallway. Timken's first vision of the chatelaine of the house was rounded by his mother's shape in front of him. She had braids. He had never seen a grown up woman with braids before. And these were fat plaits of hair that poked with an attitude from the side of her head no matter how close or how tight she twisted the hair.
Timken stared at those silhouette of braids that gradually became clearer as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light.
"Well, this must be your son. Didn't think you were bringing him 'til later. Uh, leave the cases, Arie. Cousin will take care of them. Uh, well, hello." She wiped her hand on her blouse - she had an apron mentality but no apron practicality - and stuck her hand toward Timken.
He would have done the polite thing and offered his hand back, he knew what was expected, his mother had put down the cases again and stepped out of his way, but as she did so she was introducing the apparition. "This is Megan Nederquist," she said, only as she said it wondering if she should have said Mrs. instead but somehow she doubted it. From her so far brief acquaintance with Megan the lack of formality seemed appropriate.
In the time it took for Timken to hear the introduction and absorb it, he lost it. His hand in a thrust to shake fell to his side. The giggle that erupted inside of him raced for release and reached his lips in a chuckle. He tried to contain it and couldn't. The attempt at restraint made him fart. Laughter poured out the other end.
His mother looked at him in wonder, the other woman in surprise. His mother knew he would explain himself later and was quickly searching for something to ease the situation now. The other woman hoped this new tenant's son wasn't a little terror. Or a bit mental. She would find he was neither.
He slightly rectified the situation by regaining composure and saying, "Sorry", finally putting out his hand to her still extended one and gripping it sincerely. With the other hand he was trying to wave away the smell of his "bum burp".
Later, in their rooms, inspection over, routine planned but not established, Arie would remember to ask him about his behavior. And he would say, very seriously, "Her name is funny," and try to keep his lips straight.
"Well, a bit, I guess," Arie would concede. "Nederquist. I think it's Scandinavian. Remember when Celia went on that trip last year and brought me that little statue...?" - she waited on his nod: she needed her tangents acknowledged. "And Megan is a bit out of the ordinary, but I don't see why you found it all that funny."
"I thought you said Me Again, Never Kissed," he told her and as she heard this and started to smile they both laughed.
"I hope I can keep a straight face around her from now on, you bad boy."
Before very long she would be able to share with Megan why Timken had disgraced himself and put the situation to rest.
"I been kissed lots, sonny," Megan would then wink at Timken next time she saw him.
"Like a little girl," he would find suddenly escaped from his mouth as he once more stared at her braids and Megan would be startled for a moment and then shrug. "Arie's kid says the darndest things," she would tell Max, her husband.

April Earth And Sky 2000

 

To wile away pauses in life I’ve been asking people what they wear when they garden.

“Starkers,” one gentleman answered and due to his delightful accent I thought he said, “stalkers”.  Well now, some intriguing European costume for pottering among plants was about to be revealed to me and Sherlock Holmes loped deerily across my mind. However the bare essentials negated this notion when the man’s wife said , “Oh, for pete’s sake you only ever did that once.  And now he avoids the neighbours because he’s afraid the night wasn’t as dark as he thought.”

For my part, shyness and persistence had a bit of a tussle but curiosity won out and I journalistically asked, “So, why did you garden, um, like that.”

“Muddy,” he replied.

“Now she’s going to think I complain about having to wash your clothing,” his wife said with a laugh but I felt, not for the first time when in interview mode, that I was an unwilling battledore of unwitting shuttlecocks. (And greatly affected by an accent!)

“If more people gardened in the nude we’d see the humour in it and the world would be a better place,” he said.  I was intrigued by his philosophy.  His wife looked quite astonished.  Maybe this was the most words she’d ever heard him string together at one time and she would need time to think of what he had actually said.

Garden tours will have an added flavour if my lively imagination happens to remember his words, dances pictures with them, and the chuckles in my heart will indeed brighten the world.

In the pursuit of defining gardening gear, and thinking it a less hazardous method than word of mouth, I took the chance of trying on a pair of gardening shoes when they conveniently presented themselves.  They were the moulded plastic kind in bright colours that must have the daffs and the poppies in an anxious preen.  They were minding their own business outside a door at which I had knocked several times on a “should’ errand and gotten no response. 

No one home – yippee, thinks I, and as I was about to turn and walk away the question presented, “Why not?” and I couldn’t think of any convincing reason to not.  In a jiffy I was out of my boots and into the clogs.  They sure looked nice.  They felt – well, strains of Clementine with her fishy foot apparel appeared from somewhere in my head and I took a couple of steps to the tune.  If I had been in an actual garden I would have been trip-toeing through the tulips.  On that veranda it was more a jerk and stumble and “please Mother Nature I will never, ever, palm a cutting in a public garden again if you just let me NOT fall off this porch into that viburnum and let me immediately think of something somewhat-face-saving to say to the lady who has just opened her front door to find a total stranger wearing her gardening shoes.”

They say embarassment is good for the soul.  Whoever said it must have a higher tolerance for blushing.  I’ve since thought of four or five things I could have said but didn’t.

A wealth * of women were looking at gardening aprons in the clothing section of a local nursery and with a “can I believe my luck!” thought, I sidled right in.  Here’s what I harvested.

Pockets – the roomier the better, but not vertical ones that can cause organ bruising from tools – must be horizontal ones!

Hats that shade the neck and face and gloves that protect the hands.  Sunburn and cancer be damned – age spots were the issue here.

Anything with a waist when standing cinches the hips when kneeling so, in the interest of burn-the-corset, garments without waists were recommended.

One woman said she swore by pantyhose and we all pricked up our ears and eyebrows at this.  I was beginning to feel downright chummy with this group and had to quell a query: the familiarity was, after all, all on my part. 

“I wrap a pair around my forehead like a headband – great for sweat and if you let a leg dangle you have something to wipe your neck and hands with.”

Creativity – thy name is a gardening woman!

*wealth  of – any gathering where knowledge gained by experience is exchanged

Karen needs a garden to keep her out of further mischief in Victoria.  BC.

TIMKEN : A NOVEL

(re-post)

Chapter One
"Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmothy Kennnnnnneth!"
His mother's voice would build and tumble from the doorway of their rooms in the Impossible Wing of the rooming house. Some inner nudge would have alerted her to awareness of the extent of the time of his absence. She would lay down her magazine or cease to portray her thoughts - this, more likely - on the streetscape outside the window, and send a voice search.
But first she would have to rise from her chair, the old padded rocker where she spent so much of her time the year they spent in that house. And where she, across that year, became increasingly padded.
Timken was a watcher. Twice he had been in the room when, not realizing his nearness, she had unfolded the search for him. He had noted the ritual. The sameness appealed to him and even the third time he would have remained still and quiet and watched but she had noticed him before it fulfilled.
Here is what she would do. She would rise from the old rocker like a woman three times her size. Slowly and ponderously.
At aged five Timken did not wonder at this. It was how his mother moved, that year. In later times he would speculate on that oddity. Did she consider herself far heavier than she was? Move to an increasingly perceived girth?
For now he loved to watch the slow motion.
Down quickly would go the magazine or the head quickly jerk eyes away from what she was 'seeing'. (Timken would never realize the extent of these 'portrayals' but he would get a glimpse from her odd journaling.) Then, with underwater slowness she would press elbows down onto the arms of the chair. It was as if the mind had leapt to alarm but the body could not match the speed. So she would press the bones of the elbows past the padded flesh of the arm down onto the padded arm of the chair to wood. Move body up and away from the cushioned back. Grip the arms where some previous tenant's cat had clawed the fabric to nibs if not actual tatters. Slide her hands back, stop, adjust her feet to a staggered position as if for better leverage, hands back more, then the gradual pushing upward. Once he had heard her elbow crack but she gave the sound no notice.
The second time he watched her he was a split second ahead of her, waiting in a sort of anticipation for her to fulfill his expectation of where she was moving next, and how. Perhaps it was his need to feel some sort of control over his world, to orchestrate the next move. At five he did not understand the force of the upheaval from The Big House to here.
As she pushed herself upward she seemed to be concentrating inwardly because there was no glancing around, no thought that he had not strayed. She accepted that he had left. Even the time he had been there, seated on the bed, his presence had gone unnoticed. It was as if her fear of his distance from her made her blind to his nearness. Later he would wonder if hysterical blindness was hereditary and his episodes, gene-, as well as trauma-, induced.
Once standing she would wriggle her feet back into whatever footwear she had been wearing. She seemed to have restless feet that sought escape from her shoes if she was not actually in motion. Once she had slipped them off while on a streetcar and had to scramble to find the one that somehow slipped under the seat as their stop came up.
Free from the chair, shod again, she would start for the door with her mouth already forming the words of his name but yet a silent litany. The rooming house was large with too many nooks and crooks that could stall and snag a voice. Perhaps she sought to avoid the obvious soundcatcher of the doorframe of this room by waiting until she could call along the hall.
And always - or almost, so - before speaking she would do a quick wet of lips with her tiny tongue and use thumb and forefinger of her left hand to trace a hard line from mouth corners down her full bottom lip.
"Of course, at that age, I didn't think of it as her left hand, when I 'told' myself about her," he would say to his most beloved lover years later who would persist endlessly and never tire of hearing the most minute details of Timken's life. "I remember 'telling' myself - 'her hand with the purple ring. It was the hand with the purple ring that etched her lips.' Her left hand." And he would not need to give a pretend laugh to apologize for such behavior, for such endless chronicling of his mother, then or now.
Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmooooooothy Kennnnnnneeeeeth! By the third bouncing out of his name someone would have answered. It was a large, rambling house, the Impossible Wing a nuisance of an addition, but there was a good bush telegraph system in case he really was out of voice range.
Someone would inform her of his whereabouts and his mother would nowhere approach the panic that silence to her call might have brought.
It was not a rooming house where people seemed to absent themselves all day at work. That would have been a strange experience for Timken, in any case. Never exposed to a nine to five routine he would never, his whole life, be comfortable with it.
This was a peopled house. At any hour of the day or night there was someone in many somewheres.
Megan would call out. "He's here with me, Arie." Likely in the kitchen. Likely baking something. Or doing food preparation for whatever meal was next Or clearing up from whatever meal was last.
Whatever had possessed two people to give up satisfying careers and open a bed and breakfast that almost immediately attracted people who became permanent residents? Megan would tell one story. Max would tell another. Oh, not together. Not in direct contradiction. Arie would thread the strands in her journals and give Timken information to mull over in later years, but no resolution. Whatever had possessed...
Mrs. Marchoff would chop out words. "He's on the porch, my dear. I told him he could. Not to worry. I can see him. He's playing with a kitten. A clean kitten. Not to worry." Her voice sounded congested, even in summer. Timken had overheard Megan say she was a "closet smoker" and he would marble this delightful phrase around teeth and tongue. Once he popped into her closet when he was in her room and found that it did smell of smoke. He had some idea that smoking wasn't bad if you couldn't see yourself doing it.
His mother would not understand many, if any, of the content of Mrs. Marchoff's reassurances coming, so garbled, up a flight of stairs, down two hallways, but she would be reassured by the form.
Sometimes Timken would shout out his whereabouts.
"I'm here!" he laughed hugely from his nest on the bed , that one time she had not seen him there. "Here I am!" from the corner where he had been sorting ...., and she had not seen him sorting or watching.
"Shhhhh.......," she would tell him. He was the only child in the rooming house.
She would never pretend not to see him. After that, when he would sit silently in the room and wait on her noticing his absence so he could watch her ritual of reaction, she noticed him. Immediately. It was as if she could accept his presence but not his perusal of her. She didn't like people staring. Or pointing.
The first time that she had noticed him immediately, disappointed to be so easily and early 'discovered', he had leapfrogged the charade and practically screamed, "Here! Here! Here!"
"Shhhhhh!!!" she had said. But no one even once mentioned this noise or complained.
Perhaps his voice was really not so loud.
Perhaps it was welcomed in this house of older people for reasons pertinent to the individual.
Perhaps he really dreamed that whole year and it never existed at all.
There were too many tactile memories to make this more than an intriguing consideration but he still liked and invited the jolt it gave him the odd time over the years he allowed the notion mind space.
(to be cont.)

Posted on July 02, 2004 at 12:23 PM | Permalink

Chapter One
"Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmothy Kennnnnnneth!"
His mother's voice would build and tumble from the doorway of their rooms in the Impossible Wing of the rooming house. Some inner nudge would have alerted her to awareness of the extent of the time of his absence. She would lay down her magazine or cease to portray her thoughts - this, more likely - on the streetscape outside the window, and send a voice search.
But first she would have to rise from her chair, the old padded rocker where she spent so much of her time the year they spent in that house. And where she, across that year, became increasingly padded.
Timken was a watcher. Twice he had been in the room when, not realizing his nearness, she had unfolded the search for him. He had noted the ritual. The sameness appealed to him and even the third time he would have remained still and quiet and watched but she had noticed him before it fulfilled.
Here is what she would do. She would rise from the old rocker like a woman three times her size. Slowly and ponderously.
At aged five Timken did not wonder at this. It was how his mother moved, that year. In later times he would speculate on that oddity. Did she consider herself far heavier than she was? Move to an increasingly perceived girth?
For now he loved to watch the slow motion.
Down quickly would go the magazine or the head quickly jerk eyes away from what she was 'seeing'. (Timken would never realize the extent of these 'portrayals' but he would get a glimpse from her odd journaling.) Then, with underwater slowness she would press elbows down onto the arms of the chair. It was as if the mind had leapt to alarm but the body could not match the speed. So she would press the bones of the elbows past the padded flesh of the arm down onto the padded arm of the chair to wood. Move body up and away from the cushioned back. Grip the arms where some previous tenant's cat had clawed the fabric to nibs if not actual tatters. Slide her hands back, stop, adjust her feet to a staggered position as if for better leverage, hands back more, then the gradual pushing upward. Once he had heard her elbow crack but she gave the sound no notice.
The second time he watched her he was a split second ahead of her, waiting in a sort of anticipation for her to fulfill his expectation of where she was moving next, and how. Perhaps it was his need to feel some sort of control over his world, to orchestrate the next move. At five he did not understand the force of the upheaval from The Big House to here.
As she pushed herself upward she seemed to be concentrating inwardly because there was no glancing around, no thought that he had not strayed. She accepted that he had left. Even the time he had been there, seated on the bed, his presence had gone unnoticed. It was as if her fear of his distance from her made her blind to his nearness. Later he would wonder if hysterical blindness was hereditary and his episodes, gene-, as well as trauma-, induced.
Once standing she would wriggle her feet back into whatever footwear she had been wearing. She seemed to have restless feet that sought escape from her shoes if she was not actually in motion. Once she had slipped them off while on a streetcar and had to scramble to find the one that somehow slipped under the seat as their stop came up.
Free from the chair, shod again, she would start for the door with her mouth already forming the words of his name but yet a silent litany. The rooming house was large with too many nooks and crooks that could stall and snag a voice. Perhaps she sought to avoid the obvious soundcatcher of the doorframe of this room by waiting until she could call along the hall.
And always - or almost, so - before speaking she would do a quick wet of lips with her tiny tongue and use thumb and forefinger of her left hand to trace a hard line from mouth corners down her full bottom lip.
"Of course, at that age, I didn't think of it as her left hand, when I 'told' myself about her," he would say to his most beloved lover years later who would persist endlessly and never tire of hearing the most minute details of Timken's life. "I remember 'telling' myself - 'her hand with the purple ring. It was the hand with the purple ring that etched her lips.' Her left hand." And he would not need to give a pretend laugh to apologize for such behavior, for such endless chronicling of his mother, then or now.
Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmooooooothy Kennnnnnneeeeeth! By the third bouncing out of his name someone would have answered. It was a large, rambling house, the Impossible Wing a nuisance of an addition, but there was a good bush telegraph system in case he really was out of voice range.
Someone would inform her of his whereabouts and his mother would nowhere approach the panic that silence to her call might have brought.
It was not a rooming house where people seemed to absent themselves all day at work. That would have been a strange experience for Timken, in any case. Never exposed to a nine to five routine he would never, his whole life, be comfortable with it.
This was a peopled house. At any hour of the day or night there was someone in many somewheres.
Megan would call out. "He's here with me, Arie." Likely in the kitchen. Likely baking something. Or doing food preparation for whatever meal was next Or clearing up from whatever meal was last.
Whatever had possessed two people to give up satisfying careers and open a bed and breakfast that almost immediately attracted people who became permanent residents? Megan would tell one story. Max would tell another. Oh, not together. Not in direct contradiction. Arie would thread the strands in her journals and give Timken information to mull over in later years, but no resolution. Whatever had possessed...
Mrs. Marchoff would chop out words. "He's on the porch, my dear. I told him he could. Not to worry. I can see him. He's playing with a kitten. A clean kitten. Not to worry." Her voice sounded congested, even in summer. Timken had overheard Megan say she was a "closet smoker" and he would marble this delightful phrase around teeth and tongue. Once he popped into her closet when he was in her room and found that it did smell of smoke. He had some idea that smoking wasn't bad if you couldn't see yourself doing it.
His mother would not understand many, if any, of the content of Mrs. Marchoff's reassurances coming, so garbled, up a flight of stairs, down two hallways, but she would be reassured by the form.
Sometimes Timken would shout out his whereabouts.
"I'm here!" he laughed hugely from his nest on the bed , that one time she had not seen him there. "Here I am!" from the corner where he had been sorting ...., and she had not seen him sorting or watching.
"Shhhhh.......," she would tell him. He was the only child in the rooming house.
She would never pretend not to see him. After that, when he would sit silently in the room and wait on her noticing his absence so he could watch her ritual of reaction, she noticed him. Immediately. It was as if she could accept his presence but not his perusal of her. She didn't like people staring. Or pointing.
The first time that she had noticed him immediately, disappointed to be so easily and early 'discovered', he had leapfrogged the charade and practically screamed, "Here! Here! Here!"
"Shhhhhh!!!" she had said. But no one even once mentioned this noise or complained.
Perhaps his voice was really not so loud.
Perhaps it was welcomed in this house of older people for reasons pertinent to the individual.
Perhaps he really dreamed that whole year and it never existed at all.
There were too many tactile memories to make this more than an intriguing consideration but he still liked and invited the jolt it gave him the odd time over the years he allowed the notion mind space.
(to be cont.)

Knitting : Posted

 

(re-post)

This is likely an "unvention" as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say:  I know I am not the only knitter who has put an item into an envelope to send to a friend to find that it is just a teeny bit too thick to fit through the slot in the guide  at the post office which designates it as a letter and thus requires just over a dollar postage, just that teeny bit too thick which means it shoots into the 'small package' category and the postage would be a bit ridiculous.   

I brought the envelope back home with the intention of removing the cute little knitted buttons which seemed to be causing the extra thickness.  But - darn, they were so cute and added that little extra which is, well - extra. 
Back went the items into the envelope and it was while I was re-positioning them and pushing here and there that I decided it was the spaces between the items that was the problem, that the air kept swooshing around inside and chubbed up the whole thing. 

That's when the "unvention" occurred:  air in sealed envelope;  knitting needles within reach;  stab poke the pointy needle here and here and here and there;  step firmly on envelope (having the presence of mind to remove shoe first with some idea that should some alert postal person notice the holes and wonder if perchance something that needed to breathe might be inside, the imprint of a shoe would not likely be a good idea); have air all be expelled and not seem to be sucked back in. 

I had planned to simply post the parcel at the post office and not risk the curiosity of the postal people but the thought of having the envelope returned for insufficient postage made me hand it over for the slot test.  I held my breath and the package must have done the same because it slipped through  easily, cute buttons included.  Whew!

Here's what was inside - the pocket book slippers, on their way to a friend in Ontario.  The buttons do add that little extra something: I am glad I 'futzed'.

Posted on September 27, 2018 at 05:14 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted on April 23, 2024 at 05:00 AM | Permalink

(re-post)

This is likely an "unvention" as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say:  I know I am not the only knitter who has put an item into an envelope to send to a friend to find that it is just a teeny bit too thick to fit through the slot in the guide  at the post office which designates it as a letter and thus requires just over a dollar postage, just that teeny bit too thick which means it shoots into the 'small package' category and the postage would be a bit ridiculous.   

I brought the envelope back home with the intention of removing the cute little knitted buttons which seemed to be causing the extra thickness.  But - darn, they were so cute and added that little extra which is, well - extra. 
Back went the items into the envelope and it was while I was re-positioning them and pushing here and there that I decided it was the spaces between the items that was the problem, that the air kept swooshing around inside and chubbed up the whole thing. 

That's when the "unvention" occurred:  air in sealed envelope;  knitting needles within reach;  stab poke the pointy needle here and here and here and there;  step firmly on envelope (having the presence of mind to remove shoe first with some idea that should some alert postal person notice the holes and wonder if perchance something that needed to breathe might be inside, the imprint of a shoe would not likely be a good idea); have air all be expelled and not seem to be sucked back in. 

I had planned to simply post the parcel at the post office and not risk the curiosity of the postal people but the thought of having the envelope returned for insufficient postage made me hand it over for the slot test.  I held my breath and the package must have done the same because it slipped through  easily, cute buttons included.  Whew!

Here's what was inside - the pocket book slippers, on their way to a friend in Ontario.  The buttons do add that little extra something: I am glad I 'futzed'.

Posted on September 27, 2018 at 05:14 AM | Permalink

Comments

This is likely an "unvention" as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say:  I know I am not the only knitter who has put an item into an envelope to send to a friend to find that it is just a teeny bit too thick to fit through the slot in the guide  at the post office which designates it as a letter and thus requires just over a dollar postage, just that teeny bit too thick which means it shoots into the 'small package' category and the postage would be a bit ridiculous.   

I brought the envelope back home with the intention of removing the cute little knitted buttons which seemed to be causing the extra thickness.  But - darn, they were so cute and added that little extra which is, well - extra. 
Back went the items into the envelope and it was while I was re-positioning them and pushing here and there that I decided it was the spaces between the items that was the problem, that the air kept swooshing around inside and chubbed up the whole thing. 

That's when the "unvention" occurred:  air in sealed envelope;  knitting needles within reach;  stab poke the pointy needle here and here and here and there;  step firmly on envelope (having the presence of mind to remove shoe first with some idea that should some alert postal person notice the holes and wonder if perchance something that needed to breathe might be inside, the imprint of a shoe would not likely be a good idea); have air all be expelled and not seem to be sucked back in. 

I had planned to simply post the parcel at the post office and not risk the curiosity of the postal people but the thought of having the envelope returned for insufficient postage made me hand it over for the slot test.  I held my breath and the package must have done the same because it slipped through  easily, cute buttons included.  Whew!

Here's what was inside - the pocket book slippers, on their way to a friend in Ontario.  The buttons do add that little extra something: I am glad I 'futzed'.

This is likely an "unvention" as Elizabeth Zimmerman would say:  I know I am not the only knitter who has put an item into an envelope to send to a friend to find that it is just a teeny bit too thick to fit through the slot in the guide  at the post office which designates it as a letter and thus requires just over a dollar postage, just that teeny bit too thick which means it shoots into the 'small package' category and the postage would be a bit ridiculous.   

I brought the envelope back home with the intention of removing the cute little knitted buttons which seemed to be causing the extra thickness.  But - darn, they were so cute and added that little extra which is, well - extra. 
Back went the items into the envelope and it was while I was re-positioning them and pushing here and there that I decided it was the spaces between the items that was the problem, that the air kept swooshing around inside and chubbed up the whole thing. 

That's when the "unvention" occurred:  air in sealed envelope;  knitting needles within reach;  stab poke the pointy needle here and here and here and there;  step firmly on envelope (having the presence of mind to remove shoe first with some idea that should some alert postal person notice the holes and wonder if perchance something that needed to breathe might be inside, the imprint of a shoe would not likely be a good idea); have air all be expelled and not seem to be sucked back in. 

I had planned to simply post the parcel at the post office and not risk the curiosity of the postal people but the thought of having the envelope returned for insufficient postage made me hand it over for the slot test.  I held my breath and the package must have done the same because it slipped through  easily, cute buttons included.  Whew!

Here's what was inside - the pocket book slippers, on their way to a friend in Ontario.  The buttons do add that little extra something: I am glad I 'futzed'.

April First

April Fools’ Day, in most countries the first day of April. It received its name from the custom of playing practical jokes on this day—for example, telling friends that their shoelaces are untied or sending them on so-called fools’ errands. Although the day has been observed for centuries, its true origins are unknown and effectively unknowable. It resembles festivals such as the Hilaria of ancient Rome, held on March 25, and the Holi celebration in India, which ends on March 31.

Harp peg loom : fabric and daffodil weft

(re-post)

Warping the backstrap loom is in a stall.  It has to do with a) this being the first time I have actually warped it to be used as a backstrap.  I have used the heddle on a warp between ends on the day bed with ties as the weft:  worked just fine.  b) putting the full quota of warp threads on - 917, I think - well, okay somewhere around 80.  c) wondering, as I was trying to get all those threads of an equal tautness,  if there was an easier way, and then,  what would Google suggest.  d) coming up with a young man sitting in a park and warping a backstrap loom with pre-measured threads and putting them through the heddle before they were attached at either end and smiling the whole time. e) after several attempts,  not smiling, to redeem my  warped-but-not-really-warped backstrap loom decided to likely cut all those threads off and start again ....  but first .....  got out one of the peg looms recently acquired at a garage sale.

Warped it with 16 warp threads in about 8 minutes,  using Irish flax trolling line (flea market find).  The sturdy warp called for a sturdy weft.

A stretchy fabric from a church sale (purchased with the intent of turning it into scrunched material for an energy garment) from which I had already chopped off a piece but not yet scrunched, was cut into strips.  I am very fond of electric scissors;  I am rapturous over cordless electric scissors.

The first few inches.  Satisfactory.  The material packs nicely with pleasing texture.  The dried daffs are introduced.

Yes.  The bodkins for the shuttle and heddle to give a shed when introducing the daffs work well.

Holding the peg loom like this and 'strumming' the warp strings in sequence for the shuttle, made me think of a harp.

The process invited stopping and gazing and admiring.  I obliged.

That's all for now.

Posted on April 11, 2011 at 07:31 PM | Permalink

Warping the backstrap loom is in a stall.  It has to do with a) this being the first time I have actually warped it to be used as a backstrap.  I have used the heddle on a warp between ends on the day bed with ties as the weft:  worked just fine.  b) putting the full quota of warp threads on - 917, I think - well, okay somewhere around 80.  c) wondering, as I was trying to get all those threads of an equal tautness,  if there was an easier way, and then,  what would Google suggest.  d) coming up with a young man sitting in a park and warping a backstrap loom with pre-measured threads and putting them through the heddle before they were attached at either end and smiling the whole time. e) after several attempts,  not smiling, to redeem my  warped-but-not-really-warped backstrap loom decided to likely cut all those threads off and start again ....  but first .....  got out one of the peg looms recently acquired at a garage sale.

Warped it with 16 warp threads in about 8 minutes,  using Irish flax trolling line (flea market find).  The sturdy warp called for a sturdy weft.

A stretchy fabric from a church sale (purchased with the intent of turning it into scrunched material for an energy garment) from which I had already chopped off a piece but not yet scrunched, was cut into strips.  I am very fond of electric scissors;  I am rapturous over cordless electric scissors.

The first few inches.  Satisfactory.  The material packs nicely with pleasing texture.  The dried daffs are introduced.

Yes.  The bodkins for the shuttle and heddle to give a shed when introducing the daffs work well.

Holding the peg loom like this and 'strumming' the warp strings in sequence for the shuttle, made me think of a harp.

The process invited stopping and gazing and admiring.  I obliged.

That's all for now.

BIRD BEHAVIOUR

(re-post)

Yesterday morning at the Deli the crow who won me in a poker game (or whatever it is crows do to establish humanitory) ignored the piece of bagel but eagerly hopped toward another offer of peanut. Good lord, even the birds are affected by Atkins, thought I. Then, willing to test this bubble of a theory, I soaked a piece of bagel in tea and put it down. Sure enough, bagel was eaten - but only half of it! When crow John Wayne'd it over to consider a peanut meant for the sparrows a sparrow swooped across and lifted away the piece of bagel. Crow glanced back over shoulder at the theft. If it made a comment I missed it.

But I did get to thinking about all the to-do (is this how it is spelled?) around food. Atkins, Eat Right for Your Blood Type, chew each mouthful a hundred times, One Bowl, Eating Awareness Training.......... Ooodles more. Except for the last two the enjoyment of food seems to be lost in the issues. Which I find really sad. So I sighed, and tried to pay attention, to eating my own pieces of bagel, with their dollops of peanut butter, slowly, and with enjoyment.

Posted on March 30, 2004 at 07:11 AM | Permalink

But I did get to thinking about all the to-do (is this how it is spelled?) around food. Atkins, Eat Right for Your Blood Type, chew each mouthful a hundred times, One Bowl, Eating Awareness Training.......... Ooodles more. Except for the last two the enjoyment of food seems to be lost in the issues. Which I find really sad. So I sighed, and tried to pay attention, to eating my own pieces of bagel, with their dollops of peanut butter, slowly, and with enjoyment.

Blossoms! Lining the streets.

(re-post)

Yesterday I strolled View Street which is lined with flowering trees from Cook to Douglas.  I thought about plum blossoms and cherry blossoms and Japan.  

The trees are a month late blooming this year.  Usually you can be casual about a flower walk,  see them in bloom while passing in a car and plan to come back in a few days or a week or so and have them still in full bloom.

Not this year.

There is some catching up to do.  The blooms were hardly out when the leaves began to appear.

Splendid .  Different.

This morning, walking toward town along Fort just past Moss,  in light rain,  this tree was encountered.

Magnificent.

Urban orchards.  

Posted on March 21, 2011 at 12:27 PM | Permalink

Yesterday I strolled View Street which is lined with flowering trees from Cook to Douglas.  I thought about plum blossoms and cherry blossoms and Japan.  

The trees are a month late blooming this year.  Usually you can be casual about a flower walk,  see them in bloom while passing in a car and plan to come back in a few days or a week or so and have them still in full bloom.

Not this year.

There is some catching up to do.  The blooms were hardly out when the leaves began to appear.

Splendid .  Different.

This morning, walking toward town along Fort just past Moss,  in light rain,  this tree was encountered.

Magnificent.

Urban orchards.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

MacNamara’s Band

Song by Bing Crosby and The Jesters

 

 

Oh, me name is MacNamara, I'm the leader of the band
Although we're few in numbers, we're the finest in the land
We play at wakes and weddings and at every fancy ball
And when we play the funerals, we play the March from Saul

Oh, the drums go bang and the cymbals clang and the horns they blaze away
McCarthy pumps the old bassoon while I the pipes do play
And Henessee Tennessee tootles the flute and the music is something grand
A credit to old Ireland is MacNamara's band

Right now we are rehearsing for a very swell affair
The annual celebration, all the gentry will be there
When General Grant to Ireland came he took me by the hand
Says he, "I never saw the likes of MacNamara's Band"

Oh, the drums go bang and the cymbals clang and the horns they blaze away
McCarthy pumps the old bassoon while I the pipes do play
And Henessee Tennessee tootles the flute and the music is something grand
A credit to old Ireland is MacNamara's band

Oh, my name is Uncle Julius and from Sweden I did come
To play with MacNamara's Band and beat the big bass drum
And when I march along the street the ladies think I'm grand
They shout, "There's Uncle Julius playing with an Irish band!"

Oh, I wear a bunch of shamrocks and a uniform of green
And I'm the funniest lookin' Swede that you have ever seen
There is O'Brians, O'Ryans, O'Sheehans and Meehans, they come from Ireland
But, by yimminy, I'm the only Swede in MacNamara's Band

Oh, the drums go bang and the cymbals clang and the horns they blaze away
McCarthy pumps the old bassoon while I the pipes do play
And Henessee Tennessee tootles the flute and the music is something grand
A credit to old Ireland is MacNamara's band

That's MacNamara

Numbers

(re-post)

Do numbers have power in themselves? I really haven't yet come up with a definite answer on this.

Certainly enough experiences around such a notion convince me that something is going on! And I will choose one number over another or let myself be guided in a decision by numbers or look to number sources for direction. Why not.

For the moment I think the key is awareness. Opening to the possibility. If I think the number eight is about prosperity and I see a license plate with three eights on it I am likely to open more to that prosperity channel in me and be receptive to the abundance around me, look down and see the loonie on the sidewalk that several people have just walked by, 'chance' upon a friend who invites me to lunch, find a cheque in the mail along with the bills, delight in the wealth of a perfectly fitting pair of shoes.

Posted on March 05, 2004 at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Do numbers have power in themselves? I really haven't yet come up with a definite answer on this.

Certainly enough experiences around such a notion convince me that something is going on! And I will choose one number over another or let myself be guided in a decision by numbers or look to number sources for direction. Why not.

For the moment I think the key is awareness. Opening to the possibility. If I think the number eight is about prosperity and I see a license plate with three eights on it I am likely to open more to that prosperity channel in me and be receptive to the abundance around me, look down and see the loonie on the sidewalk that several people have just walked by, 'chance' upon a friend who invites me to lunch, find a cheque in the mail along with the bills, delight in the wealth of a perfectly fitting pair of shoes.