happiness

Love Letters between Edna and Percy – the Nurse and Mr. California

Grandma had more game than I’ll ever have. There are love letters going back and forth between Grandma and Grandpa in 1929-1930 when she was visiting family in Ontario and they were in what seems to be early stages of dating.

Now, Grandma clearly tells him in the letter to burn this and he didn’t. I found it in a bunch of Grandma’s things along with letters from her dad. So she didn’t burn it either. And now here it is.

512 Cooper St.

Ottawa, Ont

February 3, 1930

Dear Friend

Your welcome letter arrived here several days ago but I couldn’t find a chance to answer it sooner and I must try and cut this one off short if I possibly can as I owe about a dozen now. My pen just seems to run away with me when I start your letters and you really only deserve short notes like you write, but you see I’m not afraid to write bunk I guess.

So you are having nice weather out there now eh? We are too it’s just ideal carnival weather and the carnival people are certainly making good use of it. I saw the snowshoe races Saturday afternoon and Saturday night 5000 snowshoers from Quebec had a torch-light parade. It was a beautiful sight to see them all in their many coloured costumes. After the parade the chimes in the peace tower of the Parliament buildings played many familiar tunes while gorgeous fireworks of every description were set off on all sides of the Parliament buildings illuminating them beautifully. It was a sight worth seeing and one that I won’t forget in a hurry.

I went down and watched the dog races this morning. They were interesting too. And there was a nice long letter from California waiting for me when I got back. He was asking how you are, and I’m very sorry to say he has had bad luck down there. Some machine or something cut off the ends of two of his fingers on his left hand. It must be painful, I feel awfully sorry for him and I’m going to write him a nice little letter one of these days. I think I can compose a short one that will show my sympathy and friendship and make it clear there is nothing more. I wish he wouldn’t write to me, it’s hard not to answer once in a while and I would rather not as I am just forgetting that there’s such an animal as men while I am down here.

You don’t seem to understand why I like it so well down here. I don’t like the people as well as my friends in Cochrane, it’s just the fun they go in for and the places and scenery that I like and it’s that that makes me want to stay here for a year at least. If you could only come down you’d understand. Just picture a warm night in spring, a big round moon casting its mellow light on a cosy Alberta chev parked in one of these apple orchards when the air is heavy with the perfume of the blossoms. Does it not appeal to you? It does to me, at least the trees and flowers and spring time does and I must admit I’d enjoy it all a little better if I had either you or Jean with me to express my thoughts about everything to and to help me treasure every memory.

I think that if I stay away a year or two it will be a good test for our affection. If you can’t wait a year you can’t care very much, you know when you’re afflicted with the real thing, absence makes the heart grow fonder. We don’t know each other very well yet, we have only each others word to depend on without the test of time.

When I said I didn’t care for anybody else in the real way and that I wouldn’t fall for anyone down here I meant it and I am living up to all I said so you can depend on that. And I’m believing all you said and trusting you are playing your part fair too so there is no deed of any doubt or mistrusting for either of us. But perhaps you were only joking in you last letter when you suggested that my reason for not wanting a job in Calgary was that once a week visit of yours etc.

However be sure and burn this letter won’t you cause I sure wouldn’t want anyone but you to read all this bunk I have written and if you don’t burn it right away, it might fall out of your pocket or something.

I’ll line up to those orders and come home sometime and it may be just next month and it may be a year from next month but it will be sometime and I’m looking forward to the day when I get back, but I’m looking forward to a lot of fun before then too.

You were asking my advice about writing to your friend the nurse. Don’t you think that is a question for you to decide. However, I’ll pass my opinion if you want it. I fail to see why you shouldn’t write to her or take her out to shows etc., just as you used to do. I’d feel hurt if I thought you gave up a good friend just because you think it wouldn’t look nice for you to be chasing around with another girl while I am away. Good, clean, true hearted friends are mighty precious in this world whether you ave plenty or not.

How are all the folks at your house and everyone else that I know? Have you got over your cold yet and have you started to round up your horses yet? And did you ever go out hunting deer again? Have you been to any shows or dances since I left or are the roads still bad. Has there been any births, deaths or marriages since I left? Nobody ever puts any interesting gossip in their letters, at least not enough to satisfy a nosy person like me, so far from home and friends.

Write 2 letters a week or else big long ones won’t you? I write closer together than you do and one of my pages equals 3 of yours. I shouldn’t kick about them though because I’m always glad to get them even if there was only one page.

Harrison let me write the last paragraph in his last letter to his girl, this is what I wrote. “Well, dear little light of my eyes, your twin should and lover must toddle off to his trundle bed to dream the sweetest dreams of you. I remain as ever sober and affectionate with barrels of love and kisses H.S.” I won’t tell you what she answered back. He has been stepping out with a nurse too and his girl is sure sour about it too. We have lot of fun teasing him about it. He’d sure tease me if he knew you chum with a nurse too. They must be professional _____. Well I must sign off now, don’t you think it’s about time I did too!

As Ever, Edna

happiness

Love is…

I was thinking the other day about “happiness” and how I started this blog seeking happiness in a time where I wasn’t seeing or feeling very happy.

Over the last 10 years there have been so many ups and downs in my life journey, moments of happiness, moments of despair, times of fear, feelings of freedom, times where the pain has cut so deeply I wasn’t sure I’d survive, and times where the sun shone brightly in my world.

I think what I was really searching for, what I really have been searching for wasn’t happiness (I mean, to some extent it was), but instead I was searching for love and the feeling of peace that comes with love.

For me, often (usually) love hasn’t brought a lot of peace. I’ve realized over time that is because I was trying to make things/relationships/people/situations that weren’t love into love. And this became confusing for me over my life. You can’t find love where love is not. It’s been hard to realize that many, many times in my life what I have thought was love was not love at all.

I think we all misuse love to some extent as humans. We can try to manipulate people into loving us, or into putting up with things that cause them pain because they love us, or by using each other in an attempt to relieve our own pain of not feeling loved.

I have realized I need to redefine what love is for myself. What does it mean to love? What does it mean to be loved? What does it mean to be a loving presence on the planet?

The best real-life examples I could come up with was how I have felt with my animals. Thank goodness for the connection humans have with animals, thank God for how animals put up with us and teach us love. Once I could take that as a baseline for love I could apply it to my human relationships and see things more clearly. Some relationships I have with people have been called love but weren’t and some were filled with love that went unrecognized. Lots of learning.

As I was thinking about love and trying to define love for myself I realized that of course there’s a place where I could go and find a definition of love that I could use with faith and confidence that it was, in fact, what love is:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I have realized how important it is for me to follow this definition if I want to be a loving person, but I am realizing that it is equally important that I look at how others are treating me, and how they treat other people.

happiness

Sammy Blue Jay

When I was a little girl, sometimes my mom would read me some Old Mother West Wind stories before bedtime. I always loved Thornton W. Burgess’ accounts of the adventures of the creatures of the Green Forest, but Sammy Blue Jay was one of my all time favourites. Perhaps because he was always getting in trouble just for being himself.

When I became a parent and we were living out East, I bought a set of the Old Mother West Wind books for my family and the tradition continued. This time, when we read about Sammy Blue Jay, we could see him right outside the window. I loved many things about living in the East, and by far one of them was the birds – the Blue Jays and the Cardinals being my favourite.

This last year, we suddenly have a yard full of Blue Jays, all of them named Sammy. I have never seen so many here, and don’t remember them being part of my youth on the ranch at all, and I am loving it! They sit in the beautiful tree that is my direct view out of the kitchen window and eat the seeds I put out. I have spent many hours watching and enjoying these birds.

I remember many people disliking the Jays, saying they were loud and obnoxious, but I never felt that way. I did, however, feel that way about our local Magpies, and I remember being shocked when someone I knew saw one for the first time and went on about what beautiful birds they are. I thought to myself (maybe said out loud) “how could anyone like Magpies? They’re so loud and obnoxious”.

Yesterday I was sitting outside and I heard the weirdest sound. After much investigating I discovered it was one of the Sammys singing the song of his people (the song of his birds?) and it was pretty horrible. For a moment I could start to see how they could possibly also be obnoxious. But then, I heard a Magpie go by screeching away and I was reminded that no, in fact, the Magpies are their own special creatures.

Whatever the case, whatever the sounds, I am loving the birds that come to my feeder. They now come up to the windowsill and do a hard stare inside to let me know when their food supply has been depleted. The resident squirrel, not so much. He prefers to throw objects at me from the safety of his tree perch to let me know that his tummy needs to be filled.

Even with the occasional screeeeeech, I find the sounds of nature so soothing. It’s good to remember we all are here sharing life on the planet, we are all part of the same experience, equal in importance and value.

happiness

Protected by mom’s love

Mom’s birthday was a couple of days ago so she’s been on my mind more than usual. Last night a memory came up that I shared with the girl and I thought it was such a powerful memory of mom’s love that I would share it here.

When I was a little kid- I don’t know how old but probably in the 6-8 year old range – some of the horses here got into some gopher poison. The carrier for the poison was oats so when the horses discovered a big bucket of oats they devoured it. I remember lots of yelling and then mom, dad, and I (and I think Grandma and maybe some others – I’m a bit sketchy on these details) were standing just outside of the yard in the square field watching Grandma’s horse Captain and another horse named Stick run flat out up and down the field. I remember the adults all freaking out and the horses both snorting loudly and having kind of wild looks in their eyes. At the time I had no idea what was going on but I knew something bad was happening.

Suddenly mom turned to me and yelled at me to run back to the house and grab her purse.

Now I was a little kid, and a curious and kind of defiant little kid so I stood my ground and stared at her demanding to know why she was sending me off when clearly shit was getting real. I don’t know how she said it but something in her voice let me know that I really needed to run back to the house and get that purse. I was grumbling my way up the driveway when I heard more shouts and cries and things were kind of chaotic. My stomach sunk because I knew something bad had happened and I recall having a moment of gratitude for my mom who had sent me away.

The horses didn’t survive the incident and it was pretty devastating, I remember how much my Grandma loved Captain.

Mostly what I remember though is how mom’s immediate thought was to protect me from what was undoubtably an extremely traumatic scene. Because mom couldn’t just pick me up or grab my hand and kind of force me to leave she had to choose words that would convince me to run. There’s a fierceness in a mother’s love that I don’t think you really find anywhere else and I’m so grateful that mom pulled me out of a really tragic situation.

Mom protected me in many other ways throughout the years, especially near the end when she was my strongest supporter throughout my divorce. We had so many bumps in our relationship but there are these moments when her love shines through so clear and bright.

happiness

Backwards shirt day

Today would have been mom’s birthday and my emotions have been all over the place. It’s also right before thanksgiving and this is a difficult holiday for me as memories of a violent incident from my marriage pop back in my memories at this time.

With that said, I really needed something to laugh about today. I was in town doing some errands and swung by our butcher shop. I am in there a lot lately because my diet requires that I eat a lot of meat and theirs is such good quality – I find grocery store meat makes me feel ill at the best of times. Because I am in there so often I’ve got to know the guys who work there a bit – they all seem really nice and it feels like a happy place.

Anyway, I walk into the store and I was chatting with one of the guys who works there. They usually wear chefs coats, but he was leaving for the day and was in his street clothes. I noticed that the front collar of his t-shirt looked like it was up a bit higher than normal and I had a thought “his shirt is on backwards”. I have no idea if it actually was or not, could have just been how the shirt was sitting. But once that thought was there it stayed. And it made me laugh a little because when my kids were little no matter how hard I tried at least one of them headed off for the day with their clothes on backwards.

That’s not the funny part though.

I came home and was sitting on the couch telling the story to the girl when I looked down and went OH MY GOD. I jumped up and said MY BLOODY SHIRT IS ON BACKWARDS!!!. So yeah. I don’t know if he went home and laughed when he noticed his shirt was on backwards, if indeed it was, but I certainly laughed when I got home and discovered my shirt was on backwards.

happiness

Dad’s Flowers: Sweet Flowered Androsace

happiness

SIBO sucks

I swore I would be completely honest about this SIBO journey, but damn it was a lot easier to be honest when things were going well. Things are not going well at the present time.

I haven’t really been sleeping well for the last couple of months, and if you know me then you know that sleep is probably the most important thing I do to look after myself. If I’m not rested I can’t function. And in the last couple of weeks my sleep has been getting sooooo much worse. The last few nights have been maybe an hour or two of shut eye – and not very good rests even during those puny amounts.

I’m a disaster.

I’ve talked with my naturopath and we agreed it was likely that some of my anxiety was seeking attention – because I also had started feeling more and more anxious – something that always happens when I’m not getting enough sleep. However, in the last few days I noticed some of the body aches were back, my head is throbbing, and I basically just felt really unwell.

It’s the SIBO. Something I’ve been eating has to be aggravating it. Which in turn aggravates me because my diet has been SO restricted. So, while I was lying in bed last night at 3am cursing up a storm about how I was never going to sleep again I decided to go back to the basics. For me that means my “hamburger soup” which is essentially ground beef, tomato paste, beef bone broth, and kale made in the instant pot. Yum. But when get discouraged I tell myself that there are literally millions (maybe billions) of people who would love to eat what I’m eating so I shut my mouth and remember to be grateful.

Another thing I am super grateful for is our local butcher shop in Cochrane “The Butchery Block” because that is the place where I have been sourcing all of my beef. I’ve found most grocery store meat makes me feel nauseous, but their stuff is fantastic – it’s like how I remember beef tasting when I was a kid. They know where they get it from (a ranch in southern Alberta) and their prices are pretty decent. I’m really grateful for that little shop.

Further, this time I’m grateful I didn’t just chalk all these symptoms down to mental health issues. SIBO makes me anxious, it bring up trauma like feelings, and leaves me exhausted. But it doesn’t mean that I’m failing at caring for my mental health, it means that there are some physical issues that need to be addressed. I mean, Im always working at my mental health – but sometimes there are physical issues that can be the source of mental health like symptoms, and I think it’s very important that we remember that.

Fingers crossed that things start to get better over the next couple of days while I enjoy my hamburger soup!

happiness

Dad’s Photos: Annora Brown’s Crocuses

I love this legend. This was the reason why I started bringing in the flower books to the hospital when Dad was so sick. I was trying to remember the story but was falling (very) short. I felt so badly for dad who had gone to so much work to put together all of these treasures so that we could remember what he taught us forever. So now this story to me is more than just a beautiful legend, but a treasured memory of time with my dad.

Blackfoot legend retold by Annora Brown, photos by John Ramsay.