Category Archives: family

YUM OR YUCK?

Visiting my daughter Sheila and her friend Beth, Huntsville Ontario

A few years ago, on a flight to Toronto to visit my daughter Sheila, I sat next to a woman who looked like someone I could know. Someone I would like to know. But apart from a cursory acknowledgement of my presence she busied herself with reading and making occasional notes on her laptop. I got it. My fear when travelling is being stuck beside an insufferable boor for the duration. It happened once on a flight from Vancouver to San Francisco with a seat mate whose views on women and almost everything else were diametrically opposite to mine and I was too polite in those days, to tell him to shut up.

I knew this wouldn’t be the case with this woman sitting beside me and I hoped we could chat; it was a long flight from Vancouver to Toronto and I hadn’t packed a good book.

What was it about her that assured me that I would feel at ease talking to her? It was partly the way she was dressed. She looked like many women I knew on Vancouver Island and especially in the Cowichan Valley. Her casual slacks, cotton plaid shirt topped with a lightweight V-neck spoke ‘no nonsense, I am comfortable in my skin.’ Good leather walking shoes, short-cropped hair, warm-open face, no make up. Genuine came to mind, someone who would be fun to know.

What did she see in me that prevented her from engaging in conversation? Older, grey hair? Did I look fussy? I hadn’t been sure what clothes to bring to my daughter’s lake front home in the Muskoka’s.

Sharing a moment with Sheila on her 60th birthday.

“People don’t dress up to travel anymore Mum,” my daughter had warned me.

What Sheila hadn’t factored in was that her casual would be my dress up. Casual on the free-wheeling west coast is a different genre to conservative Ontario. I chose a careful middle of the road wardrobe, and I must be giving off middle-class vibes.

Earlier this morning while awaiting my connector flight from Cassidy Airport on Vancouver Island to Vancouver Airport I had also made assumptions based on how someone was dressed, and I was reminded how quick we are to categorize others. I love watching people and speculating about their lives. This morning, the woman sitting across from me was, I was sure, on a business trip. I mean who else would be wearing make up, nylons and heels and a flowered polyester dress at seven in the morning? And she had a new looking carry bag at her side. But no laptop, hmm maybe not.

She saw me looking at her, “I’m so happy to be going home,” she said, “just spent ten days visiting my brother and wife on the island. How about you?”

Well, there go my brilliant detective skills.

“Off to Huntsville, Ontario for my daughter’s birthday,” I replied. “Her sixtieth.”

“Midlands, Ontario for me, I much prefer Ontario to here, especially where my brother lives, Crofton, its hardly even a town.”

“Crofton?” I exclaimed. “That’s where I live. Maybe I know them.”

With a quick glance from side to side, she leaned across the space between us and whispered. “You wouldn’t know them. They’re hippies. Older would-be hippies but still decent people. He volunteers at the food bank.” She paused, as though searching for the right words. Then nodding her head solemnly she added, “They dress differently.”

Liz hippie vibes 1969

I mulled over that comment as I sat quietly in my seat on the long flight to Toronto. ‘They dress differently.’ That’s a laugh. They probably look like me. And dress the way I do which I can only define as Vancouver Island style. Now if I hadn’t been trying rock the well healed sophisticated jet setter vibe on this trip, that woman would have never approached me.

About one hour before we landed at Pearson, my seat mate closed her laptop, tucked her book and papers into a carry all on the empty seat between us, and turned to me, saying “And what brings you to Toronto?”

Well, ask a talker a question like that when she’s had a sock in her mouth for two hours, you’ll get a story. She got it all, giving up my daughter for adoption, reuniting with her, the cancer diagnosis and now her 60th birthday party. She listened with her whole being. She knew of similar stories; in fact, she was a writer and taught creative writing in British Columbia and had lived part time in Victoria BC. We even knew some of the same people. Time ran out before we had finished our conversation, she apologized for not speaking up sooner, but she had a presentation to complete. I was glad I had not interrupted her while she was working.

She gave me her card when we parted ways.

She was Anne Fleming. The same Anne Fleming who was a runner up for last years Giller Prize for her book Curiosities. Anne Fleming- Author  https://annefleming.ca

Would I have pegged Anne as a writer? No, I assumed she was an academic, a University Professor, which is exactly what she was. Pigeon holing people is not an exact science. I still think if I had been wearing my jeans and Birkenstocks when I took the seat beside Anne, she would have put her work away and talked.

Do we owe it to the people we meet to show an honest representation of ourselves and our values by the clothes we wear? By dressing like a chameleon was I being dishonest? Pretending to be someone I am not? Does it matter?

I think it does. Its somewhat like choosing a book. It’s the cover that is designed to catch one’s eye, followed by the title and if those two important pieces of information interest you, you’ll pull the book off the shelf and take a closer look. Its very much the way we instantly access the stranger who holds the door for you, and a quick word or a smile are exchanged. In that moment you’ve made a yum or yuck judgement. Based on clothing? Or?

If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.

~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes

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WHAT ARE YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS?

What? You don’t believe in New Years Resolutions?

I do.

I believe in them in the way I believe in Tarot card readings or consulting my crystal pendulum. It doesn’t matter that year after year I write: Lose ten pounds, or twenty depending on the year; walk every day and do yoga; be a better person.

In case you wondered, I do not believe in the tooth fairy or in Santa Claus, however I believe in the concept of both and in the joy they bring. However, this year, I have added another resolution.

*Look up old friends! Connect with someone from my past!

It could be a phone call, or a letter written in black ink and tucked into the best velum envelope, the kind the aunts would give for gifts on Christmas, a subtle hint to write a thank you note back. Just connect, however it works.

These days my social media is full of prompts to downsize; the underlying message is that we are closer to death than birth at my age and we shouldn’t leave a mess of loose ends for our children to inherit. A mess like twenty years of Harrowsmith magazines (truly, I think they are at my daughter’s house), or old silver ware that needs polishing and obscure notes on backs of photos written in my illegible handwriting.

It was one such barely legible note on a piece of carbon copied paper, that I came across recently, written in my mother’s handwriting, that prompted this new resolution. It was part of a rambling list of instructions that we found following our mother’s death that read, “Lizzie, Leyda L’s antique gold earrings to go to Leyda Campbell.”

At the time I had tucked the note away and mostly forgot about it. I knew the late Leyda L. but who was this Leyda Campbell?  I had never met her; she was one of a small group of friends Mum had made after my siblings Kate and John and I had left home. Mum died thirty-eight years ago and from time to time I thought about the earrings, knowing that I should do something but there was no internet back then and honestly looking for a Leyda Campbell was not on the top of my list of things to do.

However, Mum also left me a small oil painting by Leyda Campbell which I loved, and it hung prominently in my home. One day an acquaintance dropped by and on seeing it exclaimed. “You have a Leyda Campbell!”

“Do you know her?” I asked, thinking maybe I could finally give her the earrings.

“I’ve lost track of her” he said. “But she’s well known.”

That was more than thirty years ago. Still no internet in my life. I wore the earrings occasionally, feeling guilty that I hadn’t followed my mother’s almost death bed instructions, fretting about being a selfish daughter.

Still, I did nothing.

Until one week ago when I came across Mum’s note in a pile of old letters.

I googled www.leydacampbell.com

Originals » Leyda Campbell – The Wilderness Artist

I had found Mum’s Leyda, and she was a spectacular artist and a strong independent woman who had lived and worked up north and loved the wilderness. I phoned her.

Leyda spoke glowingly about our mother, said how much she had loved her.

Leyda was an emerging artist in her twenties when she painted her nine by eleven oils on site around Salt Spring Island and Mum had of course supported her by buying a painting from the Backroom Gallery on Oak Bay Avenue. I think Mum was a bit of a mother figure for Leyda, it was clear that Mum thought highly of her as she was mentioned in her last wishes, even if it was a carbon copy note. Leyda had known nothing about Mum’s bequest and went on to say how kind Mum was to her and how welcomed she felt at her home. And I am happy that the earrings have found their home at last.

Leyda and I have promised to stay in touch. We have both written memoirs, and we are mailing each other a copy. I will include the antique gold earrings with my copy of Growing Up Weird A memoir of an Oak Bay childhood, that includes family photos. Leyda is mailing me her memoir called Leyda, Friends, Adventures and Campfire Stories, as well as a certificate of authentication for my oil painting called On Top of the Moat.

I can’t think of a better way to be starting the New Year. I believe in New Years resolutions. If only they could always be as magical as this one. Finally contacting Leyda Campbell. Thirty-eight years later.

Mum would be proud of me.

If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.

~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes

www.osbornebaybooks.com

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