Month: September 2012

Inspired!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago one of my favourite fashion bloggers, Jeannie, writer of gracefully50, published a post in which she wore an unbuttoned trench dress as a long jacket over a tight black dress. It made for a unique and classy look but then, I think Jeannie could wear a paper bag and look stylish!

What intrigued me was the realization that I had very similar items hidden away in my own closet. Neither had seen the light of day in a very long time but they were pieces I hesitated to get rid of; the black dress because, after all, every woman is supposed to have a LBD and the other because I’ve always simply loved it.

This afternoon, my daughter and I dressed up and did a photo shoot. I took pictures for her blog post about her latest fabulous thrift store finds and she photographed me in my take on Jeannie’s outfit. I don’t have the funky shoes or the adorable pup to complete the look but here’s my version.

   

Not only did I love the look but it was amazingly comfortable. Now I just have to decide where to wear it!

How do I write?

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credit

 

A friend recently asked me an interesting question about how I write.

“Do you edit or just let it flow?” 

Much of my writing is actually done in my head before putting pen to paper or in today’s venacular, fingers to keyboard. I’ve always written this way, mulling things over and sorting them out in my mind before beginning to write them down.

Once I actually start writing, however, I edit, edit, edit! Every sentence is read and reread. Changes are constantly being made. When it comes to my writing, as in many other aspects of life, I’m a perfectionist. Downright anal might be a more honest assessment!

Like anyone who writes, I have my own personal style. I realize that there are many ways to  say the same thing but if something doesn’t sound quite right to me, it gets changed. To my mind, writing is a craft.

Editing is so much easier than it was in the pen and paper days. The internet is a fabulous tool. I often google a word meaning to ensure that I’m using it properly, sometimes finding a synonym that I like even better. Similarly, when I don’t want to use the same word too often, I search for a synonym. Though I’m pretty confident about my spelling, spellcheck is also a valuable tool.

Titles can be tricky. Sometimes, as in my post entitled Turn left at the three legged dog, the title comes to mind first but that’s quite rare. More often, I begin writing without a title and think of one later, sometimes after the article itself is completely finished. Occasionally, I begin with a working title but change it before I’m done.

My husband is one of my greatest fans and whenever I’m unsure about a post, I have him read it over before I publish it. Most often, he assures me that it’s fine but occasionally he points out something that I’ve missed or that isn’t entirely clear.

So, fellow bloggers, I’m interested in knowing how you write.

“Do you edit or just let it flow?” 

Are they or aren’t they?

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It always boggles my mind that new rocks mysteriously appear in farmers’ fields each season! Though it seems as if they must simply drop from the sky, I’m told that it’s actually frost action that brings them to the surface. Today, while I was harvesting in one of the most recently cleared parts of Louis’ land, the combine picked up one of these rocks that lay hidden in a swath of canola. In addition to plugging up the machine, it broke three teeth on the pick-up auger as well as the chain that turns it.

Climbing down from the machine, I proceeded to unplug the pick-up by hand all the while wishing that I’d thought to bring a pair of work gloves with me. As the scratches on my arms will attest, canola straw is brittle and sharp. Eventually I cleared enough of it away to expose the rock wedged in underneath. As I pulled it out, what could have been nothing more than an annoying delay became something much more intriguing. Could that possibly be a ribstone in my hands?

Ribstones , carved by the natives who wandered this windswept prairie more than 1000 years ago, are thought to depict the ribs of buffalo, the animal that provided for so many of their needs. We first saw this type of rock carving at a native ceremonial site on a high point of land located about 24 km north of here. Here’s one of the rocks found there

and here’s the rock I found in the combine today.

Is it only my imagination or do you see a similarity?

While Louis went to town to buy a new chain, I picked up other rocks strewn around the area and piled them up so that they can be easily found and removed from the field before one them causes another mishap. I looked closely at each one before adding it to the pile but they were just ordinary rocks void of interesting markings of any kind. A little stone, too small to be a threat, caught my attention only because its light colour stood out against the darker field. Picking it up, I noticed immediately that it fit snugly into my palm. Examining it more closely, I realized that it appeared to have been carved into its present shape and that one edge formed a sharp blade.

   

 

It was easy to imagine a young brave chipping away at this rock turning it into a tool that his iskwew (is-KWAY-oh, Cree word for woman and the word that our term squaw is likely derived from) would use to scrape the hides after his next hunt. Perhaps it was an elderly man, one too old to join the hunt, who spent his time making tools like this one.

As you can see, hours on the combine leave plenty of time for my imagination to run wild! Are these simply unusual rocks or are they artifacts; remnants of times long past and people who roamed these parts long before the fields were cleared and cultivated? When harvest is over, I hope to do some research and try to find out and I’ll probably be back in that field picking rocks again in hopes of finding more of interest!

Dressing like a girl

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I’m a blue jeans kind of girl. Perhaps that has something to do with growing up in an era when girls were required to wear skirts to school every day. I took my final year of high school in the Northwest Territories. The only good thing about that was the fact that we were allowed to wear pants to school from the beginning of November to the end of February, a concession to the fact that the school remained open even when the temperature plunged to -50°F (-45°C) or lower! By the time I entered an Alberta classroom as a teacher five years later, dress pants were permitted and during the last few years of my career, Casual Friday had made its way into the schools. Finally I could go to school in blue jeans!

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to spend my retirement working as a seasonal farm labourer but at this time of year, I can be found wearing faded, well worn blue jeans and a t-shirt or sweatshirt while operating a combine! I often wear dressy jeans to church but at this time of year, after dressing like a farmer all week, I love to dress like a girl on Sunday. That’s when my skirts are most apt to come out of the closet.

I’m especially glad that I chose to dress up for church yesterday. Our local high school has a long standing tradition of holding graduation in mid September. It makes absolutely no sense to me especially considering that this is a farming community where a fall grad invariably falls in the middle of the busy harvest but tradition is tradition and it isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

The morning after the big celebration, the graduates in our congregation traditionally come to church dressed in their graduation finery and each is presented with a Bible with their name engraved on the cover. They’re sometimes a bit bleary eyed after the festivities of the evening before but it allows all of us an opportunity to share in their special moment.

Yesterday, three young men showed up for church looking much more formal than usual. I was delighted when one of their mothers asked me to pose for a photo with them after the service. It doesn’t seem like very long ago that they were little boys in my Sunday School class & look at them now! Matthew, the one on my right, is studying engineering while Rylun and Jason are apprenticing mechanics.

photo by Michelle Edey

I’m glad I was suitably dressed for the occasion!

Letters to the editor

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I’ve been reminded of the power of words recently. I’m not one who usually sits around writing letters to the editor but I’ve written three of them in the last couple of weeks and have received interesting responses to each one.

The September issue of More, Canada’s magazine for women over 40, contained an article that drew the reader’s attention to Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a book that I think should be required reading for every citizen of the developed world. I wrote a letter (email) commending the editorial staff for this and received a reply from copy editor, Brenda Thompson, telling me that they may choose to reprint a portion of my letter in an upcoming issue! Words can be encouraging.

I read the Edmonton Journal online every morning. On August 29, I came across what I considered to be an example of blatantly irresponsible journalism. The first sentence of an article entitled “Man charged with shooting two Mounties south of Edmonton slated to appear in court” stated that Sawyer Robison was the subject of a manhunt “after wounding two Killam RCMP officers during a shooting.” As was pointed out later in the article, details of the shooting have never been publicly released. Though the shooting took place just a few miles from here, I do not know Sawyer Robison. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty. I do know, however, that he has not yet had his day in court. He has not been found guilty of wounding the RCMP officers and I was appalled that the Edmonton Journal would print this for public consumption. I assumed that this was an extreme lapse in judgement and fired off an email to Editor-in-Chief, Lucinda Chodan. Her response was almost immediate. “You are completely right,” she said and thanked me for bringing this to her attention. “As soon as I received your email, I asked our staff to correct the article.” she went on to say and included a link to the revision. Words are powerful.

This morning I entered into a Facebook discussion, initiated by a friend of mine, about an editorial that appeared in a local weekly, The Edge, out of Wainwright, Alberta. It was written by reporter, Mickey Djuric, in response to the suggestion made recently by the niece of Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, that women can avoid sexual assault by “not dressing like a whore.” While her point that women should never be blamed for being assaulted or raped is well taken, I found her attitude and the way she expressed her opinion absolutely unacceptable. Her final paragraphs were particularly appalling.

We will not let anyone tell us how we should dress, or what garments are dubbed as appropriate for your eyes.
Sluts, whores, tarts (Whatever you want to label us). Show your cleavage, or legs, and tell everyone to go screw themselves while doing it.

I did mention that The Edge is a small town newspaper, didn’t I? They’re not known for quality journalism but this goes way beyond the norm. Even in this day and age, I was astonished that an editorial staff anywhere would find this suitable for printing and said so in my letter (email) to Editor-in-Chief, Kelly Clemmer. I asked him if this was really the message that we want to give teenage girls and young women and suggested that had Ms. Djuric shown up for her job interview dressed the way she suggests and speaking the way she does in the editorial, she probably wouldn’t have been hired. In the real world, employers do have the right to tell us how we should dress!

I also told him that, right or wrong, anyone who thinks that a girl who dresses provocatively doesn’t put herself at greater risk or make herself a more likely target for exploitation has their head in the sand! Though he defended the point that he felt his writer was trying to make, Mr. Clemmer did agree with some of my points and has promised to publish my letter in an upcoming Edge.

So, as we often tell little children, use your words! They are powerful. Use them to encourage, use them to correct, use them to admonish. We who are privileged to live where we have the freedom to speak our mind should do so!