Writing

Five years!

/ edebock / 2 Comments

Tomorrow is the last day of school and also marks five years since I walked out of the classroom for the last time. It amazes me to think that we’ve been retired for that long already! Where has the time gone? For the past couple of days I’ve been doing some self-evaluation, asking myself what we’ve accomplished over those five years and whether or not we’ve done the things we wanted to do. Overall, I think the answer is a resounding yes!

We had some pretty specific goals in mind when we retired:

  • teach English in Asia for at least one year – done
  • travel – never completely done but 9 provinces and 15 states plus Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau, Saipan and Costa Rica are a pretty good start
  • short-term mission work – one summer in ministry has only whetted our appetite for more

Becoming grandparents was something we hoped for and though we can’t take any credit for that being accomplished, grandchildren have been one of the most delightful additions to our life since we retired. Four of them are firmly attached to the family tree and there are five others who also call us Gram and Grandpa. Four of those belong to two families in Japan who ‘adopted’ us while we lived there and with whom we’ve been able to carry on a relationship since our return to Canada.

The past few years have brought other unexpected surprises including becoming seasonal farm labourers! That definitely wasn’t part of the plan but we’ve enjoyed it immensely. For the first time since returning from Japan in early 2009, we weren’t involved in seeding this year’s crop. Louis, our 83-year-old ‘boss’ and very good friend, passed that part of the process on to his stepson and grandson this spring. He still plans to have us help him harvest the crop this fall though.

Surprisingly, we haven’t golfed as much as we thought we would since retiring. In fact, we haven’t golfed as much as we did before we retired! We’ve been too busy fulfilling our other goals. This year eight of the nine greens on our local course are undergoing reconstruction. The course is open but the temporary greens are pretty pathetic so the desire to play hasn’t really been there. It was a good year for us to take up a new hobby; geocaching. Though there are geocachers of all ages, many are retired. In fact, the activity is highlighted in the most recent issue of News and Views, the quarterly magazine published by the Alberta Retired Teachers’ Association.

Writing was always something I planned to return to in retirement. I thought I’d be freelancing again, sending my work off to publishers and waiting with baited breath to find out whether it would be accepted. Instead, I find myself blogging! Though I did experience the thrill of publication, in my early writing days I also received enough rejection slips to paper a small room! Blogging is so much more satisfying and I enjoy the opportunity to interact with some of my readers.

Do we ever regret retiring as early as we did? Never! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Have I enjoyed every moment of it? To be completely honest, no. Most of the time, I absolutely love being retired but there are moments, especially in the depths of our long Canadian winters, when I long to be doing something more meaningful with my days; moments when I join the writer of Ecclesiastes in lamenting that “Everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless!” Fortunately, those days are few and far between. I don’t think Richard has experienced them at all. Maybe that’s because he spends so much time playing Farmville that he doesn’t have time for such thoughts. His ‘farm’ is something else I didn’t expect to be part of our retirement but it keeps him happy!

As this school year comes to a close, I wonder what the next five years will hold. Our goals remain the same… more travel (we haven’t seen Europe yet) and more short-term mission work. I’m sure there will also be more unexpected surprises along the way.

 

 

I’m honoured!

/ edebock / 13 Comments

I’m not the winner of many awards; just a few golf prizes and one teeny, tiny trophy. Perhaps that’s why I was so thrilled when Geetanjali, who writes The Open Book blog, nominated me for The Versatile Blogger award! Thank you, Geetanjali!  Geetanjali hails from India and writes about one of my favourite things, books. When I read her post about the Sunday Book Bazaar in Delhi, I was completely hooked!

Try as I might, I haven’t been able to find out anything about the origin of The Versatile Blogger award. I do know that it’s a bit like a chain letter, passed from one blogger to another but unlike the chain letters of old, it doesn’t promise fame or fortune to those who pass it on or threaten doom to those who don’t. It is, in fact, a way to share favourite bits of the blogosphere with our readers and to show appreciation to those whose writing we appreciate.

There are four rules for those who choose to accept The Versatile Blogger award:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you for the award and include a link to their blog.
  2. Select and nominate 15 blogs that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
  3. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know that you are nominating them for the award.
  4. Share 7 things about yourself.
Sounds easy, right? I thought so too until I started thinking about who to nominate. There are a lot of blogs out there! I spent a considerable amount of time over the weekend revisiting blogs I’d stumbled upon in the past and searching out some new ones. I could nominate my daughter’s blog but she’s a very busy mother of preschoolers who simply doesn’t have time to search out 15 blogs to nominate. I doubt she’d appreciate me putting her in that spot. I eventually narrowed it down to the following 15, quite a diverse group. I could simply list the blogs that I’ve chosen but instead, I’d like to tell you a little bit about each of them.
  1. Those of you who’ve been following my blog for very long will have heard of Donloree at Bikini or Bust. I’ve been following her journey to health and fitness for over a year and look forward to every update. She is such an inspiration and I absolutely love her zany sense of humour!
  2. One blog tends to lead to another. I found Faith at The Serious Road to Fitness through Bikini or Bust and adopted her goals as my own.
  3. Nini at A Fine Balance writes about fashion, fitness and food. She calls herself a fashionista on a frugal budget and I like her style!
  4. Maggie at Living Life in Glorious Colour and I have been following one another’s blogs for almost a year and have discovered that we have a lot in common. Her photos are stunning.
  5. Grams is my high school friend, Janis, the only one of these bloggers that I’ve met in person and one of the most creative people I know. She hasn’t updated her blog in quite some time but I’m hoping that this will inspire her to start posting again. A look back at Janis’ earlier posts is well worth it, especially if you’re interested in crafting or home decor.
  6. If you like Grams, you’ll also enjoy Mimi Sue’s Cottage. I love her Sunday Sayings.
  7. I left a piece of my heart in Japan when we returned to Canada after teaching there for a year. Tokyoholic is a graphic designer living in Tokyo. I especially love her photos. She does a wonderful job of capturing the many faces of Japan.
  8. The Simple Life of a Country Man’s Wife lives in South Dakota “intentionally living life each day as it comes.” She understands life in the country and I notice that we often comment on the same blogs.
  9. The Big Sheep Blog “where imagination and business life collide” addresses a wide variety of topics with genuine wit.
  10. ihavetriedit offers lots of great money saving and do-it-yourself tips.
  11. I’ve recently started following Jen at The Scrumptious Pumpkin. Her Winter Vegetable Pasta with White Wine and Parmesan recipe is to die for and I’m looking forward to trying some of her others.
  12. Malou is a Filipina married to a Dutchman and living in the Netherlands. Her blog, Going Dutch, shares many aspects of life in the Netherlands and makes me want to visit.
  13. From a Tuscan Villa is another blog that inspires me to visit Europe soon.
  14. Elizabeth has been writing I Face the Sun for just over a year and I like her outlook on life.
  15. French Twisted Woman is a brand new blogger. She’s off to a great start and I hope this award inspires her to keep it up. Don’t miss her post about her car wash adventure!

And now for the fun part, 7 random things about me. I’ve tried to choose things that I haven’t included on my blog before.

  1. I haven’t actually written a bucket list but if I did, it would include riding in a helicopter and a hot air balloon.
  2. I don’t fit the normal oldest, middle or youngest child profile. Chronologically, I’m a second child but my older brother suffered a brain injury in infancy, before I was born, so in many ways I’m the oldest. Or am I just the most confused…?
  3. I love beachcombing; hauling home seashells, bits of driftwood and sea glass from beaches around the world. Many of them decorate our main bathroom.
  4. I love to dance, especially in my husband’s arms.
  5. I am an arctophile, a person who collects teddy bears.
  6. I am missions president at my church which includes preparing and presenting a five minute Moment for Missions each Sunday morning.
  7. I believe: God is who He says He is, God can do what he says He can do, I am who God says I am, I can do all things through Christ, and God’s word is alive and active in me. If you’ve done Beth Moore’s Bible study, Believing God, you’ll know that this didn’t originate with me but it is my “shield of faith”. Ephesians 6:16

 Happy Valentine’s Day! 

Channelling my inner W.O.

/ edebock / 5 Comments

When I wrote about the things I like about winter, I mentioned that we auditioned for parts in W.O. Mitchell’s play, The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon, last week. I didn’t get the part I wanted but I wasn’t overly surprised or as disappointed as I thought I’d be.

Flagstaff Players has always had trouble recruiting men. We usually pick scripts with fewer male roles than female but this time we really went out on a limb. Black Bonspiel has nine male roles and only one female one! Could we do it, we wondered. Amazingly, men came out of the woodwork and we had no problem filling all nine roles! Competition for the one female role was fierce, however, so I knew that my chances weren’t great.

One of the reasons that I’m not too disappointed is the fact that Richard scored the lead role! He’s playing Wullie MacCrimmon himself! I’m so delighted for him that my disappointment pales in comparison. I’ve had lots of lead roles but this will be his first.

The second reason that I’m not feeling crushed is that I think the directors did an excellent job of casting the female role. It went to one of my former students, a delightful young woman who was an active participant in the high school drama club back in the days when Melaina and Nathan were involved. Following high school, she went on to become a teacher and it was she who was hired to take my position when I retired! We acted together in A Christmas Carol two years ago and I know that she’ll do a wonderful job.

I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed though. I love to act and I really wanted that role. The friend who phoned to give us the news knew that and tried to soften the blow by telling me that they were looking at writing in some bit parts for some of the women who auditioned and didn’t get roles and that I would definitely have one of those. That’s not what I wanted but what could I do? I could wallow in self pity, I could accept the situation gracefully or I could channel my inner W.O.

Not only do I love to act; I love to write. What if I put the two together and wrote my own part? That’s the idea that hit me late last night when I couldn’t sleep. The part of Lucy Tregellis was an obvious one. She’s really Mitchell’s creation, not my own. She actually appears in the script but only in disparaging remarks made by the other female character. What if we brought her to life and put her onstage? I knew it could be done without changing W.O.’s story line and I knew I could do it. I messaged the directors and they loved the idea. It will only be a bit part but it will be mine, all mine, the first role I’ve ever written for myself!

Thank you, Mr. Geary

/ edebock / 18 Comments

Though the move from Vancouver to Yellowknife at the end of my grade 11 year was a very traumatic one for me and led to some of the worst days of my life, there was a silver lining and his name was Mr. Geary.

John (Jack) Geary was my English 30 and Economics 30 teacher at Sir John Franklin High School in Yellowknife and though he probably never knew it, he had a profound impact on my life. I don’t remember much about my final year of high school. In fact, I don’t even remember my own graduation but I do remember the teacher who gave me the gift of writing, Mr. Geary.

Mr. Geary believed that it was his job to prepare us to write the kinds of papers that we’d have to write if we went on to university. A lot of my classmates didn’t like him because he made us write and write and then write some more but with his encouragement and nurturing, a lifelong love of writing was born in me. Over forty years later, I still have all the papers I wrote for Mr. Geary.

Our first assignment was to write a comparison between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and a second novel of our choice from a list that we were given. I still remember how overwhelmed I felt. I’d never faced such a challenging assignment before and I really didn’t know what this new teacher expected. I chose Lord of the Flies by William Golding as my second novel only because I’d already studied it back in BC the year before. There had to be some advantage to changing school systems midstream and I wasn’t above taking advantage of them!

I found Heart of Darkness a difficult read but I soon noticed that both plot and theme seemed quite similar to those of Lord of the Flies so that’s what I wrote about. I had no idea if I was on the right track and I still remember how nervous I was when I handed in my paper, wondering if I had any chance of getting a decent grade. As it turned out, it was more than decent; it was the top mark in the class but it was Mr. Geary’s comment at the end that set me on the road to becoming a writer.

A thoroughly intelligent piece of criticism, Elaine – perceptive & lucid, far more so than I could have managed! Good work indeed.

Mr. Geary wrote encouraging comments at the end of all my papers but he also pointed out errors and ways that I could improve my writing. It didn’t take him long to get to know me either. When, a little later in the term, I decided to play the devil’s advocate and take a stand that I didn’t actually believe in, he saw right through me and his comment read

Plausibly argued, Elaine, although it could contain greater conviction.

I had already decided that I wanted to be a teacher before I met Mr. Geary but I chose secondary English as my major because I visualized myself teaching high school English the way he did. As it turned out, I never did teach English at the high school level but Mr. Geary’s legacy lived on in many other ways. As a university student, I’d certainly used the skills he’d nurtured and then later, as a young stay-at-home Mom I dusted off my love of writing and had several freelance articles published. I thought that that would continue but when I returned to teaching school, there weren’t enough hours in the day for writing. I discovered that passing on my love for reading and writing to my students fulfilled the same need in me. Then came retirement and blogging! I don’t need to sell my writing to feel fulfilled by it. I just need to know that others enjoy reading it. Just as I loved flipping to the end of my English 30 papers to read Mr. Geary’s comments, I enjoy the affirmation that comes with the comments that are left on my blog.

As a retired school teacher, I realize that we seldom know the long term impact that we’ve had on our students and how affirming it is when many years later we do receive positive feedback from one of them. That’s why, for many years, I’ve wished that I could contact Mr. Geary and thank him for his impact on my life. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do that. It isn’t for lack of trying. I’ve Googled his name numerous times, searched for him on Facebook and inquired about him on the Sir John Franklin High School Alumni page. To the best of my knowledge, he returned to his native Australia not long after I knew him. If he’s still alive, I’m guessing that he’d be in his late 70’s or early 80’s by now. I know that he had children but they were much younger than me and I don’t remember their names so I can’t find him by searching for them. So, unless I can find another way to contact him and thank him personally, I guess this tribute will have to do.

Thank you, Mr. Geary, from the bottom of my heart!