My wish list starts with ………
1) A happy life in Labrador's Goose Bay.
2) Really good company for visits; people who like to write and can tell good stories.
3) Different commitments than the type people make before age 45. (Need to gracefully smile but simply run away from more marriages, more financial responsibilities and career pressures, (which would be the new for me.)
4) A used sturdy car - very gas efficient, with almost no mileage.
5) Relative calm for thinking and creating.
6) Northern Lights for 200+ nights a year. (Labrador tour book claims this to be true.)
7) One tummy tuck; one chin shaping.
8) Lots of writing equipment - new computer for home, laptop for the road, and a fine desk (maybe something French?) for new house in Goose Bay.
9) One really pretty pair of gold earrings, not necessarily new.
10) Good warm and dry winter boots for the first time in life.
11) Mittens of Lopi yarn from Iceland or angora fiber (the kind that is "too soft" when brushed against the cheek.)
12) Good French lessons by native born speaker (Labrador is English but it sits on top of Quebec Province where life is French.)
Years ago I realized the rhythm of the city had begun to oxidize me and I was turning green from pollution and noise. In an effort to experience the best of 2 worlds (a country-sort of city,) I moved from New York City to Larchmont and then White Plains but even the rhythm of small cities had become too much for my sensitivities. Walking past a bus stop was all I needed to be convinced, especially as the bus was pulling away. I do not need to be "setting and rocking" to be content, although I will admit I was chasing Mayberry when I first came to upstate NY and Davenport in search of peace. I wanted the memories of a simpler time, a more respectful time (something like Queens in the 1950s.) I know I will never need skyscrapers at dusk and highways going off into the horizon again. It was exciting to be part of it when I was 17 but that's really done. What I do want is the ability to hear myself think and do my own thing, and I know I cannot roll this along with mega-activity outside my front door.
Now, on the other hand, if there was a small inlet harbor I was watching from a little shore cottage, where fishing boats went out with today's dreams and came in with today's catch… well that would be just fine. There is nothing more I would like than gazing upon the choppy water and sable skies of some little fog covered hamlet anywhere along a Canadian waterway; gentle rolling tides and little "dinner napkins" that would float upon the surface of the currents, (sail boats of the tiniest variety like the Thistle.) This I could do; in fact I could build a life around such a picture. I could write like crazy to make sure I had covered every subject of global importance during this long anticipated retirement. I could knit and sew just to steal a few hours away from the writing, and I could wake and sleep to the rolling harbor activity and the sound of a ship clock clanging at quarter hour intervals. I might try my hand at drawing a scene of lobster cages flung onto the pier waiting to be stacked neatly for tomorrow's catch. I saw this in St. Catherine's, Nova Scotia. If that were my last vision in the life we all know, I would be proud that I had made it there in time.
The varying shades of purple, pink and yellow lupines in a nearby field surrounded by lots of green growth would be my next favorite site, all very wild, a tribute to life for the intricate blossoms alone, knowing that because it is wild the reblooming will continue year after year and generation after generation. To gaze without schedule at this quality of beauty is my idea of the most perfect rest for eyes, body and brain. The older I get the more disdain I exhibit for the tame, and the more I appreciate the wild. In fact, I find myself suspicious of the tame as if it was disguising a motive of its own like "Look at me! Look at me!" with just the right level of self-centeredness. Within the same organism, for tameness to be achieved, often the wild qualities are flushed out to extinction. When the wildness is taken away, so goes the truest survival qualities. This was the stuff that keet one running without losing your breath, or in plant terms, blooming in beautiful color and healthy every season without fail. What is left behind is an element no more supportive of life than the tenacity of shortbread or tissue paper, though pretty to look at temporarily.
To truly appreciate the wild you must be willing to come and go season after season, like wildness itself, and become stronger and more resolute as you do it; gratefully the stronger and more resolute would be the meaningful accomplishments whereas the coming and the going would be our elective choice. Wildness rests in the days of the winter snow and thrives through the summers of renewal. In the winter, the wildflower works on blending colors of purples and peacock never before seen within the seed, for the beauty it contributes in the season ahead. No one has tamed the color cycle in the wild and no one ever will. You can never, never expect the delicacy of the long stemmed hot house rose to appear in the forest with the wildflower. The glamour would not fit. Who would expect it to be there, and who would care if it was? In the wild you get to appreciate the overall aura of beauty in a field of lupines as they all contribute to your view of the world around you. A hot house rose you buy in the market for two bucks when you need a birthday gift.
When I get to Goose Bay, I will want to be on my own, not to hermit my way into the life that follows retirement day, but just in that I will not want the distractions of another to persist. I will need to savor the colors, flavors, scents, temperatures, textures without the common responsibilities one lavishes on a mate or extends to a companion. I find those relationships for me become totally absorbing, and rightfully so as they should be, but I will want to be available to things other than lavishness and extensions at that point, and I will not have that chance if another is by my side or someone is walking along a common path. I will want to know the Northern Lights on the nights they shine over Labrador, and feel the chill air that accompanies this. I will want the Northern Lights to feel my presence as I promise to be outside watching them every night that they appear, while I grip mugs of hot chocolate with two hands in mittens and wear boots that don’t let melted snow creep between the sole and lining.
I will want to meet the young children who still study at the dinner table in the evening before bed, old women who feel they must still tat doilies and darn socks, the old smiling vicar at the chapel who labors over Sunday sermons, grandfathers who make their way home after rounds through the village collecting the stories of local news, the dad who continues to work in the ball bearing factory without a fuss, for the future of his family and the education of his offspring, even though he has a degree in History. I hear these sacred patterns are still alive there and I want to watch and remember my own days in some of those roles. I need to believe these things have not disappeared from the earth, never again to be experienced or recognized. I pray it waits for me to catch up to it; I have so much philosophy to study, wilderness to witness, simplicity to appreciate, the smell of a little harbor and its tides, and the smell of homemade coffee cake with cinnamon, raisins and almonds. The 1950s has become the resolute wildflower with proven philosophies of grit strength that I can still recall and recite. The new century is perhaps the hot house rose. I need to record the things I long to see again, so the experience can be shared with those who come later. The honesty of the worthy shades of purples and gentle hues of peacock must not be forgotten, nor the time when people trusted each other, helped each other, but still basically depended upon themselves for the things they sought to achieve with the encouragement of their neighbors and friends. I think these lessons of lifestyle represented the only true path to accomplishment. They endured and were methods as sure footed as the blooming lupine. If people will read these recollections, (another dying skill,) I will be happy to tell them about what I can recall and what I see still works, (and I will do this often.)
There are, of course, the skills of tatting and darning that are waiting for me to learn from the ladies of the village, if they will have me as a student/neighbor, before the fishing boats get home. I might think of those French angoras rabbits again, and finally learn to card and spin sheep wool. My tangibles will balance out my intangibles one choice at a time. I might more seriously contemplate the purchase of a real loom, and a few silky mohair goats. I already know sheep, maybe just two Merino would not be too much work. This will be no tourist call, jumping through 6 provinces in 4 days with tent and canteen in tow. Every morning I will pray for snow but every afternoon I will pray for the lights in the sky that night. No more will I want when these things are in place, still chasing Mayberry and the wisdom of a simpler time.
Alice Elizabeth Cagle, August 10, 2010
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