annewlindsay

What is home? I don’t know anymore. Wherever I am staying I suppose — the earth?
People ask me where I actually live. I tell them, ‘Scotland is where I keep my stuff.’

Fred said, ‘Home is where the heart is.’ He suggested that home is where you live with your mate, your partner, soul mate, significant other(s). You might move from place to place but emotional connection defines a place as ‘home’.

We talked about the concept of a ‘spiritual home’. I’ve heard folk say: ‘Scotland (or Iona, or Ireland or… you name it) is my spiritual home’, as though spirit is at home in some places but not others.

Isn’t our spiritual home Nirvana, heaven, oblivion, transcendence, spiritual bliss? Isn’t the spiritual home more within than without?

Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m a goin’ home;
Quiet-like, some still day, I’m jes’ goin’ home.

It’s not far, jes’ close by,
Through an open door;
Work all done, care laid by,
Goin’ to fear no more

Mother’s there ‘spectin’ me,
Father’s waitin’ too;
Lots o’ folks gather’d there,
All the friends I knew

Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m a goin’ home
Quiet-like, some still day, I’m jes’ goin’ home

Nothing’s lost, all’s gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
no more longin’ for the day
Goin’ to roam no more

Mornin’ star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life just begun

There’s no break, there’s no end,
Jes’a livin’ on;
Wide awake, with a smile
Goin’ on and on.

Goin home goin home, I’m jes’ goin’ home
It’s not far, jes’ close by, through an open door

I’m a goin’ home
I’m a goin’ home

Home, 9:30 Sunday morning.  The winter sun at my kitchen window.
Like Mole in Wind in the Willows I enjoy coming back to my own place. My flat is in a building that dates from 1878. The stone walls you can see from the street are two feet thick, with tall sash windows to the front rooms. A red brick addition at the rear of the building, containing dining room and kitchen, dates from about the turn of the century – oops – I mean the turn of the 19th century of course.

I love the large bath, the cosy rooms, my familiar things; the old chaise longue where I can slump with a book, glass of red wine or pot of tea; visitors; the store on the corner just across from my place that sells everything from soup to nuts and stays open to 10:00 pm; butcher, baker, deli, fishmonger, co-op all just a two minute stroll away; Greyfriars, a tiny Episcopalian church, dating from the 15th century; the pretty harbor and the scenic Dee walk; the road out…..

Notes
Did Dvorak have anything to do with writing the words to “Goin’ Home”?
No.

“Goin’ Home”was actually written by one of Dvorak’s pupils, William Arms Fisher (1861-1948), who adapted and arranged the Largo theme and added his own words. This is part of what Fisher wrote in the published sheet music of his song, “Goin’ Home” (Oliver Ditson Company):

The Largo, with its haunting English horn solo, is the outpouring of Dvorak’s own home-longing, with something of the loneliness of far-off prairie horizons, the faint memory of the red-man’s bygone days, and a sense of the tragedy of the black-man as it sings in his “spirituals.” Deeper still it is a moving expression of that nostalgia of the soul all human beings feel. That the lyric opening theme of the Largo should spontaneously suggest the words ‘Goin’ home, goin’ home’ is natural enough, and that the lines that follow the melody should take the form of a negro spiritual accords with the genesis of the symphony.

American Music Preservation com

Photo by sister Cathy — Bill and Cathy’s place in Sherwood Park, Alberta, early winter 2012

My last day in Alberta for a while.  I fly out of Calgary tomorrow, just in time to avoid freezing my ass off.  Winter’s come early this year I believe.   I seem to  recall the prairie’s  long sun-flooded days and balmy nights stretching  to Hallowe’en,  Remembrance of winters past arrived  with the trick’n’treaters shivering in their little bunny costumes, baby teeth chattering in the cold.  Hallowe’en didn’t bring sweets, it dealt out an icy grip from the hair roots to the finger tips and toes,  it hammered in the nails, time to shovel driveway and side walk,  wrench the frozen gear mechanism into reverse, back out amidst clouds of exhaust steam,  trundle down the unploughed side street, make a hopeful run at the snow-banked intersection onto an unrecognisable main drag: two lanes reduced to one, stalled cars,  fender-benders or worse.  Once I did a ‘doughnut’ on highway 15.   Bewildered, disoriented — as  I  faced slowing oncoming traffic and  before I executed my clumsy, shame-faced u-turn — I  thanked providence for delivering me once more.  A previous winter, a Mill Woods  thoroughfare,  I’d ‘fishtailed’  so spectacularly on sheet ice that I was featured in the local 6 o’clock news.  Not me exactly.  My vehicle.  The lead car in an eight car pile up.

Last year, my twelve months stint in Edmonton caring for my dying brother,  I  relied on public transportation   As I stood waiting for the number five at 30 below, plus wind chill factor, brrrr –I would have wept had the tears not frozen in my eyes.

This is no country for old people.  That’s why 50+  retirees from oil-rich Alberta become snowbirds – enjoying Alberta’s glorious summers; wintering in Florida or Arizona.  That’s why I’m off out of here tomorrow.  Because I can.

Dreams of mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things eternal

These words are carved over the doorway to El Tovar at the Arizona Grand Canyon National Park.  Sedimentary rock layers in the canyon range from about 200 million to nearly two billions years old.  The earth is 4.54 billion years old, give or a take a few million,  so that puts it pretty well into perspective, although you should really contrast those mind boggling numbers with the numbers that signify your personal age in years and that puts it even more in perspective.  For that reason alone, I mean for perspective on those ‘What’s it all about?  Why am I here?’ type speculations, the Grand Canyon is worth a visit.

The helicopter experience:    The tour bus from Las Vegas carried 75 passengers only five of whom had elected to fly the canyon — myself and four large Polish men visiting from Illinois.  The bus driver via PA announced ‘flyers’ would not be served lunch until after the flight as it could ‘come out both ends’  but we need not be nervous as there were bags aboard for the use of.  I, and the four  Polish men, were taken to a small side room and shown three safety videos elucidating  the range of seat belts for various helicopters and the somewhat confusing system for fastening and unfastening them, the flotation device we would wear while aboard, and  the location of the vomit bags.  I signed a waiver absolving the company of all liability is the case of my death or injury and stood on a scale to be weighed.  I, as  the lightest of the five, would take the co-pilot seat.  A staff member fitted the flotation equipment around my waist then I was instructed by a grim looking photographer to stand and be photographed.  I guessed this photo would be shown to my children in lieu of identifying my eviscerated and scorched remains after the helicopter crash into the canyon’s depths.   The thought of my next of kin looking at my photo under tragic helicopter crash circumstances made me laugh happily. I discovered later the photo was  meant just as a souvenir of the Grand Canyon.  See how happy I look.

Levity aside, I count this experience as one of the most wonderful in my  life.  The Canyon is vaster,  wider, longer, deeper, than I had imagined.  Carved by eons of time, by cataclysms, climate change,  water and ice,  coloured by nature, more achingly beautiful than any sculpture or painting I have ever seen, I understand why ancient peoples held this place sacred.  Dreams of mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things eternal.

The machines, row upon row, rank upon rank, beep, jangle, whir and whoop. I’m in a large city in the western hemisphere, on a continent of the First World, a developed nation, an advanced civilization, so I’m told, a wealthy democracy where the vast majority are literate, with access to libraries, to the wondrous resources that cyberspace offers, to a centuries-old legacy of high culture. And I am in the entertainment capital of the world. Like 19th century cotton mill operatives, the folk here look done to death, as though their lives depend on the coordination of hand and eye, on actions repeated robotically, minute upon minute, hour after hour; they sit still as cadavers, in the hypnotic trance they call being ‘in the zone’. The whims of luck or fate roll out, cartoon images fall into place, lights flash, bells ring, dice tumble and land, cards fall from the dealer’s hand. Cocktails, two for the price of one! Pretty servers prowl the slots and tables. A casino worker told me that a few weeks back a man lost all his money, went lunatic, tore his clothes off and dived into one of the neon-lit ornamental pools to frantically scrape up coins from the cement bottom. Be-jowled, facial skin yellowed, moribund; obese, appareled in ill-fitting knock-down casuals — elasticized for easy toileting; liver-spotted folds of flesh hang from neck and limbs; the halt, the lame and the blind. Well actually not the blind. You don’t need to function well on most dimensions, but you’ve got to be able to see to stay in this line of recreation.

I am not describing you. No. Not at all. You are the exception. You are svelte, youthful, sophisticated. You are slumming for a few days. You can afford to lose and don’t care if you win or not. But you usually win, or break even. You broke the rule book. You glow with health. You shun the escalators. You can run up the stairs. You are the stand out in a swarm of sad sack, pensioned-off, age and sun raddled picked-over semi-invalids. Or you are a voyeur: the kind of person who slows down at a pile up and wonders if the shapes on the stretchers are fatalities; the kind of person who takes a trip to Las Vegas out of morbid curiosity and writes about it.

Calgary Alberta.   Eight year old  Eva and  I attended Cathedral Church of the Redeemer.  Eva pointed out that my blue denim skirt and jacket perhaps resembled jeans too closely to qualify as a ‘goin’ to meetin’ ensemble, but understood dressing out of the travel bag imposes some style limitations.

This was  Eva’s first time at any church!  She  enjoyed dressing for the occasion and the sensuous Anglican ceremony captured her interest:  Spine tingling organ, brilliant organist and choir,  the sung Eucharist, the joyful sound of sanctus bells, a sermon on the text, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’  We knelt at the altar.  Eva  received a blessing and  I communion. ‘Body of Christ broken for you.  Blood of Christ shed for you’.  Mouth agape at the  transubstantiation riddle, ‘Creepy,’ she said.   Her mother (my daughter Emma) said it was ‘unhygienic’ for all to drink from a common cup. We had a short, unresolved discussion about the efficacy of wine in killing bacteria or viruses.  I figure that which does not kill me will make me stronger and  if I die from drinking communion wine,  I’m in good standing with the almighty, if there is an almighty, although Emma strongly contends that there is no almighty.  It is a sad state of affairs.  There are deadly germs and viruses and no saviour

The church hosted harvest lunch today.  Lasagne with green salad. Pumpkin, pecan, and rhubarb pies. Chocolate cake.   Happy to report that a fair contingent of impoverished, possible homeless people attended both the service and the lunch and that Christ the Redeemer church has had a long and very significant involvement in the ‘Inn from the Cold Program’.    When it gets cold here it gets deathly cold. Homeless people perish from the cold.  We all agree — Christian, Atheist, Pagan, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, (forgive me for those I’ve missed) — when winter gets a grip in these parts it’s better to be in than out and anyone who helps bring the homeless inside is committing an act of love.

I celebrated thanksgiving at BJs in  Kimberley,  BC,  Canada.  The restaurant side had already closed when we got there at 6:30 pm.  In the  pub side we could smell turkey dinner and pumpkin  pie, but  because eight years old Eva was in our party,  we couldn’t have any.  She could have been corrupted for life by eating in a room with a visible bar.  BJs’  kind-hearted hostess re-opened the restaurant just for us four.  We were separated from the bar, and the other diners, by just a thin wall and served wine with our dinner.

A week earlier, in Edmonton, Alberta we had a family dinner at Upper Crust, a very good Old Strathcona (licensed) restaurant   I couldn’t get a gin and tonic.  The licence for Upper Crust allows wine, but not spirits.

In Scotland you can take your kids into the pubs.  You can even take your dog.  (Kids not served alcohol, nor dogs).

There might be a  link between legislation concerning licenced establishments  and puritanical attitudes.  Sometime during the 17th century the  puritan fathers’ departed from the British Isles,  took their attitudes to the New World, left we Scots to our corrupt ways and our  lax drinking laws.

I’m in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  Calgary is affectionately, or derogatorily, or ironically known as  Cow Town.  I received my first university degree from the University of Calgary. The degree parchment  has an odd coat-of-arms:  a  ferocious bull, two red flags, a scriptural under-girdling in Gaelic, Mo shùile togam suas, translated — I will lift up mine eyes.    What were they thinking?

By the end of this month I will have taken 13 air flights this calendar year.  One of my green friends levelled criticism at me noting that,  due to air travel,  my carbon footprint is too  large.  In my defence — I am 5′ 2″, weigh 112 lbs and usually travel with no more than a carry on that I can stow under the seat.  Therefore I reckon, that all other things being equal I use up  less fossil fuel that a regular sized passenger and perhaps 50% or less than do  bumper sized passengers and/or  passengers with checked luggage.

Blog Sphere.  I have a new name.  A combination of my birth name, Anne Lindsay, and an added middle initial,  W.  I am named after my paternal great grandmother, Anne Wilson.   My  mother (now deceased) informed me that as my father walked to the registrar’s office my middle name — Wilson —  slipped his mind.  For my entire  life,  due to my father’s  carelessness, I have suffered an egregiousness abbreviation of my name.  I was diminished by a  slip between the informal act of naming and the official act of registration.

A new name.  A  pun realized by creative re-spacing and phonetic agility — an new lindsay — I’m sometimes so clever I make myself sick.