Standing Into Danger

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

IWSG: Wednesday, January 4, 2017: Going with the Flow!

It's the first Wednesday
of the month ~
the day when members of the
Insecure Writer's Support Group
share their writing struggles
and offer their encouragement
and support to other members.

To visit the IWSG website, click here.

To become a member of the IWSG, click here.

Our wonderful co-hosts who are stepping up to help IWSG founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are:
Eva@Lillicasplace, Crystal Collier, Sheena-kay Graham, Chemist Ken, LG Keltner, and Heather Gardner.

I hope you have a chance to visit them and thank them for co-hosting.
I'm sure they would appreciate an encouraging comment!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Happy New Year to each of you!
I wish you health, happiness, love, and fulfillment in 2017!

This morning I've been looking back over the year that was
and looking forward to the year that may be.
I say "may" because my life rarely cooperates with my plans.

Mojave Desert from Davis Dam

Near Bullhead City, Arizona
November 27, 2016

I had two lessons to internalize in 2016
and not by choice or planning:
Be Careful What You Wish For
and You Can't Fight the Universe,
against the unrelenting drumbeat of Control is an Illusion.

Right now I'm trying to write this post with a weak, piggyback internet link,
on a computer with jumping, switching, resizing screens,
and an independent cursor that's half water skipper, half mule.

I missed posting for the IWSG in December because I spaced it out.
I can't believe I forgot it!
But those cheap Wednesday flights, lack of internet access,
and computer crashes can provoke an alternate state.
And Wednesday I am again flying on IWSG Day.

Flying to Calgary from Las Vegas

WestJet, December 22, 2016

Throughout my life I've wished for the day
that I could travel as much as I wanted.
Be Careful What You Wish For!

In 2016, with Terry retired, it finally happened;
and I've spent a month or more in Honolulu, Victoria, and Bullhead City,
with shorter stays in England, Italy, and Nova Scotia,
Phoenix, Baltimore, Vegas, and Calgary.

Being able to travel as much as I wanted is fabulous,
but I have learned that it is also stressful and challenging.
My brain is a scramble of seasons, climates, cultures, and time zones.
My regular, at-home routines and responsibilities have descended into chaos,
my waistline has expanded, and my word count has decreased.

Dinner in the Eternal City

Rome, Italy, May 2016

I've found myself writing on all sorts of tables, desks, and sinks.

My current spot is an honest-to-God desk
in the latest trailer we moved into on New Year's Day,
after dancing the night away on New Year's Eve,
after returning from a frigid Christmas in Calgary via Vegas.

Writing Nook

(the only spot where I could pick up the hotel internet in our room)

Royal Grove Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii

My gentle husband, who wants nothing more than to play pickleball in warm sunshine,
has been trying to convince me for ages to spend some winter months
in Bullhead City, Arizona, just across the Colorado River from Laughlin, Nevada.

In a trailer.

Chasing Pickleball in the Warm Sunshine

Phoenix and Honolulu, January and March, 2016

No!@#$%^ way!" said I over and over.
"I will never, ever stay in a trailer in the middle of the Mojave Desert."

I should know by now.
You Can't Fight the Universe!

Every time I take an absolute stand,
the Universe strikes back,
and if I keep fighting it,
the result is usually ugly for me.

We were visiting Vegas, and our Air B&B plans fell apart.
A large convention had snapped up all the rooms in Vegas.
Terry scrambled and found us a room an hour and a half away in Laughlin.
He scrambled some more, and twenty-four hours later we returned to Vegas
with a trailer rented for November in Bullhead City.

Yes, I know it's January.
My husband will be playing in the Bullhead City/Laughlin Senior Games:
Two States, Two Time Zones, One Gold Medal!
He'll be competing in singles, doubles, and mixed pickleball events.
Apparently winning medals in two tournaments already just isn't enough!

A Happy Guy!

Winning a Medal for Riverview RV Resort!

Bullhead City, Arizona, December 15, 2016

This little salmon is so tired of swimming upstream.
Terry has morphed into a social butterfly on the pickleball circuit.
I just can't keep fighting the Universe,
so I'm drifting downstream in a swift current.
I caved and agreed to stay in our trailer resort through January.

Are those mixed metaphors?
I'm too tired to know or care.
The writing rule I wish I'd never heard of
is to not write mixed metaphors.
Argh! I catch myself doing it all the time.

Google

The ultimate irony for 2016 is that I'm really enjoying Riverview in Bullhead City!
The people are great, a trailer is easy living, and I'm having lots of fun!

Find a Flat Surface: Write!

Bullhead City, Arizona, November 8, 2016

Playing with My Camera!

Oatman, Arizona, December 8, 2016

As for writing?

Through all of zany 2016 I've kept on writing;
not as much as I wanted,
but writing no matter what the Universe threw at me.

My goal for 2017?
To finish my !@#$%^ memoir manuscript.
I'm going to keep writing through it all.
I'm going to focus on the positive and get it done!

Google

Just like when another life-long wish came true recently;
I finally saw a live, Brighty-of-the-Grand-Canyon burro,
and then he kicked me.
I focused on the positive and bought some burro food,
so I'd get more attention from the front end than the back!

Think It Through Before You Leap!

Pat demonstrates the right way to approach Pickles and other burros with treats in hand.

Oatman, Arizona, December 8, 2016

Good luck to my fellow entrants in the IWSG Anthology Contest!
I'm hoping to keep my computer hobbling along
until I find out who the winning writers are.
Maybe even force my shape shifting screen
and half water skipper, half mule cursor to cooperate
in McCarran International Airport,
so I can send congratulations to the talented winners.

Here's hoping my Denver Genius Bar
can solve my latest computer woes quickly.
I'll be returning to Bullhead City
for card playing and boot scooting very soon.

My mantra for writing and life in the new year:
Just Go for it!

Happy writing in 2017!

Just Go for It!

Me (front) and My Sister Donnie (rear)

Christmas Eve 2016

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Tobogganing on Christmas Eve 2016

My Sister Donnie and Her Family with Me (front):

Lisa, Martin, Gavin, Krista, and Donnie (right)

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Friday, December 23, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: Surprise!

Well, the surprise is on me!
Just when I had everything worked out with technology,
and I thought I was good to go with me and posting,
I had an unexpected development!

Presents Under the Christmas Bush

Mojave Desert Near Oatman, Arizona

Santa came early on Tuesday and gave me
the best Christmas present I've ever received!

McCarran International Airport,

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Christmas in Calgary with my family for the first time this century!!!

So I've been packing and traveling, and here I am,

not in the middle of the Mojave Desert, but in snowy Calgary.

Out the Front Door

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Sometimes you just can't fight the universe!
Fighting the universe landed me in Bullhead City,
which to my consternation, is growing on me!

So I signing off posting until January 4th,
unless I find a pocket of time!
But I will get around and read your posts as much as possible!

In the spirit of Christmas in Lansdowne House,
I'm sharing my all time favorite Christmas carol,
The Huron Carol, also called Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.
Click Here (You Tube is not letting me add it to my post.)

It was written by Jean de Brébeuf in 1643.
Jean de Brébeuf was a Jesuit missionary among the Hurons in Canada.
The original title is Jesous Ahatonhia,
but I first knew it as Gitche Manitou,
a traditional Algonquin name for God.
Gitche Manitou is Canada's oldest Christmas song.

This song means a great deal to me
because of the time I spent in Northern Ontario
among the Ojibawa and Cree Indians when I was a young girl.

Wishing you and yours the best of Christmases
and a very happy new year!

Northern Nights in the Bush

Flickr: J.H. License

Till next time ~
Fundy Blue

Bay of Fundy out of Westport, Brier Island
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: How!

When my mother and we five children joined my father in Lansdowne House,
in February, 1961, the white population swelled from sixteen to twenty-two.

Thirteen adults and three babies climbed
to fourteen adults, four babies, and four children.

The lack of older white children in the remote Ojibway village
was a concern for my parents.
Baby Bertie would have plenty of playmates
in babies Duncan, Kathie, and Glen.
Donnie and Barbie, at newly seven and almost five, had each other
and were not accustomed to ranging far from home to play.
But Roy and I were a different matter.

Good Buds, Donnie, Bertie, and Barbie (right)

A Few Months Before Going North

Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1960

At nine and ten, Roy and I had diverging interests and a love-hate relationship.
Only fourteen months separated us in age, and we were serious rivals,
forever trying to outwit and outdo each other in everything.
We were accustomed to visiting our friends and relatives all over Smith's Cove
and roaming its woods, fields, and shores together and separately.

Our parents had tried to prepare us for a very different reality,
where we were unlikely to make friends among the Ojibway children
and where we were unable to go far from home in the dangerous and unforgiving bush.
We would be on our own and without school and church activities,
telephones, or television (not to mention electricity and running water).

Sibling Rivalry

Roy (3) laughs as the photographer tells me (4) to pull my skirt down

so my underwear won't show.

Some things you don't forget, ever!

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1954

So that first morning when we awoke in Lansdowne House what did our parents do?
After breakfast and cleaning up, and with no school for the day,
they shooed us all outside to fend for ourselves.

The day was brilliantly cold, as only the North can be,
with a vibrant blue sky, stark black spruce,
dazzling white snow, and deep blue shadows.

Winter Morning

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, December 1960

Photo by Donald MacBeath

As we took a few tentative steps beyond the back doorstep,
the snow squeaked loudly and the Indian dogs scrutinized us.

It was bitterly cold, but calm,
so the subzero temperature was bearable in the bright sunlight.

-20º, -30º, -40º ... ?
I don't remember; when it's that cold, it doesn't matter.
It's flat out, brutally cold.
Our mother had hustled us into thickly layered, warm clothes
so we moved with sausage legs and arms.

The silence was overpowering when we stopped and looked around.
I could almost hear the sparkles dancing in the snow.
The only signs of life were the wary Indian dogs
and the smoke rising from the nearby log cabins.

"Go on! Go play!" our father encouraged,
firmly shutting the back door behind us;

and so, we ventured into the empty space between
our home and the silent Indian log cabins.

A minute or two later,
around the corner of the nearest cabin
two young Ojibway girls appeared:
Fanny and Nellie Kitchejohn.

Likely Fanny on the left
and Nellie on the right ~
Blame my half-century memory.
Photo by Donald MacBeath
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

We approached them, encouraged by the shy smiles of the two girls

with their beautiful copper skin, flashing eyes, and dark hair.

I raised my right hand in greeting and said, "How!"

followed by "Me, Louise" as I patted my chest.

"Me, Roy," added my brother solemnly.

"Speak to them in proper English" bellowed my father

from the back door he had cracked open surreptitiously.

After that my memories are less distinct.

I wrote in a letter to Nana about ten days later

that we had spent that first day "trying to talk with the Indians."

We learned their names, and they learned ours.

Somehow a toboggan appeared.

It may have been the one that usually stood against the forestry shack,

or it may have been one that belonged to the Kitchejohns.

Regardless, we were soon taking turns pulling each other

around one of the log cabins on the toboggan.

We did this for a long time, until we were frozen sausages.

The two Ojibway girls especially loved pulling our younger sisters around.

We even dashed briefly into their log cabin to warm by the wood stove.

Small, dimly lit, sparsely furnished around the edges, it was deliciously warm,

and their mother welcomed us quietly, despite her reserve.

Sleighing Toboggan

Historical Photo, Canada

Photo by Alexander Henderson (1831 - 1913)

Wikimedia

Our parents were shocked and pleased when we finally went inside our home.

They had worried about nothing, it seemed.

They had forgotten that children naturally speak in a universal language

when they approach each other with openness and friendship.

They had also neglected to consider the love of First Nations people for children.

Within a couple of weeks, my younger sisters had made the rounds of the village.

Donnie with her long curls, Barbie with her blonde hair,

and Bertie determinedly tottering around on her unsteady legs

were welcomed warmly and with shy curiosity everywhere.

Roy and I were also treated with warmth and respect,

but we were invited into Ojibway homes less often.

As older children, I think we were more intimidating;

whereas Donnie, Barbie, and Bertie were irresistibly cute.

I, in particular, was a conundrum.

As an independent and outspoken girl,

I didn't fit into any recognizable female role.

Neither child nor adult, I had to find a niche I could occupy.

Siblings, Going Their Separate Ways

Canoeing on Lake Attawapiskat, Spring 1961

Photo by Donald MacBeath

Notes:

1.   20 Below = -28.8º C
  30 Below = -34.4º C
  40 Below = -40.0º C

2.   A Personal Note:
I'm sorry about the irregular publishing of my Northern posts the last few weeks. After a lot of
time and frustration, I've resolved my computer and internet problems. No more library! Unless
there is a snafu when we move to another trailer shortly. Terry is a happy guy as he cheerfully
announces the subzero temperatures and snowy weather in Colorado, then prances out the door
to play pickleball in the Arizona sun. I have to admit that the warm sunshine and dry roads are
lovely. Bullhead City is turning out to be quite a nice fit! I'll be making the rounds to visit your
blogs asap.

For Map Lovers Like Me:

Location of Neskantaga (Lansdowne House)

Human Rights Watch Report on the Safe Water Crisis

in First Nations Communities in Ontario

Make It Safe

Friday, December 9, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: @#$%!

I am experiencing technical issues:
Still limited internet access, until Suddenlink sorts it out.
Photos crashing ~ too many and out of memory.
Can't back up ~ no room on external drives.
No new four terabyte external drive,
because Amazon screwed up guaranteed delivery while I was in Colorado,
and I'm still waiting on late delivery here in Arizona.
Been traveling, so little access to my library internet onramp.
Hopefully things will work themselves out in the next few days.
See you next week (or maybe sooner)!

Meanwhile I'm still on the hunt for wild burros ...

Wild Burros

flickr: James Marvin Phelps License

Friday, December 2, 2016

The Lansdowne Letters: A Lesson Learned

I was tired when we finally arrived in Lansdowne House,
but I can't imagine how worn out my mother must have been.
As a young girl, I took her energy and optimism for granted; and especially so,
because she sheltered my siblings and me from her challenges, big and small.

My mother had a core of steel and powered through life with an unbelievable will.
No matter how difficult it was, she faced life with a courageous optimism.

Some women might have looked around on arriving in such a remote place
and taken the return trip to Nakina with the pilot.
My mother looked around and embraced the positive.

My Mother, Sara (MacDonald) MacBeath

Studying at Acadia University

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1947

On Friday, February 24, 2016 she wrote
to our extended family in her unassuming way:

When we landed I expected the Indians would look at us blankly.
Instead they were all smiling and seemed to love watching the children.
We went to Maureen’s and Dunc’s and they gave us dinner.
Then Don and I came to visit our house.

Don said the house was small,
so I was quite amazed to find it spacious.
It has lovely cupboards and drawers in it,
seven drawers and four sets of cupboards.
There is a lovely dinette set in it.
Best of all, though, is the lovely gas range.

Love to you all,
Sara.

The Forestry Shack

Lansdowne House, Northern Ontario, Canada

Sketch by Maureen McRae

My mother was not a Material Girl.
The only things she truly wanted in life during my childhood
were her husband and children close, healthy, and safe,
and if that came with a gas range thrown in she was delighted.

My father returned from the forestry shack and collected us from the McRae's,
leaving my mother behind in her new home for a few rare minutes alone.

By then it was dark, and brilliant stars filled the sky like I had never seen before.
The starlight cast spindly tree shadows on the deep snow,
as we trudged through the bush to our home on the other side of the peninsula.

It was the coldest cold I had ever experienced;
and when I breathed in, my lungs burned.
I remember wrapping a scarf around my face to cover my nose and mouth.
Within a minute or two the front of my scarf was a sodden mess,
the inside warm and wet, the outside already stiff and freezing.
My moist breath froze on my eyelashes,
and my eyes watered making it hard to to see in the dark.

Half blind, I stepped off the packed down snow.
There was a reason the narrow path through the bush was well-trodden.
The moment my foot veered off the path, my leg sank in the snow to my crotch,
and I was down on my left knee struggling to pull my right foot out.
It came, but with no boot.

"That will teach you," my father laughed,
as I retrieved my boot and banged the snow out.
He was a big believer in experiential learning.

I managed to haul my stiff boot on my icy foot and stumble along the path,
peering through upper and lower eyelashes now frozen together.

Later in the spring, as the snow melted away,
everyone tottered around on those frozen snow paths
that stood above the muck like slippery balance beams.

It was the strangest sight,
but so much fun for veteran rail-walkers like Roy and me.

But very soon, the well-trodden snow paths melted too,
and we were all slogging through the mud,
in a world alive with the sound of trickling, running water.

Winter Sky

usm.maine.edu

We came out of the bush and into the open.
On our right was a long, dark, log church; and on our left,
a cluster of log houses spilling dim light through the odd window onto the snow.
Directly ahead was our new home, and home looked really good!

Nothing stirred around us as we rushed for the door,
except for the Indian dogs bedded down in nearby snowbanks.
A few rose to their feet and stared at us with hungry eyes.
We didn't have to be warned to be wary around them.

Sled Dog

Wikimedia ~ edited

The kitchen was lit with two softly hissing kerosene lamps,
but the rest of the house lay in shadows.
Dad lifted one lamp off its hook in the kitchen ceiling,
the shadows swinging wildly as he carried the lamp to show us around:
from our water supply (a twenty-five gallon drum with a wooden cover)
to our bathroom with its chemical toilet (a low seat over a bucket in a tiny room),
to the bunk-crammed bedroom we five children would share.
Our parents had a second bedroom just big enough to squeeze in a double bed.

Last was the small living room with a big window that looked out into darkness
beyond the pool of light from the kerosene lamp.
I'm sure if you made a beeline from there to the North Pole and beyond,
you wouldn't have encountered a single light in the vast, empty bush.

Before I knew it, we had found our pyjamas, brushed our teeth,
tried out the chemical toilet, and claimed our bunks.
Roy and I were on the top, with Donnie below me
and Barbie and Bertie toe-to-toe under Roy.
Roy was close enough that I could lean across the space
between our bunks and poke him (and him me).

We lay on our stomachs in our top bunks and stared out the window,
me on the left and Roy on the right. It was a moonless night,
but the Indian homes stood out starkly against the starlit snow.

We whispered excitedly in the starlight gleaming on our pillows.
We couldn't believe it ~
We were finally here: in the mysterious North!

Notes:
1. Photo: For the view from our front window, click here. This is summer in 1956 before the forestry shack was built. The Indian tent is pitched just to the right of where I went down to our waterhole on the frozen lake. The tip of the Father's Island is in the middle right of the photo.

2. Rail-Walker: