Early November 2020
Mid afternoon today, we drove an hour north east to Monticello pick up a used deep freeze my uncle was getting rid of.
With all the garden preserving, cooking and baking that goes on here, a second small freezer will be welcome for the winter months.
It was nearing four o clock when we pulled up to his little house on the Northside. He said we didn't have to so we hadn't called to let him know we were coming. I was glad though, to see he was home and out in the yard raking up a few leaves.
His property, straight out of Harrowsmith, or better yet, British Country Living, is rated low on modern "property value" but high on charm and evidence's a deep contentment and a life well-crafted.
One side of the small property is lined with a moss covered stone wall he built thirty years ago when he bought the old place. To the left-center of the back yard is his garden and small green house and outbuilding. On the back right of the property is a little trail heading northeast through the trees to the fields and soon thereafter, northward to the shore. My uncle is an avid naturalist and birder and understandably feeders abound here. The entire front of the house has a ridge of wild rose bushes always brimming in autumn with the fattest rose hips I've ever seen.
Any updates to the house itself were structural--no modernizing-hence the charm. And well, my uncle is a charming and most generous and welcoming person, brimming himself with curiosity and a keen sense of wonder at the beauty of this world. His house and yard are simply extensions of his own sense of gentle caring as well as his eye for the old ways and beauty.
Taking care of the task at hand, my husband backed the truck up to the back porch where the freezer awaited under a tarp. Freezer loaded on, we went inside for a short, physically distanced visit.
It was the first time I was inside his house in far too long. There were some changes evident that he had told me about.
A new to him lounge in the kitchen replaced the old couch which countless people over the years had spent the night on as the beautiful upstairs bedrooms were too cold in winter and kinda spooky. The house served as the post office for the community years ago and, if I have it straight, coffins were also built there. Suffice it to say that between the potential of ghosts, bats and freezing in the night upstairs versus the warmth of the woodstove in the kitchen and my uncle's presence in his nearby main floor bedroom, the old kitchen couch was often the choice of solitary guests.
The new to him lounge was not new in any real sense of the word and not even really new to him as it was original to the house when he purchased the old house thirty odd years ago. He had it in the basement since then and resurrected it recently when he felt he needed a change. Stripped off the former covering, added a bit of new (saved from something else) foam and stapled on a new (purchased eons ago) covering. And it looks so cozy--like it was meant for the place--which in a strange way, it is.
The sweet little table we shared many's a happy meal at over the years was replaced with an even sweeter little second hand find from a used shop in Souris. Atop it was a new (old) lamp found at Coulson's Antiques in Summerside. The pretty blue flowers on its white glass base were a lighter blue than I imagined when he described it to me on the phone while telling me he got a new switch for it and now it works just fine. The flowers are faint but dainty and suit his quaint and eclectic kitchen perfectly.
We talked COVID-19 for a while and he said he misses the community gatherings the most. He bikes the trails most everyday still and speaks briefly to whomever he meets along the way but it doesn't make up for the visits at funerals and meetings and such. Same too with missing family gatherings.
He offered us tea and we politely refused. We didn't want to push the envelope and hadn't planned on even a short, indoor visit.
Leaving, I said we would send along summertime pictures which our son Lucas had taken one beautiful day last summer when we stopped in to see the *roses in his yard and to check in on how his garden was doing.
Somehow, now it is early November and the reality of what we are all communally facing is settling in. We left his place with a light snow falling in the late afternoon light. The drive back home along the Seven Mile Rd felt like one of the loneliest drives I've ever taken. That road is usually one of my favourite roads on PEI because it is damn near all bogland and it is so deserted that it always feels lonely to me--but the good kind of lonely-- not the incredibly sad kind like I was feeling today.
Paul said imagine putting the road in through the bog back in the day.
I said imagine the mosquitoes.
Lucas noted a lovely gnarled and barelimbed poplar.
All small talk to fill the omnipresent void.
Driving then, I felt like my own limbs were stripped bare too with aching for the lack of hugs upon our taking leave of my uncle's place.
In my sadness, I felt a familiar longing for the bog as though it was my first home. The sinking trees whose life had long since left them were slowly returning to whence they'd come in part of that never ending cycle of receiving life and giving back. The spongy earth and plants that call the bog their home; they all felt like lonely friends to me calling out my name in their ancient voices.
Gillian Marie, Gillian Marie.
It must be the most wonderful and saddest, lonely thing to have your name called out in longing but be unable to answer. I know this sadness.
Juncos skittered from the road side in considerable numbers with little flashes of their white undersides flitting up as we interrupted their feeding with our passing by. Against November's greying, Larches glowed like amber torches throughout the bog and from the evergreen hedges. Red-osier Dogwood lit up the ditches with their deep red stems and soon to be falling off leaves. We will gather their stems before long in our ritual of gathering for winter decorating--but not yet. A lone Ruffed Grouse seemed unbothered by our passing.
As we neared the 48 Rd. wisps of wood smoke curled up and out of chimneys. A lot of houses still had jack o lanterns kicking around their doorsteps. One house had Christmas lights up already.
Everything too lonely and beautiful for words and yet I try to put words to it all.
To comfort myself I thought of having tea and blueberry buckwheat pancakes for supper when we got home. In the last light of day we pulled back in with our new (old) deep freeze and I went inside, put on the kettle and made that tea and pancakes but still the sadness lingered.
Here I am now offering you a glimpse of my gratitude and strange loneliness, both.
* the roses pictured were transplanted from a rose bush belonging to my dad's mother who lived in Charlottetown. Their fragrance is otherworldly and was the reason we stopped in to smell the roses last summer. My uncle referred to in this story is my mother's next in line brother and only one of many dear relative's on my mother's side. His house is a few properties down from the house he was born in over seventy years ago.
An addendum to this post-- from an article sent to me by my mother. Loneliness should not bring shame but is something we must pay attention to.
"The reality is that loneliness is a natural signal that all of us experience at some point in our lives, and it’s a natural signal like hunger or thirst that crops up in our body when we are lacking something we need for survival. And in this case, that is social connection.
Just like hunger or thirst, if we are able to satisfy that need, then it will be short-lived. If we feel lonely and we are able to pick up the phone and call a friend, or we’re able to get in the car and go visit someone we care about and whose company we enjoy, then perhaps we won’t feel lonely for so long. But it’s when that loneliness is prolonged, when it lasts for a while, that’s when we start to see some of these physical and mental health consequences arise."
Dr. Vivek Murthy
Thanks to my son Lucas for the pictures.
Wishing you wellness!
In warmth,
Jill
Today I looked on the side of the fridge at a scrap of paper on which I wrote this a year ago this time:
Flowers gone
Leaves gone
Birds gone
Yard stripped of color and sound
November
Jill, one day at a time, sweet Jesus!! ma