...across the room to share some memories...

AHHHH the memories we keep!

Tonight as I was cleaning a cupboard I came across a "treasure box" of mine and found some surprising memories lurking in there! Like....a birthday card from my sister Jean (now in heaven). I had sent her some scented candles, socks and home made cookies for her birthday one year. In her birthday card to me a few weeks later she wrote..."love the socks! Candles smell sooo good (not terribly eucylyptusee), cookies only mildly tasted of eucylyptus HA!. I decided for my next b'day I would like one of your famous choc. cream pies! Ha!"

My Mom stayed with our girls for a few days and left notes for me, mostly crazy humour type notes. An excerpt from one page went like this "I owe you a wooden spoon. No, I did not hit either of your daughters over the head with it. I'll explain later, if you must know!" And another excerpt "Boy! This house has some weird goings-on. All of a sudden the radio in Peter's office is on, so I go and check the switches, OK, that says OFF. I know I'm not very smart, but I can read enough to understand OFF or ON, LEFT or RIGHT, FOR or AGAINST, but do you think that idiot machine would shut up? No way! So I did find one button so it was at least quieter, and I shut the door, so I could watch T.V.!"

Then there was the note from my niece Jordana who had just visited our place "Auntie Elayne: I like how we played tag first day if you read this you are tagged. I love you! Jordana".

This last excerpt is from a letter my sister Phillis wrote to me quite a few years ago: "Have you managed to pick up some furniture yet? If you wait a little longer I may have a lovely green floral set. Only slightly?? used. You could build your living room around this couch and chair. Believe me I'ld like to build a room around this set and seal the door so no one would ever have to look at it again!!"

My Mom wrote lots of letters after we moved and I cherish them so much now that she is gone. One letter in particular mentions my sweet Aunt Kay who was succumbing to dementia. She wanted my Mom to take her to the post office so she could cash her pension cheque. When they got to the lawyers office which was their first destination that day she wanted the receptionist there to cash her pension cheque. Then she told another aunt that she and my Mom did not go to Mr. Doerksen's funeral, they just went to his social (she meant the viewing). So she kept Mom in stitches some of the time and completely at her wits end the rest of the time but gave her lots of material for her letters to me! Thanks for the memories everyone! There are many more where those came from :)

...across the room to communicate...

Interestingly enough, after I composed my last post on friendship I ended up listening to a sermon on "Communicating in Relationships" in church this past sunday! In my post I related an incident with a friend some years ago who asked me to stop doing something. I mentioned that it wasn't so much what she said as the manner in which she said it. I can still see her body language to this day! Our speaker in church informed us that communication is done largely through body language, secondly through the way the words are spoken and least important are the words we speak. Interesting! At least, apparently this is how we remember the communication.

He said that there are a number of communication killers. They are arrogance, having all the answers, smugness; withdrawal, which basically means ignoring the issues and pretending there are none; lack of sensitivity; mistrust; and accusations. Accusations put an end to most conversation.

Communication builders were presented as being acceptance; empathy, honesty, discretion, responsibility (if you're wrong, admit it), forgiveness, listening, and prayer.

He concluded by saying that communication is a choice and that healthy relationships begin with healthy communication. At least that is what I remember of the sermon. I would say that relationships can survive only by constant healthy communication.

Whenever my husband and I keep saying "I thought you....." I know we have been too busy and there has not been enough healthy communicating, meaning it's time to have a little chat :)

...across the room for a Charlie Brown friendship....

“Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you. -Charlie Brown to Snoopy”

Doesn't that just give you that warm fuzzy feeling we all love to feel? Isn't that the kind of friend we all want to be able to count on when the going gets rough? Are these not the kind of people we want to be around on the good days too?

Friendships take time to develop. Some people seem to cultivate friendships much faster than others. I do not trust easily so I take my time making friends. When we moved to a new city some years ago I did not know anybody in this new place. It didn't take long to notice that mere acquaintances were referring to me as a friend. I realized then that the definition of what a friend is varies from person to person. My definition of a friend was someone who had proved themselves to me. For me it's all about trust, mutual respect, honesty, loyalty and love. Someone has said that every betrayal begins with trust. When trust is broken it is extremely difficult to re-establish again. It is not impossible but it does take time. I guess that is the reason I don't trust easily. During my life time so far I have experienced what betrayal feels like and I think that I can honestly say it is something I absolutely hate. That's a strong word, I know. Betrayal brings out the worst in people it seems. When it happens the one who is guilty usually does not want to admit even to themselves what they have done. Often that means the pain of the betrayal is made worse by lies to try to cover up the offense. The one who has been betrayed hurts deeply. Good friendships require huge investments. Most often it means investing a lot of our time with that person and taking the risk of sharing thoughts and ideas that one would not share with anyone else. Betraying that kind of trust just simply wrecks a friendship up for a long time and often a life time.

Life is difficult says Scott Peck. How we solve our problems will determine how difficult our lives will be. When a friendship is broken we get to chose how to deal with it. Do we drop the relationship; do we repair it; or do we let it slide and pretend it didn't happen. Personally I would have a very hard time pretending nothing happened and try to continue the relationship. Years ago a friend of mine asked me in a very angry manner to stop doing something I was doing that she did not like. I agreed to stop doing what I was doing even though I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. In fact, I thought I was helping her. I was OK with stopping what I was doing in order to preserve our friendship. What bothered me was the way she spoke to me. She spoke out of anger in a very disrespectful manner and she talked down to me. She never apologized for that and I never forgot it. We are friends to this day but our friendship can only go so far. I can't quite trust her. Sad. I know. I feel like I have to protect myself from her.

When I think about my friends I realize I have many different kinds of friends in my life. Some I have not chosen...they seemed to chose me. These tend to be the more difficult relationships. Others were formed through mutual interests. These are usually easy going, light hearted, and fun but do not lend themselves to meaningful, thought provoking conversation and sharing. The best friendships are the ones that just seemed to happen before I knew what was happening. They are rare, scarce and extremely precious to me. I would do anything for these wonderful people in my life. I will always watch out for them, care for them and love them with all my heart. They have my loyalty, my trust, and my respect. These are the people in my life that I like to have around. Days spent with them are smooth sailing days. They are my Charlie Brown friendships!

..across the room to talk about scenery and hotels.....

As a rule, when we are on vacation we like to stay in nice hotels. By now our requirements include: king bed with white bedding, proper window treatments (trust me, this is important!) spotless lobby, clean look and smell! Is that too much to ask? It does happen though that we come across something like this little cabin near a spotless little town and for some reason we just can't resist to spend at least one night. And so it was this year again. It wasn't fancy but it was cute and clean. As we walked into town for dinner we came across the cactus complete with berries. I think they are beautiful. I don't want to touch them or sit on them but I do like to gaze at these amazing plants! The next day we just had to stop to take a picture of these awesome red rock formations. They look so fantastic with the sun lighting them up. I took some pictures the day before at dusk but they are all blurred for some reason so this is all I have. I have to say they look much better on site than they do on pictures.

Back to the business of choosing a hotel. Some things we look for that we found are tell tale signs of what the room will look like are: if the lobby is not pristine, neither are the rooms. It is a sure sign. Likewise, if the staff are unkempt, so is the hotel. We do not even walk through the front door if we see that there are boxes or whatever pushed up against the window coverings of the office/front desk. If they have junk in the front office or lobby the rest of the hotel will be a reflection of that. Without fail, if you can see disarray through the windows when you drive up to a hotel there will be issues with your room. The condition of planters and shrubs in front of the hotel are another indication of how much care is taken inside. Even better, a drive around the hotel will further illustrate the cleanliness of the hotel. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

...across the room to explore for awhile....

That's it! The holiday is over and it's time to check out the pictures, talk and reminisce a little. For all my family and friends aware of my previously mentioned bird phobia (esp. crows!) I did go into this Bistro and I did eat and no, it wasn't crow! My definition of this year's bike trip is "The trip of many losses". I've never lost so much stuff on any one trip before! We hadn't even left the country when I noticed that one of my boot suspenders was missing. They were genuine Harley, not cheap, and besides, I LIKED them! Some time later I lost the cap for my beer mug used strictly for water or coffee may I add! I cannot ride my bike without some form of liquid to replenish myself so I bought a new mug. A few miles later I lost the top for that one as well. I noticed it was gone when we stopped to commit to memory the most spectacular wall of red rock and in trying to take the ear plug out of my ear so we could hear one another I realized it was stuck in there. This afforded my husband the opportunity to try his hand at some minor ear surgery with my cuticle instrument! He was a smashing success and of course the surgery came complete with appropriate ear plug size instructions!! In Red River, N. Mexico I lost my camera and found it later at the local lost and found centre thanks to a wonderfully honest and good woman from Texas! The holiday wasn't a total loss though. Paging through my journal I see my guy and I had some good conversations. We covered topics like the difference between falling in love and actual love; psychotherapy vs. psychoanalysis; how to celebrate our big anniversary next year; grandbabies, of course, and the books we were reading, among other topics! I enjoyed three weeks of not having to cook and consequently the plethora of restaurants to choose from every day! Can we say HEAVENLY?!! My journal mentions riding under the vast sunny clear blue Wyoming sky; having to dawdle through an extraordinary winding mountain pass behind a group of inexperienced bikers who didn't have the humility to step aside to let others pass (GGRRRRR) and enjoying a good laugh when my husband told me later he had been singing to himself "these are not my people, no no no, these are not my people!"; enjoying the ride through Montana with Ian Tyson's song rattling around in my head "Meet me in Montana, underneath those big Montana skies!" Yeah, we like music! As usual, we met interesting people when we felt like mixing with the crowd and otherwise just simply enjoying our own togetherness!! Whatever shall we do next year?