Smoke screen

 

I venture into my mother's condo for the first time in a while.

My nephew has occupied it for the summer, which is fine - it lowered our insurance premiums for a bit.  The problem was negotiating each time I wanted to go in to sort through my mother's stuff.  I didn't strictly have to, but everyone needs privacy.

With his departure, I can now drop in when the opportunity arises.  This first time, I limit myself to watering the plants.  

In my mother's tiny greenhouse on the balcony, I discover fifteen joint stubs in a tin.  I don't think this has anything to do with my nephew; I'm pretty damn sure this is his mother.

Last February, I caught Double Leo Sister lounging in a deck chair on the balcony, and firing up.

I explained to her at that time - gently, I think - that condo bylaws, pretty well across the province, prohibit smoking anywhere on the property, and that cannabis consumption, even gummies, is not allowed, period.  It's to do with insurance and property values, I think.

Double Leo Sister hasn't lived in a condo for seven years, and cheerfully told me she was unaware of the regulation.  Fair enough.  I didn't say anything about my bewilderment that someone who has lifelong issues with asthma - to the point of steroid treatment - would subject her lungs to smoke of any kind.  It was the eve of my mother's memorial service, and my sister is, after all, a Double Leo.  I'm not crazy.

I just hope my mother's neighbours don't bring it up.  What do I tell them?  That I've told my sister about the bylaw, and that she doesn't care?  I suppose she thinks she can afford not to care; she doesn't live here.  

But I do, and the inhabitants of my mother's condo will continue to be my neighbours, even after we've sold her unit.

I drown out my rage and resignation with music in my earbuds, which mitigates the silence and encroaching emptiness of my mother's home, as things vanish, bit by bit and piece by piece.  As she did in her final months.

And in the middle of the celebrations

I had a landmark birthday recently. 

At least Double Leo Sister thought so.

My first inkling that I was in trouble came about six weeks beforehand, when I got a series of texts.  Double Leo Sister rarely texts, and when she does, she sends one after the other.  Usually about three or four come in, while I'm struggling to compose a tactful reply to the first one.

My sister is what you might call an impulsive person.  She probably pronounces it "spontaneous".  You can imagine how alarmed I was to be receiving a series of texts from my impulsive/spontaneous and frankly, volatile sibling a full six weeks ahead of my birthday, a birthday that, up until that second, I had regarded as being not particularly significant. 

She and her husband, the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant, wanted to visit for my "Birthday" this year.  Did I have plans?

I desperately wanted to say that yes, I would be out of the country.  However, DLS knows I'm visiting Demeter three times daily to facilitate meals and other homely things.  Swallowing panic, I texted tactfully but truthfully, that I'd expected they would be dropping by for Mother's Day, which roughly coincides with younger daughter's birthday.  (Younger daughter adores her aunt and uncle.)  Couldn't we celebrate my birthday in conjunction with those special days?

DLS responded:  "We can probably do both."  Following immediately with "Gonna do your birthday this year." It's true that they haven't "done" my birthday since long before we went to Ottawa.  I've grown to depend on it.

With a sinking heart, I forwarded the texts to elder daughter in Britain, who also adores her aunt and uncle, but knows the reasons behind my trepidation and despair.  

I mulled over this in some misery for a day or so.  I like my birthday.  It's my day, and way too often over the years, it's been hijacked by the proximity of both daughters' birthdays.  It's a day which, in a best-case scenario, is a quiet one, spent doing things I like to do - not picking my way across the emotional minefield of my sister's feelings.

I tried, once again, to get this across to my sister by text (leaving out the bit about emotional minefields).  I had to try, at least.  Once again, I suggested a joint birthday celebration that could take in younger daughter's birthday, and pointed out that there were few days around my own birthday that weren't booked by the Resident Fan Boy for his church stuff.

I suppose I could have predicted the response, which arrived while the RFB and I were Skyping with elder daughter in London.  The gist of the text was DLS's impression that she and her family were only welcome at younger daughter's birthday.

Unfortunately, this was rather true, but it wouldn't do to admit it.  The RFB and elder daughter coached me through a response, and I recalled the advice of the late American linguist Suzette Haden Elgin, who wrote a series entitled The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense - in particular, a key tip:  "Ignore the bait."  (I.E., the imbedded statement:  "We are not welcome.")

With no apology, I simply texted back with a choice of two dates - after consulting both the calendar and The Resident Fan Boy.

This worked, after a fashion, and I didn't hear from DLS for several weeks, which begged the question:  Why was my "spontaneous" sister planning this visit so far ahead?  Most unlike her.

Demeter had an answer.  DLS and JN-S-GG had found a "special" gift for my "special" birthday, and they were, apparently, very excited about it.

I wasn't.  My sister is a fan of grand gestures, many of which have meaning only to her, but she expects a rapturous and grateful response.  If I don't deliver, things get ugly.

After over a month of apprehension - although I did get my quiet birthday - their van drew up, and they got out bearing a large, flat, rectangular box, decorated with layers of coloured tissue paper.

I thought it might be one of my sister's stained-glass creations, difficult to find a place for, but doable, and rather pretty.  With some effort, I opened the box with appropriate ceremony, casting surreptitious and pleading glances at the Resident Fan Boy, who cleverly avoided them.

And then I summoned all my powers of feigning enthusiasm for -- whatever it was.  It defied description, but I'll try: 

Big. Rectangular.  Very dark brown.  It looks like a trophy, with photos sealed behind a sort of plexiglass skin.  The largest of the photos is the famous shot of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.  Below are two small snaps of the Beatles waiting to cross Abbey Road.  At the bottom, is a small silver plaque or sticker bearing the songs that make up the Abbey Road album.

Well, it certainly was a surprise.

I'm fond of the Beatles, but Abbey Road isn't even my favourite Beatles album.  (That would be Rubber Soul, but I don't want a commemorative plaque of that, either.)

And my sister and her husband merrily hung this thing on my living room wall, exclaiming over it, while I did my level best to not betray how baffled I was.  We made it through the weekend, then the RFB and I put a heavy-duty hook on our bedroom wall (the thing would yank most hooks out of the wall), and every time they come to town, we pull the plaque out of its hiding place and hang it up.

We discovered afterwards that they got this in a charity auction.  (There was a receipt in the decorated box.) They paid $521.81 for it.

On the days I have to look at it; I comfort myself by thinking of all that money that went to a hospital.  Then I go and look at other things, until my bewilderment abates.

The summer of the fire signs

I must have looked upset, because a guy wandered over from his gang of friends clustered around an illegal beach fire and offered me a joint.

It was sunset on an August evening fourteen years ago, and I was perched on the rocks below Dallas Road, weeping in the aftermath of what I came to call The Big Blowout, when my sister, the Double Leo, ripped into me over a chance remark about a slice of pizza in front of my bewildered and terrified daughters, then aged ten and six, and her three-year-old son.

It wasn't about the pizza, of course. I sat on my stony seat (literally - I hadn't accepted the kind offer of a toke), gazing out at the darkening Juan de Fuca Strait, with that ghastly feeling you have when you know the injury is serious, and you don't know how to staunch the bleeding.

I thought about the years of pussy-footing, of being cowed and intimidated, and I wearily decided that I couldn't sustain a lifetime of emotionally supporting my daughters (particularly one on the autism spectrum), my aging mother, and use up my precious empathy reserves on my high-maintenance sister.

This is by way of an explanation for the following tale of tizziness, because the scenario emerging this summer of 2016 was eerily and ominously similar to that of 2002: my sister and her family turning up unexpectedly and moving into the guest suite of my mother's condo for a few perilous days.  Back then, in the growing shadow of the Olympic Mountains, I came to the conclusion that my sister and I can't be under the same roof for more than twenty-four hours, not without a mis-step on the minefield that is my sister's psyche.

Perhaps it was fortuitous that fourteen years later I was impulsively treating myself to lunch at Il Terrazzo after beginning art lessons offered by a friend.  I ate a lovely risotto in the cool patio of my favourite restaurant in Victoria, then, lugging bags of art supplies, dropped by a stationer's to pick up birthday cards for the various fire signs in my life.  I was rather dreading a two-day visit to my mother by my sister and her family scheduled for the following week, inadvertently overlapping with my stay, and had quietly made arrangements with my art teacher friend to stay in her basement for two nights, for the reasons described above.  My friend had made it clear that she would need plenty of notice.

I came home in the mid-afternoon, worn out.  Demeter was out for most of the day for a special meeting of her book club, but her walker, which she uses for ferrying laundry downstairs, was planted in the hallway, laden with towels and sheets.  Had I not been so tired,  I might have wondered more about this, but I squeezed past, sank into a chair, and drifted in and out of a doze.

I was awake and finishing something on my laptop when Demeter returned and informed me that Double Leo Sister and her family were turning up that evening and staying for three days.  My niece had picked up some sort of bug which involved symptoms that didn't adapt well to a campsite.

I suggested my giving up the spare room, and when my mother vigorously refused, stifled my panic and offered to set up the guest suite, texting the Resident Fan Boy in Hades, who advised me to get out.  He remembers 2002 all too well.

I was scheduled to meet my friend the Choir Singer at a folk concert in Beacon Hill Park that evening.  Double-Leo Sister et famille hadn't shown up when Choir Singer picked me up and, seeing my agitation, took me for ice cream therapy before proceeding to the Cameron Band Shell.  While a Stevie-Nicks/Lindsay-Buckingham-type duo from Sooke sang standards, I retreated to the springy plantations near the public washrooms, and in desperation, called the hostess of our largely fallen-through house-sit, who had offered their guest-room at any time.

The offer was still good. Ironically, she's a Leo, too.

I returned to the bench, and vacillating between relief and trepidation, enjoyed the rest of the concert. Choir Singer friend drove me to the empty apartment.  Evidently the unexpected guests had arrived and gone out to dinner with Demeter.  My friend waited while I threw all my belongings into my suitcase and hastily scribbled a note:  I've done the math:  Four people in the guest suite - one bathroom; two people in the apartment - two bathrooms. . . .

Of course, Demeter walked in, just as I was wheeling my suitcase towards the door.  As expected, she looked disappointed and weary. Jolly-Not-Green-Giant-Brother-in-Law (another fire sign -- he's an Aries) soon followed, declaring that my evacuation was unnecessary, along with my niece (another fire sign) and nephew (an earth sign, like me, poor kid).  Double Leo Sister was downstairs in the guest suite, but we kept missing each other in the running between floors.  I pleaded that Choir Singer Friend was waiting to drive me, pointed out that I would be back in the daytime, and fled to the guest room of yet another Leo where I spent the next three nights, being very polite.

I also spent the next three days being very polite -- and making myself scarce whenever possible.

In short, I kept careful control of how much time I spent with anyone.  When you're surrounded by control freaks (and fire signs are, no matter how you feel about astrology), fences are the best defence.

Still waiting for this summer to ease up. What do you suppose my chances are?

The one I've loved the longest

Yesterday, I sat in a café just off the campus of the University of Ottawa, waiting for elder daughter to finish her interviews connected with her participation in an adolescent girls study. It was a warm windy afternoon, and I watched the twenty-somethings pass by, swept up in term finals. Young girls look as pretty and varied as ever I remember, but, I dunno, guys these days look remarkably unprepossessing and all the darn same: baggy pants, short gelled hair, tee shirts. A young girl with dark hair, summery green top and jeans, and a comfortable, confident gait emerged from the throng of Sunday sidewalk strollers, and with a shock, I realized it was my daughter who just turned 16 last week. She could pass for someone in her twenties, which grates with her no end. (So could I, when I was her age --- until I opened my mouth.)

Both the Resident Fan Boy and I have had similar small shocks over the past few years when we've arranged to meet her somewhere, and for a split second, fail to recognise the tall, self-possessed young woman waiting for us.

I worry about her because she seems so all right. So articulate, centred, together. I was such a mess at her age. I've just dug out my diary from when I was 15 going on 16. It makes for depressing reading, my sixteen-year-old psyche.

She had the whole of our attention until age four, and really the bulk of it until age eight; her younger sister was pretty well a camp-follower until we realized there was a problem. Then, it became all about younger daughter: the meetings, the consultations, the therapies. I sometimes think elder daughter copes by being the "one we don't worry about"; she gets top grades, is pleasant company (aside from the odd adolescent hiccup).... I can count the crises we've had with her over the past eight years on the fingers of one hand.

How does she feel about having a special needs sister? It's hard to tell. I think her attitude towards those with "differences" is marginally more enlightened, but she clearly finds classmates with ADD, Aspergers, etc. a bewilderment and an exasperation. I remember a passionate discussion when she was about to turn twelve, when I was pleading the case of two classmates with learning difficulties. "This will be your sister in a few years." Her response was heated: "People like my sister!" "They like her because she is cute," I replied sadly. "She won't be cute forever."

A mother of one of her pals told me that she was surprised to learn that eldest daughter had a sister, because she never mentioned her. (In fact, this woman told me this every time we met. After a while, I wanted to hit her.) My heart broke a little when I saw that elder daughter's best friend had listed herself as her "sister" on Facebook.

And see? This damn post has become about younger daughter again.

In trying to give equal time, equal resources, equal care to two or more children, there's bound to be guilt and short falling. Do I love one child more than another? That's like saying I love ice-cream more than chocolate. The best answer I ever heard of in response to the inevitable who-do-you-love-best from an elder child is: "I love you both the same, but I've loved you longer." My elder daughter is my beloved first-born, the one I've loved the longest. All evidence to the contrary, I think about her and worry about her every day. She is everything I wanted to be when I was a teenager, from her self-discipline and assurance right down to the straight, heavy hair (mine was wavy). I wish her many happy returns.