Paths forward

Posted on July 29, 2023 by doradueck

My week at a writing retreat at St. Peter’s Abbey, Muenster, Saskatchewan ended yesterday, but I have to say, I wasn’t ready to leave. I had finished the writing that I came to do, so it wasn’t that I needed more time for that, but perhaps one more day — to read in the College library, listen to the bells, join in Abbey prayers, walk? But, in the words of the cliche, all good things must come to an end. And there’s always the road ahead.

Is there anything more enticing than a roadway between trees? Any kind of path, in fact, that pulls into distance, into the future?

And so I followed the highway to Saskatoon, away from the roadways and nearby rail line of the Abbey, and now I’m at my sister’s house, where the bed is decidedly more comfortable than the somewhat monkish one in the Scholastica building. Another sister lives in Warman, so I’m spending the weekend here, and so far it’s been lovely to catch up with both of them. There will be more of that catching up and seeing nieces and nephews and babies before I set out Monday for Calgary, where I’ll stay at my brother’s place, and then, D.V., my trusty steed, aka my red Escape (currently covered in prairie dust, though my brother-in-law has graciously offered to wash it this afternoon), will be turned westward and home.

Trusting that all will be well until then, let me thank you who came along via these posts. May whatever path you’re on open beautifully before you today!

Nails trimmed, ready to work

Posted on July 21, 2023 by doradueck

Clothes hung or put into drawers, desk arranged, nails trimmed (I need skin on the keys, not click). I’ve reached the writing retreat part of my road trip adventure and am settled into my monk-like room in the Scholastica building of St. Peter’s Abbey, Muenster, Saskatchewan, ready for a week of (self-directed) work. I drove from Dauphin this morning, past one glowing yellow canola field after the other, and here and there a Ukrainian church (though I neglected to note which towns they were in).

The days between the conference and commemoration of the Russlaender migration on the weekend and today were interesting. Monday I did a bit of a mini-pilgrimage to houses we lived in during our years in Winnipeg. I placed a small stone, from a collection of Helmut’s, at each to mark remembrance and gratitude. On Tuesday Bonnie and I enjoyed brunch at Pine Ridge Hollow and for supper I joined my niece Daniela and her family in Steinbach. I spent two nights and the day between with my cousin Barb, also in Steinbach. Robins entertained us as we ate on her patio, but mostly we sat in her sun room and read from the diaries of our late Aunt Margaret Harder. She was a teacher, also very involved in Elmwood MB Church (the first woman to preach there, etc.), and left about 20 notebooks from some 20 years, basically a page per day. She was a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews, and Barb and I were both inspired by entering her past world in this way and noting her ongoing and intentional expressions of thanks. That evening two other cousins and their daughters joined us for rhubarb dessert and catching up all round.

photo by Rena Rauch

When I left Steinbach on Thursday I felt so “full” — in a good way — of my history and heritage that I wondered how to shift from that into the work of fiction this week. It occurred to me that my friend Rena in Dauphin would be a gift for exactly that, for she is part neither of my family nor the Russlaender story, but someone I met through a writing event in Winnipeg some years ago. She had refreshments waiting on a table under the trees, and it was a perfect transition as we conversed about our projects.

And now I’m here, in this quiet red brick and pine-treed place, and I’m really really really looking forward to the next seven days! I’ll check in again at the end of it.

Forgotten treasures

Posted on July 6, 2022 by doradueck

Sometimes, looking into my journals for one reason or another, I come across bits of my life I’ve completely forgotten. In truth, a great deal of my life is completely forgotten, but you may know what I mean when I speak of bits we encounter again, how they’re like pretty stones or shells children pick up and tuck as treasures into drawers or the bottoms of backpacks, how they’re delightful all over again.

stones in a story nest

In a recent example, in my 2003 journal I saw mention of the first session of a “Writing Your Memories” class I taught at a local seniors centre. Six participants. I noted their names. (I’ve changed them here.) “It went well,” I wrote, saying further that I was drawn to the person and accent of Katharine, who had lived in India, England, and now Canada. And that Florence was rough, always ready to talk, and said she’d had polio in high school. Perry, the oldest at 84, had related his earliest memory of seeking his mother’s breast only to find she’d turned her blouse around; hence, his weaning. This reminded Alice, who complained she couldn’t hear and didn’t want to write and hadn’t realized the class was two hours long, of her own drawn-out breastfeeding as a child, and her weaning, and her refusal, ever since, to drink milk! The suggestion of breastfeeding as birth control reminded Delores of what a women who stuttered had said, that by the time she’d managed to say “t-t-t-that’s enough,” she had five children!

I paged forward a week in my journal. I’d mentioned the second class. “I felt sort of panicky, because I feel like I’m out of my league. The class itself went well–but …I’m leading people forward not knowing where I’m going myself.” Florence, I noted, told me I was a good teacher, which encouraged me, but I wasn’t sure I believed her, for to be honest, I hadn’t done much memory writing myself at that point. I also didn’t tell her I wasn’t sorry she wouldn’t be able to attend the last two classes. She was talkative, in a dominating way, and I didn’t know how to manage that.

I’d had the class make a timeline of major events in their lives, as a way of breaking personal chronology into manageable sections they could write about. Alice’s #3 on her list said “period.” She explained that she let a boy kiss her. When her period didn’t come the next month she figured she was pregnant and was so scared, she looked for a rope in the shed to hang herself. Her period came, but after that she didn’t let anyone kiss her until her wedding, when she heard the minister say “you may kiss the bride.”

“I like these people,” I told my journal. “I like people generally, I’d say!” Shy Delores. Alice who didn’t write but came anyway, talking. (“Look at them write,” she said to me. “I’d have two words.”) Perry with his long and amazingly detailed memories of a northern town in Alberta where he’d lived. Katherine with lovely memories of her Ayah in India.

I looked ahead in my journal to the next Monday and the next, but there was nothing further about the class or any of these people. My husband and I were busy building a new house at the time and I talked about that instead. Looking at these brief notations now, I remember a little — very little — but am given pleasure in what’s there, and in a fresh awareness of the vast number of human stories that exist, and I wonder if those six people got further with their memories than what they wrote and related in the class. I wonder if anyone else jotted down some of Alice’s life so she would have more than two words left behind.