Rain and Mists of Nostalgia......

Okay, So I'm not a computer genius/magician like the DT, but hey, I figured out how to put a clustermap on my site and I'm so impressed. This stuff is all Greek to me. Or geek, if you'd prefer. Which I'm seriously not, more's the pity becauee I LOVE this stuff. It took me nearly four days to figure out how to make animations in place of names for my blog roll list on my old blog (Reggie's dolphin's leaping joyfully out of the sea was my favourite) and that nearly killed me and my computer (which, not for the firt time, was very close to being flung unceremoniously out the window!) Yegads, save me from technology!

Anyway, the Gnocchi didn't happen last night but hope to make it tonight.

The rain keeps falling. You know this by now. Or you would know this if my old blog hadn't gotten lost in cyberspace for months. (I'll have to set up an alternate blog and link to here, but it will take some time to sort out).

We have two seasons here, on the west coast, in these gentle gulf islands: hot and dry/ cold and wet. And when it rains here, it rains a lot. All the time. The rain has miriad ways of making itself the same and yet different every day. It can be relentless. It can soothe and it can frighten.
It rains in shades of blue and grey and green. Soft washed out colours. Hard shining sheets slanting, buckets and torrents comming down. Textures like the softest, fluffy corded bales of wool, slick silk and hard like grains of sand, pelting down, tearing up the siding on the house and decks. Mercurial. Mists that hover and linger, softly, softly fogging over hollows and clearing into crystaline sharpness only to be plunged into a white wall of cloud again. Heaving, booming rains that come in waves, driven by the wind, pounding on the roof and windows so that it shakes the house; delicate drizzles like the kiss of a fairy wing. Sometimes so subtle it is only the idea of rain, before it falls in earnest. Blue, green, grey....

Before I moved here, departing from the former husband in the big smoking city back east, I was concerned that the rain would make me depressed. Isnt that a laugh?! :) Heaven knows I have enough in life to make me depressed, thank you, dont worry. It isn't the rain. Actually, the rain recalls to me the months I was fostered in Newfoundland with my Aunt. My biofather's baby sister. It rained a lot there.

I don't have many memories of that time. A neighbour's new white puppy, which I went often to visit, being more interested in the dog than the little girl he belonged to. Making sand cakes with small buckets...filling the pail 1/2 full of sand and then shoving a layer of bright green fresh grass on that and then topping the rest of the bucket up with sand. Invert, plop! Lift off pail and Voilà: A sand layer cake. Very yum! "Do you want some cake with your pink lemonade?"

I recall my cousins, girl and boy, older than me and my brother, by one year, respectively.... Breakfast; dunking strips of toast with margerine into the yolks of soft boiled eggs. And carnation milk. I guess they don't have cows in Newf. Few memories..... The sound and smells of the sea, and sounds of rain make me happy now. They evoke days of sitting in the attic watching Puff the magic Dragon films, when it rained; eating crepes filled with brown sugar. Before the days of dvd's. Or computers, even. I remember a movie that came out that summer, I think it was that summer, called: "The computer wore tennis shoes".... it was the late 60's. We took the couch and chair cushions off and made them into forts. Play was allowed. But not fighting. If we fought (did we?) or if we were naughty, my aunt's voice would get very quiet, and very clipped. We knew 'that voice' meant trouble. She never hit us. The quiet voice, her disappointment, her sense of consequence was enough. I think I loved her. I must have. Because when I think of her I feel a sense of longing......

At the school recital, or some event, I borrowed my cousin's shoes, because mine were too small and ugly, and wore three pairs of socks so they would fit. They were still too big but I was proud to have such nice shoes, and my legs looked thick in white knee socks with layers underneath, which was okay because I was so skinny. Mostly, I think we had a good time.....

Anyway, the night I first spent there I cried. I was homesick and scared. Barely 5 years old, and in a house of strangers. My Aunt told me to listen to the rain. She told me it was okay to cry. She said to let the rain sing me to sleep. I must have done so, because ever since, the rain's song has been a comfort to me.

After I left, and mum got us back, custody having become moot because the other parent had fled to Saudi Arabia (of all places! What's a Kraut to do THERE?!) I never saw my aunt or my cousins again. I have no idea if they are dead or alive. I think of them from time to time, quite often actually, and wonder if they remember me. Are they well? Are my cousins married, do they have children now? Is my aunt still alive and still doing her pottery? (She was apparently famous in her time, having apprenticed in the Blue Mountain area of Ontario and had an 'accident' in the kiln one day, which became the current famed 'Blue Mountain Pottery' style of slumped and draped glaze sliding down the form, or so I am told. I was told too that she had her own local tv show for a while. I suppose I could find her if I tried....and yet, I am afraid of the past).

The husband of my aunt was a big hairy Kelt, with long sandy reddish hippy hair, and a motorcycle. The day my aunt's brand new VW bug arrived was a day of celebration. The car was called Clementine, which was appropriate because it was bright orange, and round and looked like something ripe and luscious, ready to be eaten. It had that new car smell....We all wanted to ride in her. Uncle's motorcycle was at once relegated to the 'been there done that' insignificance of experiences that pale in comparison to the moment's new shiney toy. I dont actually recall seeing him as my uncle now that I think of it, he was sort of just there sometimes, more or less.... but I do remember riding, at the age of 5, on the back of his bike. Once. It was exciting.

I do not really know if I miss them, or if I miss the idea of them, or just miss the gentle days, and feeling like I was part of a genuine and real family for a while....

I think it would be nice to have cousins again. Probably that means I do miss them.....