A Sparkler and a Bear Claw

This is Grace

At the launch party for The Camino Letters on August 7th, Grace read her task to me, and I read my letter to her.  I did this in front of friends, colleagues, my family, my neighbours.  The things I wrote about in this letter to Grace, now Chapter 7, were things that I barely spoke of except to my husband.  


And to Herb in small whispers in the courtroom. 


And eventually to Grace in my letter. 


And to my dad before he died.  

On the afternoon of the launch I was in Peterborough at a book signing at Chapters - a busy, rushed, overwhelmingly fun day.  My friends Stephanie and Morgan came just in time - they helped me pack up and pick wine.  I was grateful for them. 

I loaded the wine into their car and started the drive back to Millbrook, worried that I was leaving myself no time to put on lipstick before the party.

I started to think about reading Chapter 7 and shifted my worry to the fact that I had been calling Proud Woman without an answer.  She was not calling me back, which was not unusual - except that I had mailed her a copy of the book and was sure that she would have called once she received it.  

I pulled over to the side of Highway 115 and sat on the hood of my car with phone in hand.  I called.  She answered. 

She had just arrived home, she said.

A massive heart attack had left her unconscious and breathing through a ventilator the week before.  She wasn't ready to die yet, she said, and so she woke and gathered her strength to get home to her son, his wife, and her grandchildren. She would died at home.

This is Proud Woman

She told me that she read The Camino Letters in the hospital because her son brought it and it was waiting for her when she came to.  Because of the ventilator she couldn't talk and could only read, so that is what she did.  She said that she laughed so much that the nurses asked her what she was reading.  


Proud Woman has always laughed at me. 


I told her I was reading that Chapter tonight.  She told me to wear the bear claw.


She said that she would be lighting a sparkler at 8:00 p.m. for everyone gathering in my living room to hear me read, and then she laughed a large Proud Woman laugh. It made me feel like a very little girl and I was happy.

And so at 8:00 that night, I read the letter knowing that there was a sparkler being lit while I was reading to Grace, to Herb, and to all of the others gathered in my home.  My friend Bill came up the walkway, specifically and deliberately, to hear me read.  Bill is dying and yet he came.  He was carried up the steps into the house.  I think Bill gave me the courage to say almost anything out loud.


                                                                                                               

My hair etc.

This is Vanessa

This is Vanessa.  She is my hairdresser and has cut my hair for many many years now.  Seeing Vanessa every eight weeks or so is one of the happy indulgences of my life.


It is an interesting relationship that can develop across the mirror, in the hair salon.  Particularly if one always goes to the same place, to the same person, in front of the same mirror.  I have watched my wrinkles grow in Vanessa's mirror.  We now debate whether or not to mask the grey with something.  We watch time pass.
Vanessa is young, and gorgeous, with a young person's growing life in a big city.  It's fun for me to hear about. We talk about all sorts of things in front of her mirror. For me, I always have my glasses off and so I can't see her very well.  I can only listen.  I talk freely to Vanessa, and she to me, because this has become what we do. 


There is nothing to hide here because, after all, the mirror is right there - large as life - and it's a self-contained world in the place where we talk.  The conversation ends, the robe comes off, the hair is tossed, and off I go.

Vanessa was the third person (apart from the 26 taskmasters) who knew about these letters of mine.  I desperately needed a haircut after walking the Camino and I therefore saw Vanessa almost immediately after landing back in Canada.  I was still completely raw and, as one sometimes does, I spilled my guts to my hairdresser about what had just happened to me. 

Over another haircut later on we talked about her grandmother's illness, and my father's death.  Over time I have come to know what an enormous heart Vanessa has.  And she has come to know a bit of me.  

As I rode the train into Toronto this morning, I was so nervous about my interview with the CBC, and so excited about delivering the book to Vanessa.  I'm not sure which emotion was stronger.  It has been a very fun day.

So, on the hair front, here is the scoop:  I have been growing my hair out for a year now,  slowly getting rid of the short, sharp lines.  Today we decided that it was enough for a while - it's long enough, soft enough, and ready for the book launch on Saturday.  

I love my new haircut and Vanessa always makes me feel beautiful -  because just look at her!  Who wouldn't feel beautiful sitting in her chair?