| Newfoundland 2003 |
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| Thursday January 1, 2004 -- 3:40pm It was a long ride out there, but the lights were really impressive. All the large fishing vessels (and many of the smaller ones too) were all decked out in colorful lights. People here really go all out with their decorations, but this definitely took the prize. |
| The next day (yesterday) was our day for going to St. John's. I wasn't feeling all that well to begin with, and being in the back seat made things worse. I tried to just close my eyes and forget about it, but I felt irritable for most of the day. We went to the Avalon Mall first, mainly so we could have lunch and to visit the Newfoundland stores and see if they had any nice things. I wandered around on my own. Unlike the Carbonear Mall, the Avalon is fairly large and has lots of shops. In the post-holiday frenzy, I felt my tension level getting higher and higher. I found a nice Newfoundland store though, and I spent a bit of money there. I had wanted to spend my Canadian dollars, since I had saved them from the last trip 3 years ago, and Dad Noel gave me a gift of $50 Tuesday night! I used much of it to buy gifts for Steve and Dee, and the obligatory "tacky" gift for Jay H. (I got him a cute little stuffed plush SQUID DOLL!) I also bought myself a small book of Newfie songs, which I'm very excited about. |
| After the mall, we went to Aunt Ina's. I was sort of zoning in and out of Reality at that point, but I think I performed the role of a fairly normal person pretty well. I remember my Great Aunt Ina as a tall, stark woman. My great-grandmother (who was small and round - at least in comparison) used to live with her in an old dark house on a narrow street in St. John's. The only visit there that I distinctly remember is from when I was only a child. If I had to guess, I'd say I was age 6 or 7. Mom Noel had decades and decades worth of STUFF in that house - some of it very beautiful, at least in the eyes of a little girl. Near the end of this particular visit, Mom Noel (who must have been in her 80's by then) took two framed designs off her wall and handed them to my mother. "You take these now," she said, and my mother took them. They were some sort of thread work - a woman, seated, in one, and a man in the other - done in white thread against dark, wooden, diamond-shaped frames. I thought they were the most beautiful things ever. When my mother accepted the gift, I began to cry. There were two reasons, the one I told and the one I didn't. What I told them was that I thought the thread works were so beautiful where they had been, there on Mom Noel's walls. I didn't want them moved from there. They just weren't going to be as beautiful anywhere else, and I was angry with my mother for taking them. What I didn't tell them was that the brighter wallpaper left behind, in the shapes of the dark wood frames, made me think about death. Mom Noel was quite old, even then, and I saw her actions as her resignation to death. In a way, it was. She was re-distributing her belongings, to make sure they went to the right people. People here have a careful relationship with death. Any time an older person talks about the future they add, "If I'm still around," to the end of whatever they say. It's as if they are superstitious and they think that you don't want to be too bold. As long as you don't get too cocky about being alive, you might just get to stay that way. |
| Anyhow, our visit with Aunt Ina, who now lives in a basement apartment below her son, went fairly well. She talked, in her tiny little voice, and non-stop, right up to - no, even beyond! - the moment we walked out the door! |
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