Judith Pettersen

In 1978, we had a truly awesome idea. 
“Why don’t we travel across Asia in back of a Bedford army truck with a bunch of strangers and an insane driver?”  Yeah.

Encounter Overland called our three month vacation their most disastrous trip ever. In spite of that, or because of it, we bonded. It might have been a survival mechanism. Or a strong desire to sing with other desperate people. But in the face of hunger, cold, Turkish vodka, flirtatious shepherds, breakdowns (mechanical and mental) stonings (both the pot and rock kind) we raised our voices together. Occasionally shouting each other down, we Wild Rovered, went Blowin in the Wind, and dreamed of a White Christmas. Unfortunately, the snow insisted on covering our tents long before we reached Kathmandu.

If the long and winding road from London to Nepal was neither smooth nor melodic, our reunion this past week made up for it. In the many pieced puzzle that makes up a life, I’d long noticed something missing from mine. After thirty-seven years, in the city of London, the missing piece slid neatly into place when I hugged my fellow intrepids once again. There were only nine of us, plus our distant adventurer, Len, on the phone from Australia. But it was an affair to remember. 

We reinvented laughing. It involved blowing first class Scotch through the nose while being slapped on the back. Having the neighbors plead for the noise to stop. Getting Lynn out of the tub after I thought she’d died in there. It meant a connection that had been formed under the weirdest circumstances, with the most wonderful, annoying, stoic, sucky, terrific people I’ve ever had the privilege of surviving with.

There’s a saying attributed to the Chinese that, if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them forever. This is a debt we all owe. Every time another Overlander held your hand, politely looking off into the distance while you crapped your brains out, or stopped you from killing the driver, (I can’t take it anymore! I know. (back pat) I know!) or put up with your egg burps, unwashed body, fits of temper, late arrival, fear, tears and frantic reading of Lucifer’s Hammer so they could use it as toilet paper, well. Its like we all exchanged our souls. It felt that big.

So here’s to you, my fellow survivors. I salute and love you all. In two years, just in time for our next reunion, we’ll track our missing travelers down. I have a few more puzzle pieces left, and I won’t rest easy until everyone is in place. Thanks for the laughs, the hugs, and all the memories. Until we meet again.

When it comes to our two granddaughters, my husband has a competitive streak. Since Claire was a toddler, he’s bragged about wearing high fashion. I’ve witnessed shouting matches between the two over who wins the title. Claire with her rubber boots, matching swimming goggles and long velvet dress. Her grandpa in his own eccentric getup. As they fight it out, knee to nose, the rest of us flee the room with our fingers stuffed in our ears.

Even two year old Charlotte participates. “Coachie, you’re low fashion,” she cries in her adorable lisp. He falls for it every time, and they holler back and forth until eventually someone’s in tears. We just sigh and hand him a kleenex.

If I had to pick a low fashion point in my own life, it would be the mid eighties through the nineties. Simply put, my clothes were butt ugly. Jewel coloured oversized tee shirts with matching bedazzled jackets. Acid washed mom jeans with a waist band so high, it sat  directly beneath my breasts. Christmas sweaters with crap sewn on them, worn with a complete lack of irony.

It was a comfortable era. I never had a waistband that wasn’t stretchy. A long ugly hoodie over some unattractively baggy tights was the perfect outfit for cleaning out the garage or heading over to a friend’s party. There was no such thing as under dressing. Here is an example. We’re all in pink, I’m in a sweat suit and my hair has been permed with a $3 Toni kit. We were probably going to a wedding.

I still like to be comfortable. I have tuxedo pants that, yes, stretch at the waist. I enjoy wearing jeggings tucked into boots and covered with a long sweater. Lycra seems a little sturdier these days, and the tops aren’t as oversized as they used to be. Or perhaps I’ve just grown into them. Since I only wear stretchy clothes, I’ll never know for sure. Maybe I’ll never be high fashion. But Clarence has given me two thumbs up on some new items. So that means I’m good. Right?

I’ve finally figured out why I love to read. It’s not just pure escapism, or meeting characters who move me enough to keep the pages turning. Good fiction shows life pared down to its essential parts. Characters might stand at the edge of a cliff and contemplate life, but you can bet they’re not thinking, “I wish I hadn’t had that last burrito. I really have to take a dump.” Unless its an Elmore Leonard novel. Then, all bets are off.

Many a novel can be summed up by the Friday Night Lights team slogan, Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t lose. I would put Jane Austen into this category. Any romance novelist, really, or writer of hard boiled detectives stories. The kind where they get their guy in the end. The opposite is also true. “Cloudy Eyes, Empty Hearts, Can’t Win.” A Word God like Cormac McCarthy can take us down the path of endless despair, yet leave us saying, ‘more, please.’

Fiction, as opposed to non fiction, (where one is obliged to save the whales, understand universal truths and free kidnapped journalists) allows us to inhabit the life of someone who feels real yet doesn’t exist. We enter the story, loaded with our own crap, and watch it dissolve in the acidic mix of the character’s own problems. One need never stand in front of a mirror and think about back fat. Or wonder why the skin above a cesarean scar insists on drooping like a goofy smile. Why brown spots appear on on the backs of hands and knees. Characters don’t wonder what’s for dinner unless its central to the story, which is almost never. Except in serial mysteries, where protagonists eat junk food daily and never gain weight.

I need a  fresh translation for my life…a fictional character to take over for me.  We all do. Someone to explain the trials and tribulations we suffer privately and publicly. Life, in all its ordinary, every dayness, is worthy of such a thing. The child you bore, labouring for hours. The scars on your heart. Your misunderstood soul. The world will read your story and sigh in affirmation.

We are the protagonists of our own story. The heroes, the demons, the ones who fall short and the ones who heroically climb a mountain while spouting Shakespeare or reciting poetry by an obscure yet talented writer. Deep inside each of us is a core of something so unique that it dazzles, or puzzles, or at the very least, leaves the readers of our story scratching their heads. If it doesn’t, it should. Because we all shine like the sun. Like the northern lights when you wake up at two in the morning and stand on the lawn in your front yard, gaping in wonder at the universe. We sparkle and shine, and light up the whole world. This is truth at its deepest and we know it. Even if we’re the only ones reading our story. It’s a Pulitzer, at the very least. A Giller, for sure, if we’re Canadian.

I have chosen Margaret Atwood to be my biographer. Or Matthew Quick. I can’t decide, and anyway, neither seems to be taking my calls. But whoever you pick to write the epic story that is your life, make sure that they really ‘get’ you. When the world reads it, you want to hear gasps of delight. Or horror, depending on the direction you’re going. Maybe an ooooh! Perhaps some applause. Something so good, they’ll make a movie of it for sure. The important thing is, your life will be out there for all to read. That’s worth celebrating. And yes, Brad Pitt can play your husband. 

Dear Lawn in my front yard,

It has become apparent to me that we are not getting along. Your soft nest of healthy green has vanished, leaving in place a crusty, bald patch of ground that is a constant source of humiliation for my husband and me. Thanks a lot.

Sure, there are bugs in the neighborhood. But couldn’t you fight a little harder? We fed you. Watered you. Spoke kindly (at first) and then with increasing volume as we realized that you were not paying any attention. It’s time to say something, dear lawn. Or, as the song goes, we’re giving up on you.

You can be replaced. It might be time for a long stretch of perennials surrounded by a rock garden/waterfall. Or asphalt. That’s very doable. Whatever, its time to speak up and tell us what is wrong. Is it bugs? Or are you sulking because we decided to go with environmentally friendly fertilizer?

You have a few shorts weeks to decide. Otherwise, you’ll be out. Think long and hard, because we can’t take the neighborhood peer pressure much longer. To quote the song:

That’s right, dear lawn. I’m giving up. Feeling small. It’s over my head. And I know nothing at all.

sincerely,

the woman sobbing in the living room window

Back in the day, teenage couples occasionally engaged in a thing called parking. Not ‘parkour,’ which involves leaping off rooftops and fences. Just parking, where you stop a car. And sit for a while. You’d find an adequate hiding place, park the car, and learn about the fine game of baseball. For guys, it was all about third base. For girls, it depended on their level of interest.

My first boyfriend, who shall be nameless (Les Mitchell) had this great idea to check out a local cemetery. We’d just been to the vampire movie, ‘Count Yorga.’ As cheesy as it was, it still managed to scare the crap out of me. It was only when the Umpire was announcing the start of the game that I realized my boyfriend, a tall dark and handsome type, looked exactly like Count Yorga. Exactly! Minus the cape, and the whole, turning into a bat, thing. But still.

I freaked out, he kept yelling, “I’m not Count Yorga!” and we pretty much had to call the whole thing off. Not the relationship. Just parking in the cemetery. Which otherwise, wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

My next boyfriend and I found a back alley behind Green Street, up on a hill. It was winter, and we’d leave the motor running while discussing foul balls, strikes and grounders. I’m not sure what the home owners nearby thought, but I do remember being occasionally yelled at. Something like, “You kids get the hell out of here!” Which would have been a good idea. Because our discussion got so heated, the parking brake came off (oh, The Rambler! I miss you so!) and we rolled down the hill and almost got killed by oncoming traffic. Never park there.

One place we could never, ever park, (and my siblings can testify to this) was our own back alley. My parents had a strict, two minute timer. If they didn’t hear the car door opening, the house lights would flash. If we ignored the flashing lights, a face would appear at the car window. Usually my dad’s. Mom was always the good cop.

I’m sure all my friends have good parking memories. It was so much better than nowadays, when parents meet their kids at the door, hand them some protection and tell them to enjoy the ball game. Where’s the fun in that? There’s something to be said about the fine art of sneaking around. Of course, I can only point this out now that my children are grown up. And if they have their own parking stories, well, I don’t want to hear them. Because some things are just too private to share.

I have a stalker. He’s been following me for a while now. Lurking around outside my house. Waiting for me by the door. He’s on the smaller side, but very aggressive. His conversation is limited and so annoying. The times I’ve locked myself inside, too afraid to go out? Numerous. Especially this summer.

The fact that my stalker is a chipmunk does not diminish the fear factor in any way. If he decides to hang out beside my flower pots in the front yard, I’m not allowed to sit on the swing. He gnashes his little teeth and makes threatening lunges at my ankles while emitting loud ‘chipping’ sounds. He gets first pick of the Saskatoon berries in my back garden. It’s only when he’s had his fill that I’m allowed anywhere near. He even lets his bird friends eat first. I can hear him laughing at me as they fly about, picking away at my berries.

The really sad thing is that last summer, this same chipmunk was in love with my neighbor, Gerry Clark. I remember it perching on the front deck of his house, cheeping love songs and giving Gerry googly eyed looks. He captured it and drove it out to the bush, but it found its way home, its love undiminished. When Gerry left town for a few weeks, the chipmunk pined.

For some reason, it blamed me. It started when we ran into each other on the sidewalk in front of my house. I think I stepped on its little toes, though we both screamed and threw our hands in the air. I live in fear that this mad little rodent will make good on his threats and bite me in the ankle. Or, even worse, run up my pant leg. To prevent this, I wear a lot of dresses.

I’m going to start acting braver. Walk around aggressively, like I actually own the place. Which we do, Mr. Chipmunk. It’s ours! Having said that, I’m still tucking my work pants into my socks, just in case. Maybe Gerry will come over and lure him away again. He seems to have what it takes.

In the summer of ninety four, I  had a brilliant idea. In preparation for my high school reunion, I would dye my lashes. That way, I could cry freely without worrying about make-up. Unknown to me, thick black eyeliner was also applied. “People love this,” the beautician assured me as I walked out the door, stunned and blinking into the light. “Oh my God,” my husband said when I got home. “You look like Nana Mouskouri.” The ensuing tears did not damage the dye. I finally took a toothbrush to my eyelashes and removed it all.

My next brilliant idea came about ten years later. I wandered into a Winnipeg store that offered an instant all over tan. The small cubicle resembled a phone booth. I felt like Clark Kent, about to transform into the real me. Spray shot from the walls, coating my entire body. Wow, I thought. This is amazing. There was no mirror. Next, the clerks offered to tattoo make-up onto my lips and eyes, their faces the examples of their success. But their permanent lip and eye liner was so outside the lines, a three year old could have done better. “No thanks,” I said uneasily, starting to wonder about my fake tan. When I got back to my sister’s house, my mother met me at the door.

“You look like you’ve been living at the dump,” she said. I walked over to a mirror. My eyebrows were twice their usual size, and extremely dark.  There were streaks around my hairline and brown smudges on my forehead and chin. I looked like a person who had not bathed in a very long time. This time, I used a much bigger brush for the cleanup. The kind you keep under the kitchen sink for dirty pots.

I have a fondness for self improvement. A desire to tweak the Judy design by giving myself some kind of upgrade.  When I was very little, I liked to cut my own hair. And Susan’s. But never mind about that. I enjoy self improvement books. I like to meditate with Oprah and Chopra. I probably need a new wardrobe. And really, I should try yoga again. But I hate to shop, and I’m not very flexible.
  
We all yearn for what we don’t have, even when we like who we are. It’s part of the human condition for everyone except Jesus and the Dalai Lama. And there’s nothing wrong with a make over, if that’s what you really want. But I’ve found that, lately, if the mood for change comes over me, its better if I just clean the kitchen sink or wash the car. I still have to use a brush, but at least it doesn’t hurt. And with that chore accomplished, I feel really good. Which is the whole point. 

 I turned 61 this year and the symptoms are settling in nicely. For example. A few weeks ago I twisted my knee. It didn’t happen during Zumba, where we contort ourselves into every possible position while moving to a Salsa beat. It happened, sadly, and with a hint of cliché, while I was weeding the garden.

My inner self, the real me, has immense energy and a sunny outlook. But my body insists on remembering every dumb move it ever made. Every klutzy moment and resulting injury insists on making a fuss long after it should be over. Ahem, they say, fighting for the turn to speak. Remember me? Like two years ago when I jumped off the garden wall and told Clarence to catch me. My back was out for three weeks. His fared slightly better. And remember when sun screen wasn’t invented yet and fair skinned people got sunburned so badly our skin looked like a futuristic dystopian plague?

My body has imposed martial rule over my dietary choices. No bread. No sugar. 85% chocolate for a treat. Lots of salads and healthy fruits and vegetables and not a lot of beef. Hardly any junk food, unless you count a few rice crackers every now and then. Because I get hives if I break curfew. And anemia. What, you may be wondering, is my payment for all this good behavior? Twelve pounds. A twelve pound gain in one year. But no hives, and I feel healthy, so. Sigh.

It’s annoying how my outer self refuses to match the inner me. My dad warned me about this. “One day,” he said, “you’ll wake up, look in the mirror and wonder who that stranger is.” I’m not quite there, but when I get out of bed in the morning and walk like I have no joints in my legs, I understand a little of what he meant. On the other hand, if I was born in the early 1900’s, I’d have been dead ten years ago.

So. I will continue to count my blessings every day. I will remember that my mother lived large until the very end. She wasn’t one to dwell on aches and pains. She didn’t remember much about menopause. We didn’t worry about that, she said, and couldn’t understand all the fuss about childbirth, either. Women of her generation just got on with it. That included grieving. I should have paid better attention when she lost her parents.

I will remember the summer of 61 for many reasons. For the day I buried my last parent. For coming to terms with my own mortality. And of course, for the army worms marching through our small town. But that’s a complaint for another day.

I’m in a funk. It’s a beautiful day, but there’s a fire somewhere and the smoke is burning my throat. So I put away my garden tools and check to see if the coast is clear. Then I slink into the house, turn on the TV and let Netflix load.

Binge watching TV has replaced afternoon drinking as the way to avoid the boring things in life, like chores. I’m a serious reader with an obligation to my local library, but Don Draper keeps calling my name. His slicked back hair, immobile face and no nonsense tone compel me to drop what I’m doing and tune in. Especially when he says, “Betty, its going to be fine.” I know, Don. And thanks for the reassurance.

We have a complicated relationship, he and I. For one thing, I can’t trust him. These Mad Men and their lying ways. They spend their days making up stories about products, and their nights lying to their wives. “Just off to meet a client, honey.” Sure thing, Don. Roger. Pete. All you lusty, smoking, hard drinking men with your pressed shirts and suave ways.

Supposedly the series is a comedy. Well, I’m not laughing. Neither is Don’s wife, Betty. In fact, I think she only smiled twice during the first three seasons. The show was produced by AMC, who also made Breaking Bad and the Walking Dead. Of the three series, this one is the darkest. Sure, Jessie is chained in the basement cooking meth in the first. Zombies are trying to kill off the remaining humans in the second. But still.

Misogyny. People who smoke and drink day and night. (My chest gets tight just from watching.) Men who lie without turning a hair on their brylcreemed heads. Women named Sweetheart and Dear who choose to believe them. Characters so complicated, no therapist can ever sort through the dark closets of their psyches.

Remember this. If you’re going to binge watch Netflix shows, make sure you have a plausible story lined up. Grab a dust cloth. Take out the vacuum cleaner. And be careful. Once you fall down that rabbit hole, its very hard to find your way out again. To help kick the Netflix habit, find a supportive group. Once you’ve shared your concerns and confessed your darkest fears, there just might be time left over for to turn on Netflix and find a new series.

I was seventeen the first time I drove uptown in my mother’s car. It was old. A nineteen sixty-four mint green Rambler with standard steering and brakes. At five foot two and a hundred pounds, I had to throw my whole body against the wheel just to turn the corner. When I got uptown, I remember wondering, “What the hell were they thinking, letting me take the car?” Driving that thing was the equivalent of a chipmunk trying to steer a Tyrannosaurus Rex. “Go that way, dammit,’ I’d squeak. Sometimes the car would obey.

My friends and I spent hours in it listening to the radio. When you share the house with six other kids and two parents, you have to be creative in finding your space. My dad would holler through the garage window, “You’re running down the battery!” Sometimes I listened. Sometimes I ran down the battery.

Like all cars built then, it was extremely spacious. On family vacations, Linda would sit up front with mom and dad. Joni would lie in the back window. Bill would sit on the floor on some kind of board system, while the rest of us shared the back seat. Any fighting that took place was purely recreational.

My first incident with the Rambler happened on the way to Denare Beach. I was stopped by the RCMP for a reason I can’t remember. Probably because I look about ten years old. My friends in the back, each holding a case of beer, wore expressions of such innocence, they might have been preparing for their First Communion.

Meanwhile, I had to follow the cop back to his car for questioning. In the next minute, like a slowed down insurance advertisement on what not to do, the Rambler rolled backward and hit the patrol car. It was a gentle roll. I didn’t get charged with anything, just told to fix my parking brake. “My mother’s parking brake, you mean.” I was quick to grant her ownership of the car when it was convenient for me.

For the next incident, my grade twelve biology class was on a field trip on the North Star road. After wading through weeds looking for God knows what, we were driving back to class when the Rambler left the road, almost of its own accord. The roll downhill seemed to happen in slow motion.

There were no seatbelts, so there was a lot of head bumping before we finally stopped. After a brief moment of hysteria, we found a ride into town. With whom, I can’t recall. All I remember is arriving home and seeing my mother’s face. Hearing the sound of her voice. “My beautiful car! Oh My God! My Rambler! I mean, I’m glad you’re all right but…My Car!”

 Mud along the shoulder of the road was blamed. But if I hadn’t slammed on the brake, it wouldn’t have happened. We were all fine, except for the Rambler. In spite of its tank like qualities, it was no match for a rocky hillside. Mom, I’m still sorry. The upside is, I became a cautious driver. 

I always swore that if I struck it rich, I’d buy my mother a brand new car to make up for the loss. It never happened. So, God, its up to you. Give her something for racing around heaven. She was an excellent driver and a very good person. And when we meet again, I’ll probably want to borrow her new car. I think she’ll say yes.