where was I?

Lots going on, all of it irrelevant.  I was in Winnipeg - Gimli, actually -trying to get a grip on layers of memories.  New memories were going on as I breathed, along with the irritating pain of my torn ligaments and succumbing to weariness (pain is quite tiring), along with catching up with some dear people whom I may not see again - or they me?  It's not a race.

I came home in comfort and without stress, thanks to Air Canada wheelchair service - such nice people! - and life as I know it descended again in the form of mail and messages to respond to, unpacking to do, laundry to cope with, and groceries: all the normal domestic activities, plus, of course, finally a physio therapist to help me with my damaged arm.  Did I mention the balcony? It's almost summer, I hope.  My balcony is my summer home and it takes a bit of effort to get it up and running, especially with one arm. I'm very slow and weak. I hired some help to lift the furniture and I used my good arm (the awkward left) to wash the winter grime off the window sills and chairs and the tarps that covered them.  Now I have to do a little paint touch-up, and - big job: bring on the plants.  

The blog awaits.  So does my work. 

So just  a little more about Gimli, still thinking and remembering.  My grandparents gave my mother and father a summer cottage in Gimli for their wedding present, which they used well and to which they attributed their children's escape from polio in those years long before the Salk vaccine. I spent every summer of my childhood in Gimli.  It is the regret of my life that I didn't learn Icelandic then but my mother wanted to be able to gossip with her sisters and mother without restraint. What little I did learn I learned by osmosis and by asking my grandmother questions. I wish I had asked more.

Gimli was indeed very different then: it had wooden sidewalks and gravel roads and an artesian well on every other street corner. My grandparents had their own private well behind the house. I remember I had two pails small enough for me to carry to fetch water from the well.  Our cottage was two doors away from the Big House (my grandparents')  with an uncle and aunt in between and another uncle and aunt across the street (and some cousins down the street in other cottages originally owned by my grandfather) - with lovely big open spaces where my brother tried to dig a hole to China and, more modestly, create a tennis court in the prairie grass.

My groceries have arrived.  To be continued (if anyone cares).