A Day in My Life, June 2008

Posted under Beauty, Books, Church, Clothes, Coffee, Creativity, Culture, Family, GrownUpVille, Idiosyncraticness, Lessons, Life, Longings, Mom, Money, Music, Nature, News, Seasons, Serverdom, Singing, Society, Technology, The Guts Of Me, Trixie the Toyota, Waitressing, Writing, Yummies by Sarah

I had a sudden desire today to chronicle and compare the different stages of my life, as I look back and notice that my life in June 2008 is remarkable different from that of June 2007, June 2006, June 2005, and so on.

I invite you to be a witness on this journey.

June 2008 finds me 27 years old, living in a two-bedroom second-floor apartment in the only apartment building in a tiny town in East Huron County called Brucefield. This town is known for it’s flashing light, yellow if you’re driving between Clinton and Exeter on Highway 4, or red if you’re coming from either Seaforth or Bayfield. There is one elementary school, one church, one drive-in restaurant, two mechanic shops, one Asian/Home Decor/B&B/Lunch Room location, and one fire station.

My apartment overlooks a cornfield, the view of which is mostly obstructed by a lovely birch tree. Said tree helps me feel more confident walking around in my apartment in less-than-decent clothing on summer nights. After all, who would be driving by slowly enough whose gaze could penetrate the birch branches in the split second I happen to be passing through my dining room, several feet from my beautiful picture window?

I enjoy living alone, though sometimes I do wish someone was there to care whether I came in or not, or to wonder where I was, or to motivate me to do dishes, finally! My neighbours are understanding and quiet, the area is safe, and I actually have a place to call home. MY home. I’ve immensely enjoyed painting and decorating my apartment, putting all of my good taste to good use in a place where I’m the boss, now and forever.

Another addition to my life is that of Trixie the Toyota, a pretty, dark-green 1997 4Runner who goes with me everywhere I go. She hauls the accoutrements of my life and hobbies without complaint. She has survived being rolled over in the ditch after skidding out on an icy country road, being hit-and-run by some unknown person, a not-so-successful attempt at backing up a trailer, and carrying some of my more treasured furniture.

Not so enjoyable are the bills that go with being established and mobile, namely cell phone, rent, insurance, hydro, phone/internet, groceries, gas, repairs, etc. I can’t say as I ever yearned for that part of nesting, but I take it in stride, usually. I’ll be much happier when I can finally get my tax returns done (for the past 2 years), pay off my credit card, and have money set aside for winter tires.

I have spent more than a year at the same job, as a server at The Brew’n Arms English pub and restaurant in Bayfield, Ontario. Earlier this year, I graduated to keyholder and Dining Room Manager, as well as Kitchen Painter and Orchid-Caretaker extraordinaire. My bosses are wonderful people who have become friends and family, as well as the most understanding and flexible supervisors anyone could ask for. They make me want to stay and do my best for them, for their business, for their town.

Last year at this time, I was also working as a drywaller, and, shocker! I don’t miss it a tiny bit. I do enjoy my refined house-painting skills, which I have recently put to good use in a “cottage” in Bayfield, and hope to expand as a second job. If you hear of someone looking to hire a house painter, give them my number!

I’m not attending church because I couldn’t handle the one I had called “home” for years. I’m generally fed up with the institution that is what church has become, with all its expectations and traditions and legalism. I would enjoy a faith-based community of believers that is honest and open, a group that can laugh and be reverent in an informal way. I really could expand this paragraph to a whole essay, but suffice it to say that I have not encountered such a community, but I still seek to hold onto my beliefs. I am discovering more of what life is like on “the other side” (outside the Christian bubble), and it’s very educational, despite occasionally dangerous.

If it were possible to live on coffee, I’d do it.

I’ve joined the wonderful realm of BlackBerry, as I once dreamed of doing. And I’m paying for it, too.

Writing is still my best communication method.

I rarely see earlier than 10 AM, or close my eyes earlier than 1 or 2 AM. I’d like to change that.

The music in my life has developed over the past year as well. I am the youngest voice of the all-female cover band, Cactus Jam, and I love it, despite playing mostly Legions. I was also privileged enough to be part of Noted!, a project sponsored by the United Way in my county, which is helping to boost the music careers of the 17 women chosen to participate. We got to record 14 tracks in a professional studio, and a great-sounding CD is the result. This past winter I also ventured out to sing a few times at Open Mic nights at a local pub, and have been the featured soloist at two church events.

This year finds me recently motherless, a drastic blight on anyone’s life, and definitely on mine. It has changed so many things and finally propelled me into nesting in the first place. It also made my brother and I guardians of our youngest brother and launched me further into the land of disabled children in Ontario. I now have a lawyer, communicate regularly with several case workers, get all kinds of official mail, and have to return junk mail still addressed to Mom.

June 2008 also finds me blonde, and with an even greater fashion sense. I love that about growing older! I predict I’ll still be stylish in my 80s. If I’m not, remind me of now.

I’ve discovered I love flowers and plants, doing the Toronto Saturday Star crossword, Pinot Grigio and Shiraz, premium beer, CBC Radio, brie on melba rounds with semi-dried tomatoes in duck confit, Dollarama’s plain candles, serving dessert, mom’s old couch and armchair (with my apartment’s decor built around them), C&E used furniture in Goderich, Americanos from The Bean, and living in Huron County!!! (Sorry, but that deserved more than three exclamation points)
Being Sarah Elizabeth takes different shapes all the time, and I’m enjoying the process. Here’s to another year!

Life in the H.C., Part 2

Posted under Nature, Seasons by Sarah

I went on a sorely needed long walk this evening, and I started to remember how much I love summer in Huron County. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the feel of it. It’s unique, and I miss it when I’m gone.

As I walked briskly along the soft shoulder of the county road I live on, outside of the blinking-yellow-lighted hamlet in which I reside, I began to smile to myself. I found myself recognizing red-winged blackbirds and killdeer; identifying corn, bean, and winter wheat crops; picking out honeysuckle and milkweed.

The long-lasting sunset and the familiar pinky-oranges of it, behind the occasional lazy clouds, seemed perfect, and the freshly sweet fragrance of the cut grasses on the roadside the icing on the cake. I took the time to gaze into the roadside ditch and stoop down at the edge of a bean field to admire the tiny plants just popping out and shedding their seed shells.

The chattering of the birds as they dived into the ditch for their supper, crickets hiding somewhere close by, the humming of electricity through the hydro wires overhead.

Everything seemed familiar yet mysterious, and so, delightful.

I can’t necessarily describe what makes Huron County different from other parts of rural Ontario, or rural areas anywhere in the North-Western Hemisphere, but I sure can feel it. Perhaps the surrounding counties share similar characteristics, but venture much further and something, however slight, changes, and the sights, sounds, and smells are different. Less familiar. Less enjoyable.

One can’t help but take deep breaths of the fresh air around here, especially in the cool summer evenings. A simple whiff of it should be enough to make you smile, provided you aren’t doing it on a manure-spreading day!

Even the sound of cars driving by on the road in front of my apartment building is nice and homey. Could it be something about the pavement they use here? Oxygen molecules and how sound travels through them? I’m making stuff up now, but my point is clear, I would think: the familiarity of this area is fascinating to me.

You can take the girl out of the county, but you can’t take the county out of the girl. Apparently.

Hip Hip Who Cares?

Posted under GrownUpVille, Idiosyncraticness, Life, Seasons by Sarah

It’s 1:56 am, almost two hours into one of my life’s milestones. You guessed, a birthday. The big 2-7, not that I look it, according to people everywhere. One of the ironies of life, I suppose.

Mac Forums sent me an email congratulating me, and the Facebook team is wishing me a great day. Kind of unbelievable, isn’t it, that I haven’t met the Facebook team, and that Mac Forums isn’t even a person, and they remembered my birthday?

Better yet, I seem to have thought I’d forget my own birthday. When I checked my BlackBerry a few minutes ago, I found an alert from my calendar that said “Birthday!” and gave me the options to Open, Dismiss, or Snooze (5 min.) I chose dismiss, which brings me closer to my point.

25 was a great birthday (Norway, 90 people I didn’t know, me standing on a chair while they all sang to me a song in a language I didn’t know and clapped their hands and spun around and tweaked their noses. Yes, they were adults). The ones before that were pretty fun. On what I think was my 23rd, I innocently and inadvertently ordered a piña colada that wasn’t virgin. And laughed. 26 included a fire and lots of wind, good food, and, a bit hesitantly, beer. 27 will involve a belated party combined with a very belated housewarming, and, I am a bit surprised to find, a lot less anticipation.

For whatever reason (no, I am not inviting you to philosophize), I am indifferent about 27. I am grateful for a reason to celebrate, and a day in which everything can be about me. (Finally!) But I find myself not caring that it’s a birthday where in other years I might have. Perhaps when I turn 30 it’ll be a big deal again.

Today, Happy Birthday to me, and here’s to a season in life where priorities are different and life is celebrated in different ways.

Cheers!