The Most Comforting Inn Of All

 By Maryanna Gabriel

"The power of finding beauty in the humblest of things,

make home happy and life lovely." 

- Louisa May Alcott

Shaking things up. 

     Sometimes one has to shake things up a bit. You know. Do something interesting.

Done up lounge by the sea. 

     I found a bark-laden historic building by the sea, a four-star hotel, at two thirds the price. I was in... barky being an attention getter. This used to be a country home home commissioned by a lieutenant governor located in the Saanich Peninsula. It looked all done up and conjured visions of high tea, gin and tonics by a fireside lounge, and elegant breakfasts. A bygone era caught in time. All terribly romantic.

     Gosh, I haven't a thing to wear. 

History still standing. 

     This is the third time I have done this. I love history and so anything vintage in Victoria catches my attention. The last time I did this it was in the heart of the city and I hastily departed at 6:00 am. I would not even stay for the "b" part of the "b&b" I was so needing to leave with cracks in the walls and rattling in the night. This time, it was not rattles.

     The gorgeous bathroom was enchanting, but

Barky being an attention getter. 

the big old tub was out of commission due to "old plumbimg", the curtain was torn in the bedroom, the lounge deserted, and breakfast was wisked away before I was finished. I know I could have stopped the latter, but the truth is by then I had lost interest.

     The upshot? Being home is the most comforting inn of all.
I light the fire, draw my bath, and linger over breakfast. A third world problem solved, I know, but one must draw comfort in the little things in our lives. Besides which, I have a lot of bark around here. 

Ease

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Self Portrait
(pencil)

There is a point in winter, in the stillness of the dark, when I forget this is not forever. The hours feel heavy and time slows. To deal with this, I have been keeping a daily appointment with myself which entails curling up with a good book and a cuppa. Under my blankie I enter another world. Not sure why I have forgotten how much I love this quiet pleasure because I emerge refreshed and in love with my day. Well done, I say to myself. Time well spent. Good job. 

Although it is February, here on the Southern Gulf Islands, the garden is waking up. The days dawn much earlier, and it's a surprise. Why I don't know given it's like this every year at this time. Today I cleaned some windows with an unaccustomed vigour as the sunlight poured in. Outside, crocuses are blooming as are the miniature daffodils. It's time. 

With this inner awareness, I cleaned out a little planter box near my kitchen garden and planted lettuce seeds. Of course, it's early. I'm well aware that winter likes to give a kick or two before departing. But the truth is, everything is on the move, meaning the kale and chard have yielded several salads this week and well... what more proof do I need? Gosh. Should I be mowing the lawn?

So the lethargy of winter is actually a rest. So is the reading. Resting is not something I do well at. Given that nature models it, I am trying to improve my sense of ease with the quieter time that is winter. However, before I read today, there are plants to divide and transplant. A cusp between stillness and movement. So off I go - before I sit with the final chapter.

Hope Is A Thing With Feathers

A hopeful place to be...

                

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers    
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without words
And never stops at all
Sweetest in the gale is heard

Sore must be the storm
That could bash the little bird
That kept so many warm

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea
Yet never in extremity

                                - Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)

Book Reading In Vancouver

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

It was the director of King's College. Would I be interested in doing a reading? Yes. In Vancouver? Thank you, I would. 

So off I went. I knew the reading part would be okay. It was driving in the dark in the fog that was intimidating. While I grew up in Vancouver, it has been a good long while since I negotiated the route to East Van. Did I say a while? I girded my loins and tightened my seat belt as I made my way.

What was with the tunnel under the Fraser River? Cars were going all which ways as traffic lights directed outgoing traffic down incoming lanes. Hate that. Who knows why? I believe they are building new lanes which is causing the havoc, but in the dark fog it was impossible to tell. I white-knuckled my way through. 

Well, it was all fine and dandy after I realized my life was intact and my pulse normalized. I love reading and it showed. It was nice to connect with the literary community. 

"I knocked on the door wondering how this was going to go. There was the sound of a bolt moving back and the door creaked open. Holding my breath, I stepped in. It was a crowded room, a jumble of bric a brac and gaudy religious paraphernalia decorated every available space. A squat rotund woman with bulging eyes peered upward...."    from, Walking The Camino: On Earth As It Is.

The Rose Whisperer

 By Maryanna Gabriel


I'm not sure what people thought when I displayed the variety of roses from the garden that I had for my Christmas table. They go kind of quiet. So the other day when I saw him, I didn't hesitate as I hung from the balcony and called out his name. I'm not sure what I said next, but he strode up the drive. I organized and rushed down to meet him.

This was the master architect - a gardener of true greatness. The man who plants mere sticks and blossoms flourish. He is the Rose Whisper with extraordinary talent, not just for the plantings, but also for the architecture as to how they are placed, given what blooms with each season. And lucky for me we both share a deep love of peonies... 
 
My greatest worry was how to prune. What was his opinion of what I had managed thus far? I got a nod of approval as he strolled and listed off the latin names as though he mumbles them in his sleep. We talked about the heat, the water, and the soil conditions, and I could tell he was astonished that the daffodils were inches up. As is the garlic. While many in the country are under snow, it feels like spring on the Gulf Islands.  

He was missing the garden, he told me. I was fortunate enough to have purchased it when I did. I'm not sure the visit helped him. But it did me. And now I am pressed to finish the pruning. So many roses.... so little time. 

The Rose Whisper's crowning glory in the center of things.

High Time For High Tea

By Maranna Gabriel 


      Avoiding the January gray, and the dreaded perils of cleaning a post-holiday fridge, I dusted off my pale face and set out on an adventure. And why not? It was to be High Tea at The Empress Hotel in Victoria, of course. I had been thinking of it for some time. Come walk with me. 

I wandered past the Parliament Buildings with a totem pole….

towards the hotel…

along the inner harbour…

...past a man moved to wear a crown on his head beside a WWll statue...

and who for some mysterious reason diplayed this message as he sat cross-legged...

...to the Emily Carr statue on the hotel grounds with her monkey on her back…

...to where the primulas are planted… or are these called cowslips?

...beyond a grand fountan and alongside the solarium...

...to where a pianist sat and played a merry tune…

... drawn to the fire with the harbour beyond... 

... only to have a white linen napkin swished across my lap and where I was hovered over by a plethora of servers. The china is very nice, I thought. 

The hourglass timer told me when the tea was weak, medium or strong.

I started with a little salmon number, but I was told I really must begin with the bottom layer of the tier given it was still warm.So being mannerly, and wishing to be polite, I did.

     The conversation quickly turns to lemon curd, this is the clotted cream, and this sandwich over here is made with Coronation Chicken and has curry. All terribly sensible. I was interested they didn't use a tea cosey, but rather the tea pot is placed over a candle in a ceramic container. Who knew? You heard it here first, don't forget.

All in all, it was a wonderful tea and an uplifting experience. The end. Except for the part about still having to clean the fridge. 

Wild Bells

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Ring Out Wild Bells
                                                                                Ring out wild bells to the wild sky

The flying cloud, the frosty light

The year is dying in the night.

Ring out wild bells and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Ring happy bells across the snow

The year is going,

Let him go.

Ring out the false,

Ring in the true.

                     -Alfred Lord Tennyson

Christmas Into This House

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Christmas Life
    by Wendy Cope

Bring in a tree, a young Norwegian Spruce
Bring hyacinths that rooted in cold
Bring winter jasmine as it's buds unfold
Bring Christmas life into this house

Bring red and green and gold
Bring things that shine
Bring candlesticks, music, food, and wine,
Bring in your memories of Christmas past
Bring in your memories of all you've lost

Bring in the shepherd boy
The ox, the ass
Bring in the stillness of an icy night
Bring in the birth of hope, and love, and light,
Bring Christmas life into this house 

Grace In The Air

 By Maryanna Gabriel 


I was reading a badly written article by a younger woman who felt the best way to recoup her long-lost childhood experience of a magical Christmas was to relegate her phone to some basket and give her friends goody bags if they did the same. This way they could actually talk to one another. Sigh. 

My personal technique is to get everything done in November so that when December dawns, it feels like January. No fear, though. I get my second wind. It's like having two Christmases. The bleakness of November is sprinkled with cheer and the remaining pistachio nuts, and by December, I am relaxed.

Sugar and spice....

This lady's article got me to thinking. Why does Christmas make me happy? I sat and wrote a whole page of silly stuff, the kind of stuff everyone says to themselves about eliminating stress and then thought, nah.... what am I really after here? C'mon Maryanna. Give me the goods. 

More than the crinkle of paper, the rum apple butter, the cookies, the lights, the kindness implied, the wonder. For me? It's a certain something in the air. An angelic presence is the best I can describe it. Grace.

Whatever it is, it makes me happy. 

Into The Presence of Still Water

 By Maryanna Gabriel (well not really)

The Peace of Wild Things   

             

When despair for the world grows in me    
And I awake in the night to the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, 
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests
In his beauty on the water
And the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the prescence of still water,
And I feel above me the day blind-stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, 
And I am free. 
        - Wendell Berry

Mail That Resonates Deeply

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

Sometimes people write to say they are walking the Camino and that my book inspired them. Letters like these are lovely to receive, and of course, I love it. This week when one came describing my writing and I was barrelling my way through phrases such as "profoundly human", "ache and release", "and allowing movement to become meaning" - huh? And then there was the "rain-soaked roads of France" (there weren't any). At the halfway mark of this gushing epistle, I stopped at the "emotional cartography of coming home to oneself" and "the true destination is inward" then backed up, my hackles rising. 

"Snap out of it," I told myself. "This fan mail is AI written." The wash of praise immediately shriveled and dried. "The scam is coming. The con. The hit." 

Yup.

Would I like to be part of her community and "resonate deeply" with those who find "solace in reflection" to say nothing of the "sacred ordinary of living and loss." Yeeeeeesh. Of course, she would promote me for a modest sum.

Okay, a time waster. I thanked her politely and moved on. Undetered, she wrote back, a veritable fount of flattery, which I can't be bothered to repeat. So I blocked her. The difference between artificial intelligence and that of humankind's is intuition. I'll be using mine, thanks. See ya later. 

The movie offers were the same. I was sort of hooked there too, but a former professor kindly straightened me out. The same outfit had also tried with him. One has to be so careful. 📫

Working On My Cosy

 By Maryanna Gabriel

A fresh month. The good thing about the beginning of November is that everything is new. The days of the month are still pure and undiscovered. Plus there is still time to work on goals. You know, set at the beginning of the year? Those goals. 

We have had some terrific storms, so now I am working on my cosy. Sweaters are being resurrected from the back of the closet. Then there is the fluffy dressing gown. The putting up of little lights, heaters warming, logs on the fire, lighting candles. In the kitchen there is soup and baking, and satiating a yearning for hot cereal. Have taken to watching old British shows as I knead dough. Not sure why my sourdough starter is not very thick.

 And getting crafty with the turn of the season...cards to make, sewing, and needle work to think of. The joy of curling up with a soft blankie and a hot cuppa with a good book. And I am listening to music more. Last night I was dreaming of music.

So,the deep dive of this interior time has a lot to be said for it.  

Home - Siga Siga...

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I met the kindest British couple on the first leg of my journey home who shared their plane picnic with me which was heartening. The final leg in crossing the Atlantic was alarming, not just from discomfort, but with the awareness I had caught a cold. Not only did I have to negotiate the extreme agony of cramped air time, but I also had to catch a ferry. Catching a Gulf Island ferry tries the patience with the wait times at the best of times and I was very tired with sleep in twenty four hours. My cold worsened.

Now I am home in a state of collapse and very sick. Fortunately, an understanding friend is here, bless her, and she has left me with milk and precooked food. A winter storm arrived today and they are predicting thunder storms. This morning, I feel stronger and have laid a fire in the wood stove. My friend and I will sip our morning coffee and sit by the warmth, quietly chatting about this and that, as dry wood crackles.

I will never forget the hospitality I encountered. The kindness of the people of Greece ride with me. Now I have to decode many mysterious scribbles on many pages. But all that will unfold. I have experienced an easier way of living, different from here, slowly slowly - or as they say in Greek, siga siga. Maybe, just maybe, I can hold to that. 

"In the shade of the olive tree I rested, 
and heard the wind singing." 
- Cretan Folk Song

Lake Kournas

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I decided if I was a movie star, Santorini would be the absolute last place I would choose. Crowds and intense sun are not my thing. Although glad I had the experience, the more I think about it, the more astounded I am by Greek generosity and although some are making money of course, the tourism onslaught is brutal. My inderstanding is that Santorini is getting ready to regulate visitors, most especially from the cruise ships.

The next day, I chose to go to the only fresh water lake on Crete and to see historic Chania. Chania is known for it's Venetian occupation which left a mark on some of the architecture. I enjoyed their famous Bougatsa, a delicious pastry.

In the morning, I waited for the bus, but when two minutes ticked past the appointed hour, I knew something was wrong. I ran back to the hotel. The concierge made a call. I had misunderstood where to meet them and the bus was actually sitting there waiting for me. Who does that? Something like this would never happen in Canada. People care here. There is a strong sense of family, community, honour, and honesty. Falling all over myself with thank you's I took my seat, grateful not to miss the day.

 I confess, I was overwhelmed by the big city of Chania. The lake itself turned out to be a clayish affair, not inviting to swim in and again completely catering to tourists. I was glad I saw it, but I was also glad I was coming home. 

Santorini: Three

 By Maryanna Gabriel


As one walked, tiny skinny men said "Excuse" in an anxious sort of way. I would turn and quickly yield for they were laden with suit cases. These men are doing what mules used to, running to wherever, with great heavy bags. Not sure as to why using humans is considered a better alternative, I sought out a WC only to find a line up and that I had to pay. Just grateful I was taken care of, I munched on a bland sandwich given by my hotel, worrying it was ham, and boarded a new bus.

I was confused. I had chosen to do the "option" and I had no idea what that entailed except that it somehow involved a volcano. I was thinking we were going to the caldera and that I might see the Santorini museum. Long before Pompeii, Santorini experienced a rupture in 1650 BCE that was the largest in global history which vanquished the rich Minoan civilization that lived here.

But no. That wasn't it. I was being herded back to the harbour. A woman in front of me filmed the breakneck turns we were making and I confess I gasped twice as we narrowly missed vehicles. We were directed onto a beautiful wooden ship, maybe 60 feet long, and this was fine with me. It helped me to relax and I took in the sea air.

Our guide sounded drunk and I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. What happened next was a surprise. We dropped anchor at a volcanic "outcrop", an island of black rock laced with yellow sulphuric water. On one edge of the pumice a tiny Greek Orthodox Church was perched. People were pouring drinks, playing loud music, and jumping into the water and swimming into the warm yellow sulphur. No thanks. What if things started venting? I was relieved when we pulled away.

Santorini: Two

 By Maryanna Gabriel


Despite the beauty and charm, I could find myself bridling at being in a crowd as we wended our way along narrow alleys. Moreover, with these things, there is the constant threat of getting lost and being left behind.

Movie stars lived in this place. I could see a wedding going on. An Asian lady with unnaturally enhanced padding on certain strategic body parts was being photographed by a professional. It was difficult to stop and take a breath as people pushed from behind. Stopping to explore a shop, or for a meal, felt impossible as I tried to take it all in, carefully monitoring the time.