Variations On A Scene
by
Murdina J. Brownlee
When you are worried, it helps to keep busy. Lately, I have been working like a slave.
Like most people, my husband Wilf and I have had our share of problems through the years and we have usually managed to cope with them. We own our home and a farm out west. Most important of all, our three children are all well educated, on their own, with two married and one still to go. The one still to go is a lawyer who would like to come back home - to get a little ahead with her savings was her reason. She is half of our 29-year-old set of twins. The other half lives in Edmonton where he is finishing his post-grad in surgery. Our eldest, an engineer, is out in the oil patch.
But, as I was saying, our daughter wants to come home again. These days this is not uncommon. To tell the truth, many of Megan's friends have never left their family hearth.
"Well, you can't blame her," I said when I told Wilf what Megan had phoned about earlier that day. "It's the logical thing to do!" Dead silence. There is nothing quite like dead silence to spur me on when Wilf and I are having a conversation. "I did say I would ask you about it."
He grunted and continued to enjoy his pancakes and bacon.
"Well, that's settled," I cheerily responded. "She's going to call back this morning if she can manage."
"I should be so busy!" he said. These days he is faced with a new problem; his company has been taken over and he is temporarily in limbo. "These blasted mergers. I tell you, Marcie, it's getting on everyone's nerves down at the office." He held out his cup for more coffee.
Neither of us has been happy about the merger. Being in our late fifties, we don't care to conquer the world again. But as usual, I ended up with, "Well, the final decision is really up to you, Wilf."
"Yeah, maybe. Gotta go." He bent over as he passed and kissed me on the forehead. "Bye."
"Go carefully." Habit. After so many years we are predictable. The weeks have gone and I am still beavering away. Megan's bedroom has been redecorated and the boys' room has been redone as her office. Today is the day that she moves back home. This I am not fussing about as she is very sensitive to other people's feelings and is great to have around the place. No, as fate would have it, this is also the day that Wilf will find out whether or not his department will remain in Toronto or be transferred to the States. To tell the truth, it would be such a relief if he just packed it in. But good company wives don't say such things. A pity!
Perhaps that's why I have always been busy. The house shines and it's coffee break time. The last week or so I have been scrubbing and polishing like mad, and in between I have been unburdening my soul onto a new canvas. Painting occupies my spare time.
"You should have a party or invite some of your folks for a visit," Edie, my next door neighbor says as she enters the living room. "Your place hasn't looked this spit-and-polished for ages." She admires the chandelier as it reflects the morning light. "On the other hand, maybe you should just relax, kiddo. What will be, will be, you know."
"You're probably right," I say as I pass the coffee and set the cookie plate close at hand.
Edie is an old friend. She and her husband were living in the house next door when we were transferred here in '75. This housing development was fairly new when we bought. The houses, all identical floor plans, sit narrow width facing the street, matching driveways to carports on one side, and on the other side, again mirror like, the kitchen windows directly opposite, a scant five feet or so from the edge of each property. I have many a time thanked my lucky stars that it is Edie I wave to as I fill the coffee pot first thing in the day. There are people in this area you would not care to greet with every sunrise.
But back to the houses. From the street the houses appear to be raised bungalows but as our properties overlook a ravine, at the rear of our homes, the combined living-dining rooms have ceiling to floor windows, with sliding doors leading onto the patios.
It was because of the ravine that we bought this house. It is not the rocky, steep type of ravine that Toronto is known for. This one is a broad expanse of grass with a small stream at its foot which, with the heavy rains of spring, morphs into a rushing, roaring torrent that races to the huge screened culvert about two blocks away. We bought in the fall when the grass had turned brown from the frost, the trees had shed their leaves, and the stream seemed like a tiny trickle in the park.
"Does that remind you of any place?" I had asked Wilf, pointing to the ravine the first time we viewed the house.
He stared for a minute or so then said, "A golf course?" We left it at that. The view has held hidden hints of escape for each of us over the years.
Edie didn't stay very long. An interior decorator, she does contract work whenever she can find it, which with her is pretty regular. She is very well organized.
"To be successful, one must keep business hours," is her credo, and she works a 9 to 5 day. Shortly after we had moved in, I said that I wanted to paint but found field trips difficult to fit in, considering my heavy schedule with the children.
"Do you really have to go outside your own area to find a subject for a canvas?" she asked. I was stuck for an answer so she just switched back to talking about her current project, mentioning which colours were in fashion and which were definitely out. I took the hint and started painting what could be seen from my own back yard.
I have to admit that Edie has proven to be right. A lot of people in this city have varying versions of the ravine behind our place. It is always in my work—not in its totality, that is, but it is there. The weather, the time of day or season will be different, there might be children in a sandbox in the foreground or playing on the expanse of grass, or sailing boats in the stream. For a while, all the canvases dealt with the trees. The work has brought me much joy and I hope this has shown up, somehow, in each canvas.
Just recently I noticed that over the years there has usually been a tinge in the sky or a cluster of flowers coded to the colour of the year. I told Edie I blamed her for that. When I mentioned it to Megan, she quipped that it was simply my subconscious mind guiding my brush strokes. That was something to ponder over while I polished the silver.
Finally I have been painting what I really feel about the ravine, what it reminds me of, its totality, that is. The paint is far from dry and I have shown it to no one for it makes me feel a little foolish. In our subconscious, we carry the tattered shreds of our comfort blankets with us all our lives. That is what this painting says to me. And I ask myself if, at some early point in our lives, we should drop these threads. Or are these threads so tested and tempered by time that they tend to keep our lives tied in a meaningful whole?
My thoughts were broken by the sound of the phone ringing. It was Wilf.
"How is everything going?" I asked in as casual a voice as possible.
"Don't worry, Marcie, we're not going to spend the rest of our lives in the salt mines." He sensed the meaning of my words.
"That's good news."
He laughed. ""I'll tell you about it later."
"Megan is coming tonight."
"Yeah, I didn't forget." He sounded relaxed.
Now it is later and I have just about finished the canvas. It is a panoramic view of the ravine with a difference. There is a barbed wire fence in the foreground and, I know they may look out of place, but over in one corner of the picture, leaning up against the fence, is a bag of golf clubs. Star, Wilf's old pony is leaning over the wire and sniffing at the clubs.
Megan was first in the door. "I love it!" she cried, "It's mine!" She flopped her suitcases down as she hurried to more closely scan my work. Her furnishings would arrive on the morrow.
It was a good hour before Wilf arrived. "That traffic!" he fumed as he took off his coat and put it away. "I'll be thankful when I don't have to face it every day!" He gave me a hug and "Yep. My department is being included in the new setup, so I told them I would stay and see there was a smooth transition, but then I would be stepping out of the picture. Have other things I want to do. That's what I said." At this point, he spotted Megan and went over to join her, adjusting his bifocals so he could see better.
"Well, well. My golf clubs...and that patch of crocuses at his feet...hmmm. Do I glimpse a message?" he asked.
Odours were wafting in from the kitchen and, as I went to check the roast, I thought, "You bet there's a clump of crocuses at his feet. This year purple is in, in all its glorious hues, from the deepest royal shade to the faintest tint of crocuses in early spring, peeping through the shabby coat of snow on the prairies."
We'll be watching them next year in Saskatchewan.
