March 18, 2012
Walked to downtown Saint-Jovite, this afternoon. Beautiful, sunny, unusually HOT day for this time of year.
Life’s little miracles — thank you, Universe!
As I was strutting down the hill that leads to the village, a vision appeared before my grateful eyes:
A Westfalia… the vehicle of my dreams 
It was parked right in front of my bank.
Could this be a sign?
I WELCOME ABUNDANCE INTO MY LIFE.
Oh yeah, baby… bring it on!
March 10, 2012
Tonight, I met up with Diane, my dead brother’s first love,
for a 5 à 7 at Jack & Johnnie’s, in Saint-Jovite.
CHEERS, André !
As soon as I got home, I thought of you.
So I’m dropping by to tell you that I love you, but that I still need to hide for a while in order to better find myself (now is that deep, or what).
To also tell you that all is well.
That I’m happier and happier.
That I even have a washer
and a dryer.
And on top of all that, I’m now friends with a giant crow who hangs around downtown, either near the church or the bookstore.
Life is truly beautiful — thank you, thank you, thank you.
Peace & Love & Rock’n'Roll
Mountain Mudd
xoxo
December 23, 2011
It’s been so hectic around here these past days… and weeks… and months. Actually, the year has been rock’n'roll beyond words. But hey, I’m glad I pulled through. Glad others around me — family and friends — have pulled through also. And especially proud of myself for making lemonade out of the mountain of lemons that were dumped on me in 2011. Wish I had some tequila to go with it, tonight…
All this to say that I didn’t have time to translate the story I posted on my French blog. It’s all about what Christmas was like for me in the 50s.
Sorry!
But here’s a drawing of what the front door to our house looked like way back then, at 296 Manning Street, in Verdun. May it be my Christmas card to you, Sweet Souls.
Merry Christmas!
Peace & Love
December 6, 2011
Hereafter…
Twenty years ago yesterday, my Mom died.
On the anniversary of my mother’s passing, I usually light a candle and place it beside the urn containing her ashes as soon as I wake up. But because of my latest move, the urn is still at my son’s place, so the morning went by without my accomplishing this yearly ritual.
After lunch, I was sitting on the couch, gazing at my small but cozy one-and-a-half-room apartment, when I got the answer to a question that had been bothering me for weeks: where can I put that cute lamp I love so much?
Of course! The brand new IKEA Billy bookcase in the corner — it definitely lacked a dash of light.
So I rushed to the closet, grabbed the lamp away from its hiding place, and proceeded to make a niche for it on the third shelf of my darling Billy.
Once the job was done, I sat back down on the couch to admire how the once gloomy corner was now beaming with a lovely green glow. That’s when I noticed, on the shelf above the lamp, Mom’s picture taken in 1987 on her trip to Belgium to visit my brother Robert (a.k.a. Bobby Baby).
A shiver went through my body… and instantly, I said out loud:
Awwww… Maman… Maman… Maman.
Well as soon as I finished pronouncing the third Maman,
the lamp went off.
The bulb chose that exact moment to burn out.
I knew it was a sign.
Mom was saying Hi!
So I got back up, took her picture off the shelf, put it on my work table, and lit two candles — one on each side of the picture frame.
They burned all day for my Maman, Yvonne Thériault, a native of Paquetville, New Brunswick, who died on December 5, 1991.
That day, she had walked the mile-and-a-half walk to the village, in sub-zero weather, to buy groceries. Mom didn’t own a car. She didn’t have a driver’s permit. Mom was an enthusiastic walker.
On her way back from the village, she had stopped over at her friend’s house for some hot coffee and the usual chit-chat. Then, as it was getting dark, she had walked home, had eaten supper, and had retreated to her rocking chair to watch television.
In the evening, television was all Mom had for entertainment. So she would sit in her rocking chair, all alone in that house of hers by the side of a dirt road. In the middle of nowhere. In Sainte-Sophie-de-Lévrard.
Oh how she hated watching television.
She used to say, C’est plate à mort!
Which translates to It bores me to death!
And so Death struck Yvonne in her rocking chair…
while she was watching television.
* * *
Herenow…
Since posting Reality Won’t Destroy Me, I’ve decided to connect to the Twenty-First Century: I now have Internet and basic cable television. With the television channels come — to my delight — more than forty music stations. As I type away, I’m listening to Flashback Seventies on Galaxy… after overdosing on Smooth Jazz Christmas.
But the good news is, I get to publish my blog posts and communicate with you directly from my humble adobe.
Life is so darn beautiful.
Hope yours is too.
LOVE YOU!
P.S.: Thanks for all your kind words and cheers on Facebook. And thanks for taking the time to leave a comment as I really look forward to more action and interaction right here on my blog.
P.P.S.: About SUBSCRIPTIONS — I didn’t receive an email notice for my last blog post. So I went ahead and subscribed again (see subscribe icons at top-right corner of this site). If you didn’t receive an email notice as well, please subscribe again. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, please do as I should be posting on a more regular basis in the future and you want to make sure you follow my new Mountain Adventures on this Road Trip Destination Happiness. Oh yeah, baby!
November 26, 2011
I hadn’t written in quite a long while and then suddenly, here was Ray Bradbury telling me You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
So this morning, my faithful Waterman and I chose to go back to writing our Morning Pages.
It was about time…
QUESTION: What does a girl do, on a Friday night, when she has no television, no internet, and when the only stations she catches on her radio are Radio-Canada Première chaîne, CBC Radio One, and CIME FM (antithesis of CHOM)?
ANSWER: She drives hundreds of cloves into oranges while listening to her collection of old CDs.
Once the arts-and-crafts part of the evening is over, she settles down on the couch with popcorn and grape juice to watch Christmas in Connecticut, a four-dollar-and-ninety-nine-cent-DVD she discovered soon after entering her local Canadian Tire store — where she was on a quest to find the perfect toilet bowl scrubbing brush —, a black and white movie, circa 1945, starring Barbara Stanwyck and the ever-so-handsome Dennis Morgan.
That’s it.
That’s what I did last night.
Because as of November 2, I now live in Mont-Tremblant / Saint-Jovite, where I’m not connected to Cogeco or to Sirius or to any other highly technological device. Actually, I still don’t know if I’ll ever end up being connected to the Twenty-First Century, but one thing I do know for sure is that I’m not afraid of 2012. Nope, not one bit afraid of the end of the world. For me, the end of the world happened this year. And I don’t feel like talking about it.
At the moment, I’m chilling. I’m relaxing.
I’m taking things as they come.
You see, I’ve decided — finally — that from now on,
everything will be all right,
everything will be okay,
everything will be fine.
Life is beautiful.
Oh yeah!
P.S.: I’m grateful for Van Houtte‘s internet connection.
P.P.S.: My tiny one-and-a-half apartment reeks of cloves. Good thing I didn’t decorate the whole bag of oranges. Sheesh…
P.P.P.S.: Thanks for reading my stuff after all these months. If you have the time, please leave a comment and tell me how you’re doing.
I LOVE YOU
