retreat report : home,

I was calling it such, but it was more complicated than that (as things so often are). Ridiculously early on Saturday, July 2^nd, Christine and her mother took our young ladies through two flights to Winnipeg, leaving directly that morning from mother-in-law’s Ottawa residence, Christine and the girls having left ours the evening prior (that seemed more efficient, they decided). Christine’s 94-year-old Oma lives in Winnipeg, as do mother-in-law’s two sisters, none of whom had met Aoife yet, and had only met Rose once before, when we made a similar trip with baby Rose. They spent four days running around Winnipeg visiting various friends and family, and even managed a trip to the Winnipeg Zoo (which always reminds me of the poem by Robert Kroetsch), as well as various other excursions (all safely masked, of course). I received multiple daily updates.

All of this left me solo at home (with our dear boy, Lemonade the cat, naturally) from Friday evening until late Tuesday afternoon, which I’d planned to spend returning back with full force into working on that novel I started back in summer 2020 (as well as watching various television things that Christine hates); remember that? I don’t even think I’d looked at the novel since last fall, having focused instead on reviews and reviews and poems and poems and poems. I’d spent the month-plus prior to their first Covid-era jaunt pushing myself to complete and post as many reviews as possible for the blog, thinking I could carve a path of a couple of weeks to simply work on prose without distraction (beyond, say, our wee ridiculous children, of course). Was such a thing possible?

A home-based retreat. Well, retreat doesn’t presume going away. Retreat means to step away, as I’m sure you know. To withdraw. I didn’t need to head to Banff or Sage Hill. Just a few days at the pub would have been more than enough, honestly.

Of course, once they left, it sparked my simultaneous and inevitable plans to deep-clean the house, and put together multiple above/ground press mailings, folding and stapling as much material as possible. Does this all count as writing? And my first evening solo was spent in Kanata at my brother Darren’s house, celebrating his mother’s (my birth mother’s) birthday (this was only the second time I’d seen her in person). It was a grand evening, that.

I did manage two different writing-related outings of pub afternoons, pushing to return to the space of the thinking of the novel, including one at my favourite, The Carleton Tavern. I also spent an outdoor patio hour at the most god-awful sportsbar closer to home (for the sake of time I didn’t wish to travel further) which made do, I suppose, but geez. Once Christine and the young ladies were home, I did manage a second afternoon at The Carleton, eventually pushing at least two further drafts through the process. Might this be the year I finally manage to complete this and start sending it out?

If I can get enough drafts furthered, I might even post another excerpt (there are a few earlier excerpts posted here and here and here and here), but I’m not quite there yet.

And beyond that, might I ever return to that novel I started on New Year’s Eve 2007, “Don Quixote”? I still consider that project in-progress, despite not having looked at it in years. I’ll get there, someday. Once this project is out of the way, perhaps I can even try.

today would have been my mother's eightieth birthday

and I recently found this book while working through sorting and cleaning the homestead. A photograph of their wedding, September 1967, that I hadn't seen before; held at the church right across the street from where we currently live (this is not why we live here, promise; that is just a happy accident).

TODAY IS MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY

Four poems for my fiftieth birthday

1.

In the details, bedeviled. Am I half-way finished, or begun? Too soon,

by half. A ladybird, floats. My bare hand. Homestead,

sunsets. If I did complain. Characters in snow and shadow,

ghosts of every childhood

that blossomed: my father’s, my sister’s, mine. Familiar sounds

so simple, they amplify. Echo.

2.

Since the beginning, when I found

my mouth, a mumble, let alone

a voice.

3.

From almost any angle. Busted a toe, and then a second.

These inaugural fractures, after nearly five unbroken decades

of carefree indifference. Almost every day,

I stood. I stood up. Imagination, bristles. I

remember, like it was. Margins, where

I lay this ancient peak.

4.

Memories

of a distant, faded thing.

God sakes. How did I get here? And yet, I don’t feel any different now, in certain ways, than I did when I was in my thirties. Less anxious, perhaps. I appreciate that much, certainly. Although the number “fifty,” as arbitrarily as it might seem, is one without a complete lack of effect on my psyche. I can feel it, this. And I’m not sure what it means.

Everything is cancelled. This year’s VERSeFest (postponed!) and my birthday party, originally scheduled for last night. I’m hoping to get a new version organized in a couple of months, once all the crisis of health and concern begin to settle. We were too late to cancel the cake Christine would ordered (like we would have done that, anyway), so were able to rip into that a bit yesterday. Given our self-isolation, I suppose we’ll be eating cake for some time.

It has been an interesting year. My father was diagnosed with ALS back in February, 2019, which has prompted a couple of weekends a month on the homestead caregiving, and Christine had her stroke back in May (after a concussion some months earlier, and then an untreated strep throat twice, which developed into rheumatic fever, thus prompting her stroke), and meningitis the first week of September. She was off work for some seven months until she began the twelve-week process of returning at the beginning of January. It goes well enough, but returning to work (which she very much enjoys) means she has less energy for anything by the time she gets home.

And then there’s my half-brother, Darren Ward, who was informed about me by our shared biological mother over Christmas. I exist! That was interesting. Darren and his wife Trish are pretty cool, so we’re very pleased about all of that, and he’s damned talented, to boot. Apparently they’re working to found a brewery soon, so I’m expecting the whole lot of you to be supporting that venture along with me; right? Once they get all of that up and running, I’ll be sure to let you know.

But the big news is the fact that my birth mother came over yesterday to meet for the first time (way to bury the lead, eh?). After nearly seven years of emailing back and forth, and her years of saying she was unable yet to send a photo, or talk on the phone. After nearly seven years, and she came over and spent a good six hours in our living room, talking (she requested I not post photos of her anywhere. Not yet). We talked about just about everything. She was not what I had expected, but she was far more than I could have hoped for. It was a remarkable day. She brought wee gifts for the girls (they were THRILLED, obviously) who now have a new gran’ma (she had only grandson, and no granddaughters, prior to this), and was charmed by their antics (there was a ‘fashion show’ at one point, which simply meant fixing their hair and putting on shoes, but walking with very serious expressions as they turned shoulders, hips and pointed toes). When she left, she did so reluctantly, given she had a three hour drive (she was hoping to get home before it got too dark).

And what am I working on? I don’t even know what I’m working on. My short story manuscript was completed months back, and I await responses from publishers. I completed my poetry manuscript, “book of magazine verse,” not that long ago (which has also been sent out; the above poem is part of same). I seem to be in that in-between state, not sure, entirely, of where to go next. Where to go next?

But for now, we self-isolate, with an array of chaos and Disney-plus channel. Three weeks: will I get any work done at all? Maybe, maybe. And once we emerge, I will begin to think again about birthday. Fifty-plus?

today would have been my mother's seventy-ninth birthday,

A late 1970s photograph (most likely late summer/early autumn 1977), with my mother standing between her immediately-elder sister, Pat (left) and their mother (right). I am on the front step of our long-removed front porch with toddler sister, Kathy. What is it I am eating?

Today would have been my mother's seventy-eighth birthday,

Joanne and Donnie at Lyn, Ontario. 1943

Today would have been my mother's seventy-seventh birthday,

On the day they married, emerging from her parent's house on Ridgemont.

Today would have been my mother's seventy-sixth birthday,

VERSe Ottawa 2016 Hall of Honour : rob mclennan

Thrilled to be inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour a week-plus back, along with Gatineau poet Andrée Lacelle [see the write-up on the VERSeFest website here; see the official press release here]. It has been quite humbling and gratifying to receive such an outpouring of support and congratulations, such as this incredibly kind and generous post by Cameron Anstee.

The experience has me thinking about a number of things, including some similar awards bestowed upon both of my parents: the period my mother was a Cub Leader in Ottawa (at St. Timothy's Church on Alta Vista Drive, 88th Cub Pack, across the street from where we live; she was later a Cub Leader in Maxville, during my own time in Boy Scouts), and my father's plaque from his time as a 4-H Club leader.

What do these connections mean? Perhaps I attempt to link my own activities to those of theirs, working over an extended period to attempt to assist, direct and offer whatever help one can. One does not do it for the acknowledgement, to be sure. I know I learned my sense of community directly from my father's activity as a dairy farmer: it is impossible to work alone, without help. He helped neighbours with plowing laneways, welding and fixing machinery, among other things. There was the year of the ice storm, when he daily went to multiple neighbours' homes with his generator to heat up their house for an hour or two, before moving to the next; before arriving home in time to get chores done, and my mother's kidney dialysis machine.

I have my mother's small token upon my writing desk, and have for a number of years now. My father's plaque lives on the wall of his home office. I remember some of those final meetings at the farmhouse, as my mother prepared snacks and my pre-school self sat on the floor in the midst of a half dozen or so teenagers in chairs.

Today would have been my mother's seventy-fifth birthday,

Myself, with mum and my cousin Kim at 1293 Ridgemont.

Today would have been my mother's seventy-fourth birthday,

Here she is on the beach in Cobourg, Ontario with her mother, during the summer of 1956. Mum's youngest sibling, Bob, splashing about behind them.

postal address change! (what? again?)

After two years in our lovely apartment on McLeod Street [see my essay on such here], we've purchased a house (if you can believe it) on Alta Vista Drive. Today is moving day, so update your address books!

rob mclennan + Christine McNair
2423 Alta Vista Drive
Ottawa Ontario Canada
K1H 7M9

Phone numbers remain the same, but the mailing addresses (obviously) for above/ground press, Chaudiere Books and the ottawa small press book fair will be changing as well.

Apparently our new neighbourhood (which is actually the old neighbourhood for my mother and her family) includes writers such as Christian McPherson and Chris Jennings, among others. What else might we discover?

Cards, letters, cheques and review copies encouraged.