Friendships 2

Themes of yoga, music  and the arts.

No photographs, rather thoughts, reminiscences and memories of good friends.

Earlier this month I wrote about Pauline and the unexpected friendship that resulted from a chance meeting in India while I was studying yoga.

My thoughts went from there to how friendships happen, how and why they last, even through long periods apart. I reminisced about how I connected, and remain connected, with many of my friends.

Many of my good friendships have happened spontaneously and having moved around a lot since graduating, most have been formed in the past few decades. And, I am happy to say, still flourish. I am so very fortunate in my women friends, and a few male friends.

I suppose we have largely to thank e-mail; the instant way to keep in touch. But not all my friends are on the internet so letters and phone calls are important.  I enjoy writing letters, even ones that are e-mailed. They may be long by today’s standards, that’s the woman of words again, but often I find friends respond at length too.

But how do you make friends? How do you keep them? The last is easier – by keeping in touch, being concerned, interested and supportive about their lives and telling them you care. Friendship is something you should be prepared to work at.

Many of my friends in Guelph, Ontario, I got to know in the 70s and 80s. And the motifs of music and the arts are present there. Gloria, a musician and writer I got to know through the Guelph Spring Festival; the two Rosemary’s, when one was Women’s Editor at the Guelph Mercury, the other at the Guelph Arts  Council,  and I wrote reviews and features about the arts. Sylvia, rehearsal pianist for the Royal Winnipeg ballet, then a piano teacher, worked in the Music Department at the University of Guelph; Stanley, like me Welsh-born,  was head of that Department.

Kathy and I shared dance classes; John and I formed a duo that gave dramatised readings. Janice I also connected through a mutual interest in and writing about the arts and our love of cats.

My concern for animals brought friendship with Sandra, through the Guelph Humane Society.

Other friends, such as Donna, my assistant at the shopping mall in Guelph, and Clive and Lynne in Britain, I was rewarded with by working together.

Returning to live in Britain for some years, I met Jenny at yoga classes; her love of music, as an organist and choral singer, deepened our friendship. Working with the Oundle Music Festival I met Angela, a university professor and also church organist. We may exchange e-mails and letters only a few times a year, but the connection remains strong.

Back in Ontario I got to know Heidi and Heather when we were on the Board of the Federation of Ontario yoga Teachers. Dottie is a writer, Linda an artist. As a yoga teacher I have been, and still am, fortunate to share with some cherished, committed people. Professionally I try not to single out individuals for friendship. Since leaving the Niagara area however many former students, including Heather, Vivian, Susan, Freda, Bonnie, Donna and Dave have maintained a personal connection.

Living more recently in Saint John, New Brunswick, I met Judith sitting together at a concert and asking where she bought her skirt. (Turned out it was Frenchy’s - but that’s another whole story). Haleen I met through Symphony New Brunswick and my ‘other’ Judith and I met at a Women’s Wellness day.

Debra and Doris are yoga teachers in that city; Paula, a Pilates teacher, was the first friend I made there.

Moncton friends include Cheryl who I met at a Yin Yoga workshop, Pauline, who also loves, and sells, antiques, Tammy another yoga teacher and Shayla an artist.

An exception to these themes are Jeanne and Steve Rorke, a warm, sincere American couple. We met while on holiday in Maine, one of all our favourite places, and were actually introduced through their dog Arlo, now sadly in dog heaven.

Whatever brought these friends to me, I am very lucky and truly grateful for every one of them.  My life is richer, my days more complete and my nights comforted by knowing they are there.

Magazine Junkie

Yes, I’m definitely a woman of words, which is why I share a weekly journal with anyone out there who cares to visit, and comment.

Words are and always have been the most important tool of each of my different careers. As a writer and reviewer, newsletter editor, marketing and media relations person, as a yoga teacher. Selecting the words with just the right nuance of meaning, ones that will convey facts, my thoughts and emotions, the movement of my breath and body in a posture.

But I also love pictures, art, illustrations, sketches, photos, the visual and often the companions of words. This may be one of the reasons I subscribe to, buy and read quite a lot of magazines. Apart from my yoga library, most of the books I read have few illustrations.

Books I buy consciously, from bookstores, used book sales (my favourite way as it’s also recycling) or borrow from a library.

Moreover I donate only a few books, but am happy to pass on magazines, mostly the fashion ones. They are read by other fashionistas then often given to hospitals.

Magazines plop into the mail box with lovely regularity. In winter you don’t even have to go out for them. You can skim a magazine, taking in a quick overview of articles and features, then return for an in-depth read or study of all or some. This you cannot do with a book.

These are my favoured magazines, that I subscribe to.

Vogue and Elle, for the fun of seeing the creativity that is fashion, sometimes extreme but still exciting. At several periods in my life I’ve worked with fashion; selling or creating advertising for stores. What I enjoy most about clothing is texture, shape, juxtaposition of colours and fabrics, all aspects of visual art, paintings and drawings that entice me.

I subscribe to Yoga Journal for its insights into the yogic life. The joy of finding deeper meaning in a posture, a better way to share it with my students; to refresh myself about learning and teaching. Yoga Journal also has features on food and book and CD reviews.

Shambhala Sun, the magazine of Buddhist culture, life and thought never fails to stimulate, to offer me support in the quest for an inner, tranquil life, to bring me into contact with some of the most eloquent thinkers and writers of this belief and practice.

Yoga + Joyful Living, published by the Himalayan International Institute, is one I buy when an article attracts me. I’ve studied with Sandra Anderson one of the magazine’s senior editors and an inspiring, very approachable teacher.

Sadly Ascent, the only Canadian magazine in this genre, ceased publication in 2009 after ten years. It offered a miscellany of articles from many perspectives, with emphasis on the environment and contemporary yoga thought. I have issues three to the last one.

My creative studio work focuses mainly on collage; again the blending of colours and textures, often with found objects. As is evident from the covers of Cloth, Paper Scissors and Quilting Arts, two magazines I buy after flipping thorough to see if there are projects I might adapt.

Ornament focuses on hand-woven and hand-made clothing and wonderful jewellery. Hard to find here I buy it as a holiday treat.

Fibrearts is one of my absolute favourite creative magazines. So full of inspiration, even the ads, about anything fibrous, including paper, one of my favourite mediums.

Home décor is one of my ‘off the mat’ interests, I am always re-positioning furniture and decorative items. Finding how differently we look at an object in a different place or light or grouped with something else. That too is an aspect of my yoga practice – looking at life from a new angle, upside down or sideways.

Style at Home is one of my most read home magazines, one I wrote a feature for last fall. Canadian House and Home is also a subscription one. Country Living I pick up occasionally. This issue ‘spoke’ to me as I love white interiors.

These latter are all ‘keeper’s,  though I often take out pages or individual pictures to file for future inspiration. Soon I may have to do more clipping as shelf space is nearing capacity. Words and pictures. Pictures and words.

Three Things –

As many people do, I like making lists. Not just prosaic ones for shopping or jobs to do around the house and garden, but fun, imaginative ones, reflective, personal ones.

I often think in threes, a special, almost magic number.

There are three-leaf clovers, it’s the symbol of the unity of body, mind and spirit, the Trinity; there are three Kings, three Graces, three Fates, three witches in Macbeth, three wishes in fairy tales, a triptych in art, three bears.

So here’s a list of questions I sometimes ask myself, and answer. I’m sharing them with you for your thoughts, and answers.

Three

Things I am grateful for

Things that make me happy

Things I’m glad I’ve done

Things I still hope to do

Things I wish I hadn’t done

People I admire

People who have inspired, influenced me

Important qualities in a partner,  a friend

Things that make me smile

Places I love to visit

Three favourite places I’ve been

Places I still plan to visit

Favourite pieces of art

Favourite composers (this depends on my mood)

Favourite things to eat

Favourite colours

Favourite leisure activities

Things I’d like to have if stranded on a desert island

Things I like about myself

Things I’d like to change about myself

People I would like to share a meal with

Winter -- Pleasures & Perils of Feeding the Outside 'Family'

After another large snowfall overnight one of our first tasks was to make sure our outdoor family had food.

The cats bowls were filled and fresh water offered. Being Sunday our chai tea was brewing (we’ll talk about rituals another time) while my caring husband, muffled up, was digging a pathway in our back garden to reach the hanging bird feeders and the ‘table’ we created for the birds, chipmunks and squirrels to feed at.

We feed them year round, but most needed in winter. Once you begin to put out food it is so important not to forget.

This winter I was very happy to welcome back one of the pheasants that visit periodically.  Several years ago we hosted a grouse for a few winters.

‘Gretchen’s’ feathers were so beautiful I never tired of gazing at ‘her’ as she feasted on the frozen berries still hanging on our cherry tree.  Shorn of its short-lived veil of blossom, it provided needed winter food.

The colourful chickadees, fashion-forward in their vogue-ish combination of black and white with a touch of yellow, dart down for just a seed or two then fly off. Mourning doves, whose three-note song is its own spring music, stay longer, clusters of them nibbling seed, bread, cheese and other goodies.  One or two clever ones have learnt to swing onto the small hanging feeders, scattering the seeds below to the rest of the flock.

Our current resident squirrel has also discovered the feeders and swings merrily, though he favours the roasted peanuts, triumphantly racing off with each one to a different hiding place. I wonder if he will ever find the ones he carefully buried earlier in the lawn, now covered with feet of snow.

City pigeons also know a good restaurant and occasionally visit. A few weeks ago one of these heavier birds gave us a shock. Upstairs at the back of our house is a large window. It’s been there for years but possibly this pigeon had never visited before. Suddenly we heard a loud thud as one, perhaps startled, flew straight at the window. Running outside we thankfully did not find an injured bird. A small evergreen directly below may have cushioned the fall. But a fuzzy heart-shaped image remains on the glass, a reminder that all life is precious.

The doves usually convene near dusk, the pheasant early in the day; the chickadees and squirrel have no set meal times.

As I gaze at the ever-watchful pheasant I marvel at its beauty, the colourful head and throat bands, the perfect symmetry of its feathers and long elegant tail. To me it is unthinkable that anyone could hunt these creatures of nature for food, for their plumage.

Every member of our outdoor family has its part to play in keeping the ecological balance. It’s up to us to ensure they survive through a hard winter to continue to bring us joy.