"Music has healing power". Elton John

I love music, and I have always loved singing.  As a young Catholic person, I was always in the choir at church, and as a slightly older person wanting to be noticed, I sang at the Teen Club I belonged to.  One of my most joyful memories is wrapped around a day at the convent school I went to when the nun who was the Music Mother came round our class and asked each of us to sing a few chords.  When it was my turn, she actually jumped.  I was "person of the day" in my class that day.

The year I was 32, I was still in a church choir, sang for my kids, always got up in Karaoke bars and over the Christmas holidays I did so much singing that I "lost" my voice.  I was moving my kids, leaving my first husband and living with an uncle and his family, and I just never did anything about recovering.

I told myself that I still had my voice, but I couldn't manage it very well anymore, and while my love for music still stuck with me, I seldom sang along. 

Then this: I was walking home yesterday and had come to a place in the park where I was all alone, singing (in my head) a song from The Civil Wars, a duo I really love, and I started to sing aloud.  It was so wrong. It wasn't me, and it certainly was not what the Civil Wars had sung.

I have to do one of two things: get involved through YouTube in a process to regain your voice (although I don't think it's aimed at someone whose voice got lost 45 years ago) or resign myself to being a former singer.

I'm just not sure I can deal with failing, if I choose to regain my voice.  And I'm not sure I can deal with doing nothing now that I've made myself think about it.  Maybe I'll accept that music has healing power and give it a try by using others' music to help the healing if I can't regain it.  Thanks, Elton.

Some things I wish I hadn't done today

In no particular order:

• got up at 4 a.m. and decided the day was beginning
• therefore ate my breakfast at 4:10 a.m.
• managed with a great deal of pain to take off the rings I should have taken off last night, then washed, brushed my teeth and put the rings back on
• promised myself to deal with all the books that weren't in a more-or-less alphabetical space on the bookshelves
• spent time trying to find why in hell I had a book called "The Friday Night Knitting Club, a novel"
• decided that even though the forecast said we'd reach 30 degrees Celsius by noon, I was wearing black clothes to the Market
• tried on about 40 hats and bought none
• got a sunburn on that 4 inches of skin between my neck and my shirt, which would have been covered had I bought a hat with a brim
• fell asleep in the afternoon, which only happens about 5 times a year, two of which were this week
• later, forgot I'd put on my pyjamas and went out on the patio to talk to Dave, an act which took place just as all our neighbours were coming home from work
• read an article outlining why it's OK not to wear a bra, then found it was aimed at people who didn't need them in the first place

There's only a few hours left until bedtime, so I'm feeling like things might just be OK and Dave and I can watch season 2 of the Emmy-awarded series we were watching last night.  Another thing I wish I hadn't done today is forgetting the name of that wonderful entertainment. Damn!

Babble, babble

Well, I haven't written a blog in several months, and I was kind of nervous about how I would re-start.  Little did I know.

First of all, I had totally forgotten how to make a blog post.  Really, I'd been writing blogs for about 15 years and I should have been able to get down to business with my eyes closed.  I found I was not, eyes closed or not, so I asked Google how do I get to my blog? only to find out that you had to know the name  of your blog. I've been having difficulties remembering all kinds of things, so I went back to Google and wrote "where is my blag?".  Not surprisingly, Google didn't know where to take me.

I decided that throwing my laptop across the room would not really do anything other than give me short-term pleasure, so I went back to Google and wrote "show me Lorna in Wonderland".  That took me back to to my blog in 2015, but it was my blog, and I ended up reading about 15 of my posts from the good old days, which led me back and forth between satisfaction and dread.

Long story short, I discovered that I had changed the owner name from Lorna to Resurfaced Blagher, which no longer seemed amusing to me.  Nonetheless, I am now able to write, foolishly or otherwise, in "Still in Wonderland" which I have now accomplished.

Nostalgia again...

The 9th of March.  It was, many years ago, one of the most exciting days of my life.  Wonderful friends had driven us to Hamilton, where we were going to see a child who had been featured on a newspaper in Toronto as "an available child".  It's hard to imagine, isn't it?

We arrived at the office of the people who managed adoptions (strangely, they were there on a Saturday) and were met by the cutest, newly-walking child whose picture we clutched going in, just in case there were a bunch awaiting us. They didn't ask for any identification, something I only noticed later, but instead asked us to sit down while they brought in "the child".

He was so cute, still not entirely at ease walking, and carrying an obviously well-loved cotton rabbit.  We all fell in love at the moment, and jumped at the chance to take him out for a chance to interact with him.  We hadn't planned anything, but decided that we could go to McD's for a coffee and play with him in the kids corner.  Half an hour later, we were asked if we'd like to take him home!  We didn't waste a moment, even to consult each other...looking back, I think we grabbed him, his bunny and a green garbage bag which held his belongings, and headed for home, but I know we stopped long enough to call my parents, who called everyone we knew, most of whom were waiting for us when we got home.

So today isn't your birthday, Chris, but it's still a day we rejoice.

Whomped !

Dave and I moved out of a large house about ten years ago, and I remember the feeling, both proud and fearful, as we made choices of things we would take with us to our one-bedroom apartment, and what we would try to make our kids take, and what would go to the Sally-Ann, and what would just wait for the next garbage day.

 I seldom miss those things but today I had taken on a project to look at photos that we would remove from  their frames and scan for our Google Photos file, so I was faced with reminders of what used to be.

Not only did the photos remind me of how many shades of blonde hair I've gone through, how cute our kids were, and how Dave often seemed to be going somewhere on a bike, they showed me how differently our last house looked inside in comparison to our apartment today.  Our living room had mauve furniture in the living room, we had a turquoise table and chairs backed up by pale mauve walls in the dining room, and our kitchen was big and bright, home to a couch where I could entertain friends or read while I was making dinner, and where we had two oval glass tables side by side in front of  windows that we never covered with blinds or curtains.  And our bedroom was so white I can't imagine now how we ever got to sleep.

We made good take-advantage-of multiple-uses decisions, but most of furniture that is small seems to be brown, and we used yellow and orange cushions and wall-hangings to offset it. That works and I don't mean I'm sorry about the choices, but I found myself surprised with the nostalgia that hit me, even when I was standing in a turquoise bedroom.

Being incredibly lucky in life doesn't keep you from getting surprised by change. And now that I think about it, I should just be feeling grateful.

So here's how I'm feeling today

I'm feeling like an apprentice today.....an apprentice to the woman who cut my hair yesterday.  I asked her to give me a cut that was shaggy, and we agreed on a picture, the one on the left,  from a bunch of "best haircuts for older women" .  I felt quite comfortable with her; we talked about holidays and weather, and my new red boots.  Suddenly though, I realized that she had cut one of the sides very short, for which she looked as surprised as I did, apologized and told me she could make it work.

Once your hair is gone there isn't much point in getting all upset, and hair does grow back in, so I just waited till it was finished, paid up and headed for home with very much shorter, not shaggy but still thick hair.

I wasn't surprised last night to find myself in the bathroom with two pairs of scissors and a couple of mirrors, and since then I've been sneaking in there to snip at this bit and that, and here is the apprentice's shaggy product.

I'm giving myself an 8 and a half out of 10

Why I might be down in the gym

Somehow, without much discussion over it, Dave and I have decided to take a longish vacation in the late summer.  Look at the photos here and you'll see one of the reasons why we're going to finish our trip in France, after time in Wales, southern England and Holland.

This time, we're going to arrange for apartments at three different places, renting a car locally, and spending about 10 days in each region. Dave and I have some same and some different interests, and this allows us to stay in the small towns we're choosing to live in, or to take a day or two and visit a number of places in the area together. For getting from one area to another, we're also counting on using rail (which we understand is quite pleasant) instead of having long drives from one country to another.

I've been having some pain in my legs, which I hope is due to the fact that I've been out walking much less than I usually do...I'm blaming that on the weather. I'm not fond of a treadmill, but in other years I've had some tolerance for the elliptical thing, so I'm telling myself that I'm going to start that tomorrow.  I hope I only tell myself once before I actually get on there, and going public is maybe a way to give me the push I need. I definitely want to be as comfortable walking around as I was the last time we traveled.

Anyway, I'm finding this plan important and exciting.