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Old dogs, new tricks
Who said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Well, I’m here to say that’s not true. The new trick I’ve learned is social distancing. Heck, if it weren’t for LOML being in my life, I’d be a hermit. When I was a little, little kid, my mom used to say I was an “old hen”. I was the one who insinuated myself into every grown-up conversation. I often sat in on Mom’s coffee get-togethers with the “neighbour ladies”, and brought gossip home from Mrs. Grossett next door. Without knowing it, at the time, I was the neighbourhood social butterfly before I got to kindergarten. And kindergarten didn’t change me. If anything, I became more outgoing and sociable in school. One day when the teacher asked if anyone in the class could play the piano and sing, I was the first to jump up, hand-raised while I marched over to the piano. I remember plunking away and making up a song. The teacher kindly thanked me for my artistic offering and suggested I could return to the quiet circle with “the others”. When I was young, social distancing wasn’t my forte.
As I got older, I realized not everyone shared my enthusiasm for my style of socializing and didn’t hold back telling me when they felt they’d had enough, heard enough or seen enough of my visiting, singing and dancing. I soon learned to be a little more reserved (stop laughing, Janet K) in public with my artistic interpretations of life. Don’t get me wrong, I never really caught the drift of “internal dialogue”, but social distancing is helping me “keep it down to a dull roar”. LOML and I always had a lot to talk about, but recently our conversations have started with, “Have I said this before?” Or, “Did I show you this on YouTube?” Or, “If I’ve already sent this one to you, I’m sorry.” It looks like we’re running out of things to say to each other. After more than fifty years of togetherness, we don’t have a lot of new stuff to share or discuss when we spend almost every waking, and sleeping, hour together. How many times in one day do I have to ask, “What time is it?” and “Is it still raining/ snowing/sunny/windy?” Surely we have things stored away which need to be aired. Perhaps I have things I’ve never told him and maybe he’d be interested in hearing them. I don’t know if I’m ready for weeks, or months, of trying to find tidbits of conversation. But it could be time to dig through the archives for some new material. What to say? What to say? And then?
And then, like you, I’m not sure what’s next to keep things interesting. The time may have arrived when I show LOML how to do something new. But is LOML ready to learn how to make pastry? He might be good at it. Maybe I haven’t shared the pastry skill because he might even prove to be better at it than I am. Is he ready to learn the difference between “wet ingredients” and “dry ingredients” in a recipe? YCOM (youngest child of mine) knows he doesn’t really understand that particular direction in a recipe. It’s a long story. He did learn how to do the laundry when I was commuting between Markham and Picton back in the olden days. And I haven’t tried to take that job back. He did learn how to manoeuvre the vacuum cleaner across the carpets, around the same time. Also something he can keep to himself. And he did learn when, exactly, is the right time to pour the wine. I’m not worried about that old dog learning new tricks. I’m wondering about myself. I could show him around a recipe, but I know there’s a lot I could learn from him.
I think I could learn to be patient. He seems to be able to pick up a book, one book, and read it from cover to cover. His side of the coffee table is orderly, books read in one pile, books to read in another. My side is covered with books, all being read, none really being finished. I will try to read one book at a time. When LOML sits down to a hobby, he devotes all of his time and concentration to “the hobby” at hand. I will start a painting, add to another painting, read a couple of chapters in a book, dig around the bookshelves, look for a sewing pattern, unearth some yarn and scout about for a crochet hook. Everything I tackle takes three times as long to complete, including this column. This column shared space with three books, two paintings, a pie, three meals, deep cleaning the upstairs bathroom and going for at least two walks.
In spite of the social distancing thing, I think I’m the old dog with old tricks. By the look of things, though, I’ve got lots of time to learn some new stuff.
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