Christmas Delivery At The Home

This year I moved into a senior assisted living building.Most of the folks here are mobile some more than others.Some are bored or perhaps just have a few bad habits.Whatever the cause one of them almost rained on my Christmas parade!
My sister sent me a parcel.It arrived here at 6:30 pm while I was watching a movie with head phones on.I heard a knock and went to the door to find my neighbour hold the parcel in her had saying "I think this belongs to you,I met some woman walking off down the hall with it,I was on my way to the laundry and the parcel was at your door on the floor, when I came from the laundry it was walking down the hall in some dark haired woman's arms, so I said to her isnt that the same parcel that was at my neighbors door a few minutes ago? The woman handed over the parcel and quickly walked off.
Thankgod for assertive neighbors.

steppings stones talk 30 year celebration

In the words of the modren philosopher John O Donahue : "The world is not decided by by action alone it is by consciousness and spirit.The Spirit of a times in creditably subtle yet a huge powerfull force and is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals, together.
So we were in the right time and place in 1987 for change.
On December 20th 1985 Bill C49 was hot off the press.Honorable John Crosby Minister of Justice explained it to the house of commons."the slow way is the only way here,education,a changed social out look and reorganization of economic conditions;with these we may remove such causes within our control.
Through the work of the Halifax Police commission and the Elizabeth Fry society the Stepping Stones program was born, to create a bridge,to build a bridge, an arc out to the women in the sex-trade industry and from the streets if they so choose to exit at any time of day or night.
Stepping Stone was to be a user directed service.For the women to be involved in the daily running of the service was a very innovative idea in this area at the time.
We faced challenges like not having enough funding.I remember the director practically dragging the Honorable Terry Donahue out of Province House one Friday afternoon to sign our purposal for 28,000.00.Our salaries for the that year.
When a program like stepping stones is started up it brings out the chaos in people so we had a lot of sensationalism to overcome.
We didnt have any experience, so Karen and I decided to take our direction from the women we were working with,and Jane, and Duma adopted this ideal to the stroll on Citadel Hill later on  Luckily by this time we had developed a board of directors and a director who supported our ideas and recommendations.
When the women didnt have time to eat we set up sandwiches at the old YWCA on Barrington Street part of the stroll.
When children were placed in foster care a three hour drive into the Valley we drove them.
When they needed condoms for free we had them.
We started a bad trick list where a woman could report client abuse
We set up  BBQs in the backyard at the resource center, so the women could network with each other in a non judgmental non contriving atmosphere.
We set up appropriate appointments with relative services, as far away as Calgary in our relocation program in 1988.
Both Karen and I believed that is the Stepping Stone service was to survive those early years we needed a sex trade worker on the board of directors to bring further clarity.
We almost lost our jogs that day implementing this process.
We were a voice for the voiceless and at times we had plenty to say.Church groups, and University classes would invite us to give talks.They all asked the same question and we always had the same answer."What do you talk about to a prostitute.Our reply was always "hairstyles,the cost of bread,childcare,who you going to vote for this year, all the same stuff we all talk about."
Once a year the media would descend to exploit and sensationalize the sex trade on the evening news.One year we found this out and we were astonished at the response from 90 percent of the women"Oh my god my mom"We were humbled by the protective instincts these women felt for their families
In the eighties the women suffered mistreatment from fosh week university students,police deterrents,.& media mystique. Kids would drive by with their parents and throw pennies at them.
Once the women started networking they started to breakdown old false beliefs about themselves and the sex trade.They stared sharing with themselves and with us.
They stared to show up to get warm and have a bite to eat both at the Resource center on Maitland Street and the YWCA on Barrington Street, we knew our services were vital,and valid in the community.
I remember one woman had been very sick a few nights,so I called her one morning to see how she was doing .
She panicked,"OH Kate was I wrong was I suppose to come in or something?"After I reassured her this was a simple follow up call to see if she was ok .She replied "No one has ever called me before like that"! Advocacy work for these women was very new.
Some social workers are still making it impossible for sex trade workers to receive their monthly entitled allowances.Many of them harbor personal agendas towards these women.
That's what we are all here tonight for, to continue reaching out to continue to listen to respond and encourage the voices of sex trade workers in our community of Halifax and across Canada.
I believe the sex trade workers of Halifax and Canada are bilding a bridge between the judicial and healthcare systems, its just a matter of time and we shall see affordable housing and relative healthcare for these women and their families
Im so very honored to speak with you all tonight, to share about this magnificent time in my life,our history and the Stepping Stones Program.
Thankyou all for being here.

The House on the Hill

The house on the hill with a porch is always not far from my heart.It sat like a beacon of light in mom mind as a kid.I could see it’s lights from miles away down the four miles of hills as we drove into the Mines road on our way home from town.
The house built by Uncle Joe back in the turn of the 19th century was very adquate as a small dwelling or a cottage if we were in England.It had roses,apple trees in the orchard,a back wood porch,and a pump in the yard.The yard had a barn.It looked very much like a little Cape Cod style home.
The roof was black and the trim was black but the house was always white.Long white steps draped the fron doorway up into a porch that ran all the way from one side to the other.The walls were windows,large and wonderful toma child for,through these very windows was a world of sunlight laughter with friends and hours of play, from school, to angry ministers,actors in a play with my sister,or being a mommy with a doll carriage on the old style furniture.I spent hours here in communion with homeless,safeness,imagination,and tranquility’s delights.There was a habit of removing the windows in the summer time and putting in screens . it was so very hot in summer here, I loved to come from my bed and rest there some nights as the upstairs was even hotter in August.
I would sit here and wait for my dad to drive in the driveway from work sometimes I’d get on his knee and steer the car up the long circular driveway to the back door.I liked to,carry his lunch bucket.I knew someday I would carry a lunch bucket to the house.
The house with the porch knew us many abundant times and some not so abundant as we loved our way through the many ups and downs of life’s journey,walking people in and out of the,house.
Today the house on the hill with the sun pore h is still there,it’s style is unchanged, it’s lands are pretty bald of beauty no roses no apple trees, but one thing is for sure it’s will stay on my,memory and my should as a temple of grace,land of innocence blessed by youth in the house on the hill with a porch.

Mid winter blues are not easy to stay out of,if now when one is grieving,I do not have friends for supper,rest up from a flu and get ready to plant new spring seeds. It’s gray days but not everyday some shine today,it’s getting light longer but not quit long enough or fast enough,makes pacing onself very difficult especially when one lives in a basement apartment, where light is limited and getting out after a flu is not on ones mind.
The cat seems to be coping very well.He sleeps through it mostly, maybe one may fair more well by following his example. Im to curious and to mouthy to do so.
I haven’t seen my little Greek brothers for a few weeks either. Im sure they are skipping well at school and flying through Greek classes.He did say he may not be over for awhile last time I saw them.Someting about Greek classes.I do so very much love to spend time with them on most days.
The mail is mostly on my mind although the mail lady we had last summer is gone.This guy seems useless, for the most part, but my T4 slips have found me now for 67 years so I’ve no doubt all is going to gods plan and universal order.
Have a great winter see you in the sun,flowers and dreams,I’d sunporches and mountainsides and sea.

An Albert Co. Christmas

Growing up in NewBrunswick during the 50’s and 60’s meant winter fields of blustery fields,chocolate ice marshes, and long days of wistful grey hazel afternoons.We could tell by the haze on an afternoon that a storm was on the way that night.Some mornings we’d awaken to six Senegal feet of snow; dry under foot,aired,with lots of fresh seasoned air going into,our little bodies,as we played by the hours outdoors.
Christmas was a magical time of baking,buying,making,singing,playing,stories, stuck on the hill,and much laughter by family and friends.Muchmof the year since the harvest had been spent in food preparation for Christmas and winter.Fruit cakes, maple syrup,candy on the snow,pickled beans dried beans,breads,and fudge along with home made ice cream.
As a small child I went with my dad to cut the tree and bring it home for trimmings.This process could go late into the night of Christmas Eve, a very magical time, when Christ was being born in a manger with great angels out over the blanket of our small minds, Santa was on his sleigh and on his way tomAlbert Co. and coming to our house with lots of toys and gifts.Our house was a typical small cottage style house on top of Levingstones hill surrounded by trees and orchards.never questioned where Santa would land his sleigh it all seemed so fulfilling.
lots of presents started to appear here and there, drawing names at school was usually the first sign of gifts.Then drawing names at Sunday school was the next. One year my teacher Roada  got my name and My eyes fixated on the most beautiful miscalculated jewelry box! WOW I can still se it as clear as anything black with oriental designs on the outside and a ballerina going round and round when I opened it up.I would sit for a long time and just play the tune over and over imagining all sorts of magical outcomes into the universe.
After our gifts were open we would tidy up and mom and dad would make a wonderful breakfast feast. My dad loved to cook with my mom and they both loved to eat, we had pancakes,eggs and bacon orange juice maple syrup and all the fixings This is one of the first times Imdrank tea, Christmas morning, with lots of sugar.
After it was all cleaned up we’d dawn our new outfits and snow pants and pile into the car heading for Aunt Arlettas my moms sister and to play with our cousins.This was my favorite part.It never was a difficult time we all had different toys and things to share, as we had been taught to live  like one big family. I got hand me downs and so did they.Later on my cousin Neenie went to live in New York, and sent home lots of really great clothes for us all.
This first visit was usually play time while the adults would sit I. The living room we would go off to the bedrooms or outdoors to play in the snow with a new toboggan or skate on the ditch water in new skates.We would munch on cookies and fudge Auntie made my favorite divinity fudge or frogs a chocolate oeatmeal cookie.Around lunch time we would have a turkey dinner with all the trimmings,and the best gravy in the world.We sat around in front of the tv usually then to tired from food to do much we would watch Daffy Duck or another cartoon for a bit.Then the calls to get ready to go to,supper to Grammys and Grammies in Curryville would come.
After a short 10 minute drive we pulled into a long lane and up to an old farmhouse in perfect condition, Grampienwas an on the ball kind of man and loved to putter around on the property maybe to get away from the women in the house.Not sure sometimes when we went into the kitchen himand the women were quilting or sewing.They always kept busy in the winter with chores.
All afternoon people would be arriving for the great turkey meal, with gratitude beaming on their faces. We would go,to,church for an our in the afternoon early evening then home to a lovely country meal.Grampie usually raised the birds himself.Most of the vegetables came from his garden and were so delicious I can remember them even now.

Last night after singing with The Helen Creighton Society in Halifax NS I was discussing how I got into music n found my self pipping off at the moon, rambling on you might say, the poor woman I was talking to must have thought I'd lost my mind and for reason I will not go into here I probably had for a few moments.her husband gratefully rescued her.
So whiling away my hours since breakfast  today it dawned on me that if Im so passionate about that singing happening in my life, perhaps it would be fun and interesting to explore here in blog-ville the experience.
I ended up in Barbados in 1993 on vacation, I know tough work but someone has to do it! While there I found the expats community very English and very boring.Sitting every night looking at the beach and the sunset was not my cuppa tea.So off I went to a few Keroke for a month or so.Well they had a contest and I took first prize, with my rendition of House of the Rising Sun! whada ya know!!! Im off to the races!!! I started to sing with them every Kerokee night.
When I returned to Canada in 1996 I was outted from work, the system I wirked in would not hire me as I was old meat and over 50.They were looking for new meat.So I started to do hairdressing and wrote my papers again.This allowed me a small income and off I went to Kerokee.
All went very well, my voice was feeling strong I was certainly getting my self esteem that a divorce had kicked out of me two years before. Thats another story! Yet I did not have mental fortitude in my music  and my musical experiences .So I decided to keep it as a hobby and return to University to finish my B.A. I was 50 years old and braver than a bear!!!I switched from W omens studies at Mount St. Vincent> to Irish Studies with Cryil J Bryne, it would be his retiring year. I fell in love with his Chaucer, his Yeats, and all the Irish folk lore we studied.My soul began to fill with poetry and song and story about my ancestors. I began to compose and write all sorts of great little ditty's.On weekend I woud go to Kerokee when ever I cooed get there in good voice.lololol
One fine winter day walking back to the school about 100 years off campus I stopped to admire a 1977 V.W .popup camper in a woman's drive. I bought it!!
I decided to go where the music took me, I had been designing Gaelic Garden rocks and began to sell them for 10.00 this bought my gas and off I went.I took along with me my trusted camera, my Drum Boran` and my voice.
I spent the summer photographing the Bay of Fundy and singing in The Fair trade Cafe` in Truro NS.I got a job as a hairdresser with Liz a really great lady there. 
I stopped my truck pulled out my drum one Sunday afternoon up to the cafe as I had seen instruments and a piano with mic's in the window. I walked up to the counter " anyone play those instruments?" Ray the owner ask "Why can you sing?" Do you Play"? "Yep I can sing" I replied. "Come over and sit a spell and have a coffee on the house Ill be right back". The man Ray Merryman left the cafe`. I sat for about half hour was kinda getting bored, when he walked into the cafe with a 72 year old black man Hal home for a bit from Montreal and who had played the blues guitar for years up in Montreal.Hal and me hit it off like bother and sister and began to harmonize as well as host a weekly open mic at the cafe for about four months. We certainly developed a lot of respect, humility and love for our gift of music, bringing together all those folks from miles around to sing at the cafe` I went to a blue grass festival that year an held my own with all the boys ( very male dominated genre`)  sang straight for 11 hours one night.Beautiful people and a wonderful experience.
Then one day a  Native American man from the Truro reserve ask me to give him lessons in voice.I remembered all the exercises my old teacher taught me so I started to teach him these small seeds of knowledge and off he went.Got over his shyness and is still going strong today. What a great feeling when you can share what you know with someone who loves to sing as much as you do.I guess its like that with most things. When I was doing hair my sister learned to cut hair,my daughter learned it too. They liked it so well they learned it by watching me.
well this put another bee in my bonnet and off I came back to Halifax for the winter and began to sing at a bar in Young Street with a bunch of old Blues-ers .They were excellent players and soon I was singing The House with a live band for the first time and live music was and is my favorite, I began to be very entertaining.Then my ego got out of wack and I ended up on the board!!! I had already been there done that so I left. There were people there far more smarter than me to do that job and they were not short in letting me know it!! OUCH!
I continued to teach voice for the next 7 years and still do if the person passes the one hour consultation I have set for myself. they think its about them but its really a way of knowing if Im wasting my time and theirs. One of my students is now singing and playing composing and holding his own in the field of music at Dalhousie University Music department of arts.hes an excellent guitarist and Im hoping he can play for me again sometime.last year he was in Prague at a composing conference and composition contest. 
I got interested in the Boran` and was taught by a Englishman at open mic sessions at The Old Triangle, here in Halifax and I continue to sing and play there weekly. For me Irish music is the heart of all Music and has been the sounding board of many traditional styles and compositions all over the world. It is for me one of the oldest forms we have of music in Canada I'm sure there are may in Europe and other countries.The drum and rattles and strings in Gaelic music date back to African times and i love it so much I may not ever leave.I do try to study the old styles of voice and of their music as often as I can.
So that brings me to my very first night in song with the Helen Creighton Society  last night where I was pipping off at that unsuspecting soul about my musical trails that will have to hover here for a bit like a beautiful hummingbird waiting fr the next sweet song-ful nectareal notes to set the spirit free for a short time to feel the joy of song for a another moment to moment, up hill and down vial le  music is almost all my reality, my life, my friend in Gods grace and my gift to you.
see you on the flow in the notes and books of song.
  

It ins't every day one bursaries their son, and there are a lot of new things to be aware of, like walking into a store and seeing white socks. I started to cry, not long, nor embarrassing, just remembered no box would go to Oshawa this winter for Christmas. Mostly we go through the difficult times with grace and hope fr a better tomorrow and a home on peaceful shores for our loved ones.Everyone came out to help bring this wish true for me and my son Justin.It was not a very difficult time at all until three weeks ago.

I went to six banks to find his account for closure and it brings closure for the one who is responsible.I had felt very good as I dealt with government workers who did all they could for us and then some, the Ontario special disability benefits department made an exception in Justin's case and donated 1300.00 towards his funeral, it was as if his ancestors were with us thorough the sad ordeal.I felt a strange kind of validation for us.

The first bank my own was sure he was not in their national bank list of customers. So I went to the Royal, on Quimpool Road . We did not find him but a very kind lady there took me into the office and talk at length about this process, she and her mom had gone through with her uncle out in Calgary last year. She assured me it was doable and not a difficult task would take about a week to completed given the correct papers, she had just looked over with me.There should be no problems at all.

Finally we found his account at the Scotia Bank one street over from my house, Justin was always pulling little tricks on me over the years, it how some sweet little boys say "I love you mommy"

On August 15th i went into the bank of Nova Scotia with the correct official paper work, today is September 19th and this task is NOT complete.

The search took almost 20 minutes, I was calm.Then the clerk looked up with tears in her eyes and said "we have him here" I cried openly the connection to him fresh again, again the loss. I just stood there.The clerk went to get someone to help her as she apparently had no experience with this kind of request.So I just stood there for about a half hour.She explained to me my next task in the process would be to come into see a loans specialist on Friday at 2:30.

I came home and called friends and family to say how relieved I was we had found his account and would close it off properly.For some reason perfection is required in this grieving process.Ha! not one of my strong points.Ha!

I met with miss Spiffy who was very quick to relay to me her deaths in the family over the past few months.She spoke about the papers needing to be sent to another department and we should have this completed in there to five days.Since I had a Scotia Bank account the 700.9 dollars would be transferred to my account directly from his.There was no will no need for pprobate. This was also confirmed by my laywer. I cried.She said she would call me. I didn't ask any questions I just trusted the process.I realized it was not personal to them, I went home again to call friends and family for reassurance and validation.

The following week I went in on Tuesday morning to be told she was on vacation for a week and no the amount in my account was zero.I returned on Friday still zero.

On Friday September 14th I filled a complaint with the manager, who reassured me that she was making this request her top priority come Monday she was not sure if the bank was open on Saturday or not.I am however positive she the woman on the phone speaking to me was working in the bank of Nova Scotia. 

I waited all day on Monday still no call from them to move this task forward.

Today is the 19th of September with October looming just over the horizon and still not word, In honor of my son and his affairs I will go there this afternoon and come hell or high water will continue to do so until this mess is settled.I have not ever in all my 50 years of business seen such inefficiency, uncommunicative, cold, unreasonableness. i will not ever walk into another bank of Nova Scotia, nor do I suggest anyone else do so.The excuses they have given me, like the branch manager left, the bank is a small one...etc etc. point only to their mealy miserly old ideals in business today.