valeriesbookofme

When I first read this week's writing prompt--do I have a favorite season and if so, why--the song "If Ever I Would Leave You" started swirling in my head. Sung by Robert Goulet of course. Robert Goulet was big in our house in the early 1960s. He was Canadian, classically handsome with a gorgeous voice. Anyway, why would I associate that song with this week's writing prompt? Well the song is about love and seasons--Lancelot singing to Guinevere about how he could never leave her at any time. And that goes along with my musings about seasons because my feelings around the changing seasons had so very much to do with love. Montreal, my hometown, has very distinct seasons. Spring is green and softly warm, Summer is humid and hot, Fall is a riot of reds and golds and greens and nippy and Winter is freeze your face off cold. I enjoyed all of the seasons because each held something that I loved. The photo below is of my home for the first 17 years of my life--6797 34th ...

Ah, you want to know about my physical self? If I said I looked like Audrey Hepburn would you be satisfied? More importantly, would "I" be satisfied? I have always wanted to look like Audrey. Ethereal, gamine, graceful. Sadly, though, I share almost nothing in common with Audrey, except perhaps that I adore Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. So, what DO I look like physically? Well, I currently hover between a size 12 and a size 14. Those have been my sizes for most of my life, even in childhood. I was never obese as a child--I was plump. My slim cousin says that her mother--my mother's sister--told her that my mother always overfed me. My weight I guess was every bit the family topic I thought it was. My fairy princess sister--blonde, ten years older than I and infinitely poised and self-confident--would tease me mercilessly about my weight. Which always drove me face first into the mashed potatoes and gravy. I would literally eat until I felt ill sometimes. And even when I ...

My mother was in labor for three days before I was born. That was the most significant thing I heard as I grew up. As far as I know, only the doctors were present although my father had been in the waiting room on and off. He said that he was quite annoyed with the doctor when he said that mom wasn't working hard enough at first. And then the doctor said that she wasn't really built for having children. Dad said couldn't he have figured that out after nine months of examinations? I did eventually appear though. I do have a baby photo from the hospital somewhere in my memorabilia mess. Although it could also be my sister as we were both born at the Royal Victoria Hospital (a Gothic pile in Montreal) and there is no date on the photo. Although "rooming in" wasn't the norm back in 1952, I was able to stay in my mother's room after I was born because she contracted erysipelas--a staph-like infection--right after I was born. So I couldn't be in the nurs...