Pop 89: Keepers of the Twinkle Zone
By Madonna Hamel
It’s a busy summer of celebration in our little village. It’s a summer of staying in the winkle zone, as I like to call it, when weddings, births, baby and bridal showers, and reunions help fill us with a sense of wonder. And that includes celebrations of the lives of ones we’ve lost, as well.
What is immensely graceful about living in a village is the imposed awareness of the presence of others. It necessitates acts of invitation. Not only are we invited to these celebrations, we are - in many ways, tacitly and implicitly, by virtue of our very presence in town - expected. This is how we become a community. This is how we witness the important transitions in life. This is how we show up, be present, as friends, family, fellow workers, neighbours, and even pains-in-the-asses who can make life uncomfortable for folks. This is how we do it.
We put down our petty differences, if only for an evening. Crammed into a hall or under the curved roof of a curling rink, we catch up on stories about life’s challenges - broken machinery, family illnesses, kids leaving home. Or we trip down memory lane in our heads as we gaze on the younger ones, dancing like jitterbugs or bouncing newborn babies on knees or gathering in small clutches laughing and teasing each other. We see the similarities in ourselves rather than the differences. Oh, and we dance.
At two wedding receptions this summer, I felt what I can only describe as a deep sense of belonging. I’m not local gentry, don’t get me wrong; I blew into town ten years ago. But ten years is a good chunk of time when it comes to watching teenagers turn into self-sufficient adults. Take Haley Olson, who was still in high school when we began cooking and serving together at the Harvest Moon Cafe. Marvelling at her in her new position as a full-time wedding officiant to this new crop of rural Saskatchewans’ brides and grooms, I realized I was around to watch a shy girl turn into an articulate, charismatic young woman and a solid presence whose job it is to support others on the threshold of an entirely new life. Did she even (to use one of her expressions): “bale what she was swathing” back in our aproned days?
Another wedding took place on a rise, over-looking a valley. The drive up the hill required a 4x4. So I parked my little car below and started walking up, until Trudy, in her big truck, stopped alongside me, rolled down the passenger window and unceremoniously pronounced: “Oh, get in.”
Atop the rise, I understood how deep the roots go. In the land lie the bones and dust and dreams of ancestors of ranchers and framers, and of Cree and Metis, but also genealogies of critters, plants and rivers, too. It’s the land that stabilizes us. That teaches us to live for, not against.
And then, I was honoured to be allowed to speak at Paul-Emile LeBel’s celebration of life. I said: “Paul-Emil was a celebration of life. I have this feeling that comes over me every Christmas season, especially when it’s dusk, and there’s snow on the ground, and everything glows a warm blue. I call this feeling being in the Twinkle Zone. It’s a feeling of lightning up. And right around then, as I’m feeling all nice and twinkly, and staring out at the glinting blue snow, Paul’s truck would come barreling down Railway Ave, dragging a couple of giant tractor tires chained to the back of his outfit, flattening the fresh snow better than any tractor ever could.
When we lost Paul-Emile we lost a keeper of the twinkle zone. A hail fellow well-met. Someone who always had a joke, a laugh, a wink and a nod. Always ready to smile and always willing to find an angle to make you smile. Even his complaints came out funny. As keeper of the Twinkle Zone, Paul knew: it just doesn’t take much for a guy to be happy, if you have the right attitude and you can see the opportunity. Paul’s dumb jokes got a laugh out of us, especially when we didn’t feel like laughing. Because that’s the healing power of humour, perhaps the whole point of it; we need it, especially when we don’t want to laugh.
I will miss seeing Paul idling in the middle of the road in his truck, elbow hanging out the window, chatting away with a neighbour, trading stories between windows, in no hurry, not going anywhere, as if the most important task of the day was this moment, right here: a good visit.
I know we all gotta go sometime, but sometime is never the right time. There’s always so much more to say to each other. Stories to tell. Family histories to write down. Songs to be re-sung. There are so many more soups to share together, and soup recipes to jot down.
We say we lost Paul - but we didn’t. He’s not lost at all. We were robbed, yes. But we can still hear him laugh, and we can still see his twinkly eyes. The Paul Memories - and, I believe, Paul himself - are out there - keeping us twinkling. “
The best tribute to a lost friend is to live well. Which means, I think, to laugh or smile when we could gripe or glower. To stop and visit, especially when we feel the need to keep the momentum of hurry and scurrying off to do something important, though, what it was, we can’t remember. To stay true to Paul and all the newly born and newlywed, we need to show up, to participate in the few celebrations that still remain in a world moving too fast to spot what we share, just by virtue of being human. It’s how we remain keepers of necessary ceremony and of the Twinkle Zone.