Work and Play Homework #3
The world lost a good friend ten years ago. January 2, 2012 was the day Denise Dunn died. I’ve missed her every one of those three thousand plus days, but the earth is a little less wonderful because she is gone.
We met in 1974 when we were both working as volunteers at the Amor de Cosmos Food Co-op in Victoria. The co-op members belonged to “Houses,” and we were both in Nomad House. Some of the groups lived together, while others, like us, were scattered around the city. We all joined the co-op for our own reasons, like saving money by avoiding the “middleman;” eating higher quality, healthier food; avoiding big businesses and supporting small, local businesses; being more directly involved is feeding our families. We all took on various jobs, like ordering food from organic food sources, weighing and bagging the goods after they had been delivered to the co-op, putting orders into boxes, delivering the goods, and selling extras at the co-op store. I first glimpsed Denise, dressed in corduroy pants and hand-knitted sweater, her long, curly hair tied back in a ponytail, writing out the orders on the big order form in the back room of the Co-op.
Denise said her first impression of me was when she delivered our box of groceries. I was in my steamy kitchen with a friend, and we were busy cooking blackberry jam and putting it in jars. She recalled that I had long brown hair, long brown legs, and a beautiful smile. Years later, in 2005, when I retired from teaching in Victoria, Denise addressed the guests at my retirement party. She spoke about our first meeting, mentioning my long dark hair and long, dark legs, then said, to the assembled friends, family, and fellow teachers, “She still has a beautiful smile.” There was general laughter. Ken, her husband, rolled his eyes and told my friend Jane, “She doesn’t realize what she just said.” I, however, called out from the back of the room, “One out of three ain’t bad,” which added to the laughter.
Denise and I were both healthy, energetic young mothers when we met, each of us living with our husbands and our little sons. My son Jason was three and Denise’s Sam was a baby. Yes, we worked together at the food co-op. We also played with our kids together, drank gallons of tea together, read and talked about books, and debated every subject under the sun. Denise was English and had learned housekeeping tricks from her mom during the times of scarcity after the war. She taught me to butter the bread loaf before slicing each piece, which prevented crumbling and therefore waste. She washed out plastic bags and reused them, a practice I still follow. She followed strict routines, like always giving Sam bread and Marmite when he awoke from his afternoon nap. I learned to enjoy Marmite, too. She was the cleanest housekeeper I had ever met. She still holds that title. We inevitably discussed ways to make it a better world for our kids and for everyone. I wanted to change the education system to be more child-centered. She hated car fumes, so she and her husband Ken rode their bikes everywhere and eventually moved to a place in the country with cleaner air than they had in the city. As I recall, they had their very own “Strawberry Fields,” a field full of wild strawberries. Jason and I sometimes bussed out to visit them in their little farmhouse.
When Denise and her family had to move back to the city for a reason I now forget, Joel and Jason and I often visited them in the house they rented, one of the very few houses left in Victoria that had a toilet outside the main part of the house. They accessed it along a balcony. The water tank hung on the wall, with a rope-pull to flush, just like English toilets. We considered the idea of our two families living together but our lifestyles were quite different. For one thing, Ken, a serious musician, needed a fair amount of quiet so he could practice his guitar and oud. For another we had a dog and cat that took up time and space. The Dunns smoked and we didn’t, something I found puzzling because they were so enthusiastic about clean air. But most important to us was that they ate meat, and we were vegetarians. I think we could have surmounted all these differences if we had made a heroic effort, but we decided to remain friends with separate abodes.
Denise was my confidante. Everything that was happening in my family, my friendships, my life in general, I shared with her, as she shared her life with me. I was going through a depression at that time, and there were a pile of challenges that I was dealing with, like a psychiatrist and medications that made me sick. In the end, Joel and I both took art therapy at the EMI, which was a tremendous help to us in so many ways. Denise remained a good friend throughout.
It was February 8th, 1976. I was ready to give birth to my second child and my kind-hearted mother took time off work in Regina and had just come to stay with us for a couple of weeks, to look after Jason and help me with the baby I was expecting. Denise and her family, still determined to have a better quality of life, had decided to move to France with another couple who were into raising sheep. They were all going to buy a sheep ranch and do everything necessary themselves, like shear, spin, and knit the sheep’s wool, with the goal of establishing a cottage industry. I had invited Denise and her family for dinner to say bon voyage to them. But as it happened, I went into labour that afternoon and delivered our darling daughter that evening. I missed the farewell dinner, sadly, but I staunched my hunger with the tea and toast the nurse brought me. My mother, who had never made lasagna, made sure everyone had dinner. Denise came to meet our daughter the next day.
The Dunns were only in France a few months and returned because it hadn’t worked out. I no longer remember why. Meanwhile, Denise was pregnant again and she successfully delivered her second son, Tom, at home that fall. Few mothers had home births in Victoria in 1976, but she had delivered Sam that way in England and saw no reason not to do it here.
Denise and I now had four little ones, and we often got together. We both agreed we needed to get exercise and do something fun and different together and were both drawn to the belly dancing class that was being offered once a week in the evening at the Sundance School gym.
We loved our dance lessons, the Middle Eastern music that we danced to, and the amazing stories of her time in North Africa our beautiful, funny teacher told. We loved hearing about different customs, like communal bread ovens. Denise loved dancing so much she took more classes and became the new belly dance teacher after the original teacher moved on. By this time, my little daughter Lace was old enough to join us, so I made us matching costumes and she and I attended Denise’s classes together. Denise went on to form her own dance troupe and danced at cultural events. Lace and I were big fans.
I started working at Sundance School when Lace was five. Jason and Sam were enrolled there. The next year Tom started, too. Along with Joel, Denise and Ken were also active participants in the parents’ group. I asked Denise about the possibility of her going back to university now that both their children were in school. She already had a teaching certificate from England and just needed to upgrade to get a certificate here. She did it and was soon a regular substitute at Sundance. “Amber thinks I’m a proper teacher,” I once heard her tell a friend. When the School Board gave our school extra teaching points to hire another part-time teacher, some of us dropped a point each to give her more hours. That shows both the generosity of the people that were on staff and that she was really valued. Denise established the school garden, quite an innovative move at that time, around the late 1980’s. She taught gardening and knitting and other practical skills.
When Sundance changed directions and we all moved to different schools, Denise was back on the substitute teacher list, so I suggested she study to be a school librarian because, at that time, it was understood that they would become essential positions in every school. Oh, we were so gullible. But she did just that, and when I was teaching at Quadra School, the position of Librarian became vacant. I called Denise. She applied. And we were working together again. Oh, happy day!
One morning at work I had severe chest pains and the principal called the ambulance. They took me out on a stretcher, past the classroom window where the children saw me, to my embarrassment, and off to the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The halls there were lined with hospital beds, mine one of them. I finally got assessed later that busy night and it was decided that my pain was not due to a heart attack. It had been ten in the morning when I arrived at the hospital and ten at night when they said I could leave.
What could I do at ten o’clock at night? My car was sitting by itself back in the school parking lot, and since my husband was on Mayne Island, building our house, I had nobody at home to call to give me a ride. I therefore called Denise, who lived just a few blocks from the hospital. She kindly picked me up and drove me back to the school so that I could retrieve my car and drive home.
After I retired and Joel and I moved to Mayne Island, Denise and Ken came over often. Sometimes we talked about our extended families. We were unhappy about a dispute that had occurred recently, and our story got back to our children through Ken and Denise’s children. It didn’t help our relationships with our children, who were mad at us for talking about them with our friends. The unspoken “code” that Denise and I had between us had been broken. What a terrible time that was, but we got through it. We learned from it not to talk about anyone but ourselves. We were mature enough to value one another and keep on being close friends.
After Denise retired from her school librarian position, her activism blossomed. She was a creative member of a grassroots movement that involved flax growing and processing, and then the ultimate making of linen fabric. I met a woman who was wearing a piece of the linen Denise had made. Denise never stopped trying, with perfect commitment, to make this a better world.
When Sam and his wife had a baby boy, Denise and Ken traveled to Toronto to see the little family. This was late in 2011. They then flew to England, to visit Denise’s family. While in her former home, she suffered a severe brain hemorrhage. Ken phoned us from England on New Year’s Day to tell us about her serious condition and what she would be like if she survived. I was sure Denise would not want that. Ken called the next day to tell us that she had gone. I miss her all the time.
Work and Play Homework #3
The world lost a good friend ten years ago. January 2, 2012 was the day Denise Dunn died. I’ve missed her every one of those three thousand plus days, but the earth is a little less wonderful because she is gone.
We met in 1974 when we were both working as volunteers at the Amor de Cosmos Food Co-op in Victoria. The co-op members belonged to “Houses,” and we were both in Nomad House. Some of the groups lived together, while others, like us, were scattered around the city. We all joined the co-op for our own reasons, like saving money by avoiding the “middleman;” eating higher quality, healthier food; avoiding big businesses and supporting small, local businesses; being more directly involved is feeding our families. We all took on various jobs, like ordering food from organic food sources, weighing and bagging the goods after they had been delivered to the co-op, putting orders into boxes, delivering the goods, and selling extras at the co-op store. I first glimpsed Denise, dressed in corduroy pants and hand-knitted sweater, her long, curly hair tied back in a ponytail, writing out the orders on the big order form in the back room of the Co-op.
Denise said her first impression of me was when she delivered our box of groceries. I was in my steamy kitchen with a friend, and we were busy cooking blackberry jam and putting it in jars. She recalled that I had long brown hair, long brown legs, and a beautiful smile. Years later, in 2005, when I retired from teaching in Victoria, Denise addressed the guests at my retirement party. She spoke about our first meeting, mentioning my long dark hair and long, dark legs, then said, to the assembled friends, family, and fellow teachers, “She still has a beautiful smile.” There was general laughter. Ken, her husband, rolled his eyes and told my friend Jane, “She doesn’t realize what she just said.” I, however, called out from the back of the room, “One out of three ain’t bad,” which added to the laughter.
Denise and I were both healthy, energetic young mothers when we met, each of us living with our husbands and our little sons. My son Jason was three and Denise’s Sam was a baby. Yes, we worked together at the food co-op. We also played with our kids together, drank gallons of tea together, read and talked about books, and debated every subject under the sun. Denise was English and had learned housekeeping tricks from her mom during the times of scarcity after the war. She taught me to butter the bread loaf before slicing each piece, which prevented crumbling and therefore waste. She washed out plastic bags and reused them, a practice I still follow. She followed strict routines, like always giving Sam bread and Marmite when he awoke from his afternoon nap. I learned to enjoy Marmite, too. She was the cleanest housekeeper I had ever met. She still holds that title. We inevitably discussed ways to make it a better world for our kids and for everyone. I wanted to change the education system to be more child-centered. She hated car fumes, so she and her husband Ken rode their bikes everywhere and eventually moved to a place in the country with cleaner air than they had in the city. As I recall, they had their very own “Strawberry Fields,” a field full of wild strawberries. Jason and I sometimes bussed out to visit them in their little farmhouse.
When Denise and her family had to move back to the city for a reason I now forget, Joel and Jason and I often visited them in the house they rented, one of the very few houses left in Victoria that had a toilet outside the main part of the house. They accessed it along a balcony. The water tank hung on the wall, with a rope-pull to flush, just like English toilets. We considered the idea of our two families living together but our lifestyles were quite different. For one thing, Ken, a serious musician, needed a fair amount of quiet so he could practice his guitar and oud. For another we had a dog and cat that took up time and space. The Dunns smoked and we didn’t, something I found puzzling because they were so enthusiastic about clean air. But most important to us was that they ate meat, and we were vegetarians. I think we could have surmounted all these differences if we had made a heroic effort, but we decided to remain friends with separate abodes.
Denise was my confidante. Everything that was happening in my family, my friendships, my life in general, I shared with her, as she shared her life with me. I was going through a depression at that time, and there were a pile of challenges that I was dealing with, like a psychiatrist and medications that made me sick. In the end, Joel and I both took art therapy at the EMI, which was a tremendous help to us in so many ways. Denise remained a good friend throughout.
It was February 8th, 1976. I was ready to give birth to my second child and my kind-hearted mother took time off work in Regina and had just come to stay with us for a couple of weeks, to look after Jason and help me with the baby I was expecting. Denise and her family, still determined to have a better quality of life, had decided to move to France with another couple who were into raising sheep. They were all going to buy a sheep ranch and do everything necessary themselves, like shear, spin, and knit the sheep’s wool, with the goal of establishing a cottage industry. I had invited Denise and her family for dinner to say bon voyage to them. But as it happened, I went into labour that afternoon and delivered our darling daughter that evening. I missed the farewell dinner, sadly, but I staunched my hunger with the tea and toast the nurse brought me. My mother, who had never made lasagna, made sure everyone had dinner. Denise came to meet our daughter the next day.
The Dunns were only in France a few months and returned because it hadn’t worked out. I no longer remember why. Meanwhile, Denise was pregnant again and she successfully delivered her second son, Tom, at home that fall. Few mothers had home births in Victoria in 1976, but she had delivered Sam that way in England and saw no reason not to do it here.
Denise and I now had four little ones, and we often got together. We both agreed we needed to get exercise and do something fun and different together and were both drawn to the belly dancing class that was being offered once a week in the evening at the Sundance School gym.
We loved our dance lessons, the Middle Eastern music that we danced to, and the amazing stories of her time in North Africa our beautiful, funny teacher told. We loved hearing about different customs, like communal bread ovens. Denise loved dancing so much she took more classes and became the new belly dance teacher after the original teacher moved on. By this time, my little daughter Lace was old enough to join us, so I made us matching costumes and she and I attended Denise’s classes together. Denise went on to form her own dance troupe and danced at cultural events. Lace and I were big fans.
I started working at Sundance School when Lace was five. Jason and Sam were enrolled there. The next year Tom started, too. Along with Joel, Denise and Ken were also active participants in the parents’ group. I asked Denise about the possibility of her going back to university now that both their children were in school. She already had a teaching certificate from England and just needed to upgrade to get a certificate here. She did it and was soon a regular substitute at Sundance. “Amber thinks I’m a proper teacher,” I once heard her tell a friend. When the School Board gave our school extra teaching points to hire another part-time teacher, some of us dropped a point each to give her more hours. That shows both the generosity of the people that were on staff and that she was really valued. Denise established the school garden, quite an innovative move at that time, around the late 1980’s. She taught gardening and knitting and other practical skills.
When Sundance changed directions and we all moved to different schools, Denise was back on the substitute teacher list, so I suggested she study to be a school librarian because, at that time, it was understood that they would become essential positions in every school. Oh, we were so gullible. But she did just that, and when I was teaching at Quadra School, the position of Librarian became vacant. I called Denise. She applied. And we were working together again. Oh, happy day!
One morning at work I had severe chest pains and the principal called the ambulance. They took me out on a stretcher, past the classroom window where the children saw me, to my embarrassment, and off to the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The halls there were lined with hospital beds, mine one of them. I finally got assessed later that busy night and it was decided that my pain was not due to a heart attack. It had been ten in the morning when I arrived at the hospital and ten at night when they said I could leave.
What could I do at ten o’clock at night? My car was sitting by itself back in the school parking lot, and since my husband was on Mayne Island, building our house, I had nobody at home to call to give me a ride. I therefore called Denise, who lived just a few blocks from the hospital. She kindly picked me up and drove me back to the school so that I could retrieve my car and drive home.
After I retired and Joel and I moved to Mayne Island, Denise and Ken came over often. Sometimes we talked about our extended families. We were unhappy about a dispute that had occurred recently, and our story got back to our children through Ken and Denise’s children. It didn’t help our relationships with our children, who were mad at us for talking about them with our friends. The unspoken “code” that Denise and I had between us had been broken. What a terrible time that was, but we got through it. We learned from it not to talk about anyone but ourselves. We were mature enough to value one another and keep on being close friends.
After Denise retired from her school librarian position, her activism blossomed. She was a creative member of a grassroots movement that involved flax growing and processing, and then the ultimate making of linen fabric. I met a woman who was wearing a piece of the linen Denise had made. Denise never stopped trying, with perfect commitment, to make this a better world.
When Sam and his wife had a baby boy, Denise and Ken traveled to Toronto to see the little family. This was late in 2011. They then flew to England, to visit Denise’s family. While in her former home, she suffered a severe brain hemorrhage. Ken phoned us from England on New Year’s Day to tell us about her serious condition and what she would be like if she survived. I was sure Denise would not want that. Ken called the next day to tell us that she had gone. I miss her all the time.