I miss my Kalanna. Especially when I’m at work.

No, I’m not missing myself. I miss my character Kalanna that I play in World of Warcraft. She’s a night elf druid and along with the infamous night elf hunter Mecandes, she traverses the lands of Azeroth cleansing the world of darkness.

We just recently started playing again after a hiatus before and after the move. I’ve asked myself so many times – what is it that I love so much about an online world and friends that I know only between my Qwerty and theirs.

Truth is I love it for a million reasons. Exploring new lands, playing dress up with my character, being with my husband. My own money to blow or save on a whim, taking out frustration from work on some stupid troll and believing in myself. And I won’t lie – there’s addiction and the need to go that much further, get that much better, for the next loot, over the next hill, completely immersed in a fantastical world of your own creation.

I like to call it the WoW factor. Yeah, I know, bad pun. But it’s true. I couldn’t even count the moments when I’ve sat back in my chair and said “Wow,” breathless at the sight before me.

Partly, some part of my psyche is rebelling. WoW isn’t that far from all the novels I’ve read and fallen in love with over the years. But it’s a very long cry from the fundamentalist entertainment choices of my mother. Eminently practical she was, to the thousandth place. She did so many things right raising my brother and I, but she wasn’t so nice on the imagination. My favorite book, the one I’ve read the most times through life and done any number of book reports on, was Little Women. Believe me, I’d never put that book down but a sturdier more practical and down to earth tome one cannot find.

Did I ever tell you what the name Kalanna in J.R.R. Tolkien’s elvish language means? My husband had gone by his alias on the internet and in games for so long that one day I got jealous and wanted an alter ego of my own. And not just any, but one perfectly me and suited to her mate.

At the back of Tolkien’s compilation of Middle Earth history entitled The Silmarillion, he includes an elvish dictionary of sorts. Mostly, he gives word parts – roots, prefixes and suffixes – and then gives their meaning. I poured over it for hours trying to pick out something perfect when I found “kal” which is a root meaning shine and “anna” which is gift. And so, Kalanna, my shining gift to myself, was born.

P.s. Found this hilarious quote on the Sentinels forums… made my day.

“I legally married my keyboard. That way we’re never separated and we always raid together.”

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One of my mom’s virtues was that she would sit and talk to you about anything. For as long as you want and until it was decided and you felt comfortable in a decision. On the flip side, it was also one of her vices. Too quickly does discussion become monologuing. And yet I’m really missing that piece of her right now.

Our daughter will be making her First Communion this spring, and I’m anxious nervous thrilled excited about the thought of her special day. And with her day comes a dress, of course. It’s the whole reason I wanted to learn to sew well – to be able to make special occasion dresses for her who delights in pink frills and swishy skirts. So, I’m nearly as anxious nervous thrilled excited about the dress. lol

I was surprised to hear that parish we are with is actually encouraging families to downplay the whole white dress bonanza. Friends have told me that there are people in town who will be $10,000 on an ensemble and the festivities while another child barely has the means to be there at all. So the advice about “it doesn’t have to be a white dress, only Sunday best” really is more about charity than anything else. The materialistic side of me is sad. The St. Clare in me is very very pleased.

How do the two connect – missing Mom and a silly dress? Well, I’ve been endlessly debating how fancy, how white, which pattern, which jacket, which color and fabric in my head and to my poor husband for at least month now. I so wish Mom were here to talk to.

When I was a kid, we spent hours in fabric stores together. I was totally bored most of the time, and she took forever to shop for anything, so I don’t really know how that turned into me getting completely girlish-giddy at the sight of Fabricland but I did and do. My mom was often pushy and controlling, but she and I had the same tastes in style and design. We could pick out the same favorite top in a given store, only hers would be blue and mine red.

I thought that I had decided on a plan of action over the weekend, but when I got into the store yesterday, lol and behold the new pattern books are out! The mind reels – mass chaos – which one, which one? That’s why I miss Mom today.

“I missed my mother, terribly, when I graduated from college… I missed her when I got my first job promotion and wanted to share the news with someone who’d be proud. I miss her when I’m sick and when I’m lonely, when I can’t remember what works best on insect bites, and when nobody else cares how rude the clerk in the post office was to me. Whether she actually would have fed me homemade chicken soup or mailed me cotton balls and calamine lotion if she were alive isn’t really the issue. To be honest, my mother never once in her life cooked chicken soup that didn’t come from a can. It’s the fact that I can’t ask her for it that makes me miss her all over again.”

~ excerpt from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman

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How do you explain what is home?

One day over tea, I tried to explain to a good friend in Louisiana why Canada felt like home. Even more than Louisiana and my home town. I stumbled and tripped over my tongue for quite some time when finally the answer came out of her mouth.

My family was born in Canada. As husband and wife, we had our first time alone. We grew when children were given and bought our first home. The identity of those four walls is everlasting. From there we welcomed friends, shared holidays, dug deep into the soil and entwined our branches with each other and another generation.

Having been through the loss of my family home and then a divorce, the new home was a saving grace and a dependable establishment for me to cling to in all weather.

My family was born in those seasons. My family was born in Canada. And this is home.

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After a week of nights answering a call bell system at the retirement community where I work, I began to wonder how things might change in the future. What is it going to be like when our generation reaches that age?

Probably, the building would be equipped with computers setup in a network with us as residents who were accustomed to updating their mood in real time and Facebook time. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the call bell was replaced with status reports from each patient’s room?! Maybe it’ll become the sixth vital sign – temp, BP, pulse, resps, O2 sat and… mood status.

It sorta makes me giggle to think of it. Because I bet we really are making our way there.

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There’s always hidden perks to a job. One night this week, I found one that I never expected – my own personal poet.

“Theresa and Kalanna
You will be companions
for awhile
when I push the button.”

He speaks in short clipped sentences, but they are deliberate, carefully said and so meaningful. The heart and life that pours through them is incredible.

“Go to the angels
I want to
Be companions, friends
Because
I can please them
Angels
Angels.”

When he felt frustrated in our conversation, he said,

“Kalanna
I’m sorry
The sickness.”

Upon learning my real name, it rung a bell in his mind and we started talking of Roman times,

“Adrienne
Hadrian’s wall
Hadrian’s wall
Adrienne’s wall
Adrienne.”

I love to sit and talk to him when I get a minute at work. He has the most beautiful way of annunciating words. It is as if you are listening to a bard from ancient times, yet I do not believe that his are part of show. No, absolutely genuine.

When I returned the following day, he even greeted me like a bard, saying “Glad tidings of you, Kalanna.” You want to drink in every syllable, savor it and hold it close. Puzzle it out, turn it upside down and inside out, but really they are what they are. Words.

And as if I wasn’t completely bewitched by my new friend already, once when I took leave of him, he gave me this…

“Good – firm hands
Competent
A nurse
A nurse
And I have her.”

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