This is why they call it “Bonavista” Bay
Author: J. Kelland Perry
In 2010, my husband and I left the city to escape to rural life in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and we're savoring every moment.
I update my blog with everything I love through prose and photography, as well as posts about writing. My first novel was released in March 2016 and its sequel was released in March 2017. My third novel, The Women of Wild Cove, was published in September 2025, this time of the speculative genre.
Menopause…or “Perry”-Menopause?
So here I am, on a frigid January evening. Outside, a bitter wind chill of minus 10 degrees Celsius (that’s 14+ degrees for you Fahrenheit folks), is blowing directly off the North Atlantic just a few yards from our door. My husband Paul is gone playing floor hockey at the high school gym, so I’m alone, trying desperately to chill out. Not figuratively, mind you, but literally. I turned down the thermostats so there is no heat on in my house, simply because my body feels like a furnace turned up on cremate.
This is a new and fresh hell for yours truly, only making itself known within the last couple of weeks. Somehow, I had let myself believe I’d be lucky enough to escape the discomfort of “tropical moments” at this time of my life. How I used to chuckle when one of my friends or coworkers complained of a hot flash. Ha! The joke is now on me. And for the uninitiated, it doesn’t feel like a source of external heat that hits you. It’s more like internal spontaneous combustion, where you think you just might suddenly burst into flames.
Stripped down to a tank top and appropriately, sweat pants, eating blueberries out of the freezer (still frozen), I’m trying to hold it together. I made the mistake earlier of googling other menopause symptoms, and started ticking off other lovely ailments I’ve been experiencing. Brain fog? Check. Anxiety? Check. Night sweats? Check. Mood swings? Okay, that one is just me, can’t blame that on The Change.
The website also warned that the whole process could take anywhere from two to eight years before it is done. That’s just terrific. Think I’ll go out and stick my head in a snow bank.
And now Paul is home. “It’s freezing here!” he says. He looks at my red face. “Is it alright if I turn up the heat?”
“If you must,” I bark, fanning myself with a throw cushion.
Then I realize something. In our house, PMS always stood for Paul Must Suffer. Well, the PMS might be coming to an end for me, but it won’t be ending for him any time soon. Will he survive? Will I?
Check back in two to eight years.
Cat’s Eye
She is solitary,
silent as a spectre,
outside on another tentative
feline adventure.
On soft freckled pads, with
green eyes ever searching,
she sees, hears, smells the world
the way it is. Its cold reality.
Her white whiskered face
suddenly feral and hungry, she
runs, returns home to the warm lap
she has grown to trust.
No longer silent, but with rattling purrs,
she nuzzles and exchanges
a sandpaper kiss for the expected
morsel of love.
In that little Cat’s eye
that sees my soul and stares into
my heart
there is nowhere to hide.
I see my reflection.
What Inspires Me
Babies. Newborns, four-month-olds, six-month-olds, toddlers…but before they are swallowed up by the children they become. I love their newness, their freshness, their tiny hands and feet, the downy skin and clear blue eyes. And their helplessness and need for your care. My little grandson Joshua (and his mom and dad!) gave me that gift, the gift of being needed at the most basic level, at a time when I thought those days were behind me. Feeding him, rocking him, singing a lullaby. Must be my maternal side showing..
Leah…my beautiful granddaughter Leah. Her sunny smile, her boundless energy, her sweet, loving heart. The way she shares her thoughts so succinctly, but then her sudden shyness when she meets someone new (I know where that comes from!). Her innocent, yet beguiling charm.
The ocean. My new backyard…no, much more than that; it surrounds me! Every day I look out, it is a slightly different colour; morphing between shades of electric blue sapphire, or steel grey, or deep, dark, ominous navy with frothy white-caps. The sea is like a living thing, mercurial, organic, merciless. And endlessly beautiful.
Animals…and not just my cats. Horses, dogs, whales, birds, wild beings in the forest. Creatures of the sea and sky.
Conversation and dialogue, a monologue, poetry, words… talk shows, interviews, journals, diaries, songs! Slightly different shades of meaning expressed by employing a different word, an inflection, a facial expression, an innermost thought, a lyric or a verse.
Love. All kinds: a mother’s love, friend love, passionate, head-over-heels in love, idolatry, paternal love, mentor love, unrequited love. A grandparent’s love! Love for a pet. Perhaps most importantly, love of Self.
Order. I like when life has a plan, a logical sequence, a symmetry, even when there doesn’t seem to be any apparent sense to it (the challenge and reward is in the discovery of meaning where you thought there was none). On a simpler level, I love neatness and polish of style, whether it be fashion, decorating, or artistic expression.
Work. Ordinary ol’ hard work, the only way to get anything done. The idea of purpose and direction in your life, and not just something you do for yourself but for everyone around you. Getting in there and rolling up your sleeves, getting good and dirty, immersing yourself in a job for no other reason than it just feels good to do so.
The joy of cooking. The planning, the preparation, and the patience required to turn out a delicious meal. Excellent therapy for giving you focus. It can also teach you how to be more resourceful with what is on hand. All you need is inspiration, imagination, and a few dozen cookbooks!
Music. All kinds of music that is good. This includes anything that makes you want to dance and sing, no matter how silly a ditty it is. Food for the soul and spirit.
Tales of the sea. Shipwrecks, near tragedies, heroism by ordinary mortals in extraordinary circumstances. Stories of Newfoundlanders who overcame hardship as they tried to eke out a living from the sea.
Heroism in everyday life: a man who gives of himself generously to those in need, with no thought of recompense; a person coming to the rescue of someone in great emotional pain; the woman who raises a family without a father in the picture (and does it well); the bravery of someone battling an illness or condition; dying with dignity.
Books…old, dusty tomes with dog-eared pages, brand new paperbacks, the smell of ink inside, stories written before I was born, colourful, well-written fiction of today, non-fiction that inspires while it helps explain the world and our place in it. I was a devout bookworm growing up; my best friends lived inside the pages, and I hated saying good-bye to them at the end. Racing to finish that book you can’t put down, savouring every word, but hating its completion. I would love to write a book like that. That is my goal.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road…
Hello, and welcome to my Journal! This is my first foray into the world of blogging, so being a total newbie at this, I am not even sure where my words will take us. The one thing I can tell you, Dear Reader, is that Jennifer’s Journal will be a sharing of my thoughts in the forms of prose, poetry and musings. As well, I plan to include selections of photography that I think you will like.
New Year’s Eve 2011 is upon us, and 2012 beckons with promise. I should be getting gussied up for the Ball at the Barbour site here in Newtown in a few hours, the first one in several years for us. I should be primping and preening, painting my nails, curling my locks and donning a frock to ring in the new year in style with the local revelers. Instead, I’ve happened upon The (wonderful) Wizard of Oz, a movie that has hijacked my attention for the hundredth time.
And once again, I ask myself, What is it about the Scarecrow (always my favorite), that makes my silly heart melt? Is it the way he falls about in his straw-filled pants, like he hasn’t a bone in his body, or is it the way he talks so kindly to Dorothy, making me wish I was her? Yes, I smile at the Tin Man, and I laugh at the Cowardly Lion, but it is the Scarecrow that makes me PVR the rest of the movie before I am reluctantly pulled away.
And I know it is the last day of the year, but I didn’t want to wait for January One, which would have been the expected start date of a blog. I had to ask that very important question today.
Perhaps, Dorothy has the answer?
Jennifer's Journal 