the curling

And also with a quick note to say that I have some shows coming up. Tell your friends!

February 6
Community Centre
Kipling, SK
Tickets

February 7
Lyric Theatre
Swift Current, SK
Tickets

February 14
Darke Hall
Regina, SK
Tickets

February 19
Broadway Theatre
Saskatoon, SK
Tickets

I make it apparent that I’m not known for being sporty, but curling is my jam. It soothes me. It’s the measured voices of the announcers as they parse out the strategies. It’s the curlers’ bodies gliding behind the rock after its release. It’s the precision of the combo shots. It’s the repetition: eight rocks, four players, 10 ends. It’s predictable. Orderly. Genteel.

When my mom died, the Scotties were in full swing. Grandma Laila was watching it, because she always watched the curling. I grew up with the game being part of my family’s winter activities, but I didn’t have much interest in it at that point.

I stayed with Grandma for a couple weeks after Mom died while my stepdad and I sorted affairs. I didn’t know it then, but my relationship with my Grandma, my real relationship, was about to begin. I’d lay on her couch, numbed out, while she watched. She knew every bit of gossip and she had her favourites: Rachel Homan, Jennifer Jones and Brad Gushue to name a few.

I loved listening to her talk. It was gentle. Sweet. Safe. I didn’t consider that she was hurting in the loss of Mom too. I was so sad that I was blind, but I think she was also keeping her grief close to chest – perhaps to give me grace, perhaps because she had already laid to rest her youngest child when she was 66 and her husband when she was 75, as well as her mother, father, two brothers and it just goes on. I think you get to know grief over time. During curling, she talked and I listened and we were together in something.

I knew the game. I could play it well enough too. I’d spent many winter weekends at the Fosston Curling Rink as a kid. I started out in the annual bus bonspiel when I was in kindergarten. I remember high schoolers smoking and making use of the tuna can ashtrays mounted at the hog line benches between sheets. We dealt out cards for games of War in the lounge when we weren’t on the ice. I got to eat Old Dutch chips and drink hot chocolate from styrofoam cups. I think my mom even bought me a rink burger once.

When I was a little older my dad took my brother and I to curling clinics. The day-long affairs taught delivery, weight, sweeping, take outs and every other aspect of the game. We were broken into groups by age and I remember it being fun. I remember feeling proud that we had brand new synthetic brooms, knowing that they were an extravagance and that our corn brooms were left at home in the basement. I remember watching from afar as my dad took his position in the hacks, swung the rock behind him for momentum, then stretched into a lunge as he released his grip. Even at my young age I saw that he enjoyed it.

Around this time, and after one of these clinics, my parents secured the rink to practice the techniques we learned. It didn’t end well. I balked at Dad coaching me, then resisted entirely and went inside to sulk and sit on the chairs while the rest of my family curled without me. I didn’t want to be told what to do. I didn’t want to have to be good at it. I didn’t want it to be anything but fun. And there ended the curling career of one sensitive child. I’d guess I was around 11. It either informed or was a prediction of how I’d feel about playing sports thereafter.

But 20 years later I rested on my grandma’s couch and watched game after game in the peace and comfort of her perfect home. As I grew closer to Grandma, I’d join her happily in the living room during visits and watch the Brier, the Worlds, the Scotties and the Olympics. When commercials aired I’d go to the kitchen to snack on gingersnaps, flatbread, lefse and her homemade buns with margarine. It all bore the unmistakable feeling of sinking into deep relief.

Last year, after Grandma died, the World Men’s Championship coincided with the dates I planned to record a new album in Saskatoon. The first days of rehearsal and bed-track captures were under the influence of how Canada was fairing. My producer, Paul Rigby, is a connoisseur of joy, and dove headfirst into the sport despite having no previous reference. In the evenings of our first days in studio my band gathered to watch curling with my Aunty Elaine and Uncle Allen who are (of course) also fans. It was boisterous and celebratory and a complete delight.

A few weeks ago I was out with friends and there was curling on tv. I withdrew from conversation, my head tipped upwards at the screen, lost in the shots. When I returned my attention to my friends I said,

“Sorry. The curling was on. I can’t not watch.”

A friend from another province smiled.

“That is the most Saskatchewan thing you could say.”

She’s not wrong.