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Learning to walk alone
I’m a person of some faith – and many friends – so the “walk alone” in this title of this post isn’t meant metaphorically, but in this case more tangibly. I wrote about “women’s best friend” a few years ago on this blog. I’ve had the same canine companion since 2006. Since then, there have been endless long walks together. Along suburban streets, through local forests and ravines and across frozen lakes. We’ve scrambled down banks and jumped across streams more times than I can count. All you had to do was say, “walk” and she would come running. But my… Read more…
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Changing with the times
Yesterday, as I was driving home, I saw my first flock of starlings this fall. They were dancing across the sky, magically swooping and twirling as one single unit. I’ve always been astounded at how birds do that. I know that geese, flying in formation, take turns as leader, but a flock of birds doesn’t seem to have the same, as they morph into different shapes, and double back again and again, never leaving a single member behind. When I saw this, I was coming home from a choral rehearsal, and the similarities between the birds acting as one, and… Read more…
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Are you happy
I’m reading a book called The Happiness Curve. It posits that our 30s and 40s are the most unhappy decades of our lives – where stress lives and where things bottom out, so to speak – and that in our 50s, we regain a great deal of balance and happiness. I think there’s some truth to that, at least in my somewhat privileged Canadian experience. I have a circle of friends who are either approaching or are just past that magic half-century mark and we’re all seeing a bright shiny future coming closer and closer. We’ve been heard humming Pharrell Williams’ iconic song. Many of… Read more…
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Lighting up the sky
Beyond my garden fence last week, I was treated to an amazing light show each evening at dusk. I don’t remember seeing this many fireflies in many, many years. A few nights ago, the neighbour kids were out trying to catch them in jars, just as I did as a child. When I was in Costa Rica a couple of years ago, we experienced bioluminescence in the water. Motion caused it there, so the more we moved our kayak paddles at night, the more the phytoplankton glowed, forming magical patterns in the water. The science behind the light is bioluminescence. When… Read more…
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Three little words: Ruminating on June’s Pride Week
Three little words. Three little words have the power to change lives. Almost thirty years ago, three little words changed two lives as “I love you” was spoken and a life together was born. Fast forward fifteen years and three children later and three different words changed five lives forever. It’s the leadup to the annual Pride Parade in Toronto, and just like past years, I approach this time with a real mix of feelings. During this time each year, we read stories from around the world in the papers and heard others on TV about men (and women) who come… Read more…
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From idea to reality
When I was a little girl, I loved to play make believe. I invented stories about who I was, where I lived and who I was going to grow up to be. Times were simpler then. Black and white TV, no cell phones, no internet. Lots of time to read books, ride bikes and scribble in journals. There were woods to walk through, ponds to find frogs in, hills to toboggan down, a creek to paddle up, and lawns to stretch out on while staring up at the clouds. Sometimes I was a princess, sometimes a teacher. One day I was… Read more…
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Musings on memories
Memories are funny things. Some are so vivid it’s like they happened just yesterday. Others tease and tantalize you with barely-there wisps of something so close that you can almost grasp them – but that scatter when you try. I love looking through old photo albums. I am sure that memories are heightened – or even formed by photographs. I am sure that some of my childhood memories are only be “remembered” through family retelling plus a photo I’ve seen hundreds of times. Memories can be made sweeter – or more bitter – with the passage of time. For me,…
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Unravelling the sweater
Unraveling of colourful knitted garment Knitters among us know that you can spend a long time knitting, purling, slipping stitches over and dropping them to create beautiful patterns in knitwear. Big chunky wool for a winter sweater, nubbed cotton for a shawl to throw over your shoulders in the summer or fine, soft yarn for a baby’s layette, it’s all wonderful to work with. To be honest with you, it’ s been a long time since I’ve tackled a knitting project as big as a full sweater. For the past few winters, scarves, mittens and toques have been all I’ve… Read more…
