Moms: Grief and Gratitude

Last week was a tough week. Nothing outwardly calamitous happened to me, it was just a week of reminders and anniversaries of not so great things. 

My mom died on October 20, 2021. I had been thinking about her, and our relationship, as I do when something like her birthday or Mothers Day comes around. About ten years before she died I felt her pushing me away a bit. She didn't want to answer tough questions or talk about difficult subjects anymore. I resorted to simple, low stakes conversations about my kids, my work, her retirement activities, etc. in order to connect with her. When she developed full blown dementia, four years before she died, I couldn't help feeling ripped off. I still had so many questions to ask her, so many things I would have liked answered. Now, when I look back on my perception of her pushing me away, I recognize it, along with some other indicators, as the beginnings of the slow cloud of dementia starting to cover her thought processes. She simply lacked the capacity to 'go deep' with me any longer. 

I loved my mom. She was a good mom for the most part, and I miss her. I wish she had been tougher on me, and fought for me a little harder. I gave up on things too easily, was too flighty. Maybe she had her reasons, but I could have done with a bit more coaching. I took that into my own practice of motherhood, and perhaps I overdid it a little with my own kids. (Violin practice was almost the death of my son and me a few times.) I was a fairly typical GenX hippie kid,  left to my own devices and allowed to honour my whims for the most part. My family went through some really tough times during my upbringing, and I think I paid a bit of the price for that. My mom was a hard worker, an intellectual, a philosophical person and somewhat of a local celebrity. She was a lot to live up to, and thinking about her often leads me to facing stuff about myself and becoming conflicted. Still, we were close, and she was great in so many ways that I forgive her for any and all shortcomings she may have demonstrated in mothering me. On our last visit together, when she was able to walk downtown with me, I took her to a lovely craft store full of handmade, artistic creations. We walked around the store hand in hand, looking at pottery, jewelry, woodwork, ironwork, and fiber arts. She couldn't say much, but I could tell she was enjoying looking with me, and holding my hand. We held hands a lot on that visit, and I hold on to that memory when I am missing her most. 

There are other ways the week was a tough one, but I won't go into that now. When some personal hard things are in progress, we prefer to talk about them only once they are resolved.

Saturday night my husband and I had tickets to a band we have seen several times, The Paperboys. After a hard and emotional week, I was ready to let my hair down and have a good time. Our son had given us a gift certificate to the local Greek restaurant months before, so we decided to go all out and go out for supper as well. Mojitos go well with Greek food, I found out. After supper we quickly took the leftovers of our generous 'Greek Platter for Two' home and put them in the fridge. We drove to the hall where the concert was to take place and quickly found a table at the back. We were soon invited to sit with some friends who were seated closer to the stage, which would be less of a trek to and from the dance floor. After a couple of songs, my husband and I, and one of our good friends, got up to dance. The Paperboys' music is an enticing blend of Celtic-inspired Folk, Rock, Jazz, with Latin roots - very danceable. We only sat down for the ballads to catch our breath and quench our thirst. At one point, Tom Landa, the band's leader for all of their thirty years as a group, introduced his mother. He said she had been coming to their gigs and supporting them unequivocally for all of those thirty years. "If you want to know what support looks like, she is it," he said to an appreciative crowd. Tom's mom looked about eighty, but she danced all night. After the encore, because of course there was an encore, we were all cheering our hearts out. Tom's mom was right next to me. She caught me up in a surprise hug, and I was so honoured. I suppose she could see how much we were enjoying the band, and her son, and wanted to share the moment with us? I'm not sure, but it felt great. We chatted for a minute or so, and I thought how lucky she was to have a son like Tom, but also how lucky he was to have a mom like her. I remembered how my mom and I used to go dancing to my brother's band back in the late 1980's.

Motherhood is a journey, that's for sure. Most of us do our best and we still screw it up sometimes. We can also be hard on our moms, but, I think as we get older and have our own kids and our own trials as moms, we understand our own mothers just a little bit better. We may even feel a kind of solidarity with them. I heard it said in a movie once: "Even people who hate their mothers love their mothers". I certainly didn't hate mine, and I am eternally grateful for all the support she gave me over the years. 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Will Elvis Leave the Building for Good?

When the current elderly generation expires, will Elvis Impersonators be out of a job? 

The above question occurred to a friendly acquaintance and me, pretty much at the same moment the other evening, at a 50th wedding anniversary party we attended with our respective husbands. 

I was so tired. I had been away working all week and driven home in the dark the night before - an hour plus of scanning the road for wildlife with exhausted eyes and a throbbing head. When I got home my husband reminded me about the party, which was on our schedules for the next evening. "Noooo!" or maybe some curse words escaped my mouth. I can't remember. Cancelling was not really an option for this particular event, though. I decided not to think about the party, brushed my teeth, and fell into bed, sleeping hard all night.

The next morning I woke up, still tired. I managed a half-hearted shuffle around the lake, had lunch and then, a nap. The party was back down in the valley, and was to go from 4:30 to 9:00 pm. At least it won't be a late night, I told myself. The theme for the party was the 1970's, in honour of the decade our hosts were married in, and also, we found out later, the decade in which they saw Elvis live in Las Vegas for ten bucks a ticket (and that included two drinks! said our host, enthusiastically).We had been invited to wear costumes. 

We arrived at the venue and changed into our costumes in the truck. I went for a 'Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore' look, while my husband wore fake leather pants and a polyester satin shirt for a 'disco sleezeball' look. We had found our costumes at Value Village a couple of weeks prior. While we began to get into the spirit of the event I knew we both needed a drink. We opted for rum and cokes. We both needed the caffeine boost. 

The majority of the crowd were elderly peers of our hosts, but a small group of 50-somethings and assorted younger relatives rounded out the group. After drinks and mingling to the best of our ability (I admit to sitting down and posting photos on my phone after an hour of standing around making small talk), dinner was served. Our small table of four shared a bottle of wine and waited our turn at the buffet.

The evening's entertainment began after dinner. A local Elvis impersonator in a gold jacket entered the room and began his performance. While our table had misgivings about what to expect, none of us being Elvis fans, we soon had to admit our entertainer was a pro. He soon had the room singing along with the golden oldies, and a few couples, including the anniversary couple, got up to dance in the old way. 'Elvis' sang well and interspersed his Elvis material with some Neil Diamond. Roy Orbison, and Louis Armstrong, but it was his rendition of CCR's 'Proud Mary' that got us 50-something women on the dance floor. The alcohol and food had worked its magic and energized me briefly. A couple of spry older women were inspired to join us. The elderly folks unable to dance themselves, enjoyed watching us. We became part of the entertainment. 

After the cake, made to replicate the original two-tiered wedding cake, was served, my husband and I said our goodbyes. As we made our way through the crowd after stopping at the head table, an elderly woman grabbed my hand. "You all looked great!" she said, smiling widely. I covered her hand with both of mine, holding them for a moment, and said thank you. It made me glad to know she'd enjoyed herself so much.

The party, although I had approached it that night with a 'grin and bear it' kind of attitude, ended up being fun. I observed and appreciated how the Elvis impersonator had figured out his evolving audience needed more than the dated Elvis material (sorry, fans) to be entertained. In fact, he didn't really sound much like the original Elvis to me, just did his hair like him, danced a bit like him, and drove a pink 1970's Cadillac. He told us he was going to be performing at a big classic car show the next day. 

I also concluded I am very much in favour of parties starting early and ending at 9 pm, especially when the drive home is over an hour on a dark, curvy mountain highway. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I know it has been an age since I posted something on this blog. Life has been rather full of late and although ideas and a desire to post have floated around incessantly in my head I have not had time to sit down and get to it. A couple of Saturday mornings ago I sat in my favourite coffee shop and wrote the draft of a post in my notebook. Did it get typed and posted? No. I have done this twice now. Like Charlie Brown I can't quite get it together. 'Good grief!'

I do have at least one rather good excuse, though. Some of my regular reader friends will remember I began working on a novel on November 1st, 2013. I am happy to report that my novel's first draft was completed on November 25th of this year. I was, needless to say, relieved and delighted. When I originally wrote about completing NaNoWriMo (see linked post above for an explanation) I thought I only needed to write about another third to complete my draft. I was wrong. My word count ended at 103,000 words, more than double what I had written as part of National Novel Writing Month. Still, I was happy with the outcome and look forward to the editing process. I have been advised by an editor friend to let the manuscript rest for a while so I can look at it with fresh eyes. Completing my first draft was a Christmas gift to myself, I suppose, and one I was happy to unwrap early, for now I can concentrate on making the house clean beautiful and the upcoming Season as delicious as possible for my family and friends. My husband also just started three weeks of holidays from work so I know much will be accomplished in the way of tedious long-neglected tasks around here. My three living-away kids will be home for varying lengths of time for the Holidays and even though I will be spending a lot of time ferrying my youngest daughter to her rehearsals for the production of the Addams Family Musical to take place in January, I will enjoy every minute of having a full house once again.

The first Christmassy thing I do every year is bake fruitcakes. In the early days only my husband and I enjoyed eating these boozy, rummy fruit and nut cakes. Then, I began sending my parents one, too and they asked for the recipe. This year I received a message from our twenty year old son which said, "I am looking forward to eating Christmas cake with a glass of port." My eldest daughter now enjoys the cake as well, so it looks like we will have no trouble consuming the two large and three small cakes I have baked this year. Today I will bathe the cakes in rum and rewrap them in cheesecloth to marinate for another week when I will bathe them in rum again. They end up very well preserved by Christmas week. I have also already made a double batch of another family favourite: cheese ball. I coat the cheese balls in chopped walnuts harvested from the tree in our back yard, and serve it with a variety of crackers. We have already attended two events at which cheese ball was our contribution to the food table; we are becoming rather predictable at parties.

Christmas is not Christmas in our family without certain food related traditions, but new additions are always welcome. Last month, my youngest daughter and I made Maple Toffee Popcorn for the first time. It was absolutely delicious and would make a great gift for gluten-free friends. We will be making a big batch again. I will make fruit and nut chocolate bark as well, but I will leave the rest of the baking to my husband and daughter who has been away at college and surviving on stove-top cooking. She is longing to bake when she comes home next weekend.

Last Friday we and our eldest daughter attended the year-end concert at our son's university. He is in his second year studying violin in the Orchestral Performance program and we are always happy to go to any concert in the university's beautiful concert hall. Our son had worked very hard to get a top seat in the orchestra for the second half of the concert when they would perform Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 5. Shostakovich is one of his favourite composers and the piece is also a favourite. The first half of the concert featured an extremely accomplished young pianist performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, but it was the second half which earned a standing ovation - or perhaps a cumulative effect was the cause. Either way, the concert was wonderful and we and everyone else in the packed house were so proud of all the young musicians up on the stage in front of us. When we came out of the hall at the end of the concert snow was falling in earnest. A group of students had run outside to play in the snow and were visible from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby. I love snow, too, but driving in it is not my favourite activity. After dropping off our son at his dorm building we drove to our eldest daughter's apartment and said goodbye to her. We made our way slowly and carefully all the way to Langley where the snow had come and gone already leaving the roads bare for the rest of the journey home.We munched on chips and listened to the radio to keep ourselves awake, arriving at home well past midnight, but we both felt it had been worth it.

Speaking of fine young musicians, I am a new fan of twenty-six year old pianist Yuja Wang. I am happy to share a video of her playing one of my (and her) favourite composers, Chopin. Have a listen during this month of hustle and bustle of the Holiday season, and I guarantee it will help you catch your breath. Until next time, enjoy December as it speeds by at its customary alarming rate. I know I am.

Things I Wrote as a Kid, Part 2

Our local Arts Festival just ended on Sunday night with a wonderful concert with Ricardo Tesi and Banditaliano from Italy. Our festival is a bit of an endurance test. Ten days of music and art bookended by jam-packed weekends of the same makes for an exhilirated yet exausted family and a messy, neglected house. Never mind, after a day of recovery I spent this morning cleaning and doing laundry, while this evening I will enjoy attending my regular yoga class. Ahhhh...it almost makes me appreciate returning to regular life.

As I said in my previous post, Things I Wrote as a Kid, I have been reading my teenage diaries. One day last week it occured to me to share my entries regarding the Winnipeg Folk Festival which I attended the summer of 1987 with my sisters, Monica and Clare and Clare's husband, Brent, along with some of their many friends. I had taken the train to Winnipeg after graduating from high school (I was seventeen) and was staying with Monica and her husband Matthew and their little daughter Anna. When rereading my diary entries I felt so blessed to have such close relationships with my sisters and brothers who were so generous and kind to me, their youngest sister. We had so much fun! I will include some highlights of my trip and time spent eating and cycling my way around Winnipeg. I hope my readers enjoy them.


Travelling to Revelstoke
I'm a little tired from the goodbye party Toni and the girls gave me last night. (They made posters of sheep for me; they made popcorn balls with Nibs as feet and eyes (sheep, a theme due to their nickname for me, 'Baa') and raspberry punch and pretzels. They made me a hilarious collage and an Ann Taylor portfolio with all my favourite pictures from magazines. Val gave me some fake Lauren perfume - cheap but a pretty fair copy. It was a really nice night). 
We started the morning with cantaloupe and me crying on Stephen's shoulder. I will miss him and Pauline (my brother and sister closest in age to me) Pauline and Steve gave me a bit more money for the trip, too. Then we packed up the Beluga (our fond name for the car). We had to use bungee cords to keep the lid of the trunk down because of my bike box. Chaos!
We rambled through the Slocan Valley (I don't know the sequence of towns) and through Silverton. We stopped at the Silverton Lookout. It was so quiet. You turn your back on the highway and look down into the lake below and across to the mountains. Nobody lives anywhere below but if I had the choice I would live right down on the cliffs. We had coffee in Silverton too and Mom madly (well not quite madly) ran around putting up museum and arts council posters. Then we stopped and ate at Nakusp on the beach. Bagels and cream cheese and pickles, tomatoes, cukes and sprouts! We didn't swim, though. We crossed the Ferry to Blanket Creek to swim. It is a small lake off the river and is quite warm. It's almost like a large bowl in that it becomes very deep in the middle. So, I couldn't stay out of the water. We got to Revelstoke and napped until 5:30 at our motel, The Swiss Chalet (tacky but clean). We ate in the motel restaurant and I had Weiner Schnitzel, which is breaded pork. It's not too exciting but with a squeeze of lemon it becomes quite good. We also had homemade chocolate cake which was excellent. We went for a long walk in the 105 degree air! The sun went down, though, as we headed back to first pack my bike in its box and then go to bed. I fell asleep around 11:45 I think. Mom had to watch the Journal Art and Music News. 
I woke up at 3:15 and had an invigorating shower and washed my hair! I felt so much better. We drove to the station and waited one hour for the late train. Eventually its whistle was finally heard. I boarded and got ready mentally for the trip. I had to sit in the smoking section until Calgary! But! Behind and across from me were two lovely Kiwis - very quiet but sweet. Right across from me was a really great Aussie named Tom. We met quickly and from then on we talked and talked! He bought me a coffee but a little while later I bought him a tea. He told me about all the food he'd eaten in all the places he'd been. His favourite, I gather, is Asia. We discussed art and everything else (Cabbages and Kings!) It was really neat to meet someone who could talk my ear off. He even seemed to enjoy talking to me. He's a dentist and is 29 but handsome (I like the 'but') and someone I could respect highly. 
The stops have been short until now. We didn't even get to walk around Lake Louise or Banff where Tom got off. The Rockies weren't as impressive as I'd imagined. They looked so old and grey. There were, however, a few majestic mountains yet even these looked ready to crumble...(I feel differently about the Rocky Mountains now.)

Monica, Clare, Matthew and Anna met me at the station. We got back to (Monica and Matthew's) funky apartment and I had a bath. Beautiful! I felt revived and sat down and had some breky (scrambled eggs and some banana bread). Then, I went to sleep for 5 and a half hours. When I got up Clare French-braided my hair...

June 29th
Got up about 8 a.m. because Anna was making a bit of noise. Matt made me breakfast and then I played with Anna who was really cute with me. Monica went to work and so Matthew and I took a drive. We brought Mon's lunch to her work and she introduced me for about 2 seconds to everyone _ I really like Alam. He is a tall, black man from Eritria who talks like, "Oh, so thees ees Moneeca's sistah."...we went to the Provincial Museum and saw the 'Non-Such'. It was neat but there is no way I would cross the Atlantic Ocean in it! We came home and relaxed and then Monica bugged me about being spoiled at home so I rebelliously did the dishes to prove her wrong. I may not do anything at home but I am able to. Clare and Brent came and got me after supper. It was really good to see Brent. He brought me a huge bag of tacky souvenirs (and some very useful ones such as a bicycle road map, a hat, and some postcards) One thing he stapled on tied with many other things such as buttons, matches, and pins was a really ugly and heavy bottle opener. Attached to it was a note, "Also good for beating off men." It was really funny...We then drove all around the city and went to a place called Osborne Village where the trendies hang out and had ice cream. I had one scoop of pistacio and one of fudge torte. Yummy! 

June 30th (Actually July 1st 3:40 a.m.) 
I am hyped on coffee! Tonight I went to the Bluenote (a dark cafe that has good music and long-haired waiters) with Matthew, John Cook and Alan Cox. They had the best coffee I've ever had and I must have had 4 cups! Ack!!!...Clare and I went to see 'Roxanne' again and generally let everyone around us know that Nelson was our hometown and that I 'appeared' in the movie. Then we walked home with Monica and my feet got sore from my new sandals and I had to be carried across the railroad tracks because I had taken the sandals off!

July 8th
Clare, Jen and Brent came to pick me up and we headed out to Bird's Hill Park for the first installment of the four day Winnipeg Folk Festival. When we got there this gospel blues band with four rather heavy-set black women singing such favourites as 'Amazing Grace' and 'Lord lift us up where we belong'. Mmmm. Then we heard a Montreal-based band called Latin-something-or-other. We danced to them and had fun. Then! Ladysmith Black Mombazo came on! They are about a 10 piece singing group from South Africa. They sing in Zulu and English and have wonderful choreography! They were a marvel to watch - so happy and bouncy. I really enjoyed them. It rained hard, though. Then it was off to Robin's Doughnuts and then Cousin's cafe for coffee and Sleepytime Tea respectively. Mom is sending me money! Yeah!

July 12th
We went to the Folk Festival yesterday - in fact CBC is broadcasting live at the Folk Fest. It was incredible! I was very impressed. We heard real folk, rock, Celtic rock, everything! We went from workshop to workshop, food stand to food stand! The best part I think was the night concert. Maria Muldaur, a Celtic rock band (Capercaillie), and David Lindley provoked us to dance crazily and sing along to songs such as 'You-oo--oo--oo send me" and "I love freedom" (we slyly added 'maxi pads' after each 'I love freedom') We ached from all our dancing. We got cold and put on sweaters, pants, anoraks - only to take them off again when we jumped and flailed our arms and yelled and hollered. It was such a high. At one workshop - the Afro-Calypso one, we imitated everyone we knew. It was hilarious - one can only get away with such craziness at Folk Fests! At the end we decided to stand at the back - way behind the thousands so we could leave a bit early to avoid traffic. Back there the music was bouncing off every food stand and fence and coming back to us in a very strange rhythm. 

July 13th
I got up at 11 and started a bath about 12 but Monica and Clare came home for lunch so I postponed my hot, peaceful solitude to dine with my beloved siblings. We ate cream of mushroom soup after dessert, of course! (brown sugar cake with whipped cream) I was still tired so I sat down to watch TV, but I looked around and the house was a mess so I cleaned the kitchen, put out laundry, and cleaned my room. I have discovered that when I do things in the house Matthew buys me a cold pop when he goes out to get the paper. Silent and sweet - that's our Matt - well, not too silent. When he gets going about history he can tell you lots of interesting things not at all silently! I danced with Anna while Monica started a letter. I then gave Anna a bath and dressed her, shirt coordinating with socks, of course! 

July 16th
I got up at 9:00 so I wouldn't waste the day...I was going to go downtown with Cathy but Pat Pyrz dropped by. We had a huge talk session which lasted until supper, through supper, all the way (while riding our bikes) to Assiniboine Park where it ceased for 1 and 1/2 hours because we watched Shakespeare in the Park. Pat's brother Gene was in it - Two Gentlemen from Verona. It was hilarious! The talk session lasted on the bike ride to the Impressions Cafe where all the wanna-be-folkies and some actually real folkies hang out, and it sustained until 12:30 p.m. between Pat, Monica, me, and neighbour Robin. Then Pat took me to a little eatery where we talked until about 2! Ack! Every subject from travel to glue-on bikinis was covered. What a day! I'm worn out!

Little Anna and me - taken by Brent at my parents' house

And that is where the diary of my summer in Winnipeg ends. After considering many options for the fall of 1987 including attending Lakehead University with Clare and Brent I decided I was homesick for my mountains and went back home to attend my local college. And so began another series of adventures, and another diary.

Note: all of this may seem shallow and silly considering all the sad and sobering things that are happening in the world these days, but I do find that when I am feeling weighed down by sadness a good antidote is to write about something that made or makes me happy. Something innocent, something free.

A World of Music, with Small Town Roots

A few weeks into our relocation from a semi-remote rustic lodge on the rocky lake shore of central Vancouver Island to the lowland agricultural community we now call home my mother phoned to see how it was going.

I told her I was enjoying anonymity for the time being after living among a small collection of families who lived and worked at the outdoor education facility. I also told her I was a bit worried about finding a place for myself in this small town where, from what I had seen, it seemed that maintaining perfect lawns and power washing their houses' vinyl siding, driveways and vehicles were the chosen past times of its residents. 'Don't worry', she said. 'The artists are there. They're hiding. They'll reveal themselves sooner or later'. That conversation took place ten years ago.

A few miles north of our town was Harrison Hot Springs, a little hamlet of a resort community built up around a large hotel, my husband's workplace and the reason we had relocated. We thought the village was a magical little spot and visited often that first summer. We had left a lake shore community and it seemed important to visit our new nearby lake as often as possible. The Island was still very fresh in our minds and hearts and we were reluctant to pledge allegiance to our new home. Spending time by the water connected us to our recent past and helped bridge our lives between the two places.

By the fall I had discovered the presence of a little art gallery in a former forest ranger station on the east shore of Harrison Bay, just outside of the village center, and soon after, through a connection of my sister who was heavily involved in the arts community in her town of Prince Rupert, I found myself introduced to, and then elected as the secretary of, the executive of the small district arts council. The former ranger station was also home to the offices of The Harrison Festival of the Arts. The arts council and the Festival Society were separate organizations fulfilling different needs in the community but we shared the facility and the society helped us with running the gallery. Over the next couple of years I got to know the Creative Director of the Festival, Phyllis Stenson and the General Manager, her husband Ed Stenson, as well as their right hand man, Kevin Jones. Within two years of moving to the area I was working for them coordinating the festival Children's Day, a position I held for five years.

Working with Phyllis and Ed was like being a cog in a well oiled machine. Phyllis and I soon discovered we were both detail-oriented people. Phyllis shared her strategies with me on how to cope with the many small, but important aspects of putting on the event, which were, basically, to be super organized, work away steadily, and if things go sideways to repeat her mantra: 'If my family is well, I've got my health and they can't put me in jail, then everything is alright.' Ed, ever steady, always willing to share in the humour of any situation, helpful, encouraging, relaxed and realistic, was the rock that worriers  like me needed to lean against when the going got tough.

From our early days in the area, we attended the Festival, a ten day celebration of world and roots music and art. Soon, we were all volunteering, my husband, our four kids and myself after I had handed the Children's Day reins to someone else. From annual festival to annual festival we began to see a pattern. Not only did every year's festival shine with some unexpected performances such as the gospel-punk band Reverent Peyton from Lousiana, and the eleven piece very loud theatrical folk band Bellowhead from Britain, and some expected excellent ones like uber-guitarist David Lindley and traditional Cape Breton group Beolach or the dance band Rastrillos from Mexico, it also shone with the coming together of locals and non locals alike who shared a love for great music. People from every walk of life attended the free concerts on the beach stage. Enjoying the lake breezes in the shade of the willow trees and the Festival tents, young families, teenagers, high income people, low income people, elderly people and those with special needs sat on lawn chairs or blankets on the grass in front of the stage. And there were also those people who, having not expected to do anything but walk by the spectacle, found themselves spellbound by the sights and sounds and vibrations of energy emanating from the performers on the stage. As the Festival regulars met at the start of each day's concerts they asked each other, "Did you see the concert last night? Wasn't he/she/they amazing?" or even shared critiques: "I didn't care for that performer. Every song sounded the same to me."

The famous willow tree by the beach stage

Every July the Festival spans two full weekends of beach stage and hall performances as well as an all-day art market set up all along the esplanade. The Friday and Saturday night concerts are generally rousing and dance-able giving everyone a chance to cut loose and 'leave it all on the dance floor'. Sunday evening's concerts start earlier in the evening than the other nights' and are generally more thoughtful or stirring, and are generated to put everyone back together before normal, non festival life resumes. This planning of who should perform when and where is no accident. Over the years, Phyllis has fine-tuned her performance schedule, working with performers' agents to keep as many variables in mind as possible, which is an art in itself. Ed and his helpers run the production side of things to keep the Festival running smoothly, troubleshooting along the way and coming up with umpteen creative solutions. Our eldest was one of those hired stage hands last summer and saw first hand how well the event was run. Of course, very little of an event of this magnitude would be possible without hundreds of volunteer hours. It is to Ed and Phyllis' credit that volunteers like us clamor for an opportunity to become involved in the festival.  After all, we are treated so well, given a free pass to all ten of the evening hall shows (which are the only events in the festival that require purchased tickets) and have a party thrown for us at the end in thanks for our services. Well, we do work pretty hard sometimes.

This year's Harrison Festival of the Arts was the 35th annual, and Phyllis and Ed's last. Phyllis and Ed are retiring, and Kevin is moving on to other projects. In keeping with the way things work around the Festival, succession planning was well under way over a year ago, and come September two new people will be at the helm of the event. The festival society board will continue on providing continuity, focus, and support, but the new directors, who are younger and bring different skills and talents with them will undoubtedly put their own stamp on the event we have all come to love and look forward to each year.

There is no doubt that I consider the Harrison Festival to be one of the main reasons I began to feel at home here in this valley. I have met several friends through the festival, found work and made connections that have proven valuable to my sense of community. The Festival has also become a family affair, and I know my children will go out into the world seeking and perhaps even helping to create similar positive and uplifting community events wherever they choose to call home in the future. Long live the Festival! And a big thanks to Phyllis and Ed, and Kevin, who have worked so hard for many, many years to bring a rich and diverse world of music and art to all of us in this quiet corner of the upper Fraser Valley.


As someone out there said, the 'earth' without 'art' is just 'eh'.

The title of this post is taken from the theme of the Harrison Festival: World Music and Art, Small Town Roots.

I have taken a little summer hiatus from blogging and reading blogs but it is apparent that it is now over. See you soon! 

Mamma Mia! - Quite the Experience

Around Mother's Day (the second Sunday in May in this country) I found a full page ad in the one of the Chilliwack papers: 'Mamma Mia! Prospera Centre, One Night Only, August 17'. A big show like that rarely comes east of Vancouver, so I got a little excited. My friend Diane asked me if I would like to go with her. I said yes, enthusiastically, without even considering the ticket price. When I told my family about the opportunity, they offered to pitch in for the ticket for my Mother's Day present. Diane offered to obtain the tickets online, and then all that was required was to wait with great anticipation for the big day.

For those out there who don't know - and there will be very few of you - Mamma Mia! began on the London Stage and soon became a massive hit all around the world. It is the story of a twenty year old girl and her single mother who runs a taverna on a small Greek island. The girl, Sophia, is uncertain of who her father is, and when she reads of three possiblilities in her mother's diary, she invites all three of them to her upcoming wedding in an attempt to find out which of the three men is her real father. Two of Sophia's mother's friends come to the island as well, and the antics which ensue are highly entertaining and stitched together throughout with songs from the Swedish supergroup, ABBA. The production is fantastically fun and high energy, and of course, sentimental for those who grew up fans of ABBA. The musical was made into a film in 2008, starring Meryl Streep and a host of other fantastic actors, which was also a huge hit worldwide.

I was not a fan of ABBA growing up, but my sisters were, as well as a couple of friends, so I knew the music; besides, once I hear a song I rarely forget it and ABBA songs are nothing if not catchy. I saw the film version a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It was just such good fun, although I once heard myself calling the storyline "every menopausal woman's fantasy." Anyway, when the opportunity came to go and see the travelling production I jumped at the chance. I've always wanted to see something like that and just never have, although I've seen a few big rock concerts and plenty of good quality smaller scale productions in good theaters.

After spending much of a hot and sunny Friday up at a local lake swimming and enjoying the natural beauty of the setting with our families, my friend Diane and I agreed to leave for the show at 7 pm that evening. The show would start at 8 pm, but we wanted to get there early enough to find a good parking spot and perhaps buy a drink or something beforehand. We found a good spot for the car in the Cultural Center parking lot next door to Prospera Centre, which is a hockey rink, mainly, but also used for larger events and holds about 5,000 people depending on the event. The only times I had been in the building were for public ice skating, and after the heat wave we've been having, I was looking forward to spending the evening in an air conditioned building watching the show.

We walked into the building and presented our tickets to the friendly ticket-taker. The air in the entrance way did not seem to be cool at all, and we walked a few more metres to the programme seller, thinking the cool wall of A/C would hit us any moment. "So, is Meryl Streep in the show?" asked Diane, very tongue in cheek. "Oh no" the woman replied, most likely thinking these women were true hicks from Hicksville, "this show has all different actors. You can see them all in this programme" (which was in colour and $20). Diane, who'd seen Les Miserables on the London stage a couple of times, walked on with me, shaking her head. The wall of cool air never arrived. We were given the free black and white version of the programme by the usher who lead us to our seats, and we resigned ourselves to spending the evening fanning ourselves with it. Fortunately, I had smuggled in a bottle of iced water, because the line-up for the drinks was pretty long, understandably. The air conditioning either did not exist - perhaps the ice which was there throughout much of the year was kept cold from beneath, or it was broken. I never really found out the truth.

Before long, music indicated to the crowd that the show was about to begin. The lights were lowered and the  first scene commenced. We were sitting in section H, row 9, which meant we had to turn to the left to look at the stage, but our view was quite good and we were about half way up the risers. The seats were not very comfortable, just plastic fold-down things, and Diane regretted forgetting the cushion she had intended to bring; she'd sat through hockey games in the centre before. The first half was great. I was intrigued thinking about the whole stage management/production side of things, because the show was highly choreographed, including the set changes. I knew the film, of course, and also enjoyed the little differences in the stage version. The actors were very good, especially the young woman who played Sophia, but of course Meryl Streep was the best 'Donna' I had seen, and comparisons would have been unfair. The first half ended with the song 'Voulez Vous' and a rousing dance number with the entire cast, and then we were able to stand up and stretch our legs during the intermission. Diane also discovered an ice cream vendor and we had something cool to eat. We also went to the Ladies room and splashed cool-ish water on our faces and arms, and even our legs. Diane asked me at one point, "How hot do you think it is in here?" It was probably about 30 degrees, judging by the perspiration running down my back.

The second half was equally entertaining, but every once in a while I would look out over the audience to see a sea of programme fans waving to the beat of the music. The audience seemed to be lagging a bit. A few had even left after the first half, the older gentleman beside me included - I had noticed he did not appear to be feeling well. About twenty minutes from the end of the show, some kind of alarm went off in the back of the building. It sounded like a car alarm, but it was most definitely inside the building. The actors kept right on with the show, being pros, and the alarm kept on, too, 'Wooee, wooee, wooee, wooee," on and on for about five full minutes. Finally, someone managed to turn it off and the audience cheered, albeit tiredly. The final numbers in the show are meant to bring everyone to their feet, and soon everyone was up, clapping and singing along, some even managing to wave their arms back and forth. How the actors endured three hours of that heat, in costumes, under the lights, I'll never know. They deserved a standing ovation just for that.

A fairly subdued crowd filed out of the building, smiling wearily, with thoughts of a rinse-off when they got home, I'm sure. Diane and I chatted during the drive home. We had read in the programme that the Mamma Mia! crew were off to Penticton in south central British Columbia the next day, having presented the show one night each in Lethbridge in southern Alberta, Dawson Creek, Prince George, and Chilliwack, all in BC. as part of their tour. All of these cities are mid-sized with populations of under 100,000. I was quite sure that each of the centres in which they played were hockey rinks. We wondered if any of them had air conditioning.

Mind you, in retrospect, perhaps the heat in the building added to the overall effect of the setting. A Greek Island can be awfully hot, but we could have done with a bit of a cool breeze off the Mediterranean. Yes, 'somewhere in the crowd' there was us, and we, along with the cast, musicians, and crew were certainly 'Super Troupers' for making it through that night!

Here's Meryl, Christine and Julie performing Super Trouper for the film version of Mamma Mia!. Enjoy! (I did)

Local Family Enjoys Festival to the Fullest

The annual local ten day arts festival is over. Today the beach tents are coming down, the information booth and the signboards are being dismantled and packed away into storage. For much of the week our eldest son and the rest of the crew will be packing up and putting away all physical traces of the festival for another year. On Thursday evening, the festival society will hold a party for the two hundred or so volunteers who make this annual event possible, and then the organizers will finish up the paperwork before going off on a well deserved vacation.

Our little festival was thirty-four years old this year, and our family has been here for nine of them. I worked for the festival as a staff member for five years, coordinating the Children's Day, and various members of my family volunteer each year. Volunteers are treated extremely well. For a few hours of service we gain free entrance to every one of the ten evening shows and as I mentioned before, a party at the end of it all to thank us for our help. Amazing.

During the festival I read and wrote very little. I ran even less. Those particular habits, and habits they are, were replaced with other pursuits - listening to live music, dancing the nights away with my husband and various festival friends, and driving to and from the festival, which takes place in the resort village ten kilometers down the road. For me, the festival is a highlight of the year and a chance to see a typical beach resort community completely transformed into a place where the arts take center stage. Not only are free concerts on the beach provided by the festival to be enjoyed on the two weekends by hundreds of people who pack the lawn above the beach with blankets and lawn chairs, but an art market is set up all along the esplanade and is full of vendors selling everything from the ageless tie-dyed t-shirts to natural skin care products, to pottery and handmade silver jewelry and copper garden ornaments. The festival becomes a place one wants to be as much as possible, but of course, meals still have to be made and laundry done at home. Somehow we manage to fit that in between concerts and visits with other friends who gather to enjoy the music and art of the festival.


Over the ten days, a sort of mini community is formed among the regular festival goers, and it is a wonderful thing. I know one woman in particular who books her holidays every year to accommodate her attendance at the festival, and it is the only time I see her. Every year I get to know her a little better - she is part of the fabric of that colourful festival banner as are so many others. I know the festival is not everyone's cup of tea, but for those of us for whom it is, we are lifted up by the event, by our volunteer efforts for the festival, and by a sense of a common purpose to bring and to enjoy this ten day expression of the joy of living, the beauty of the arts, and the miraculous ability of music from many different cultures to bring so many people together: families, elderly people, teenagers, individuals with special needs (many of them love to dance), hippies, business people, community leaders and often people who have never been exposed to this kind of event - like the young man from Vancouver I spoke to when I was volunteering at the beach stage, who said he had come to the resort village for the day at the beach and been surprised and impressed by the festival. He is making plans to attend again next year. As the artistic director said in her closing speech last night before the last concert, "If only we could have that sense of community all year round." 


At the Friday night concert, a fantastic band called Mike Farris and the Cumberland Saints brought their southern gospel blues from Nashville up to our northern shores. Their music transcended gospel blues to bring everyone in the building to their feet in celebration of the contribution of black gospel music to rhythm and blues music and to rock and roll in general. You did not have to be a 'believer' to appreciate their concert, and if you were, you appreciated it all the more. After the concert I got to talk to the members of the band. One of the backup singers said to me in her wonderful southern drawl, "When we were coming up here, we didn't know what to expect. We thought, 'resort town?' 'Spa?' 'Canada?' We thought y'all would be sitting up in your chairs with your hands together like this", and she performed a hilarious imitation of a prim sort of person with pursed lips and one hand on top of the other. "But y'all were ready for us. It was crazy beautiful to see! What a surprise!" That night in the hall was magic. I lost a few pounds dancing and was still dancing the next morning. 


As life returns to its natural summer rhythm, I find myself re-energized. I feel fueled up and ready to carry on with all there is to do over the next few weeks. Sure, I am a bit weary from all that dancing and I know my husband will take a few days to recover from long days at work and concerts at night, but our festival fatigue is a small price to pay for all the benefits we get from taking part. Festivals are a celebration of all that is good in life, and they, despite government cutbacks have to continue some way, somehow. Communities need festivals to remind them to rise above political squabbles, put aside differences for even a short time, and allow a new and positive element to arise and give the community a renewed vision of itself.

Long live the festival!

The photo of festival tents on the beach is courtesy of our local newspaper. I know I should name the paper to give them proper credit (sorry Jessica!), but that gives a bit too much away, even if only symbolically in this day and age of social networking. I kept meaning to bring my own camera but would forget each day. 

A Summer Giveaway

For the past week my family and I have been taking in as many events at our local Festival of the Arts as we can manage. We all volunteer for the festival, which gains us passes for free entry into every event. Over seventy volunteers make the festival possible and are sometimes the most enthusiastic members of the audience.

This particular festival is in its thirty-third year and runs like a well-oiled machine. The weather has not been ideal, but the sun shone for a few days over the weekend and I found myself, one warm, breezy evening, lying on the grass above the lakeshore listening to live music, and looking up at the umbrella of branches of a sprawling willow tree - a blissful occupation. The band frontman introduced each of the six band members and told us where they were born. Each of them was from a different country: Cuba, Mexico, El Salvador, Phillippines, Canada, and Trinidad. Our festival highlights world music and by the time the ten-day festival is over we will have attended concerts given by artists from Africa, Ireland, Spain, Louisiana, Vienna, Hawaii and Haiti. The festival is always a wonderful time, and I become a bit of a mental sponge, absorbing it all. I find I am overwhelmed by the talent and passion of all these artists and their stories and the event tends to be a time of intense music appreciation for me. I suppose every creative person needs her own well refilled now and again, and the festival is one of those times. Music is not the only art form represented at the festival. We attended a play on Tuesday evening, and spend hours (and dollars) visiting the art market which forms a long, colourful row of tents along the beach walk on the weekends.

One of the colourful vendors at the art market
(The backdrop isn't bad either)





This evening we are all rather tired and will give the evening concert a miss. I, for one, need to get to bed before midnight at least one night this week. My husband has been dividing his time between the festival concerts, work, and Le Tour de France on T.V. On Sunday, he will take our eldest to Vancouver where Ian will perform in the young songwriters circle at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, a much larger event than the one we attend in the nearby resort village. I wish I could go too, but I will be volunteering with our youngest at the local festival and enjoying, hopefully, some more music in the warm sunshine (please?).

The willow tree by the beach stage



So, since I am somewhat preoccupied with the Festival, I thought this would be a good time to have a bit of fun on this blog. Last week I received a parcel in the mail from a blogger friend, Tracey in California. I had won her giveaway of a sampler tin of Jelly Belly jellybeans. What a pleasant surprise! Earlier in the year, I won another giveaway, a beautiful photograph, from Ireland's Ciara of Milkmoon. I began to think perhaps it might be my turn to return the favour...but what would I give away?

One of my daughters helping herself to a Jelly Belly.

I decided I would order a copy of my friend Antonia Banyard's novel Never Going Back, and offer it as a gift to one lucky friend. Antonia Banyard and I have been friends since we were six years old. I have written two blog posts about the impression her family had on me, and about our friendship and her career as a writer/editor. Never Going Back is her first novel. The following is a description of the story,

Four days, five friends, a birth, a death, a suicide.

Evan, Siobhan, Lance, Lea, and Mandy were once inseperable, but in the tenyears since high school, they have barely spoken. When a memorial finds themreunited in their hometown of Nelson, BC, a small town with a big reputation,each friend is forced to confront secrets from the past. If they don't face themselves, each other, and the central trauma of their lives, they'll never be able to move on.



I have read the book a few times and enjoy it more each time. Of course, there is so much in it that is familiar to me, the setting (my hometown of Nelson), the types of characters, the humour of the writer, but the story stands alone very well as an engaging read for anyone who ever negotiated their way through the challenges of the inevitable changes in friendships that endure after high school is over.

So, if you would like to enter for a chance to win the book, just leave a comment on this post telling me you would like the book, and next week I will put all the names in a hat and draw a name. You also have to be willing, if your name is drawn, to email me your full name and mailing address so I can send you the book!

Good luck! (Now back to the festival)

 

Do You Hear what I Hear?

I come from a family of singers.  In fact, when my dad was the cantor for our cathedral choir, which sang hidden up in the choir loft, little Joe Chirico who grew up to marry my friend Rachel thought his booming baritone was the voice of God.

Everyone in my family can sing.  My sister Pauline has a big range and both my brothers have deep, rich, resonant voices.  My other two sisters and I are competent singers, and my mom is a lovely mezzo-soprano.  This ability has been passed down to much of the next generation, and as my nephews, nieces and children grow up, they are letting their own voices be heard.

My son, Ian let us hear his singing voice last year.  He had started writing songs and his sister, Emma told us she had heard him rehearsing at school and said, surprised, that he sounded 'not bad'.  One evening when he was doing some recording, Ian let us hear him sing as long as we turned our backs to him.  His voice was a little shy then but it was clear and fine, with notes of his uncles and grampa, his cousins and something else I couldn't identify besides perhaps being from his dad's side;  I've never heard any of them sing except for my husband.

The other night, Ian performed at a fundraiser put on by a friend.  My friend is raising funds for her daughter and two other girls, all friends of my son's, to attend World Youth Day in Madrid next year.  The main attraction of the evening was a Christian pop group from Vancouver.  They are all skilled musicians and put on a good show, if you like that kind of music (which I confess I generally do not).  I went to support my friend and the three girls whom I have watched grow up into lovely young women, and to support Ian.  After the first set the MC announced Ian and he came up to the stage with his guitar and his signature black fedora perched as usual atop his head of shoulder length blonde hair.   He greeted the audience, who greeted him back good humouredly, and then launched into his first song, which he had written.  As Ian sang and played his guitar alone on the stage, the audience, filled with people from the Parish and various members of the community, most of whom had never heard him before, were very quiet.  Ian's second song was The Maker by Daniel Lanois, and at one point I swear you could have heard a pin drop in the gymnasium. When he was done, my daughter and I clapped proudly and then the other group came back on the stage. 

I left the concert soon after Ian's performance and had taken my daughter home, when I realized I had forgotten something at the gym so came back.  I was standing at the back of the gym during the group's last song when the owner of the local print shop came up to me and shouted over the band, "Your son did very well.  His voice reminds me of Cat Stevens'". 

After the concert, my husband and I went to a friend's annual Beginning of Season party.  A couple who had been at the concert came up to talk to me.  The husband of the couple has a strong Swiss German accent and he is very expressive when he speaks: 

"Your son, I saw him tonight.  He was amazing!  When he sang I felt it (he put his fist on his chest) here.  Tell me, does he sing country?"

me:  "No, he doesn't really like country music, but he does like folk music."

"Oh, too bad!  Does he know that singer, though, Young Neil?  You know, he sings that song 'Heart of Gold?"

me:  "Oh, you mean Neil Young!  We like him very much, of course, and Ian knows that song well."

"Okay, because your son, he should do that song because he is just like Neil Young except without the stupid hat." 

And then he asked me lots of questions about my boys, and how they got interested in music. 

The next morning, I ran into an older lady who had been at the concert:

"Your son last night, Rebecca.  He was wonderful!  You know who he reminded me of?"

me:  "Who?"  ( Neil Young?  Cat Stevens? A young Gordon Lightfoot, as my friend Molly said when she'd heard a recording of Ian's I put a link to on Facebook?)

"John Denver!  He has that same kind of melancholy, warm way about him."

Later, when I repeated all these conversations to Ian, he laughed and said he liked that he reminded everyone of someone different, and took it all as the great compliment it was intended to be.  Of course, to me, he will always remind me of the various voices in our family, but the people in this adopted town of mine don't know my family.  They had never been to a jam session at our house, hadn't heard my parents sing in the choral society or my dad sing 'Dream the Impossible Dream' as Don Quioxote in the Nelson Little Theatre production of Man of la Mancha.  They hadn't heard my brother sing with his band in the Civic Hotel bar or my sister at various venues around the Kootenays. They will refer to the voices they know and have stored in their hearts in order to express their appreciation for what they heard the other night from my son. It is only natural.  However, when all is said and done, Ian's voice is Ian's alone, and I am sure, as he gets older, he hopes we will all see it that way...or hear it that way.

Here's a link to a video of Daniel Lanois singing 'The Maker'.  The photo is of Ian in his bedroom, surrounded by some of his influences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-JtAcpKtYQ

My Olympic Post (So Close and Yet, So Far)

One would think that because I live so close to Vancouver that I would be there, right now, cheering on my nation's sports heroes instead of spending the day cleaning the bathrooms, baking and blogging.

My absence it is not out of any kind of protest against the Olympics or the fact that, in my crabbier moments, I have likened the expense of our country hosting the snow-dependent event in a rainforest city like Vancouver to me spending a month, on my present budget, wining, dining and gambling high stakes in Las Vegas. In fact, we are Olympic enthusiasts in this house and I think the television must have been on for twelve hours yesterday. If my husband and I were twentysomethings and childless we would probably be in Vancouver as much as possible like my friend Emee's sons, who just had to experience the excitement in person. After all, there are great concerts every day at Robson Square and up at Whistler Mountain, and it's only $25.00 to get into BC Place to witness a medal ceremony each evening, which would be $150.00 if we took the kids who would certainly not want to be left behind.

I admit, it would have been wonderful to be at BC Place stadium to witness the opening ceremonies (which I thought were quite beautiful, and did an artful job of expressing the overall culture of our huge country - apart from the David Fosterized version of 'Oh Canada,' our national anthem), but since we were at the stadium in October for the U2 concert it was easy to imagine the scope of being there with 60,000 other people. We also couldn't afford the $800 + ticket price...each.

For years now we have heard nothing but warnings about the blocking off of the center of Vancouver (which is already a tricky city to navigate) during the Olympics, the lack of parking, the need to take the skytrain and busses instead (which sounds great, but authorities were also warning us of overcrowding and delays, and the nearest train station is an hour's drive from my home). It's enough to keep this crowd-fearing mortal at home. I have heard, however, from a friend that the new insfrastructure of walking trails along the shores and improvements in general to the downtown core really are beautiful and a lasting use of tax dollars. I am sure the new sports facilities and the improvements to existing ones will come in handy to the city, as well.

My Olympic participation has involved attending the torch relay with my family as it passed through our town, and enjoying the entertainment which included my son's high school jazz ensemble. I admit it was pretty exciting to be one of the last of 12,000 coast-to-coast stops for the Olympic torch. My daughters even got a free Coke and flags (emblazoned with Coke icons) to wave. And I found a coveted official red mitten on the ground which I will keep as a souvenir. On Saturday night I went to a concert of Prince Edward Island's 'Vishten', who play an earthy style of traditional, very danceable Acadian music (Acadians are Maritime French Canadians who were originally expulsed over 200 years ago from Nova Scotia - many landing in Louisiana). They were on their way to play several shows at the Olympics this week. They were fantastic, and so was the parking right in front of the village hall.

My husband considered taking a child or two to an Olympic event but the ones he was interested in seeing were far too expensive for us, and the hockey games we could afford promised to be, what he calls, 'blowouts', ie. Finland 15, Estonia 0, and no fun at all. He lived in Calgary during the '88 Olympics and said all the evening concerts were free, transportation well organized and accessible, and it cost $25.00 to watch downhill skiing. It was a different time, in a spacious city planned in a grid of roadways over a flat landscape, and the Calgary Olympics actually made money.

Last week at my younger daughter's school they held their own version of the Olympics. They held competitions in all sorts of adapted sports involving hockey sticks and scooter boards. They even had one competition called 'Find a Parking Spot'. My daughter was assigned to 'Team Switzerland,' so now she says, next to Canada, she's cheering for the Swiss. Her whole school has been invited to attend a Paralympic curling match, so she may go to that with her class. My other children certainly would not mind going to an event, but unlike in the city of Vancouver, their schools are not closed for two weeks.

We are going to go to Vancouver at some point to witness all the downtown improvements for ourselves, but I think we'll wait until the city calms down a bit. In the meantime, we'll keep the t.v. on in the evenings and cheer from our comfortable couch. It is very cool to watch an event at Cypress Mountain (where we have been nordic skiing many times) or Whistler or the Pacific Coliseum and say to each other, "We've been there!"

Good Happens

It was an interesting week, filled with more excitement than I am used to in my generally quiet and fairly ordered life.

A couple of weeks ago Vern's environmental program at the Resort was being audited. The auditor, from Montana, announced she was going to be back in Canada for the U2 concert in Vancouver on October 28. Vern asked her how she had managed to get tickets to the long sold-out show, and she told him she had a friend who had several tickets she couldn't use...and that she still had five for sale, if he was interested. Vern immediately called me to ask if we should go for it. I said YES! ABSOLUTELY! How much are they? Vern emailed the seller and she wanted only the price listed on the tickets. YAY! The seller said she would put them in the mail the next day, registered, and we would get them in five business days. Of course, it took longer. We finally got the tickets the day before the concert.

It was at the dinner table where we told the kids. Ian, who is your usual self-contained sixteen year old, FREAKED. Galen said WOW! and the girls said they didn't want to go. We decided to invite a family friend who is a big U2 fan. The next day a friend of mine offered her sixteen year old daughter as company for our girls for the night we'd be away. Everything was falling into place. Then the flu hit. Galen came down with it on the weekend before the concert. Fever and cough, suppressed appetite, fatigue, etc. - all the symptoms listed in the first level of H1N1 as described in the government pamphlet that arrived in the mail that day. However, after rest and lots of home remedies Galen was greatly improved by Tuesday and it looked like he would be okay to go to the concert on Wednesday night if he stayed home from school, which he did. He had a nap Wednesday afternoon and woke up ready to go. I wouldn't have let him if we had standing area tickets. Those people stand in line for hours and then, after grabbing a spot as close to the stage as possible, stand for hours more, sandwiched in with thousands of other rabid fans.

My eldest son wished he had a standing area ticket, but he would not have had the view that we enjoyed from our seats in the nosebleed level. We were closer to the ceiling than the floor and technically behind the stage, but with the stage a full circle just below us and screens broadcasting the show as well as amazing, beautiful technicolour images, we had an eagle's view of the 60,000 seat stadium. Ian would have liked to be closer to the musicians, particularly The Edge (the guitarist), and maybe next time, he will be. Beggars can't be choosers, and Ian agreed we were all just lucky to be there.

The warm up band, the Blackeyed Peas, came on at 7:15. I'd heard of them, even heard them, but I've never really been much of a fan. The sold out seats weren't even full for their performance, but they worked hard for their money and Fergie sang her heart out. At the end of their almost one hour set they talked to the audience about how they respected U2 for being together for so long and hoped they would be like them, playing music together for years to come. The audience clapped and cheered politely but you could definitely sense a feeling of "Now for the real show" in the air.

It took forty-five minutes for the crew to reset the stage - enough time for everyone to use the facilities, buy t-shirts and posters if they hadn't already, and get that last alcoholic beverage before they closed the 'bar' (Mike's Hard Lemonade and $7.50/glass beer kiosks). As the minutes ticked by the mood in the stadium elevated. We watched the seats fill like in time-lapsed photography and the black stage transform from one crowded with techno gear to a simple arrangement of a drum set on an elevated platform, guitar pedals in a strip, and a few amplifiers. Guitar and drum techs came out to test the equipment and tease the eager crowd with a few riffs. The electricity in the crowd was palpable now as we all killed time by doing several rounds of 'the wave'.

Suddenly the lights lowered a bit and over the sound system David Bowie's voice sang 'Ground control to Major Tom' (interestingly enough, the first big concert I ever attended was David Bowie) and we were off...the band came on stage to huge roars of applause. From the first song we were taken far, far away from our daily lives of work and play to a place somewhere between land and space. The light show was a work of art. The band played a well thought out mix of old and new material and every song was played for every person in that huge beehive of a stadium. Most of us were on our feet the entire time, singing along, dancing, cheering, moving our eyes from the screen and lights to the real artists on the stage and back again. At one point we even sang 'Happy Birthday' to Bill Gates, who was there with his wife. Two and a half hours, and two encores later, it was over.

I haven't been to that many big concerts: David Bowie, as I mentioned, during his strange Glass Spider Tour; Bob Dylan in the early 90's when his songs were disappointingly unrecognizable to me who had grown up on his music; Joan Baez and Sarah Mclaughlin for free at a local park as part of 'Music 91'. Last Wednesday's U2 concert was far and away the best show I've ever been to, partly because I have been a fan since 1984 - heck, I even know all the names of the band members - and partly because I got to share the experience with my husband and two sons.

I don't usually make deals with God, but I admit to several prayers just before the concert that went something like this: Dear God, if we can only make it to the concert, my boys, especially, who want to go so badly, I don't care what happens the day after. Just pleeeease let those tickets get here and let no one else get sick until after. God took me literally - my older daughter came down with 'the flu' the day after the concert and my little one developed a bad cough. After more home remedies and lots of rest, both of them are recovering nicely. I don't think it hurt that their nurse' feet were still not quite on the ground. Still aren't.

The Dancer who Rattled the Boards

A couple of weeks ago an Irish band called 'Rattlin' the Boards' was playing at the Harrison Memorial Hall. I like Irish music in general, anything from traditional fiddle tunes to The Waterboys and The Pogues - and as anyone who knows me will tell you I love to dance - so Vern and I decided to go. The hall was packed, and extra seats had to be placed at the back. Concerts at this hall are rather special: it holds only about 200 people and the organizers set up large round tables, covered in rose coloured tablecloths that warmly glow with the fragmented light of candles set in stout vases of wavy glass. Each table seats eight people and at a sold-out concert, especially, the atmosphere is festive and cozy.

Vern and I, as volunteer ticket takers and part of the clean-up crew, sat at the very back for the show. I had dressed warmly because it can be a fairly cold job standing in a doorway taking tickets and handing out programs on a windy fall evening by the lake. After we could fit no more people than the fire department allows in the hall, we closed the doors. The music started and it didn't take long before people were up and dancing in the area in front of the stage. I spotted my friend, Marilee, who I can usually count on to dance with me (Vern likes to dance, but Celtic music isn't really his thing) and went up to join her. Marilee even knows the proper steps; I just sort of fake it and let my Celtic roots see me through. Among the several dancers, I noticed a teenage boy enjoying himself immensely. I recognized in him the features of Downs Syndrome, and for some reason it made me really happy to see him hopping up and down with great abandon. After I, in my light sweater and woven silk scarf, became entirely too hot to keep on dancing I went back to my seat. The boy, however, stayed up on his feet, and I think, danced every dance, no matter the tempo. The band announced a five-minute break, which they said would be twenty minutes in Ireland, and we volunteers took the opportunity to bus the tables and get ourselves a drink.

The lights flickered indicating the break was over. The band started again and we die-hard dancers rose, including the teenage boy. The band announced a series of reels and each song was progressively faster than the one before. Before long I had to sit down again, dripping with sweat in my long sleeves, and one by one everyone else left the dance floor - except for the boy. He jumped around, he twirled, he raised his hands in the air like a highland dancer in plaid shirt and jeans, and as the floor cleared, he expanded his routine to fill the space. I stayed at the back but stood so I could see him better. The dancers up front stayed to the side and also stood, watching the boy. The music rose with him and carried him away. He was flying. He was joy. He was - a true dancer. The tears were running down my face and I'm sure I was not the only emotional one in the crowd. The reels finally came to an end and the crowd, many on their feet, cheered and whistled in appreciation. "A free CD to the best dancer in the house!" cried the band's fiddler into the mike as he rose to shake hands with the boy. More cheers. The boy smiled with all his might and took a bow.

The band played on and the dance floor filled once more. We all danced again, including the boy and my husband. Rattlin' the Boards played one of the longest encores I've ever experienced, the tempo rising a notch with each new tune, but all the dancers stayed with it until the very end. We were all flying by then.