An Ode to my Eldest Sister, on her Birthday

Happy birthday to my bookend sister, Monica

Whose very existence for me is a tonic - ahhhh

I am the youngest, she is the oldest

I am the most hesitant, while she is the boldest

She's a good listener and also a talker

With friends and dogs she's a very fast walker

She makes a great meal, really loves to share it

She buys a nice wine with which to pair it

She has six children, all grown, most flown

A generous mom who would give her last bone

Three girls, three boys, a dog and a cat

A home always welcoming, no doubt about that

A grandma to two girls, she loves them to pieces

I love them, too though they're only my nieces

She calls her long hair colour 'Arctic Fox'

Her energy belies her age, she totally rocks!

When I was a kid and nine years her junior

She was the planet, I semi-lunar

She paid me five dollars to tidy her sock drawer

Always nice to me, never giving me what-for

As we grew older we became such good friends

She talked me through motherhood, the job never ends

Our husbands are friends, too, talking shop for, like, hours

While Monica and I sip coffee among their flowers

A journalist by trade she writes for the papers

An editor, too, now, no time for 'the vapors'

Her writing strives to always uphold the truth

She'll research and write 'til she's long in the tooth

(I believe she also has a colleague named Ruth?)

Mon's a great mother, sister and friend

To help you with issues over backwards she'll bend

She's super good fun and tells a great story

And if she goes before me, I'll be ever so sorry

Happy birthday, big sis! I love you so much.

The Jimmy Type

When I was eight years old I had a great friend named Jimmy. Jimmy lived around the corner and his grandparents lived across the alley from me. Jimmy's grandparents had a swimming pool in their backyard and I was sometimes invited to swim in it with Jimmy and any of his cousins who happened to be around. One hot summer day, Jimmy and I were playing beside the pool. His four year old cousin was with us, but she was in the pool. Suddenly, she started flailing her arms and couldn't get her head above the water. She must have moved to the deeper part of the pool which was four feet deep. I stood rooted to the ground, like a deer in the headlights. I could see Jimmy's cousin was drowning, but I couldn't seem to act. Jimmy jumped into the water straight away and saved her. I have never forgotten how impressed I was with Jimmy. I also could not understand my own behavior.

The fact is, the world is full of people like Jimmy who jump in with both feet during a crisis, and thank God they do. This week in British Columbia, during historic rainfall and the subsequent flooding of countless farms and homes, landslides, and washouts of important transportation corridors, we have so many examples of people acting immediately in response to the catastrophe around them: first responders, pilots, health care professionals, police officers, truck drivers, and members of the general public who have the 'right stuff' and know innately how to make themselves useful right off the bat. My hat goes off to all of them. They are worth their weight in gold in a crisis.

Of course, when I had children my reactive reflexes developed and I saved my own kids from some near misses and trucked them off to the emergency room when needed. Something primal takes over one's natural tendencies when one is responsible for tiny humans. Still, in the face of large scale disasters I am still somewhat slow to fully respond. My mind seems to employ a slow processor when it comes to this type of crisis. If someone else (like my husband, a Jimmy type) directs me I can act - sometimes I'm even effectual - but left to my own devices, I'm afraid I lack the necessary DNA to take charge. I was once the passenger in a terrifying car accident from which I walked away miraculously unharmed. My response to the shock? I went home and fell asleep on the couch. I'm much better at crises for which concentrated thought processes are involved, like if one of my children is going through a hard time and needs advice, or a friend needs a listening ear and a measured response. That sort of thing.

We all have different gifts, although we can be pretty hard on ourselves when we find our particular gifts not terribly useful at a given time, myself included. I want to be helpful to my flood-damaged neighbours. It just might take me some time to figure out what that help will look like. (I've also been trapped between mudslides for a week and a half, and my role during this stage has been one of keeping myself calm and lending moral support to those around me.) 

In the meantime, my appreciation for all you Jimmy types out there is currently at an all-time high. Keep on jumping in with both feet. You are so needed. 

L.M. Montgomery - a First Love in Literature

In my early years as a dedicated reader of novels, when it came to authors, I tended toward serial monogomy. Noel Streatfield, the author of Ballet Shoes, The Painted Garden, White Boots, and several others was my first real love as a reader, but when the time came for me to move on from her delightful books for children I was at a bit of a loss.

Every time I would talk about needing something to read my family would suggest Anne of Green Gables. "You'll love it," my sisters insisted, and because they insisted I resisted. I finally gave in when I was fifteen - my sisters had all moved out by then - and tentatively began the book that would change my life. I was not prepared to enjoy it, but by the first chapter I was hooked and would remain an Anne fan for life. And not just an Anne fan, but a fan of the writing of her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. I would spend the next several years scouring second hand book stores for copies of her many books, building up my collection which I read over and over until Jane Austen became my new obsession in my mid-twenties. I credit L.M. Montgomery for helping me greatly through my teen years, for giving me another world to inhabit in my imagination, adding much light to the very real world I lived in every day.

I did not identify with the character of Anne as much as with the general tone, humour and background wisdom of the books themselves. Anne, with her red-haired temper, her heedless ways and her enormous scholarly discipline was not a mirror image of myself, but I did admire her goodness, her loyalty and her literary gifts. I was encouraged by her strength of character and desired to emulate at least some of what she represented. The first few times I read the books I read them for the plot alone. L.M. Montgomery is known for her descriptive passages of the land she loved so well, but I will admit I skipped over many of them to find out what happened next to the people in the books. A good book has that quality, even when you read it for the second or third time and know what ultimately happens, you still want to have the satisfaction of finding out, again, exactly how it happens. By the time I was in my early twenties I still read the books once a year, but by then I was revelling in the descriptions which painted such a beautiful picture of the land, sea and sky of Prince Edward Island and other Maritime provinces. The Blue Castle is set in Muskoka, Ontario and I still read it every few years for its pictures painted so masterfully in words by the author who had moved to Ontario after her marriage.

My mother often said that she liked Montgomery's Emily books even better than the sunny Anne ones. She felt the Emily books were deeper and more reflective of the author's own life as a burgeoning writer. I read the three Emily books immediately after I had read the eight Anne novels, and I could see what my mother meant. I imagined that a lot of authors identified with them, especially those who had known they were writers from a young age. The road to authorship is not easy for the character of Emily; the literary colours in the novels are in various shades of light and darkness, intimating the depth of emotion lived in real life by Montgomery. The happy ending is there, but it is hard won.

When I get into something, I really get into it, so when L.M. Montgomery's journals were published I read them. Her selected journals filled five large volumes and I expected them to reflect the light and happy endings of her novels. What I discovered was that Montgomery's life was a complex blend of light and dark, of longing for the freedom of an intuitive and highly spiritual artist while 'keeping up appearances' in Canadian WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) society of the early part of the twentieth century. I read them during a particularly hard time in my own young life, which perhaps was not fair to either myself or to Montgomery whom I admired so much. Her journals sent me spiralling downwards into a blue funk. I was disappointed in her for some of her choices in life and in love (as disappointed as I was in myself at that time for some of my own choices), and I had a hard time reconciling the author of my favourite books with the author of journals which suggested so much personal disappointment and emotional trauma.

I think, after giving it another twenty-odd years, I might read the journals again. I will probably read them with a more open mind and with much more compassion and empathy this time. In 2008 Montgomery's family came out with an admission that Lucy Maud suffered from depression and had, in the end, taken her own life. Her family revealed the truth in hopes that it would help to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness in our society. And while that news about her death made me sad beyond words, I have a bookshelf full of proof that inside Lucy Maud Montgomery's often troubled heart and mind was also a mystical land of humour, insight, love, and joy of the greatest kind which she shared with her readers through her writing, a refuge for her and for all of those who feel deeply and attempt to live sensitively on this earth.

A mature L.M. Montgomery

For those of you who read the end of my previous post I have an update: My dad was able to go home from the hospital yesterday. Such good news for him and for all my family! Many thanks for your kind wishes and prayers.

Thoughts from a Sports Fan. Sort of.

I remember moving to Strathcona Park Lodge where we had no cable television for a couple of years. The kids and I were happy with rented movies and borrowed VHS tapes from the library, but by year two, after enduring many, many evenings with me and my collection of Jane Austen made-for-TV movies, my husband made a decision: we were going to get a sattelite dish. With the FIFAWorld Cup of soccer and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics coming up that year he just could not stand our TV-free existence any longer. My husband is, by far, the biggest sports fan in our house. He will happily watch anything from darts to football. I spent a great deal of our first months of married life watching the various tennis tournaments with him and our two male roommates, Derek and Finn, at Panorama Resort where we all worked for the summer of '92. Over the years of being the wife of a sports-enthusiast, and picking up a certain amount of interest in it through osmosis or resignation - perhaps a bit of both - I developed into a fan of tennis stars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf and later, Roger Federer whom I still cheer for although other younger players are outshining his star on a regular basis now. The year the Blue Jays won the World Series in baseball I was cheering just as much as anyone, although I have not cared much about baseball since. I will admit that it was indeed good to be able to watch and cheer on the Canadians competing in Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics. We had come 24th in the medal rankings in Sydney and then 4th in Salt Lake behind Norway, Germany and the USA. Not too shabby!

The Winter Olympics are an exciting time for many Canadians, I think because we, like many winter nations get the rare chance to really show the world what we are made of. Besides the obvious skill and talent of our athletes, many of them are well spoken and generous to athletes from other countries, even supplying them with equipment when they have not the funding to supply it for themselves. The more medals we win the more this fact about our people comes to light. Our athletes are proud to represent our country and know that their country is proud of them in return.

I have been a fan of the Games since I was a young girl stuck in the house one rainy summer with not much else to do besides read and watch the summer Olympics. I distinctly remember Romania's Nadia Comaneci and her perfect score for her gymnastics routine; I could barely believe her talent. Back then in the early 1980's, the Cold War was raging and boycotting the games was rampant. 65 countries boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which led the USSR to lead 14 Eastern Bloc countries to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Some athletes from the boycotting countries still managed to compete under the Olympic flag. Every Olympics seem to be fraught with calls for boycotts for environmental concerns, for human rights concerns, for political reasons, and for the huge amount of money spent by the hosting country to put on the Games when it could be spending it on projects like affordable housing and improved health care for its citizens. (I heard yesterday in an interview with the head of the Sochi Olympic Committee that they spent about two billion dollars putting on the Olympics and seven billion basically building a city to host them in.) Despite these protests the Games continue to go on, every two years, alternating between the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games.

One could argue that the Games serve to shine a spotlight on the hosting country, for better or for worse. Hopefully, after the Games, the host country works at dealing with whatever problems have come to light while it realizes how to best take advantage of the good things the world has discovered about it - Sochi looks like a beautiful place to visit with its dramatic mountains and Black Sea shorline. The Olympics have also served to gain equality for women in sport in most countries, as every sport over the years has been gradually represented by both sexes to the point where we now care just as much about how, for instance, the female mogul skiers do as the males. 'Equality' and 'Peace among nations' are phrases one hears linked with the goals of the Games. To me, the Olympic Games are always a bit of a litmus test of the global climate at the time. If you look back in history, you can find elements of this global climate in everything from the choices of team logos and uniforms to the various scandals which have come to light, scandals which have demonstrated, at long last, a general distaste in the sporting community for things such as the notoriously dubious judging in figure skating and incidences of blood-doping among athletes.

A poster featuring a dove of peace - of large concern
during the days of the Iron Curtain.

My youngest has just become keen on the Olympics this year. She announced this morning that she likes the Luge and other similar events best because of the uncomplicated judging aspect.There is nothing to get muddled about in her mind - no subjective elements like in many of the other sports. You are either the fastest down the track or you are not. She and I cheered on our mogul skiers on Monday. The moguls are one of my very favourite events, perhaps because I have attempted to ski moguls myself and can appreciate how much strength and skill it takes to do what these athletes do. Our Canadians, both from Quebec, topped the podium and it was quite a thrill for my daughter to witness their climb from the top twelve to the top six, and then, oh glory be, to the win! She was so inspired she made some Olympic themed cookies that afternoon.

I have always enjoyed the figure skating events, but I will admit, here and now, that I got a little bored after watching short program after short program of the Pairs Figure Skating event this year. So many of the routines began to look the same after a while: side by side triple jumps, throw triple 'sow cows' or however they are spelled, that over-the-head spin they do, the footwork section, etc. Oh, I appreciate the work that went into their skating and their routines, but perhaps as I get older I realize that for me, something is missing in figure skating. I suppose when one is watching a sporting event which involves artistry, one has to expect the technical elements to trump whatever else is going on, because that is what sport is about. Artistry, on the other hand, is more subjectively judged. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Canadian pair, Duhamel and Radford, because they really appeared to be dancing their routine, rather than powering through the technical elements like so many of the others. They were in third place after the short program. The Russians, in first and second place, certainly deserved to be there. Their programs were virtually flawless and ticked all the judges' boxes, but what I could not stop thinking about while watching their routines was the beautiful dancing in the ballet interpretation of War and Peace in the opening ceremonies this year. That really does it for me. While I enjoy figure skating, ballet is just that much more special, I suppose because while it involves serious athleticism, it is the artistry that trumps everything else - the athleticism is merely a vehicle for the art. That being said, and for someone generally on the outside of the sporting world looking in, I find the Games fascinating for so many reasons, and will continue to be impressed by these young athletes and what they can train and push their bodies to do.

Speaking of sports fans, my dear Dad is currently in the hospital. He is having some heart trouble, but is in good hands. I was half-way through editing this post when I got the message. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. 

The Enduring Legacy of Terry Fox

The Terry Fox Memorial near Thunder Bay
Photo by Tim Van Horn

For the past few years I have kept up my tradition of running the annual Terry Fox Run with my daughter's elementary school. It's not a very long run, but the whole school participates as well as several parents and occasionally a local constable. Just before eleven a.m. I change into my running gear and walk the three short blocks to the school. The day is usually a bit warm for running by eleven o'clock for me, somewhat of a wilting flower in the heat, but I suck it up and go. The event begins with a noisy school assembly and a slide show meant to motivate the crowd, as well as a student-led warm-up, and then we're off to run the route accompanied by a police escort. The kids push to the front, the athletes maintaining their speed to the end, the others flagging after a few blocks, still others, especially the little ones and their teachers, walking the route from the start. The running adults start off at a measured pace, chatting with each other and encouraging the kids along the way. People honk and wave from their cars, and the kids wave back proudly, most of them. As the runners return to the school, and are cheered by the other runners, the first few times are recorded on a timing sheet for posterity and everyone is given bottled water and a piece of fruit. After that, the kids go inside for lunch and the adults go home or continue running now that they are warmed up.

For the whole week preceding the run the school celebrates and learns about the legacy of Terry Fox. The children are encouraged to bring in coins - a different denomination each day - as a donation to the Terry Fox Foundation which raises money for cancer research. Even in this age of mega-corporate charities, especially in the field of cancer, the Terry Fox Foundation seems to be an honest, humble, but by no means minor organization - a lot like the young man for whom it was named.

I remember watching the television news with my family during Terry's Marathon of Hope in the spring and summer of 1980. I remember marveling at this young man from my own province who, with one prosthetic leg replacing the one he had had amputated due to cancer, ran as best he could - a step, step, hop kind of run - 42 kilometers each day, rain or shine with a support van following close behind. The news ran updates every day as Terry made his way from the East Coast of Canada through Quebec to Ontario. I had never seen anyone, let alone a disabled person, doing what he was doing to raise awareness and donations for a cause very personal to him. I think Canada ran those painstaking miles with him, every step of the way, cheering him on in his determination and his cause. Unfortunately in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he learned that the cancer he hoped he had left behind had made its evil way to his lungs. I remember being angry that his cancer had returned and that he would not be able to make it across Canada. In my youthful indignation I thought perhaps he should not have run a marathon a day if doing so made him so ill. I did not realize at the time that he was working toward something much greater than himself - that he was trying to motivate a nation to care about trying to find a cure for a terrible disease called cancer and he was succeeding. "I believe in miracles...I have to,"  said Terry during an interview with the press. Terry Fox died in June of 1981 just days before his twenty-third birthday, but not before he had received countless honors and awards and his dream to raise a dollar for every Canadian was realized. A pledge from a high level Canadian businessman to begin an annual Terry Fox run in order to carry on what Terry started was made in 1981, and this year on September 16th the 32nd annual Terry Fox run was held in countless towns and cities around the world. In 2005 the first National School Run Day was launched and since then, our local schools have taken part in this annual event celebrating this inspiring young Canadian. (My son Galen was so inspired that, at the age of ten he decided to run the route as Terry had - with a step-step hop, 'because anyone can run, Mom.' I talked him out of it, mostly because I thought he may end up injured.)

The Terry Fox runs are, for me, the right kind of 'run for a cause'. I remember when I subscribed to a running magazine and the pages were full of ads for all the runs one could do to raise funds for various charities: leukemia, breast cancer, arthritis, etc. The catch was, a person had to raise two or more thousand dollars just to be able to take part in many of these events. I don't have enough rich friends to hit up for those kind of dollars, or the time and energy that many others have to embark on such a fundraising campaign. The simplicity of the Terry Fox run appeals to me; I only have to show up with a few dollars if I can afford it - Fox himself said, "If you have given a dollar, then you are part of The Marathon of Hope" - and run. I don't have to travel to the city because the runs happen in my own community and at my daughter's school. I, along with thousands of parents across Canada, get to run with the kids, the teachers, and the principal, continuing the efforts of Terry Fox, and I see it as an honour to be able to do so.

***

Before we began our run, my daughter's teacher came to the back of the gym with a pile of stickers. She handed them out to we adult runners and supplied a black felt pen. The sticker read "I'm running for_____".
I filled in the space with the name 'Peter,' the father of one of my nieces and fiance of my sister Pauline. Peter died almost twenty years ago after what began as skin cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and then to his brain. I slapped the sticker on my front and headed off to run in the sunshine for Peter and for Terry. I ran with joy and gratitude for my own good health, knowing full well that I was truly blessed to be able to do so.

Terry Fox
photo by Colin Price, Vancouver Province newspaper

A message for my blogger friends: September is a bit of a crazy month for me and I am way behind on the reading of your latest posts. I apologize, and now that it is October, pledge to read, read, read! My other blog, Stella's Virtual Cafe has not been updated with a new post/recipe in nearly a month and I will get on that as well. Thanks for your patience, but most of all, thanks for reading my blog!