The Delicate Art of Listening

I have heard it said, that if everyone around were to throw their problems in a big pile with the option of trading for someone else's, most people, after thinking about it, would pull their own problems back out again. I would guess the person from whom this quote came meant that, like a pair of worn-in shoes, our own difficulties and challenges are tailor made for us and best worn by ourselves. I feel that way sometimes, especially after I hear about some of the struggles other people are dealing with.

When we are wrapped up in our own world which, arguably, with the invention of earbuds and smartphones, happens with increasing regularity, it can be tempting to believe so one else suffers like we do, no one else has struggles like ours. During one of my recent visits home, my dad said he had heard some stories lately from people he knew, about what they had been through in their lives, and he wondered how they could carry on. If it is true that we are each only given what we can handle, then I would argue that many people must be far stronger than I. When I stop and think about it, I have it good.

Some days I get a lot of things done, and those are my 'productive' days. On those days, I take care of business, go for a run, cook my family a great meal, get some work done around the house. Other days, I write, go for a walk to clear my head, find a treasure at the thrift shop. Those are good days, too. Other days, I don't know if I'm coming or going. Nothing seems to get accomplished and my ears ache. Those are the days I need to listen to my body and have a nap after lunch, or go to bed early with a good book and try again tomorrow. Some days I spend socially, whether by working with people or by meeting friends for coffee. I have several good friends here and I love to visit with them. Generally, we take turns talking and spend the visit catching up, but sometimes I have to sit and listen because someone just needs my ear.

One of my old friends' mother was a teacher. She frequently told me I would make a good teacher, and when I asked her why, she said it was because I was a good listener. That surprised me because, until then, I had not considered myself a good listener, and I always believed the job of a teacher was to stand up in front of a classroom and lecture. As I later learned, that was a small part of effective teaching. A good teacher listens to the responses of her students and knows how to proceed with the lesson. She must make adjustments for each child, and make allowances for her student's situation in life and temperament. I learned so much from teaching my own children to read, for example. I learned intimately how each of their minds processed information and put different elements together from the give and take of our lessons. When I was a child in school I often lamented how long it took me to 'get' a concept, particularly in science and math, and sometimes I had to read story problems over and over to focus enough to understand them. Reading is a type of listening, and little did I know I was learning the art of listening with every challenging concept.


I don't think everyone is as attached to listening as an artform. I remember driving with my husband, shortly after we were married, up the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse. It was the 50th anniversary of the world- famous highway and the frost heaved asphalt, which was always under construction in summer, was bumper to bumper with recreational vehicles. At one construction road block, we had to wait for quite a long time. We got out of the car to stretch our legs as did the couple in the R.V. in front of us, which was tattooed with stickers from the 50 States. The couple decided to chat with us and began the conversation with a question, which was followed by another question, which was followed by another. The couple never waited for our answer before they asked the next question, merely said "uh huh?" and looked around impatiently before asking another question they didn't really want an answer to. To be a good listener, you have to like the sound of other people's voices almost as much as the sound of your own.


Yesterday afternoon, after spending a good chunk of my day listening to the tearful, very personal struggles of a couple of friends, I had a half hour to myself before my youngest daughter would be home from school. My eldest, home from a trip abroad and searching for his next opportunity in life, was even out with a friend. I made some tea and sat down to enjoy it. I thought how honoured I was to have the trust and friendship of those two women, and even though I had produced little to show for my day - no housework except some sheets washed and piled in a heap on a chair - I felt good. I felt good about myself as a friend - I wasn't always so compassionate - and I felt happy that my own struggles were not weighing me down enough to close my ears to others' troubles. I knew inevitably they would again sometime in the future, and then it would be my turn to talk. I pondered my youngest's recent struggles with adjusting to the back-to-school routine and was glad I was able to listen well to her and respond accordingly. She is settling in nicely now.

I sat back with my tea to enjoy my quiet half hour. After about three minutes of blissful silence, the front door opened and my eldest son leapt up the stairs, two at a time. I felt myself inhale sharply.

"How was your day, Mom?"

 I exhaled slowly and resumed sipping my tea. "Good, how was yours?"

And so it goes.

In Defense of The Delicate Child

My youngest daughter, aged eleven, fainted at school recently. She was standing at the teacher's desk, going over some math problems, when she suddenly felt quite hot. She excused herself in order to take off her sweater and get a drink of water from the bottle in her knapsack at the back of the room. As she took a drink, she felt overwhelmingly hot again, and in a jerky motion she fell backwards and hit her shoulder and head, fell forwards and hit her nose on a desk, fell to the floor, unconscious and began to shake. She came to, and apparently was completely coherent, but she was taken to the office, white as a sheet and made to lie on the sofa until I arrived to take her home.

The teacher thought, due to the jerking motion of her faint, and the shaking, that my daughter had suffered a seizure, and she was quite concerned when I talked to her about it. Her dad came home from work and took her to the walk-in clinic that afternoon. The doctor assured us that our daughter had not had a seizure, but had only fainted, and that fainting rarely looks like how it is represented in the movies. She ordered some blood tests and an electrocardiogram to rule out various problems, but assured us our daughter was okay to go to school the next day. Over the next few days, we watched her carefully, but she recovered her strength, and her colour, within a couple of days and was back to her old self before long.

Yesterday, we had a follow up appointment with our own doctor, to go over the results of the tests, and after a good examination and several questions, he said everything was fine, but that our daughter was 'rather skinny'. He said fainting can be caused by any number of things, and only becomes worrisome if it happens repeatedly. She has not had any 'episodes' since. In fact, she has attended her acting classes, performed in a play she helped write at school, worked hard at her schoolwork, and participated in her Physical Education classes at school as well as in basketball practices. She ate well before her fainting episode, but now we have decided to make her eat a little more, especially at breakfast. She is nearly five feet tall, but weighs 73 pounds, so a little extra meat on her bones would not hurt.

When she fainted, my son Galen reminded me of how, at her age, he used to feel faint sometimes, and how I would let him stay home occasionally, for 'mental health' days. I also remembered that when my daughter Emma was eleven she also had fainting spells when she was in a room, like a church, that was too hot or too crowded. I was not a fainter, but I was a skinny child who grew tall rather quickly and was hungry almost all the time. I did have many a pre-pubescent nose bleed and lengthy bouts of lethargy, which may have had something to do with the fact that I hated school and which caused my sympathetic parents to let me stay home a great deal during my twelfth year of life. I told much of this to the doctor (leaving out the part about hating school) and he concurred, in his lovely Scottish accent, that such things may just run in the family.

I am often being told that my daughter is too skinny. When she was ten, another mother who has four strapping, solid boys asked me if there was something wrong with her. "Does she eat anything at all?" I  responded that I had been a skinny child, too, and obviously had turned out alright. (I have been a nice medium sized girl since about the age of eighteen, with healthy child-bearing hips to prove it.) Still, her question bothered me because her opinion was shared by several other local mothers. If she only knew the food consumed in our house, the money spent on good quality groceries and local organic meats, the care that went into cooking and baking healthy and wholesome meals, she might see the situation differently. Our youngest has always had a healthy appetite, too, but she is not one that overeats, especially when it comes to sweets. Perhaps, in this day and age, it is just less common to see a thin child. The doctor agreed with that, too.

One thing my youngest daughter is, that may contribute to her local reputation as a 'delicate child', is incredibly sensitive. She has moments of extreme joy when something good happens, and moments of great despondency when something bad happens. She sees other children act rudely or meanly to each other at school and comes home quite upset if she has not been able to make them stop, or victorious if she has. If someone is mean to her, she takes it in stride, but it sometimes eats away at her anyway, and I am left to put her back together with hugs and kisses, with a warm muffin and a cup of tea or cocoa. When she is at school, it is as if she has her antennae up all the time, absorbing all that goes on around her. She also puts 120 percent into everything she does, and as the school secretary told me recently, "She goes all day long!" reading to the little ones in her lunch monitor group, helping decorate bulletin boards and writing skits for plays, helping other kids with their work, working hard to play the sports which do not come naturally to her. And, if she sometimes doesn't have enough time to eat her lunch, she is going on little fuel until after school when she can come home and spend the next hour making up for it.

My daughter is not only a particular body type, she is also a particular personality type, and perhaps, more often than not, the two go together. My job as her mother, and our job as parents, is to celebrate and support who she is and not dwell on what she is not. She is intelligent, creative, sensitive, talented, thoughtful and kind. She is not overly robust, happy-go-lucky, tough or sporty. She will probably never become an emergency ward nurse or a construction worker, but she just may become a play write, an actress, or a librarian. As the poet e.e. cummings said:

To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.

If that is true, I don't wonder she is exhausted sometimes. Still, I am aware that we can make some little changes at home, and we can look into ways to strengthen our daughter, to help her achieve the balance she needs to grow in health and in happiness.

The photo is from depositphotos.com

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

My husband is a Rabbit.  This year is supposed
 to be a good, peaceful one for him.  Let's hope so!

Celebrating the Lunar New Year is a big deal in this part of the world.  Vancouver has had a healthy Asian, and particularly Chinese, population from the beginning of its days as a city.  Immigration has remained steady over the past one hundred years and the Chinese and related cultures have grown to make up a large percentage of the population here in the Lower Mainland.  When I was a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, forty percent of my fellow students were of Asian descent and I believe that number is even higher now.  In cities like Richmond, just outside Vancouver, whole shopping centres are Asian in theme and content, and several of the public gardens are beautifully and decidedly Asian in design.  CBC Vancouver morning radio is occupied with Chinese New Year these days, as well.  The descriptions of special dishes and family gatherings are reminiscent of Christmas and my mouth waters to hear of Wonton soup and shrimp salad rolls - a delicious snack I enjoyed often at the UBC Arts lounge. 

The end of January is a good time to start looking forward to something.  The weather, especially last week, was particularly gloomy here - the rain came down relentlessly and the damp invaded my bones.  Some friends of ours, not in the least Chinese themselves, nevertheless put on a Chinese New Year party every year as a way of cheering everyone up.  We are all expected to arrive with some indication in our appearance of the animal that is our birth year's sign.  I am a rooster, but since I don't own anything roosterish to wear I figured it would be acceptable enough to arrive dressed in New Year colours of red and gold.  It wasn't.  Before long, my friend Sue, the hostess, found a rooster figurine (a salt shaker actually), threaded it with a piece of red ribbon and hung it around my neck.  I'm really going to have to look for some rooster earrings or a scarf for next year!  Believe it or not, most people were good sports and arrived with tiger tails, rat ears, piggy masks, or dragon shirts.  The party was a supper pot-luck and most of the dishes were Asian in origin, so we enjoyed plenty of spicy coconut based dishes, rice and vegetables. (The desserts were decidedly North American, though.) We all had to sign in with the 'front office staff' of the party - my youngest daughter and her friend - under our respective animal signs, and then we were photographed with our fellow roosters, dogs, sheep etc.  A good time was had by all and the effect was the one desired:  we were certainly cheered up! 

Growing up in caucasian-filled eastern British Columbia, Chinese New Year was not something I knew anything about, but the college I attended had an English as a Second Language department (for which I tutored throughout the year and then worked for as a teacher assistant one summer) and welcomed mainly Chinese speaking students from Hong Kong as well as several Japanese young people.  The department celebrated the Lunar New Year and hosted various events throughout the college and so my friends and I were introduced to the traditions.  When I worked for the department we went for traditional Chinese New Year supper at a restaurant near the college.  It was the first and only time I ever attempted to eat duck served with the head and feet intact. 

The other day I was shopping for a gift for a friend whose birthday happens to fall on Chinese New Year and noticed that Purdy's chocolate shop (founded in Vancouver in 1907) had a display of 'Year of the Rabbit' chocolate medallions and 'Good Luck' chocolate coins wrapped in red and gold paper.  The rest of the shop was filled with the reds and pinks of the upcoming Valentine's Day wrappings.  The girl at the counter told me she was tired of red (the shop had been filled with red since well before Christmas) and couldn't wait for the pastel-coloured wrappings of Easter, which will, no doubt, be the overwhelming theme in the shops come February 15th (bunnies and eggs are already making an appearance in the grocery stores).  When Easter is over, Purdy's will go back to their usual regal purple and gold wrappings with a few apple themed teacher gifts thrown in for the end of the school year.

The annual Chinese New Year parade during the 2010
Olympics in Vancouver

As I get older, the holidays seem to follow each other in increasingly rapid succession in the commercial world, providing more reasons for Lindt or Purdy's to cash in appearing all the time. While I don't really take ownership of something like Chinese New Year - as my Polish friend Agnieszka would say, "I didn't grow up vis it" - I certainly don't mind piggybacking onto the celebrations for the sake of breaking up the late winter doldrums.  The wait for one of the most important holidays in my life, Easter, which isn't until April 24th this year, will be long enough.  Besides, acknowledging the importance of the Lunar New Year to our Asian-Canadian neighbours is just good manners, right?  Party on!

Note:  Gung Hay Fat Choy means 'Best Wishes and congratulations.  Have a prosperous and good year.'

The photo at right is from the Toronto Sun's website.

In the Land of the Giants

It is a well known fact that the rise and fall of civilizations can be tracked in their art and architecture.  I learned about this in my art history courses in University and found it utterly fascinating.  The wealthier and more powerful a civilization became the more decorative and ornate its art and architecture and the more trampled upon became its lower classes.  Think European rococo architecture with its elaborate ornamentation in the 18th century and the subsequent French Revolution. Think the Roman Empire with its coliseums and palaces and its equally famous decline and fall.  And there exist countless examples amongst the Central and South American civilizations as well.

I have heard grumblings recently in the media and other places about our place as a civilization in terms of the aforementioned lifespan.  We in the western world and to some degree those in parts of the east exist in a somewhat blinding swirl of excess.  Everywhere we turn there are examples of bigger, more, higher, faster, stronger, fancier, busier, richer, but chewed up and spat out from that swirl are equally noticable examples of the lesser, smaller, slower, weaker, disenfranchised, disillusioned, poorer and more desperately in debt. The phrase, "Something's gotta give" springs to mind. While I wouldn't say this excess is necessarily expressed in our art - I don't know enough about the present art world, it is expressed in our architecture:  endless luxury highrises, big box stores and mega-casinos, and in our technology and design:  cellphones that do everything but tie our shoes for us (although I am sure there is a app for that), personal hot drink machines which read the barcode of each single serving plastic 'pod' and concoct the perfect cappucino for us, and endless disposable cleaning products with the catchy phrase:  'just use, and toss!' (without a thought for the landfill).

I fear that this swirl of excess is causing our society to lose our footing and our perspective.  Last week I delivered a letter to my municipal council expressing my concern about the amending of a bylaw which would allow the opening of another liquor store in our community.  While I used the fact of the well known local problems with addictions in our community and the drawing away of business from the several other liquor outlets, not to mention the downtown core in the area, to support my argument, in my heart of hearts I knew that my objections to the new business mainly stemmed from my sometimes puritanical aversion to excess, ie:  did we NEED another liquor store?  No.

I feel exactly the same way about the brand new Walmart Supercenter in the nearby mid-sized city.  There are already several large grocery and department stores serving the city, with some of them Canadian owned with good reputations for treating their employees well.  It's not like any of these large stores have ridiculously long lineups at any time but Christmas and summer long weekends.  Did the area need yet another supermarket/department store to serve the population?  Absolutely not.  But people will shop at the new Walmart because they are convinced the prices are lower - at what cost, though?  Their produce is often overpackaged as if it were something other than food and trucked in from faraway lands, and their clothing line cheaply made in sweatshops.  I know senior citizens and sleep-deprived moms might appreciate the one-stop shopping of a Walmart Supercenter, so I will concede on that point if I must, but I would argue that our Canadian Superstore offers almost all the same products and services with more of an emphasis on groceries.

Furthermore, many people I know will forgo the Walmart entirely in favour of driving even further west to the nearest Costco, where a membership for the privilege of shopping there will cost fifty dollars.  Costco shoppers are a dedicated lot.  They buy their clothing, televisions, computers, bulk-sized food products, furniture, garden supplies, all at Costco.  Once on the way back from an event in Abbotsford, the friend I carpooled with, a Costco member, stopped there to pick up a few things.  I had not been in a Costco for many years.  My thought was immediate:  if I owned a restaurant I might want to shop here, for everything was in huge quantities, but for my family of six?  It would be too easy for me to lose perspective.  Years ago my eldest sister once warned me against the buying of groceries is such large quantities.  'The more you buy, the more you'll eat', and it is true!  When I bought the 2 kilogram bag of tortilla chips and the 2 litre jug of salsa, I ate much more of it than was good for me.  Everywhere I looked in Costco there were triple sized boxes of everything from cereal to diapers.  I felt like I was in the Land of the Giants.  I half expected to see Hagrid come around the corner with a triple package of chicken legs to feed his pet dragon.  For a nation of overeaters, these supercenters do little to help, though for the truly organized and disciplined I suppose the value can be good for the money, even with the extra fuel needed to get there (?).

People will argue with me that it is all about choice, not consumptiveness.  I agree, some choice is good and democratic, but too much is just confusing and wasteful.  One only needs to go in a liquidation store to see what happens with all the junk nobody needed to buy when it was first new.  The number of large second hand stores such as Value Village also reflects the amount of cheap quality throw-away clothing that is produced in the world.  While some people must routinely clear out their accumulation of clutter, still others have psychological problems which cause them to buy and hoard stuff until their homes are bursting at the roof joints.  I don't want to come across as hypocritical, because I am a dedicated buyer of second hand books, vintage dishes and clothing, so I benefit from other's purchasing and am just as guilty as many other people purely by association and habit.  My objection is not to people having what they have and enjoying it, it is against buying what we truly do not need for happiness or survival and placing too little value on quality versus quantity.

I am not about to join my voice to the doomsday club, I have great hopes for society as more and more people are choosing to live in humbler dwellings, grow their own food, walk or take public transit, etc., but with the rumour of forty more Walmart Supercenters going up in Canada, there is cause for concern and activism.  Globally, I am afraid, unless something happens to stop it, we will continue to be the giants, greedily stuffing our faces and plundering the earth to fill our coffers while stomping on or ignoring the 'little people' down below while they only ask for a dignified way to carry on living.  We shouldn't be surprised when little Jack and his magic beanstalk infiltrate our cozy swirl and run away with the goose that lays the golden eggs.  It might even be good for us in the long run.

When I was looking for an image for this post I found the one above - the ad for an actual television show from long ago called The Land of the Giants - so I used it. 

Life is Good, Writing is Better

I remember, as a young girl, spending hours at my neighbour Molly's house, reading issues of Architectural Digest magazine and dreaming of one day, having a really beautiful home full of antiques and surrounded by a gorgeous garden. I imagined myself in a beautiful cashmere sweater set, saying witty, clever things to my doctor/lawyer/architect/ husband as we welcomed our guests to yet another fabulous yuppie cocktail party. None of these 'dreams' came true in my real life. Don't get me wrong, I still love pretty things and sometimes I even get the urge to paint a room but, I discovered along the way, just like my parents, that I had other priorities that involved reaching out to the world beyond the nest I had created for my family.

When my children were small, as much as I loved them, I couldn't wait to get involved in my community. I looked forward to the day when I could organize fundraisers, join committees, help backstage at concerts, supervise school field trips, etc. etc. etc. Now that I am doing all of that, I wonder if I am wise to be doing quite so much of it - but I can't seem to help myself. I seem to be hard-wired that way (it's genetic). When I said as much to a friend over coffee he said, "I have a very good psychiatrist, you know."

I have come to believe that we humans have a need to be useful to each other, and when we find a place where what we have to give is welcome, we become fulfilled and happy. This of course, is different for everyone. One person may find that living in a monastery and embracing a life of silence and prayer is their best way to serve humanity. Another person may find that being an artist and creating interpretations of the human condition that others may relate to as the best way to give. Yet another person may find that knocking on doors to canvass for various causes is their calling, and they're good at it. Everyone has something to give to the world, but finding it, and giving it a place of priority among life's other demands is the key.

For years now I have tried to maintain a balance between all of the different activities I feel compelled to be involved in, often ending up frustrated. Ever since I began to give writing a position of importance in my daily life, I find, to my surprise, that everything else is falling into place, at least psycologically, for me. I have discovered that I am happiest that way, and that my non-writing activity, if kept within reason, feeds my writing and vice-versa. I like to help at my children's schools in a supportive role only (not to organize anything), and to volunteer for local arts organizations and for my church. I like to work, too, now that my youngest is well established in school, but for now, I am happy with my temporary jobs that let me earn a bit of holiday money, and then let me get back to a life that allows the brain space necessary for creativity; my husband and I decided long ago that until our children are grown one stressed-out parent is enough for our household, thank you very much. I need exercise as a release and for my high expectations of personal health, but I don't need it to involve competition or time-consuming goals (at least not at present). I like to maintain my relationships as well as possible and am always striving to become a better listener and friend. If I were to make a pie-chart of all of these aspects of my life, it would be divided into about twenty pieces of varying sizes, which to another person might seem crazy, but to me, as long as I keep my priorities straight, seems right. I admit that I will have to eliminate some activities from time to time, but I feel like I finally have reached a place where things are working the way they are meant to, and it has taken a long time to get here. I have had so many odd notions about life that I have had to toss out the window. I used to think that 'real' writing was something one could only do if locked in a tower or secluded in a cabin for months on end with nothing else to think about, but now I know that just is not so (unless I get a really good idea for a novel - but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Lately, when I crawl into bed after a full day, I pick up the latest novel I am reading - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society these days - read a chapter or two and then go to sleep looking forward to the next morning's cup of coffee and fresh perspective. I know that whatever happens the next busy day, it just might be something to 'write home about'. And that is a very good feeling.

The Reluctant but Enthusiastic Gourmet

Someone once said, "Restaurants are to the 80's what theatre was to the 60's." Actually, it was a character in the Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner movie When Harry Met Sally, and judging by all the restaurant scenes in the film, his comment must have been true. The 80's were also a great decade for film, so my kids tell me, and, strange, imaginative child that I was, I think I spent half my time back then trying to emulate the scenes, characters and clothing from Hannah and her Sisters, Out of Africa, or select John Hughes movies.

When I was a teenager, a few of my friends and I would save up our spending money and go out for a fancy French meal at Justine's, an establishment no longer open in my hometown. Justine's was an airy, peach and white downtown restaurant with glass block dividers and live jazz. We would dress up in our finest 80's fashions and, I'm sure, impress and/or amuse the adult regulars with our yuppies-in-training ways. Until I found out it was raw meat, I always ordered steak tartare as my appetizer, and generally an entree with chicken or scallops. Eating out at Justine's was the epitome of elegance to we small-town kids looking for a bigger life, and the atmosphere caused us to sit up straight and use our best table manners and hushed voices.

And then there were the dinner parties. My childhood friend Molly's mother, Panny was, and I'm sure still is a phenomenal cook and she and Molly's dad had newly purchased the former Anglican manse which had a large dining room. With Panny's help Molly hosted a few dinner parties, with each of us guests supplying a dish. I remember making Greek salad. How exotic it seemed back then. Molly's mother cooked from books with names like The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and later, opened a great little restaurant, The Wild Onion, with her sister Vicky. My own family was into good eating as well, though generally of a slightly humbler variety - one of our commonly consulted cookbooks was called More-with-Less.

When I was a child I did a fair amount of baking, but I didn't start cooking until I'd pretty much left home. When in university I lived with my sister, Clare who taught me how to make soup from scratch and other budget-friendly meals. My last year I lived with a pack of roomates and we were each responsible for our own meals. I lived on veggie burgers and stirfry. And vietnamese salad rolls from the canteen in the UBC arts lounge. When I got married a year later, I could throw together a meal of sorts, but I was far from being an artist in the kitchen. For a wedding gift, Clare bought us a subscription to Canadian Living magazine, which was perfect as a teaching tool for me. My husband had become a decent 'cook for one' from his ten years as a bachelor, but when it came to cooking for a family I was more the natural in the kitchen. Plus, I was keen. I love food, and I love good food more, so I was eager to learn all I could. Still, there were never what I would call gourmet meals issuing forth from my kitchen. We had children straight away and so it was healthy family cooking, trial by fire. Over the years, I became a fairly good children's cook. To this day, other people's children tell their parents what a good cook I am, and how they like eating at our house. While I appreciate their praise very much, I am humbled by it. I know Michelin, the organization that grants restaurants the highly valued 'Michelin Stars' would never grant me so much as a a twinkle. But I don't mind that. To me, that's what restaurants like Justine's are, and were, for - to give we family cooks a break from spaghetti and home-made pizza - and give us a taste of something fresh and exciting, which in turn will enhance our own home cooking and dare us to try something new.

In this town of few restaurants of any real quality there exist a surpising number of skilled culinary artists, and many of the best meals to be had here are cooked and eaten in the home. Our friend Marilee's husband Stefan is a fine chef who happens to run the kitchen in one of the area's major prisons (one of the largest employers here), and last weekend, they gathered twelve of their friends together for a New Year's Eve meal to remember. A week beforehand an email was sent to all the guests with the information that Stefan would be making Saltimbocca with local pork scallopini (to prevent the usual outcry against veal) with prosciutto and sage, and parsnip gratin with wilted pea sprouts.  Each couple was asked to choose a side dish or dessert to prepare. At the fashionable hour of 8:30 pm the guests began to arrive and gather in the beautifully transformed dining/ living room of Marilee and Stefan's home. The menu consisted of small and beautifully plated servings of the following courses:

mini crab cakes with dill mayonnaise

mixed greens with walnuts, goat cheese and orange sections

carrot ginger soup (my contribution)

Saltimbocca and parsnip gratin

meyer lemon granitee served in frozen blood orange halves and garnished with pomegranate seeds and candied lemon zest

triple chocolate dessert: white chocolate mousse, chocolate cassis pate and a hazelnut ice cream macaroon garnished with a champagne sauce and sugared rose petals.

And of course there were endless bottles of wine passed around during the meal.

At precisely 11:58 pm pink champagne was served and we toasted the new year in high spirits, to say the least. The platter of 'Lady Jane', 'Castle Blue' and 'Cranberry Caerphilly' cheeses was then brought in with a bottle of port and most of us found a bit more room for them. It was during the dessert course when I looked up from my incredibly delectable chocolate pate and said to its creator, the local cheesemaker seated opposite, "I'm wondering how I got here!" And she said,

"Well, you must have done something good this year!"

The conversation flowed as quickly and as richly as the incredible meal deserved and soon it was time to organize rides home with sober drivers. I am not much of a drinker, so I had enjoyed my usual small amount of wine and could drive my husband and I safely home to our house across town. In fact, when we were toasting the new year, Marilee asked us to proclaim our resolutions. I don't tend to make resolutions, so I made a joke instead: "I'm not going to drink anymore!" to which there were resounding 'boos'. "I'm not going to drink any less either!" which brought forth cheers and laughter from the crowd before I admitted the joke was a favourite line from a movie.

Meryl Streep's character in Postcards from the Edge says another favourite movie line of mine: "I don't want life to imitate art, I want life to be art!" Every once in a while I will reflect on an event in my life and think it has come pretty close to being art, or at least come close to being a scene in a good film.

If my dreaming, sixteen year old self could have looked forward into New Year's Eve, 2011 she would have thought the future looked promising indeed.

An Engaging Topic

My husband and I were living it up in Vancouver, celebrating our wedding anniversary. We had spent the night at a guest house after indulging in a grand meal at the sort of restaurant people like us only go to once in a blue moon, and decided, for nostalgic reasons, to go for brunch at Sophie's Cosmic Cafe, a Vancouver institution, before heading home. Sophie's is chock-a-block with vintage chachkies and brightly coloured walls, and serves old-school breakfasts. V ordered an egg and sausage platter, and I ordered the French toast. We drank coffee (my half decaf Americano was actually kind of awful, but I didn't complain because the food was so good) and tucked into our meals. 

Like many restaurants, Sophie's had music playing at a good volume through the speakers. I noticed as we ate, that the playlist was vintage, like the restaurant and its contents (and some of its patrons). I hummed along to the tunes while V and I enjoyed our brunch experience, my mom's voice in my head saying "No singing at the table" silenced. A song came on that I had loved as a kid, "Don't Bring me Down" by ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). I had finished my breakfast and was sipping my bad coffee, alternating with ice water, and started singing along quietly. Suddenly, I heard a voice in the booth behind me, also singing along quietly. We both noticed each other singing at the same time and turned around to see to whom the other voice belonged. The chorus came up and we sang to each other, just a little louder,  

                    Don't bring me down

                    No, no, no, no, no

                    Ooh-ooh-hoo

                    I'll tell you once more before I get off the floor

                    Don't bring me down

People near us started staring. We didn't care. We sang the whole song together. Songs you knew when you were young tend to stay locked in your brain forever. I remembered most of the lyrics, even singing 'Don't bring me down BRUCE' instead of 'groos' as it's supposed to be, because I had never learnt the original version of the line. When the song was over we shook hands and introduced ourselves. Turns out the man I was singing with was celebrating his seventieth birthday, and sharing brunch with some good friends who had flown in for the occasion from Winnipeg. We all chatted for a bit in a jovial manner befitting a birthday celebration, and the man thanked me for singing with him - said I had made his day. He invited us to his birthday party (I'm not sure he really meant it), but we said we had to be going home.  

The experience I had at Sophie's brought to the fore some thoughts I have had lately, about how people these days engage (or don't) with the world. I grew up in a boisterous family in a small town where we knew almost everyone. Most of my siblings will still talk to anyone, anywhere. I am a bit more reserved than some of my family, but in the right moment and mood I can have great interpersonal exchanges with strangers. People often talk about how unfriendly Vancouverites are, but I have found that you often get what you give. My experience at Sophie's is a perfect example. Sure, I don't do impromptu karaoke in restaurants on a regular basis, but I tend to have friendly exchanges with people more often than not if I begin the exchange by being open and friendly towards them. I have to say, this happens more often with people who are my age or older. The pre-cellphone generations are much more used to greeting each other and initiating conversation. I find, even in my own mid-sized home city, that young people rarely make eye contact with me if I am walking down the street. It's like they are trained not to. When I do get a greeting or a smile I am pleasantly surprised. I do not want to harp on the younger generations. It's not their fault. They are a product of the society they grew up in. But, I do want to encourage them to engage more outside of their social bubble. As you get older life can often get decidedly lonelier. We are more isolated than ever before. If you don't believe me, Google the subject. There are a thousand articles proving my claim and warning of the dangers prolonged social isolation can wreak on one's mental health. 

There is a passage in a book I am reading by Ann Cleeves, the great mystery novelist, that reads: 

"When Jen got home, the kids were holed up in their rooms again. They answered when she shouted up at them, but they didn't come down. There was evidence that they'd scavenged for food. She thought that prison wouldn't be any sort of deterrent for this generation, as long as they were allowed cell phones and internet access in their cells." 

Makes you think, doesn't it? God, I hope it does.

I also have to work on reaching out more. After going through burnout a few years ago, I isolated myself to a great degree, just to get some rest. I had been an incredibly social person who tended to attract similar friends. When I think back to my 30's and 40's I was rarely alone. Now I am alone a lot of the time. I don't generally mind because I have learned to like my own company and a quieter life than before, but I know I need companionship so I make the effort to engage when I am out and about. I greet people, especially elderly people, I make small talk with sales people and servers, and I compliment young parents on their cute children if they'll let me. While I hope I am brightening their day, I am the one who benefits most. And, if I can 'make someone's day' like the man in Sophie's Cosmic Cafe, then I get an extra-big boost of serotonin. Engaging is good for me, and I will argue that it is good for you, too. 

https://youtu.be/z9nkzaOPP6g?si=K2URmgx1QohGifRE

                   

'Til next time, 

Rebecca

Water Water Everywhere

Only weeks ago, we in the Fraser Valley were keeping a close watch on the rising level of the river. Experts said those living inside the diking system were not in any real danger of flooding, but with the water table risen to only six feet below the surface, many with full basements had pumps going full time to keep the water out. When we first moved to this community we noticed in June that many homes seemed to be draining water by hosepipe onto the road. Not being familiar with life on a floodplain, we thought it strange that so many people seemed to be draining their hot tubs or backyard pools at the same time. When a neighbour and friend who happens to have an underground basement began talking about needing two pumps and a backup generator during a year of high runoff, we began to understand the reason for all the hoses to the road. We also began to understand why, after 1975 no houses were allowed to be built with any more than four feet below ground in our town, and were grateful for our house built on a concrete slab with a lawn sloping away from the house.

 A few years ago, our area was in very real danger of flooding, according to all the media reports and the provincial authorities. There were even town meetings in the high school gym to discuss strategies for emergency response should the dikes break. I gathered 72 hours worth of food supplies, including several packages of Cadbury mini eggs. No emergency kit, in my opinion, should be without chocolate. We made sure we had plenty of batteries for our short wave radio and flashlights, and kept the car full of gas at all times in case we needed to leave town in a hurry in search of higher ground. My husband always has our camping gear well organized, so I felt confident that we could get it together quickly if needed. I was so stressed about the possibility of flooding, it was difficult to concentrate on my job coordinating the local festival's children's day, and I made changes to our insurance policy to accommodate flooding in our house. A lot of people did. I even called my mother to ask if we could come to them 500 kms away, should disaster strike. I think she thought I was hysterical.To calm my children and myself we walked down to the river and looked at how far the water would have to rise to breach the dikes. It would have to rise an awful lot by the looks of it, and I felt better.In hindsight, I should have listened to the experienced local farm families from the get-go, who calmly smiled and said they'd believe a flood when they saw it. We never did flood that year, but it was a good test for everyone involved. This year, the water was just as high with flooding in some low-lying places outside the dikes, but the level of hysteria in the media and in the community in general was much more subdued. Our dikes had been tested and had proved worthy.

We did not flood this year and in fact, are enjoying a beautiful July so far. The water is still high as it is everywhere in our province, but without the incessant rain of June, it is gradually going down and people with basements have been able to relax a little. However, it seems that if one part of the world is enjoying good weather and calm waters, another part is experiencing the opposite. The Kootenay region near the Alberta border of British Columbia, and the stomping grounds of my youth, continue to have the wettest summer in recent memory. 'Monsoon rains' are a common term to describe their weather in the emails I have received from my parents' home, and again today I hear of recent and fierce storms in the region. Last Thursday afternoon, the rain fell so hard and so fast that the my hillside hometown of Nelson had temporary flooding in the downtown area - the storm drains just could not keep up with the amount of water rushing down the hills and into the level areas of the town. Several photos were posted on Facebook, and someone added the fact that Nelson had seen this kind of water before, back in 1973.

Robert Neufeld of Nelson took these photos
 on the day of the flash flood

Pulling together to push

The water did drain into the lake before long and the town was apparently dry and open for business by the next day. Flooding, yes, but somewhat manageable. West of Nelson, however, and on the same day, a mud slide had flowed onto the road near Castlegar and there was concern about the stability of one of the slopes above the college I attended for two years. The concern was well-founded as just the week before, a large mud slide had occurred in Johnson's Landing, a small, isolated community northeast of Nelson, crushing three houses with a wall of concrete-like compressed mud carrying trees and rocks as it careened down the slope. Four people were confirmed missing and the rescue efforts were hampered by a second slide and thus a frighteningly unstable area in which to search for the missing people - a father with two daughters and a German tourist. Sadly, after a weekend of extensive searching and the best efforts of personnel, the rescue efforts were changed to recovery efforts, and although I did not expect the news to be good by Monday, it still hit me hard when I heard the cold fact that the body of the girls' father had been found. Two days later, another body had been found, and so on.

 Any time something like this mudslide and flooding happens it is cause for concern, but it becomes personal when it occurs in a place you know well and where events such as this are rare. We are used to seeing footage of flash flooding and mudslides in places like Asia, but in the southeast corner of British Columbia? We are more likely to hear of people perishing in avalanches when skiing out of bounds, or from drowning in a boating accident on the many lakes in the region. The news becomes even more personal when the people involved are known and loved by people you know. That is what happened in Johnson's Landing. The slide occurred twenty-five meters from the home of  a young woman I knew when she was a baby, and her parents. I found this out on the radio one morning when the young woman was interviewed - she was friends with the two missing young women who had been her neighbours and was distraught but impressively composed in the interview. I contacted members of her family and shared the story, as did others, on Facebook. Many of my friends shared my concern and we all prayed and hoped for the best outcome before we knew the worst. Then we prayed and hoped the area would be saved from more disaster from excess rain.

I hope the Kootenays have seen the last of this 'biblical weather,' as a friend called it. Next week we are all going to Nelson to attend the wedding of our niece. The guest list is quite a long one, so I hope the weather will be accommodating to all these visitors from near and far as we gather for this most happy occasion. One thing is clear however. From recent events Mother Nature has let us mere mortals know in no uncertain terms that she is in charge, and we will just have to take whatever comes and make the best of it.

Into the Light we Go

When something like the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre happens, I am left reeling with thoughts of sadness for the children robbed of a future, and for all the families affected. As President Obama said in his sensitive speech following the news of so much slaughter of the innocent, "These neighbourhoods are our neighbourhoods, these children are our children." I could not help but put myself in the place of those parents who have lost their little ones, and all those connected to the adults who were also killed on that day in Newtown Connecticut.

I could say so much more about this senseless act, but I will not. Not today. Today I will focus on the good that I experienced in going for a day trip to Vancouver last weekend to see our son at his workplace and do some Christmas shopping. The fact of how blessed I was to have all my family together and intact has not escaped me, and the knowledge that we will all be together for Christmas is cause for even more happiness and gratitude.

We have had a rainy December at this end of the Fraser Valley. The clouds tend to rest against our high and close mountains and some weeks it feels as though I have been weighted down by a large and somewhat heavily brimmed grey felt hat. My husband, being on holiday for the past couple of weeks, had been checking the weather for a good day to go to Vancouver. Originally, we had wanted to avoid the city on a weekend, but Saturday looked like the best day weather-wise, so we planned out our day carefully and left early.

As we headed west, we drove gradually into the light.

As we approached the newly twinned Port Mann Bridge, her 'sails' rose up into the clear blue sky, reflecting the snowy peaks in the distance. Vancouver enjoys three local ski hills in its North Shore mountains: Grouse Mountain, Cypress Mountain, and Mount Seymour. Our family spent two wonderful winters Nordic skiing at Cypress Mountain, before horses, orchestra rehearsals and soccer took over our lives.

It's challenging to take photos from a moving vehicle.
This was taken while crossing the bridge.

We parked in our usual downtown spot, and walked over to the Vancouver Christmas Market. I've been an admirer of the 'new' Vancouver Public Library since it was built, so I had to take a photo of it gleaming on such a beautiful day.

 And then it was on to the market, where our son Ian is working for the month of December. The market is as authentically German in style as possible for the organizers to make it. It is set up in the lobby and the courtyard of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Vendors occupy decorated pine huts, offering everything from hot fresh pretzels and bratwurst, to spiced apple cider with or without a warming dram of alcohol, wooden toys and decorations. For those of us who are attracted by the woodsy charm of a traditional German/Bavarian Christmas, the market is a purely enjoyable experience.

The market was hopping that day, so good photo ops were few. However, we made the rounds with Ian, who met us a couple of hours before his shift at this hut here, serving traditional Swiss raclette and other delicacies made by our local cheese maker, Debra Amrein-Boyes, who operates the famous Farmhouse Cheese. 

I chose hot coffee over hot apple cider, but we did try it last year, and chose to purchase one of these souvenir mugs, which we put in our youngest's stocking to remind her of the happy day she spent with us at the market.

Of course, no German market would be complete without a hot polka band. This is the only shot I managed to get of the band, who were great and so much fun to listen to.

We all had a grand time at the market, Galen and Emma enjoying it for the first time. The day was clear and mainly sunny, but also cold, and after we'd had enough of the market, we moved on to the shopping malls to thaw and split up into pairs for some gift buying for each other. Then we said goodbye to Ian, happy that we would all be together again soon.

This song seems so fitting for my present state of mind.

Wishing you and yours a safe and joyful Holiday Season.

Peace on Earth. Good will towards men.

Rebecca

The Upside of Murder

Late last week little things were getting to me. Maybe it was because I had been incredibly tired and dragging myself around, or maybe because it had been a bit hot and my feet and hands were doing their seasonal swelling, which irritates me, too. At any rate, I almost broke down when my husband went to take the lawn mower out on Saturday and discovered a little pink bicycle in our shed in the back yard.

"Whose bike is this?" he called out.

"What bike?" I called back from inside the house.

"There is a pink bicycle in our shed and it looks like someone rode it who was way too big for it, and now the wheels are completely warped."

We asked our kids and none of them knew anything about it, so it appears as though someone, probably some kid that knows we have a shed in our backyard, ruined the bike and then stashed it in our shed. First of all, the fact that some little girl is now without her bike, which is ruined, bothers me, and second, the fact that someone was prowling around our house in the dead of night or when we were not at home bothers me. Thoughts as to whom was the culprit are pointless. We have no way of knowing. Any town has its teenage marauders, bored enough to cruise around at night looking for a mail box to push over or a bike to steal off a lawn and use as a BMX. I try not to take these things personally, but on Saturday, it seemed much more difficult. I was already teetering uncomfortably close to the edge of an emotional precipice.

So, what to do in a state of mind such as this? After brooding and muttering to myself for awhile: ........no respect....kids these days...feel violated...police won't do anything about it, got bigger fish to fry...not enjoying feeling like a cranky old bag...mutter, mutter.................try to enjoy a wonderful dinner and a couple of glasses of nice wine. (My husband and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary this past weekend and so we treated ourselves, and our kids, to a nice dinner at home.) And after dinner and cleanup, go for a good walk with my husband to hash out my feelings on the matter without the 'little pitchers with big ears' around to absorb my negativity. Then, once back home, sit down with the older members of the family to watch an episode of Midsomer Murders, a show with a warm, fatherly detective named Barnaby and his endearing young sidekick, Jones (Barnaby's had a few sidekicks, but Jones is my favourite). Not very cheerful subject matter, some may think, but I disagree. There is nothing like a good murder mystery to calm me down.

I've been a fan of murder mysteries for quite some time. I especially like the British ones like Inspector Morse, which I watched regularly with my parents when I was still living at home, Miss Marpole and the unfortunately short-lived The Last Detective. I have been on again, off again with Midsomer Murders - some of the plotlines border on the ridiculous, and if this show goes on much longer, there won't be any miserable residents of Midsomer County, England left to kill off. On Saturday night's episode, only two murders occured and one attempted murder, but in other episodes, up to five or six are often knocked off in a matter of hours. Of course, things are nicely solved and wrapped up in an hour and a half on Midsomer Murders, and therein lies its campy charm; the bad guys are always caught, after a few twists and turns of course, and sweet justice is served. I can't help wishing that real life were more like that sometimes.

The other attraction I have to murder mysteries is the reminder they give me at times when I am feeling small, vulnerable, upset by life's injustices, etc.: no matter what happens to upset my usual cheerful state, or no matter what I do to irritate those around me, I am still loved and no one (at least I hope there is no one) is trying to kill me or my loved ones. Not so for poor, beautiful Caroline Armitage, on Saturday night's episode, whose husband first drugged her, then tried to drown her for knowing too much about the crooked scheme he was involved in.

It also doesn't hurt that these murder mysteries are often filmed in gorgeous locations surrounded by stunning architecture ie. Oxford - the home of Inspector Morse, and I heard on a documentary that Americans especially, like their murders with a beautiful backdrop. I can relate. I certainly don't mean to romanticise murder - God forbid - but I do like a good puzzle and intelligently crafted, brilliant, humourous characters to solve them.

Saturday night, after the show, I went to bed and slept well, better than I had in days. Barnaby and Jones had done their good work, and after the culprits were charged, Barnaby even arrived in time to see his wife's choir finally win the Midsomer Choir Competition, which was held in a gorgeous, ancient church made of grey stone and filled with glorious stained glass windows - 'all's well that ends well,' as my mother used to say. In the morning I went for a long run in the not-yet-hot sunshine to work off the calories of the night before and to clear out the remaining cobwebs of my mind, and as the day progressed I began to feel more like my old self.

And today? It's raining. Yes! (I'm not sure if I'll be that cheerful after a few days of it, though.)

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.

Being Canadian: A Complicated Kindness

As our lives on this globe intersect at an ever increasing rate, the desire for us to understand each other as nations grows. When we encounter another culture we often have many questions, some of which have clear cut answers and some of which do not. For example, if one of my ex-pat British friends is asked why Brits drink so much she will say decidedly, 'because they know their country's going down the toilet and there ain't nothing they can do about it.' On the other hand, if I ask why Brits make such good television, the answers are as in depth as I choose to go. The question I would like to ask Hollywood is: why is the collective imagination in the US fixated on superhero and post-apocalyptic movies? I imagine the response to be: because America's debt and lifestyle gap between rich and poor is so off the charts they crave something drastic to happen in order to save the situation, but their own answer would probably have more to do with hero worship. However, if asked why Canadians seem so polite, the answers are not quite so clear. What is it that makes us say 'I'm sorry' every time something happens that may or may not inconvenience another person? 'I'm sorry' is the typical knee-jerk response when we Canadians bump into each other, when we set out to give an opposing opinion, even when we go for the coffee shop cream urn at the same time. As children 'I'm sorry!' is what we call out to the parent bearing down on us with a threatening look in their eye, hoping against hope those two words will stem the tide of disciplinary action coming our way - that worked for me a few times, so I included it.

It occurred to me today that the 'I'm sorry' habit may be something more than what many comedians claim is the Canadian's way of getting out of a potentially uncomfortable situation.* I was in church yesterday when an elderly woman in the pew in front of me accidentally knocked the book in my hand as she sat down earlier than I. Her apology was profuse and completely unnecessary due to the fact that she had barely touched me. I automatically responded with, "Oh no, I'm sorry." We smiled at each other with sympathetic looks peppered with good humour and left it at that. Something then occured to me: the 'I'm sorry' habit is at best about having good will toward other people. Let me explain. If a man and I go for the coffee shop's cream urn at the same time, generally both of us will urge the other to use it first. One of us will be more insistent than the other and finally, after a several laboured seconds one of us will pour the cream into our cup. We will then return the urn to the counter and smile at the other person who kindly insisted we go first, and we will go back to our seats, him feeling proud of his gallantry, and I feeling grateful for it. If this reads like some sort of complicated dance, it is, but as Canadians, we learn it early in life so it stays with us always and leads to a fairly comfortable and pleasant way of going about our daily business. If I have my head down in the grocery store as I consult my list and accidentally bump someone else's cart, I will apologize immediately. If an explanation is required to calm the ire of the bumpee, I will give it and I can usually get a smile from them in the end. Like many Canadians I will do almost anything to avoid conflict, especially in public.

Why are we so eager to avoid conflict at all costs when other nations (I'm thinking France, Italy) seem to thrive on it? I have a theory about that, too. As I said above, I have a few British friends who have lived in Canada for many years, but are still a bit baffled by our social niceties. In theory I agree with them wholeheartedly when they say they prefer the Brit way of just calling a spade a spade and being done with it, rather than all this dancing around the issues. "Brits just speak as we find and move on," said one ex-pat friend after she had witnessed two co-workers in her Canadian office have a big ol' cat fight. Apparently, they had hidden their true feelings about each other for so long that eventually, and predictably, they reached the boiling point and the lid blew off.  My Brit friend who is a teacher had a hard time figuring out the parents of her students until she understood about the tendency of Canadians to avoid open conflict. She would think everything was going along fine with a parent and then one day, somehow, would find out the parent had been harbouring resentment against her for months for some action taken with her child. My friend had detected a certain chill in the air when she and the parent came in contact, but had no idea of the feelings simmering away underneath the surface. My theory about why we Canadians may act like that parent at times is essentially based on my observation that Canadians avoid open conflict because we who live in a cold climate eight months of the year place a huge value on personal physical comfort and safety, and this makes us lazy in our dealings with others. We just do not want to 'go there', but eventually we have to and by then the situation is usually beyond nasty, or at least beyond what it was originally. But, this is the 'I'm sorry' habit at its worst, and, being Canadian, I would rather not dwell on the negative.

I suppose we have historically been the Peacekeepers in global conflict because really, we would just like everyone to calm down, sit back and relax with a beer or even a doughnut. Anything pressing can usually be put off until tomorrow, and a difficult decision is generally made better by the act of sleeping on it. A Dutch man I once worked for said when he first moved to Canada in the 90's he was unimpressed by the Canadian way. No one seemed to work with any urgency, we valued our holidays more than anything, and meeting for coffee at Tim Horton's was often the highlight of the day. Mind you, he had immigrated to British Columbia, which is seen as one of the more relaxed provinces in the country. Over time, he said, he began to see the wisdom of our ways. He began spending more time enjoying life with his family and exploring the area near his home.He decided life was not just about work and making money, but that approach took some getting used to. Now, I would not be surprised if he even said to his clients, "I'm sorry, I cannot possibly fill your order today. I am celebrating Canada Day with my family," and let the chips, or rather the doughnut sprinkles, fall where they may.

*Twelve Ways to Say I'm Sorry

My apologies to author Miriam Toews for stealing her book title 'A Complicated Kindness' for this post.

Soup and Soft Landings

Earlier this never ending summer, when out for a walk, I received a text from a lovely friend. She asked me about the current forest fire raging in the provincial park where my husband works, and how he was dealing with the stress. I replied that my husband was pretty stressed and very, very busy. She asked if I have trouble keeping up to him, and I replied "I don't try. I provide soup and a soft landing." She replied, "We're good at that!!"  She was nursing an injured husband at the moment. As I continued with my walk, I smiled at the phrase that had popped into my head, "soup and a soft landing" and thought it would make a good title for a book. I don't have a book in me, so a blog post will have to suffice. 

Sometimes, when I am questioning my post-active-years-of-motherhood purpose here on earth, something happens to remind me of the benefit of simply being here for the people I love. Or even just for people in general. In August I worked at the local sunflower festival. I worked in the farm store, mainly just taking people's money and answering questions. Our visitors were from all over the world. I met folks from the Philippines, India, Ireland, France, Texas, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Ecuador, and beyond. Flower festivals seem to bring out 'the happy' in people, and many lovely little conversations and exchanges were enjoyed. I had a mask on (having had Covid in July, I was not eager to contract it or pass it on again), but I made sure to smile big with my eyes and my greetings. People really do respond when you take an interest in them as individuals and not just customers exchanging money for goods. Their faces tend to light up and they respond with a little joke or a kind word. Sometimes the reverse would happen. I would be focusing on tallying up their purchases and they would say something positive about the festival and tell me to have a great day. I distinctly remember one man about my age, maybe a bit older, who had brought his two kids to the festival from Vancouver. While his teenage daughter said she would take the little brother back out to the fields after they finished their ice cream, the man said he would seek refuge in the shaded seating area outside of the store. He then told me he was two years into cancer treatment and had learned the hard way about the effect of sun on the skin. The skin cancer had gone into his lymph nodes and into his brain, but he was fighting it successfully so far. I told him my brother-in-law had the same cancer over twenty-five years ago, and I had reason to believe the treatments were more effective now. I truly wished him well, and his eyes told the story of the pain and anguish he was enduring. "I have to carry on for the kids," he said. The love expressed between him and his children was beautiful and I wished him well from the bottom of my heart once again. I hope he went home with some beautiful images of flowers in his head and some comfort and hope from our exchange.

I've noticed as I get older that life becomes more and more about essentials: communications between people, intention, a really good meal enjoyed with a loved one, a perfect piece of fruit, trees, flowers, gratitude for what this body can still do despite injuries, a sense of more to life than meets the eye. I've realized that despite my hermit tendencies of the last few years (post burnout recovery to be honest) I really do love people, and I love to be there for people. Not all the time. Sometimes people really frustrate me. I found myself reacting a few times, just last week, to just such persons testing my patience (I'm talking to you, speeding Toyota truck driver). Overall, though, I hope to provide 'soup and a soft landing' to the people in my life and appreciate when they do the same for me. 

Although last night I made chili. Close enough. 

Let Me Tell You Something

Writing, for me, is an astoundingly personal thing. It is not only thoughts put into words, but my thoughts, my words, borrowed from my experiences and filtered through my fractured lens. "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" or something like that. The fact is, I choose to post my thoughts on this blog for two reasons: 1) Writing for a potential audience is a good practice. I like talking to people and this way I can try to organize my thoughts into something cohesive with a beginning, middle and an end. So often, real conversations get interrupted or sidetracked, which is fine and fun most of the time, but can be unsatisfying for someone who likes to finish her stories. 2) I like feedback, even if most of the time it's only from family members and friends who support me as as person. I am not an introvert as so many writers tend to be, only a people person who needs some regular time and space to herself to sort out her thoughts.

As I sit at my desk this Saturday morning, later than I planned due to half an hour waiting for someone to answer my call at the Royal Bank of Canada VISA headquarters, I begin the plunge, yet again, into sharing my thoughts with 'the world'. Yet, I feel shy about sharing those thoughts sometimes, this morning included. Why should anyone care what I think? Really! The world is in constant turmoil and I tend to write about little, everyday matters which feel so inadequate in this current climate of fear and upheaval, not to mention flooding, fires and pestilence. My posts don't solve anything or help anyone in any concrete way - except perhaps, me. The act of typing words strung together as sentences and forming paragraphs is therapeutic and creative. Each time I blog I have built something, a sort of structure which I can add to the others of my building, and that process is, in itself, satisfying. Clicking the 'publish' button is like locking up my building once the windows are in. I know it isn't perfect and there is still much more work to do in my painfully slow progress as a writer, but my structure has at least reached a stage where I can look at it and say, 'There. I made that. I finished that."

I am a person who needs to contribute, but I am struggling to figure out how my contributions will be shaped in the future. For thirteen years I was on the board of the community arts council of my former town. Six of those years I spent as President. Then, I got a paying job. My job is not anything spectacular. It's a humble, three days per week position as kitchen staff at a cafe-bistro, but I enjoy the creative nature of my work making food for people (anyone who knows me should be aware of my passion for food), the tips are good, and it helps pay the bills. We also moved to the mid-sized city where my daughter's busy theater life happens. I had to let the arts council go and now I've stepped away I see what a huge role it played in my life. I maintained a sense of personal value and purpose in my volunteer role with the council, a role which also happened to be a huge amount of work. Stepping away allowed me the time to pick up my blog again after a two year hiatus, and I find some renewed sense of value and purpose in writing my posts. For now, my blog has to be my contribution to my community. I know in comparison to my other roles in life its impact is tiny. I know I am mostly just talking to myself and a few others, (thank you, family and those few friends), but sometimes the things we do for and from ourselves end up creating a positive, albeit diminutive, ripple.

Growing up when women were the product of the 1970's 'You've come a long way, baby' brand of Feminism, I entered motherhood with the sense I may be an anacronism. I had dropped out of university after deciding against becoming a teacher (yes, there is huge regret there) and had no visible career. I wanted to be at home with my beautiful kids and was lucky my husband was ambitious and career minded enough to earn a good living for the both of us. Yet, I craved more. I loved stories and reading, so I tried to write books as a way to glory and meaning within my family and friend circle of strong, capable, well educated women, but my books were failures. My books were failures mainly because they were deeply flawed in structure and I didn't know how to fix them. I survived those failures and learned the truth about myself. Writing is important to me, but it is not my ticket to another portal "outta here". It is the ticket to my inner life, my heart, my often wavering sense of self in this crazy world, and I will keep doing it even if people stop reading it. Honestly, though? I hope they don't stop reading it.

*The photo is a snowshoe hare changing its colours for a new season.