Generation Cell Phone

I've been thinking about how each generation of children we raise lives in a different world than the one before it, and how that affects parenting those kids. I have three kids who would be considered young Millenials and one that would be considered GenZ. I know various factors contributed to their style of upbringing, but with the rate of change being as drastic as it is in this age of rapidly advancing technologies, even in the five year gap between my third and fourth children (both being girls) I noticed a difference. This main difference was the hand held pocket personal computer and communication device known more commonly in this country as the cell phone. And, I'm not just talking about my youngest's possession of one and how that affected her life, but of my own. 

I put off having cell phones in our home as long as I possibly could. My husband was issued a flip phone for work, but the rest of us did without phones, and no one thought to ask for one because they were yet to become commonplace among their peers. We did have the family computer in the living room, and we all took our turns to do schoolwork or writing projects, play games from DVDs like Magic School Bus and I Spy, Lego Harry Potter and LOTR, watch YouTube videos, download music, and play Club Penguin when those online activities came along. Often there would be more than one kid sitting at the computer at a time, sharing their experience together. One of my kids was loaned a Game Boy in Grade Five from a friend, and when I saw how addicted he became I asked him to give it back and never borrow it again. My older daughter somehow talked us into letting her get a Nintendo DS with the digital pen thingy when she was a pre-teen, but she never seemed to become as addicted as her brother had to the Game Boy. My goal was always for my children to develop their 'real world' interests first and use the digital gadgets as a tool for relaxation and entertainment on a limited basis.

I remember waiting in the elementary school yard for my youngest. A woman asked me if I was on Facebook. I told her, ugh no, that if I wanted to communicate with people from high school I would do it the old fashioned way - I wouldn't. A couple of years later my eldest who was in high school asked if he could get a Facebook account. I told him yes, but I would get one, too, and then he would have to be my 'friend' on the site. Facebook was this scary unknown to me then, and I feared losing awareness of what my son was up to. Little did I know the only thing he would use it for was posting music videos and messaging friends about social gatherings. He was the first to leave the site a few years later, too. To him, Facebook was lame already. Not so for me, I found. To my surprise, it was actually really fun to reconnect with old school-mates, my large, scattered family, and acquaintances in this limited way. For many of us it became a way to cheer each other on from afar, and to make each other laugh. People were sharing their travels, their kids' achievements, their health struggles, and their hilarious daily foibles. I soon became rather addicted to all the daily updates, and anyone who is 'friends' with me on Facebook knows I am a regular contributor. I do know my life would be lonelier without it, especially during Covid when digital connection became so vital to many of us. I know it seems I digress. We were talking about cell phones, but social media is a huge part of their use. 

I remember the day I told my husband I couldn't put off having a cell phone any longer. My job was requiring my use of one. We went to the Koodo kiosk at the mall and signed me up. By that time, flip phones were not the norm any longer. The phone I chose had a touch screen and so, in addition to being connected to the cellular network, it hooked up to our home WiFi. My carrier was Shaw, so free WiFi was available in lots of places. Unlike with the computer, I could lie down on the couch and read articles, scroll Facebook, and message people. I'm not going to lie, that was a revelation. One by one, my three older kids got phones as well, although they were well into their late teens. When all three of my older children had moved away to attend college or university, my youngest and I thought, with her busy schedule, that she should get a basic phone, too, so we could communicate on pick-up times from her theatre rehearsals in the next town. If I remember correctly, she was thirteen when I got a new phone and she inherited my old one. Fortunately, my youngest was too busy at the time to become completely addicted to her screen, and she was very handy as a tech assistant when her dad or I couldn't figure something out on our phones. 

The other day I was remembering my youngest and I sitting in our living room when she still lived at home, both looking at our phones. I compared it to the days when she or I, or other members of our family, would sit at the computer in the living room, whatever we were doing open and available to the rest of the family, opposed to both of us isolated with our little screens in our own little worlds. Most of the time she was chatting with her friends and theatre colleagues, while I scrolled social media or read articles, or chatted with family and friends of my own, losing track of time. I wondered how this change had affected our lives in a deeper sense. I know teenagers deserve to have privacy at times, but to be honest, I think personal phones have  given them too much privacy and too much information available 24/7 to absorb - a lot of it sad and/or alarming. Of course, the difference from my own girlhood is huge. I couldn't even have a private telephone conversation in our house, the corded phone being on the wall in the very center of a small house full of up to nine people at any given time. And, TV news was limited to an hour or so a night. I also wondered how my time spent isolating myself with my phone made a difference to her life, or was it just normal to her - part of the culture of the late 2000's that she took for granted? I know there are scholars out there studying the effect of technology on our brains and we are still learning. I know I have made changes in my own consumption. I turned off the Facebook and Instagram notifications on my phone, and I have learned to recognize in myself when I have become over-saturated with information and screen time. Fortunately, I feel like I have struck a balance with the devices in my life, but it took a long time. That we expect our kids to figure this out on their own is a big ask in my opinion.

I can't help but wonder how the younger moms and dads raising Generation Alpha are doing dealing with all that the world is throwing at their families. Probably their best, as most of us have done before them, learning, failing and winning as we go. 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Running on Twenty

When my third child turned twenty-two this past November I realized that my adult relationship with running had reached the twenty year mark.

Emma was thirteen months when we moved from a roomy four bedroom home a few blocks from our city's downtown to an outdoor education center in the mountains of central Vancouver Island. The Lodge was a forty minute drive to the nearest grocery store/school/movie theater/Starbucks/mall/anyone I knew, and while I had always wanted to try living in a cabin by a lake in the woods, I also felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under my comfortable, convenient life and said, 'Here, deal with this!' The fact that I was under thirty and a mother of three only complicated the situation. A community of sorts lived year round at the Lodge. Anyone near my age had no children. The people with children were older than me and much wiser, and I was admittedly, a little intimidated. Fortunately, I made friends fairly easily and soon found companions to walk and hike with. Walking and hiking did not prove quite enough to ease my hemmed-in feeling and so I decided to start running again - something I had done as a child and young teenager in school. In a relatively short period of time - Keep in mind I was under thirty - I was running two and a half kilometers out the highway and turning around to run most of the way back. The way was rolling and the shoulder was decently wide, so I felt safe and challenged enough. I loved that I could cover a lot of ground in a short period of time, and so began my love affair with running. 

We lived at the Lodge for just over five years. In that time, I grew in confidence and fitness. My husband was proud to be able to think of his wife as something of an athlete for the first time ever. He bought me a subscription to Runner's World magazine. He came home for lunch every day, so often I would make lunch, say hello to him and leave immediately to go running. When my runs got longer I made supper, greeted my husband after work and ran while he and the kids ate and did the dishes. I ran every second day with a long run once a week. In my third year of running my friend Bridged who ran with a group of marathoners invited me to a group trail run. We did over sixteen kilometers that day and I knew I was well on my way to a half marathon at least. Part way through the run, however, I became exceedingly hungry. One of the women gave me an energy bar and I finished the run strong. The women in the group invited me to the next run. I was in! 

A couple of weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. 

I ran for the first few weeks of my pregnancy, and then I had to stop due to my usual morning sickness. Katie was born the following October, and within seven weeks I was running again, but not quite the same distances as before. She used to cry when I left to go anywhere, but eventually even she became used to my running and would sit on the stairs while I put on my shoes and say, "Goin' for a wun, mummy?" Running was my stress reliever, my fitness tracker, my way to get out and away from my busy household only to return fresh and energized. We moved to the Lower Mainland and I enjoyed discovering new running routes.

I have entered a few fun runs, run the annual Terry Fox run with my children's elementary school many times, but I have yet to enter one of the big runs - the Sun Run, or the Vancouver Marathon, or any of those. I am waiting until I have the time and brain space to train properly for a half marathon. I plan to celebrate my fiftieth year with a long run, whether it's alone or with other people doesn't matter. I have run by myself for most of my running career. I don't listen to music when I run. The silence and my footfall is enough music for me. My favourite times are when I get into what the running gurus call The Zone - when my run becomes rhythmic and seemingly effortless, and I just go as if carried by wings. A lot of my best thinking happens on my runs. 

These days I run often with my sister. We talk about our kids and our jobs and our aging mother who has dementia now. I enjoy these times very much. Other times, like this morning, I run alone. Once upon a time when I was younger and I didn't happen to feel like running that day it took me about ten minutes to get into a groove. I would tell myself, just get dressed, get out, and if in ten minutes you don't feel good turn around. I never turned around. These days it can take me up to thirty minutes to get into a groove, but that is okay. I recognize that my age is a factor, and if I want to keep running for many more years, which I do, I have to keep adapting and adjusting to what my body tells me. I have always stretched for about twenty minutes after a run. I am not a person who could go for a long run and then immediately go for coffee or a beer. My body would hate me. At the local Terry Fox run a couple of years ago I found a corner of the gym afterwards and stretched. A few people looked strangely at me, but I just had to do it. Stretching prevents injury and helps me work out the tightness in my muscles and in my back. I also credit my chiropractor, massage therapist, and whoever it was that invented yoga for helping keep me mobile and moving forward. 

Getting outside and putting one foot in front of the other is in my DNA. My family are all great walkers. I just happen to find it also enjoyable - sometimes more so - to run, and so I will keep on as long as I can. Several years ago my family bought me a t-shirt with the slogan, "Gotta run". It's true. I gotta. 

A Library Tale

I was on Facebook the other day when I came across yet another news post about the high cost of living in my province of British Columbia. Ever interested in the topic I began to read some of the comments below the article, something I don't often do because some people say such ignorant things on social media platforms. Reading those comments is one sure way to lower my hope for humanity. Anyway, a woman had posted about her family's struggles to make ends meet even with both she and her husband working. In fact, with the overwhelming costs of daycare, food and rent the family was going into debt. She asked for any suggestions on how to make do with less. I attempted to help her by sharing some of my own experiences from my days as a stay-at-home mom of four. Among other cost-saving measures I mentioned how I used the local library a lot, as a place to borrow videos, books and as an outing that did not cost a dime (unless our books were late, of course). I ended the comment by commiserating about the cost of groceries and wished her the very best of luck.

That night I slept poorly. The forest fire smoke hung over our city trapping in humidity and heat, and my back was bothering me. As I lay awake I thought about my comment on Facebook and hoped my suggestions had been friendly and helpful ones. One thought led to another and I began to think gratefully about all the times spent at libraries with my children. When my boys were very little we lived in a lovely little mountain town called Kimberley. I have always been a walker, and I went out with the boys every single day, no matter the weather. If the weather was decent I pushed them in the double stroller to the park down the road. We would play there to run off any potentially cranky energy (pushing the stroller down the hill had already eliminated mine) and then walk/ride back up the hill to the town center to make our usual rounds. The town of Kimberley is incredibly charming. The businesses border a central European-style plaza where a large cuckoo clock yodels the hours - at least it still did on our last visit there several years ago.  One of our stops, at least once a week, was the library. After choosing carefully and reading several, we could check out a large stack of books, which I would put in the undercarriage of the stroller along with everything else I had gathered on our travels that day - groceries for dinner, thrift store finds, interesting pine cones or rocks the boys found, etc. I believe I counted my lucky stars each time I left the library - I walked out of there with over a hundred dollars worth of books and I could keep them all for weeks, provided no one else had requested them. We were usually done with the books after a week and would take our stack back to the library along with any Mighty Machines or Little Bear videos we had borrowed in order to get an entirely new selection - for free! Oh, I know full well we all pay for libraries through our city taxes and such, but for a young family such as ours, I cannot thank The System enough.

When my husband was transferred to Vancouver Island we again sought out the local library. There we discovered more new books and authors to add to our growing list of favourites. I greatly appreciated the way in which the library staff would place a selection of books and videos on display. I have often found a new book or author for myself in these displays as well. With the kids in tow, I did not often have time to search for items for myself but if a cover called to me from the display racks I would throw it (gently) on the pile and take it home. On our annual trips to my hometown to visit family we would visit a favourite bookstore. Our kids would get to pick one book each as a present. The book would often be a shiny new copy of one they had come to love at the library.

When we moved to the Fraser Valley we lucked out completely. The small town, almost village in size, where we were to make our home for the next thirteen and a half years, was the proud owner of a brand new library. Not only was the library beautiful, open and brightly lit with natural light, it was, despite it being on the small side, part of a wonderful regional library system like our Island libraries. Any item in the vast and seemingly endless system was available to we small-towners at the touch of a keyboard. Our three older children were all school age, and our youngest was eighteen months when we moved to the Valley. Within three months of moving I found myself doing daycare for a couple of teachers from our elementary school. My method of child care involved much walking and playing at the park, but it also involved frequent visits to the library for outings, especially for Friday morning Storytime. Storytime at the library was looked forward to by many parents and caregivers in our town. The fifteen minute walk from our house was a good way to work out the ya-yas in my charges before they were to sit and listen to the head librarian entertain them with puppetry, fun stories, and activities. I personally loved our librarian because she spoke my language, so to speak. We both revelled in nonsense and word play, and mildly politically incorrect humour. She and her dry-witted Scottish workmate would also make delicious coffee for the adults and serve cookies for the kids. Those Friday morning cups of coffee, company and stories forever endeared me to those two amazing women.

I have not visited my new library branch much since moving to the city where we now make our home. I am too occupied by trying to make use of all the trading credit I amassed at a local second-hand bookstore when downsizing this past autumn. When I do make another visit to the library here I know I will smile at all the young families making use of the wonderful services there. I also know I will enjoy the immediate sense of community a library offers to all who enter its doors. A library is a rare place of equality. A wealthy person is treated the same as a low-income person, for they can each borrow the same amount regardless of income. Access to computers and internet, newspapers, magazines, audio-books, CD's and DVD's, reference books, not to mention author readings, seminars and workshops allow an extension to everyone's education. We only have to take advantage of them.

Long live the local library, truly one of the very best institutions in the world. I know full well my life as a young mother, and the lives of my children, would have suffered greatly without it.

City Mouse, Mountain Mouse

I was so exhausted after work Friday I forgot the onions and garlic for the Shepherd's Pie I was set to make the next day.  We were gathering up clothing, food and supplies to take up to our place at the mountain resort where my husband is employed, and where our daughter and I would also spend our weekend. I had the recipe in front of me and read it over to make sure I gathered all the ingredients. (I also ended up forgetting the rosemary.) For some stupid reason I had awoken that morning at 4:45 and could not, for the life of me, fall back to sleep. Instead, I had given in, got up, made coffee and taken care of some emails. I never sleep to my 6:20 alarm on my work days, but 4:45 is ridiculous. Fourteen and a half hours later I was pushing through my foggy haze to get organized. Fortunately, my husband had come down to pick us up, and I would not have to drive the hour and ten minutes to the resort. He was also trying to be helpful in a 'let's hurry' sort of way.

Once we were on the road I could relax. A beautiful evening drive was in front of us and a mellow and quiet weekend was something to look very much forward to. The weekend before my husband had come down with the stomach flu and a few days later our daughter got it. I had successfully fought off the flu, but I was truly spent after looking after my family, working, and surviving on the interrupted sleep I seem to get nowadays. As we left the freeway behind and began the gradual winding climb to the resort I felt every cell in my body breathe a sigh of relief. I enjoy my job, I like the convenience of living in a mid-sized city and appreciate all it has to offer my daughter and me by way of cultural and educational opportunities, but I was born and raised in a town perched on a mountainside above a long and lovely lake, and the scent of lake water, evergreens and cottonwood are part of my DNA.

The first thing I do when I arrive at our humble little place in the mountains is fill my lungs with the sweet, fresh, fir and pine scented air. Next, I fill a glass with delicious mountain water and drink it down. The city where I live used to boast some of the best drinking water in Canada, but now it has to be chlorinated. After my ritual of inhaling and water drinking I put my stuff away and my husband made some popcorn. We sat down in front of the laptop and watched some comedy on YouTube. My husband has lately discovered a Brit comedian named Michael McIntyre,who is very funny but also incredibly fast talking. After about forty-five minutes of trying to keep up to Michael McIntyre I gave up and went to bed. I slept the deepest, longest sleep I'd had in ages.

My daughter was up before me the next morning, which almost never happens. I got up about 9 and made coffee, which I am confidently sure I would never forget to bring no matter how foggy I am the night before. My husband doesn't drink coffee, he wakes up ready to go which is a completely foreign concept to me, and doesn't keep it on hand. My daughter was still feeling a bit rough so we kept our ambitions of activity low and wore pyjamas until the afternoon. After lunch we ventured out for a walk on one of the many trails in the park and came across a couple of snowshoe hares, their feet still white but their bodies turning brown for their summer camouflage. They seemed to be chasing around in some sort of mating ritual and kept darting across our path. The air was warm, but not nearly as warm as it would be down in the valley. Still, we stuck to the shade where possible and put our hands in the cold rushing stream dissecting our path. We returned early to our place and I began to prepare our Shepherd's Pie. I soon realized I lacked the required onion and garlic. I wondered if the Resort chef would spare me some, and made my way out the door to walk the ten minutes to my husband's office. I had barely gone fifty meters when I saw our neighbour pull up in his BC Parks truck. I called out, "Do you happen to have an onion?" He said he did, at first thinking I was a tourist before recognizing me despite my lack of winter garb, and we proceeded to chat about Shepherd's Pie and cooking in general. I offered him a piece in exchange for the onion and garlic, and he took me up on it. I had met him and his girlfriend only once before in the winter, but familiarity is quick in somewhat isolated resort communities, I find. I think it has to be.

We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner. The simplest meals seem to taste best in a camping-type environment, where the flavours mingle with fresh air, wood smoke and sunscreen. I remember making Sloppy Joes, which is basically meat sauce on a bun, for my family when we were camping on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and they begged me to make it at home. I made the dish a couple of months later and the kids were disappointed, even though the ingredients were exactly the same as when we were camping. After the dishes were done, my husband made our first campfire of the summer and we sat around it in camp chairs and talked of this, and that, and burned an old insect and mold damaged paperback nearly page by page. My actor daughter and I read selected lines from the pages by way of a eulogy for the book. We let the fire die and went back inside to watch more Michael McIntyre and then we had another long and satisfying sleep.

The next morning I got up before my husband left for work. Our daughter was up early, too, so I suggested we aim to leave the house by 10-ish since we were both feeling a whole lot better than the day before. We packed a simple picnic and drove the four kilometers up to the lakes. The May morning shone on the blue-green of the lake water and the verdant green of the shore. I knew a path circled the lake so we set out upon it. We stopped several times to exclaim at the tree-perfumed scents of the forest in which we hiked, the birds and especially the ground squirrels that so delighted my daughter with their winning/food begging ways, The walk was longer than we anticipated, and very glad we'd brought peanut butter and jam sandwiches and apples we stopped to sit on a log overlooking the water to enjoy our lunch.  Happy people in canoes and kayaks paddled by in front of us and ducks and geese floated and fished. A dog came to visit us and I jumped because I had been bitten just a half hour before by another dog I had been assured would be friendly if I said hello. This particular dog was an adorable puppy and only made a muddy mess of my leg as it raced around us. I was grateful to put my throbbing and bleeding hand in the cold, clean lake water (no motors are allowed on the lakes) before we continued our trek.

We drove back to our place and made tea and ate more food. We decided we had earned a movie and chose Johnny English. Although the hike around the beautiful lake had made me feel blissful and somewhat romantic about life, the dog bite had brought me very much back to reality and I thought a laugh would do me good. It did do me good, as did the antiseptic wipes and the Advil. We made another simple but enjoyable dinner, packed up and drove down the winding descent to the freeway. We arrived home to a very warm apartment and flicked on the air conditioner. Our daughter caught up on the rest of her homework (she had already done plenty on the weekend after missing school for three days), and my husband and I watched an episode of Miss Marple.

I woke up the next morning at 5:30. The traffic had started in earnest on the thoroughfare by our building and the Tim Horton's drive-thru had already been open for an hour and a half. Not quite ready to give into the city's ways I suggested to my husband who was now on days off, that we drive the few minutes to the river and go for a walk before the heat of the day set in. The cottonwoods were shedding their fluff and giving off their heady, honeyed scent. Acres of pink and purple phlox bordered the pathway and the sun shone warmly down. The river swollen from the spring runoff raced along beside us. I was very glad to carry on the nature therapy a little longer so near our city home. I know we are very lucky to live where we live. The cares of the weekdays would come soon enough.

Later that day I went to the second hand book store and bought another copy of the burned novel.

How Much do I Love Camping?

I have been thinking a great deal about going back this coming summer to a favourite spot of our family's. We used to go there every summer for a family camping trip, but with all our children working and growing up and dispersing, the last time we were able to go to the spot in question was late in the summer of 2010. Below is my post written shortly after our last trip there. I do hope, if we go this year that the sun will shine more warmly upon those of us able to make the trip and, most of all, that we will be allowed to have a campfire. It really does make all the difference in the cool evenings. Even without a fire, however, our spot is beautiful almost beyond belief. There is a sense of being on the edge of the world there without it taking more than a day's travel from our home. The ocean seems bigger there and the shoreline wilder than any spot near here. I love the ocean and have been missing it as of late. The waves are calling me in the dead of winter and I long to answer their call - when summer comes.

I believe I am now completely thawed after camping for five days on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island with a complete campfire ban in effect.  We are experienced coastal campers but nothing could have prepared me for camping in damp windy conditions without the benefit of a fire in the evenings.  I wore all the wool I brought and went for many walks on the beaches dressed like it was January.

My husband and children did not seem to feel the cold nearly as much as I did.  They dressed warmly, but were not desperate about it.  One day found me pacing around our campsite with a wool blanket tied around my waist like a sarong.  My husband took to calling me 'Nanuk', but by the end of the week, even he said next time we camp at French Beach we should come earlier in the summer, when the possibility of a campfire ban has not yet taken effect.   The forest floor of the campground was littered in gold and brown leaves from the overnight fall-like temperatures, but we were mercifully cozy in our tents and sleeping bags at night, and slept well, looking forward to hot chocolate and coffee made on the Coleman stove in the morning.  We had glorious days on the beaches, hunting for tidal life, scanning the horizon for dolphins (we saw a group of three) and whales (we were blessed with a visit by a grey whale feeding in the kelp beds just off shore at Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew), and warming up on the sunbaked stones littering French Beach and China Beach.  At one point I sat on French Beach, picking up warm stone after warm stone to hold in my frigid hands.

We played round after round of badminton and tossed the football, and no one complained about taking their turn to do the dishes after every meal in a pan of hot water.  We were gratefully distracted from the wind on our second afternoon with a visit from my brother, his family and a couple of nephews, and enjoyed showing them around China Beach - a long stretch of fine sandy beach accessible only by boat or by a short hike through a forest of huge arrow-straight Sitka Spruce trees once used for masts on tallships  - which they thought was truly beautiful.  We had brought a gas lamp with us and after we found it emitted a generous amount of heat we joked about it being our impromptu campfire, placed it on the fire grate and gathered around it every evening just to stay somewhat warm while we sat and talked about the day and shared stories and favourite scenes from well-loved comedy programs.

The last day we hiked into Mystic Beach and enjoyed the sheltered bay there.  We lingered in the warmth, exploring the caves created in the cliffs by the tide, and visited the waterfalls.  I was clicking away with my camera when a fellow hiker offered to take a family photo, and I think it will make a great Christmas card this year.  Soon after, our daughter Emma stood on a rock near the shore.  The tide was coming in then and my boys thoroughly enjoyed watching their sister get soaked by a large rogue wave that hit her at chest height.  Good thing I had packed an extra jacket.

New wooden steps down to Mystic Beach

The last evening after supper was cleared away we walked on French Beach and remarked on the darkness of the clouds heading toward us.  We decided to string up a tarp over the picnic table in case of rain, so at least we would have somewhere dry to cook and eat in the morning.  We were so glad we thought of it, because it rained fairly hard all night long.  After breakfast we packed up the wet tents cheerfully, anticipating the dry warmth we would return to here at home. 

Do I love camping?  Not necessarily in the aforesaid conditions.  But what I do appreciate about camping is the unobstructed family time, the simplicity of choosing meals suitable for cooking over a two burner camp stove,  the 24/7 outdoor living by the briny fresh sea, the inaccessibility of technological gadgets, my husband being well out of cell phone range so he can't be bothered with work, and the appreciation it gives me for the simple things of everyday life - like a hot bath and a solid roof overhead.

The painting above of the large piece of driftwood on French Beach is called 'West Coast Wanderer' by Victoria, B.C. artist Jeffrey J. Boron.  More of his work can be found here.  

Neighbourhood Games

I was reading a post by one of my very favourite blogger friends, Lucille over at Useful or Beautiful, when I was struck with an idea for a little post of my own. She was writing about all the shoes she wore when she was a child growing up in England. She mentioned a pair of fabric party shoes that became worn out in one wearing due to the energetic nature of the party games: Squeak Piggy Squeak, Blind Man's Bluff, Oranges and Lemons, Musical Chairs and Musical Statues. I am old enough, and Anglified enough, to be familiar with a couple of the games she mentions playing in childhood. I am not going to write about my girlhood shoes, which, besides one pair of super-trendy white canvas Nike runners with the blue swoosh and my first pair of platform sandals, were unremarkable. I am going to write about the games we played in my neighbourhood because, friends, those were some very good times.

My neighbourhood on Silica Street was a lot like many other neighbourhoods in the world at that time in the century, I am sure; it was full of families. On a good night we could have fifteen kids playing outside after supper. The only reason to stay inside on a non-rainy night was a case of the flu or too much homework. The other kids we played with on those nights did not have to be necessarily approved of/interviewed by our parents. We did not even have to like each other all that much. The games we played demanded numbers to be successful and fun, and numbers we could provide simply by showing up. The sheer joy and enthusiasm we had for the games was generally enough to carry us through any personal conflicts with other kids.

In summer we played Hide and Seek or Sardines. In Hide and Seek, boundaries for hiding were agreed upon and one person who was 'it' counted to fifty before beginning to seek for the rest of us. The boundaries included anywhere within our block, including the alley. In Sardines, only one person hid somewhere within the boundaries and everyone else separated to look for them after counting to fifty. The hiding spot had to be large enough to accommodate each 'finder' who would join the 'hider' once he/she was found. We would be packed into the hiding space like sardines in a can, trying not to make any noise whatsoever, and the last person to find the 'hider' was 'it'. We also played a game called War, which involved painting a chalk circle on the street and planning various manouvers to take over portions of the circle. When fewer of us were available to play we relied upon Four Square, Hop Scotch and various skipping games. On summer days we played in the shady public wooded area on the north side of our street. We built treeforts which were taken down by the city only to be rebuilt by us at the first opportunity. During the fall we collected glossy brown horse chestnuts from the same wooded area and kept them in paper bags. Someone among us convinced her dad to drill holes in her chestnuts so she could make a necklace, but other than that, chestnuts were greatly averse to being made into things. We often threw them at each other instead, used them for made-up games, or when some of us were really bad, we threw them at passing cars from up in the canopy of the trees that overhung the street.

In winter, when the snow fell fast and deep the city closed Cedar Street, which was so steep drivers had to put their cars in the lowest gear to make the descent. Then, word would spread quickly and we would all jump into our snowsuits, boots, mittens and touques, grab our Crazy Carpets and go. Cedar Street was long and if we did not bail off our Crazy Carpets after the first long block we would have to climb up an extra-long way. By the end of the night, discarded, snow encrusted mittens and touques littered the sides of the street while we, red cheeked, hot and sweaty, climbed up the hill to race back down once more before we were called in by our parents to get ready for bed. When we got older we went further afield for tobogganing. Queen Elizabeth Park and Trafalgar Junior High had grassy slopes on which to sail down into the sports fields. The golf course way up at the top of town provided perfect tubing - people, including my elder teenaged siblings, drove up there with inner tubes and made wide tracks on the rolling slopes that seemed to go on for miles in the moonlight.

While my own children enjoyed playing outside daily with other children when they were small and we lived in a small resort community with other like-minded families, it took a little while before they found children to play with in our own neighbourhood in the town we currently live in. While we did see children riding bikes around our neighbourhood and were heartened when we saw groups playing road hockey or basketball in the park up the street, we could not help but wonder why our neighbourhood was not teeming with kids playing games of all sorts outside together. My children, however, played outside our house all the time and soon attracted a few others from the neighbourhood to play road hockey, ride around on bikes and skateboards, and play various games as well. Now that my children are grown, I still wonder, when I am out and about why I do not see more children out playing - school and organized sports are not the only places to learn social skills and fair play. A few years ago our neighbourhood school built a hill in the center of the fields and also more recently installed brand new playground equipment thanks to a large donation from NHL hockey players Henrik and Daniel Sedin. The Sedin twins have set up a fund to encourage families in small communities to play and exercise more. The hill and equipment both get a fair bit of use from young neighbourhood families, which is encouraging. Various movements, such as Bring Back Play, encouraging healthy, unscheduled play for kids are happening in Canada as well. We forty-somethings know what our nation's kids are missing in modern life and are trying to reinstate some kind of desire in families to get outside and play on a regular basis.

A friend of my sister's recently posted a photo on Facebook of their high school senior band enjoying a summer picnic at someone's lakeshore property some time around 1980. The photo included about twenty students. Not one teenager in the group lacked the appearance of great health and physical fitness. In fact, they looked like a bunch of young movie stars or professional athletes by today's standards. Unlike the kids of today, they had no Starbucks White Chocolate Mochas, Tim Horton's Ice Capps or Monster Energy Drinks to pile on empty calories back then. A sedentary lifestyle was unusual for a teenager and engaging in some risk-taking behaviours like cliff-jumping was the norm - at least where I grew up. Parents are fed so much fear these days about what 'could' happen to our children we are afraid to let them out of our sight. I am not saying it is easy for me to let my thirteen year old waif of a daughter walk downtown by herself, or ride her bike to the swimming pool alone. I have been fed the same fears for her safety, but I make myself let her go because she is learning to trust her instincts, to discover her own boundaries and get some exercise in the process. As a forty-something mom who values the outdoorsy, independent childhood of my own generation and the good seeds it sowed for a healthy adulthood, mentally, emotionally and physically, I owe her that much.

This is not my sister's band class. It is the cast of Freaks and Geeks, a
show my kids and I have watched and enjoyed. It is set in the 1980's and honestly
represents high school at that time, and to some extent modern times, with uncanny accuracy. 

Learning to Fly

My youngest daughter is deep into rehearsals for a production of a family-friendly version of the Broadway hit, The Addams Family. The musical is based on the original American comics by Charles Addams about a fictional family who, according to Wickipedia, 'are a satirical inversion of the ideal American family; an eccentric, wealthy clan who delight in the macabre and are unaware, or do not care, that other people find them bizarre or frightening.' The comics were published at intervals in The New Yorker between 1938 and 1988 when Charles Addams died. Films, TV series, video games and the above mentioned musical have all been based on the comics. Charles Addams said of his created family: 

Gomez and Pugsley are enthusiastic. Morticia is even in disposition, muted, witty, sometimes deadly. Grandma Frump is foolishly good-natured. Wednesday is her mother's daughter. A closely knit family, the real head being Morticia - although each of the others is a definite character - except for Grandma, who is easily led. Many of the troubles they have as a family are due to Grandma's fumbling, weak character. The house is a wreck, of course, but this is a house-proud family just the same and every trap door is in good repair. Money is no problem.

My daughter is double-casted (meaning she shares her alternating roles with another young actress) as Grandma and as a 1960's flight attendant, or stewardess as they called them in those days, in the chorus of undead ancestors. The production is on a large scale and will have a two week run in the new, and quite swanky, cultural centre in our nearby, mid-sized city which is also home to the school of performing arts which she attends for classes and rehearsals. I have not read the script, but I have a skeleton of the story thanks to my daughter's general enthusiastic chattiness, as well as a good idea of the various songs and dances - she practices in the house, of course. We have, thankfully, a room with a door on it downstairs where she can feel free to make all kinds of delightful vocal noise, and a large square of plywood on which she hones her tap sequences.

When our girl first began to practise her parts she would only do so when we were out. She has come a long way. Now she gleefully shows us videos of her and her castmates working on their routines which the director has filmed and posted on a secret Youtube channel, and eagerly demonstrates her dance moves. The school of performing arts is her second home and she loves everyone there and everything about it. Kids aged twelve to eighteen attend the school's Mainstage program and kids from tiny tots on up take all kinds of other classes and programs. Our daughter started with a couple of summer camps and then took two year-long programs before she asked to join the Mainstage program. Even though the program is a huge commitment from the kids and their parents, we agreed. Her sister was leaving home last September to attend college and our youngest would be the only one home during the school semesters. In order to help her forget how much she missed her siblings we helped her with her audition for the musical and enrolled her in the program. Little did I know how much I, too would become involved.

No, I will not be acting, singing and dancing in The Addams Family. I will be helping backstage as part of the production crew. I am learning new words like 'fly system' which are weighted ropes that are pulled with a certain amount of skill and muscle to move the set pieces up and down on horizontal pipes hung from the rafters above the stage, and 'main rag' which is the big, red velvet curtain which can be used to hide more involved set changes or to indicate the opening or closing of the performance. Tomorrow evening I will be learning what I need to do backstage for the entire show. I will have to be up past midnight many nights from now until the end of the show. Considering I am generally in bed by ten o'clock I will have to drink some extra coffee in the afternoons so I do not nod off in the cozy dark of the backstage area during the show. Then, we have 'cue to cue' rehearsals on the weekend, followed by two dress rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday, preview shows on Wednesday and Thursday, and then opening night on Friday.

I am glad I am not one of the performers. During our safety tour of the backstage area of the theatre the other night, I faced the rows and rows of seats from the stage and imagined them filled with people awaiting and expecting the performers' best. I confess I gasped at the thought. But the kids? They seem fearless. Those who catch the acting bug seem to thrive on performing in front of crowds. My daughter has certainly caught the bug, but even she has confessed to being a little scared and nervous. She has never performed for such a large audience, not since her elementary school choir shows when the audience was filled mainly with parents. She is also tremendously excited to take the past four months' practise and rehearsal and preparation and throw it at an audience. For my part, I merely hope I can support her and the other kids by doing whatever it is I have to do backstage properly. I will take a break to watch at least once from the audience, though. My husband and I are going to attend the opening night performance and gala.

Watching this video from the original Broadway production has stirred the magic for me and I can't wait to see my daughter and all her friends in their roles. As we say in the theatre biz, 'Break a leg!'

Chasing the Light along the Mighty Fraser

When the sun is shining, January can be a beautiful month around here. The skeletal trees open up the landscape instead of filling it in as they do so lushly in the warmer months. This past Saturday, my daughters and I went to do some shopping in the mid-sized city which is about a twenty minute drive from our town if you go via the freeway, about twenty-five minutes if you go by the pretty old country road. My older daughter is learning to drive, so we went by the old country road, had a successful day in the city and then came home the same way. We were crossing the railroad tracks just before the roundabout which takes us over the bridge to our little town, when I made a mental note to come back sometime soon and take some photos in the area. The very next afternoon, my younger daughter and I took our cameras - she got a shiny new red one for Christmas - and set off to catch the light in the later part of the day. We drove back over the bridge, through the roundabout, across the tracks and then found a place to park. Then, walking back up the road to the train tracks we started our little adventure. We had to wait for a train to pass. Several of the cars were skillfully decorated with grafitti art:

Once the train had passed we ventured down the track a little, but not too far because the sides were dense with brambles. If another train came we would have to jump into them. No, thank-you.

A beautiful, unobstructed-by-wires view of Mt. Cheam across someone's backyard was one of my objectives for going down the tracks. It's a wonderful feeling knowing we were way up on the top of that mountain just this past summer.

I was sidetracked by this scene and the collection of old tin washtubs hanging on a shed in the backyard. I began to take a photo of it when a friendly man and his dog called out to me, hoping I was not an employee from the city finding fault with his property or something like that. I assured him I was just admiring his washtubs and I hoped he did not mind. His wife and baby came across the property to greet us as well. We introduced ourselves and had a great little chat, but we had to cut it short if we were going to keep on chasing the last light of the day. 

We left the tracks just before we saw another train coming along in the distance. We walked back to the car and noticed this modern house behind some hedges near where we had parked. The house was quite a contrast to the century old one with the washtubs. My daughter liked the green door. I wished I could tresspass and see the house from the front, but no. Walking down the railroad tracks was enough law-breaking for one afternoon, for the pair of us anyway.

We got back in the car and drove down a side road towards the river. We found these mirrored views along the way.

We parked again down by the Fraser River and walked across the hard-packed silt to the water, the sun laying streaks across the ground and gilding the bridge in the distance.

This bridge across the Fraser was built in the late 1950's. Before that, people were transported across by a ferry on cables which stretched from shore to shore. Earlier in the century, travellers could take a trip down the river to New Westminster on a paddlewheeled ship, making stops in other riverside communities along the way.

Back toward the West, the sun was hanging lower and lower in the sky.

And in the meantime, my daughter was finding a subject to capture with her camera. I captured her.

Then, I turned my attention to her subject, a bald eagle far up in a tree.

It was time to go home, but we had a delivery to make first. After we made it, I took some photos in a hazelnut plantation, while my daughter video'd a squirrel jumping around looking for last year's nuts. The light was falling fast and the effect was gloomy in the grove of trees.

We got back in the car for the short drive home. "We sure live in a beautiful place," remarked my daughter. I agreed. All of the scenery we had enjoyed on our little light-chasing adventure was within just eight kilometers of our house.

In our twenty years as a family, we have lived in five places. In each of them we have found 'our' spots, the places we felt at home. In all of them we found mountains and water. In all of them we found light, even if we had to chase it sometimes.

"There's no place like home," said the girl in the new red shoes.

Please click on the photos if you would like to seem them enlarged. Wishing you a good, light-filled week!

A Christmas Carol Day

I did not want to go with the school choir on their day tour of senior's care homes. I did not. I was tired and had a list of chores and errands to do before hosting Saturday evening's dinner party. The acappella group I sing with had worked hard for weeks to prepare for our own performance at the previous evening's choral festival. Our performance had gone well, but all during the night, my mind had sung our carol over and over without my permission:

Gaudete! Gaudete Christus est natus
Ex Maria, virgine. Gaudete!

That is always the way after a performance. Nevertheless, I had woken up feeling like something the cat dragged in. Ugh.

I had told my daughter's music teacher that I would come along on the tour only if not enough parents stepped forward, that I was really busy. She phoned me the day before the tour and asked me to come. I couldn't say no. The next day, Katie and I got up a bit earlier than usual, made our lunches for the day, and packed our bags with some activities to do on the bus between care homes. When we arrived at the school's music room we learned there had been a mix-up with the buses so we would have to walk to our first care home. It was a sunny, windless, brilliant day with frost on the rooftops and lawns, so I welcomed the walk of several blocks, and I think it was a good way to start the day for all the children, too.  With one of the parents carrying the keyboard, we paraded down the street in a long, jolly line. The first care home was brand new and quite elegant with chandeliers and Victorian furniture, high ceilings, sweeping staircases and lush carpeting. The choir performed a half hour set for a large group of residents in varying states of awareness and several cheerful and attentive staff members, and then it was time to leave for the next town. A bus had appeared out of thin air, it seemed, and we were off.

We visited three more care homes that day, none as fancy as the first. The children had been informed of the kind of audience they could expect, and were asked, instead of shaking hands with the seniors who were vulnerable to the kind of germs children are bound to carry, to go around and wish them a good day and a Merry Christmas after the set of carols. The choir did their best, but by the third care home the kids were visibly drooping. The rooms were overly warm, the air stuffy and they had sung the same set of songs all morning. The other parents and I made hand signals from the back of the room in an effort to encourage the kids to sing out, and at least cover their mouths when they yawned. Fortunately, the next item on the iternarary was lunch and a runaround in a nearby playground, which was most welcome for all of us.

I was moved several times that day by the reaction of many of the elderly audience members. While most of them merely listened or slept through the performance, there would always be a few singing along, usually quietly, but with sweet enjoyment. Most of the songs the choir sang were fairly typical choral arrangements of songs written for school choirs and not immediately recognizable to most people, but there were a few familiar verses like The First Noel, which the director would invite the seniors to sing. On the bus between care homes, the kids would belt out Santa Clause is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and all those old favourites, but by the third care home their enthusiasm was waning for their prescribed set list. Another mom suggested to me that maybe the choir should mix in some fun carols with their set list. She must have said something to the choir director, too, because that is exactly what they did. The kids were delighted to mix up their last set with some new/old songs, and the seniors loved it, too. I particularly recall two elderly residents, who sang at the top of their voices whenever something familiar was sung by the choir. One was a lady who would sing loudly in between efforts to attract the attention of a rather severe looking care aide who would instruct her to 'sit down!', and the other was a tall gentleman in a reclining wheel chair. With his head dropped down on his chest and his eyes closed, he sang with the voice of someone much younger. Even during the unfamiliar songs he would find a single, repeated word and sing that word out whenever it came up. It was hard not to develop a few tears at such an endearing sight, and I found I was glad I had put aside my relentless to-do list and come.

There was something Dickensian about touring those care homes and singing Christmas carols (the parents sang too) for the elderly and infirm. I sensed a warning to look after myself and my family well, to never forget that I, and my husband too, would eventually grow old and dependant upon others. I thought how important it was to treat others as I wished to be treated, and to always remind my children to be kind, caring, generous, tolerant and considerate of others. I am hardly an Ebenezer Scrooge, but I can learn, as he did, and pledge to "honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."

"God Bless Us, Every One!"

The above photo was found at Victorian-Era.org. The above is a re-post of one I wrote last year. I wanted to share it again, because its message still rings true for me this year. Merry Christmas to all. 

A Country Mouse in Metrotown

Yesterday, my husband and I took our two daughters for our annual Skip-school-and-go-Christmas- shopping expedition. We made stops a some of our favourite places and ended our day by venturing into the final frontier of mass consumerism - the largest mall in the Lower Mainland. With three floors of over 400 shops, Metropolis at Metrotown is normally the kind of place I would avoid, but I have to admit, for the purposes of Christmas shopping, it works. For one thing, it has an actual store devoted to the sale of recorded music and movies. Our local CD Plus store closed down a couple of years ago and since then, it has been very hard to avoid ordering the more alternative types of music from Amazon. Most of us in our family have Ipods, but prefer the tangible quality of a CD when it comes down to it. Two of us even prefer vinyl records, and no, those two are not my husband and I.

When we arrived at Metrotown, we chose a spot a which to meet back, armed ourselves with the maps provided by the mall, syncronized our watches - well, not really, but it sounds cool - and separated. Our eldest daughter recently got herself a smart phone, so we decided to call each other if one of us needed more time. Our daughters went off together, and my husband and I began our search for a specialty item for one of our sons. We optomistically thought, in a mall of 400 stores we would find that special item our son desires at a price we could possibly afford, but after our search through at least ten shops we had to give up. We decided to move down our list and had much more success shopping for one of my sisters and her family. Every year my parents act as Kris Kringle Central and my siblings and I are each given the name of another sibling for whom we put a festive parcel together. We like to fill the parcel with locally made items, but there were a couple of things we wanted to give them that we could not make or find locally. While we searched for these things, we had our antennae up for inspired, affordable gift ideas for other people on our list, including our two daughters.

By four o'clock I was bleary-eyed and suffering from low blood-sugar. We met up with our daughters who led us, me practically by the hand, to one of the mall's two Tim Hortons for some sustenance. After a gingerbread muffin and an apple juice I felt somewhat revived. Our eldest daughter, Emma then went off by herself and our youngest, also somewhat revived by a 7UP and a doughnut, came with my husband I to find something for her brother.

Metrotown has a Chapters book store, which is fun to browse and has a fabulous selection in categories ranging from Literary Criticism to Manga. I had an idea of a book in mind, but not a specific title. I found the section I needed and began reading through a number of similar books. After about forty-five minutes I had my selection narrowed down to two choices. Emma came in to meet us, glowing with the success at finding some much needed shoes for herself marked down seventy-five percent as well as several other gifts for friends and family members. I appealed to her for help in making my final choice. She looked quickly through both books, weighed the pros and cons of both and chose the less expensive one. I, led by her confidence and youthful energy, took her advice and bought the one she liked. I had another book in mind and went off in search of it. By then, I was beginning to fall apart. My husband, ever sensitive to my moods - one of the many reasons we are still married - put his arm around me, saying, "It's going to be okay." I explained how I hated shopping when I felt pressured to find the perfect gift. On our budget, we have to make every purchase count and I wanted our gifts to be personal and meaningful. In that overwhelming environment full of masses of manufactured stuff, glittering and vying for the attention of masses of shoppers - and it was only Monday - I was finding it hard to see the value in anything. The fact was I wanted to go home, have a cup of tea and slip into a nice hot bath. Instead, I pulled myself together and found the second book. Our youngest had seen an obscure item we had wanted to find and we went off to get it, applauding her keen eye.

On the way home I sunk into my seat, grateful for the roads which cleared by the time we got over the Port Mann Bridge. For a lightly snowy Monday, the traffic was busy. By Langley we could breathe a bit easier as the traffic spread out a bit. We put on Emma's new Arcade Fire album and my husband turned it up. Just after Chilliwack the snow had started again and little darts of white came at us in the headlights. We made it home in good time and I put the kettle on. Emma had a shower, our youngest had a quick bath, and then I had my bath scented with lavender. My husband caught up with the hockey game on TV.  I climbed into bed and was asleep by 9:30.

Today I have a Metrotown hangover, but the layer of snow is brightening the world outside my window and it's almost warm enough to wear only one pair of pants today. Despite my sense of renewal after a good night's sleep, when I think about yesterday, This is starting to look a little more appealing.

A Beautiful Time of Friendship

A multitude of platitudes and cliches exist about friendship. Just look in your nearest gift shop where these truths grace everything from coffee mugs to calendars. I happen to like John Lennon's simple words on the subject: "I get by with a little help from my friends." I have been thinking a lot about a particular friend, lately, for whom that quote certainly applied when we were both living in the same small resort community. As my mind turns toward the Holidays, ie., Thanksgiving, now passed here in Canada, and Christmas so does my heart toward those who figure largely in my memories of Seasons past. We shared several Holidays with this dear friend and her family, and as she shopped and planned and cooked and decorated her home for the various feasts she pulled me into her world of Polish-style celebration and hospitality, and I loved every minute of it. Halloween was new to her, but she embraced it in the name of 'something else to get excited about' and never looked back.

Agnieszka came to the Lodge a few years before my family and I did. While I had moved to the lakeside wilderness location from a small city about 90 kilometers down the road on Vancouver Island, she had immigrated there directly from Poland after meeting and marrying her German-Canadian husband. They had met at the home of her husband's brother, for whom she worked as a nanny in Germany. While I was mourning the loss of my convenient town life and feeling quite sorry for myself, she was mourning the loss of her life among family, friends, and familiar surroundings not to mention a familiar language. Agnieszka's husband had built a three storey cabin on a property next to the Lodge with a beautiful view of the lake, a garden in front and back, and fitted it with the basic necessities. Agnieszka set about decorating it with cheerful curtains and pictures. My husband and I, with a little help from our new friends, renovated a rather decrepit cabin on the Lodge site. It also had a lovely view from the deck, and I began to settle in with my three small children.

Agnieszka's English was not well-developed when I first met her, but we could carry on a basic conversation. She mainly spoke German with her husband, Ralf, but she had recently been engaged as a nanny for the first daughter of the Lodge's owners. The first daughter was soon followed by a second, and both of us surrounded by little children day in and day out, Agnieszka and I soon pooled our resources and became fast friends. I made many other good friends at the Lodge, but Nieszi, whom we all called her, became like a sister to me. We knew a kindred spirit when we saw one and saw each other nearly every day. Her English got better and better. I, having been an English as a Second Language tutor in my college days, could not refrain from helping her along by obnoxiously and continuously correcting her grammar and usage.

I love to hear people's stories and I asked Nieszi so many questions about her life in Europe. She missed Poland and Germany very badly, and missed her family very badly, but we, along with other parents at the Lodge formed a good little supportive community. I had begun homeschooling my first-born and we formed a sort of communal pre-school where each parent - and Agnieszka - took a turn providing a story and a creative activity for a morning session each week. We held these sessions in the Lodge library, and when the session was over we would go outside and play in the rain, snow or sunshine depending on the season. Our children enjoyed a healthy lifestyle exploring every pathway and beach, every tree and berry bush in that beautiful place.

Countless days, however, were spent in Nieszi's tiny kitchen, sitting across from her at her table drinking coffee and nibbling European cookies and other delicacies which she was overjoyed to be able to find in the town nearest the Lodge. The children would play happily with her Lego collection, her dolls, and her pail full of Kinder Surprise prizes, and try to climb the fireman's pole which led up from the middle floor to an opening in the floor of the upstairs bedroom. Nieszi was a wonderful nanny. She treated the kids like her own. She loved them and spoiled them, solved their little problems, broke up their quarrels, and handled nearly every situation with humour and tickles. Spending so much time with her made me a better mother, too. I thought that if she could treat those children who were not her own as beautifully as she did, I could surely treat my children with at least as much positivity and care. Many good friends have come into my life over the years, but Nieszi is one of the most generous friends I have ever known - generous materially, but much more importantly, generous in spirit and in love. I was humbled by her friendship and her faith in me and I still am.

Agnieszka and Ralf, after a good pregancy but a very difficult birth, had a son whom they named Jan. Jan was born eight months after my fourth and youngest child came along. Jan became one of the pack, as had a third daughter for the Lodge's owners, and three more children belonging to another family that recently had moved to the Lodge. Before long we had enough school aged children for the school district to assign us a teacher three days per week. My older three along with five of the Lodge children began their studies with Kim, a wonderful teacher. Nieszi and I and our two babies enjoyed some quieter times together. Our friendship deepened with our shared experiences. Her first year as a mother was very hard work, but also full of joy, and I was happy to give back some of the support she had so generously given me.

Sadly, like all good things, my own family's life at the Lodge came to an end. After five years years of significant growth and rich experiences it was time for us to move on. Our children were growing up and my husband was offered another job on the Mainland. We would be closer to our families and be able to enjoy the conveniences of town life once again. I went alone to break the news to Nieszi. She made us some coffee and we sat down to talk it over. It was very hard to leave my beautiful friend, but she and Ralf understood why we needed to go.

Agnieszka, Ralf and Jan came to visit us in our new home a couple of times, and we went back to the Lodge several times and had wonderful visits, my daughter Emma erupting into tears each time we had to say goodbye. We kept in steady contact over the years, sending messages and cards and letters. The need for a nanny at the Lodge gradually waned as the children there grew older and were able to be more independent. Nieszi's life began to revolve around Jan and his soccer and swimming and schooling. Last year, she decided to take Jan back to Europe for an extended stay. For all the years she had been in Canada she had only seen her family for two, maybe three weeks at a time every year or two. I am not sure when I will see her again, but in the meantime I know that we will always have those memories of spending time together in her cozy well-kept home at the Lodge. Of new curtains made just for Christmas-time, of almond cookies and Polish coffee. Of Ralf filling the wood stove and heating the house to be warm enough for bare feet in winter, of Jan sleeping in his swing hung from a beam in the ceiling and the swarm of children heaped on Nieszi's bed watching Tom and Jerry cartoons or parts of The Sound of Music. Of family meals shared and the sparkle of small crystal glasses of sweet Reisling. Of love and sweet friendship and enough laughter to echo down the years.

Climb Every Mountain - or at least one

Last Friday as I was running around like the proverbial headless chicken, helping my son get packed and organized for his move to the university on Sunday, I made the decision to accept the offer made earlier by some friends to accompany them on a hike to the top of our local landmark, Mt. Cheam. Our packing was well underway and the chance to go up the mountain may not come our way again for a long time, so, I decided to risk the strain on my recovering knee and go with the two other members of my household who would have Saturday off: the university bound son who could really use a stress-buster like climbing a mountain, and my youngest daughter.

The next morning the three of us arose at 5:00 a.m. We had prepared our lunches the night before, that is, after I had shown my son how to do his banking online, and laid out our clothing. All we had to do in the morning was eat, make some go-mugs of coffee, and wait for our ride which was due to arrive at 6:00. At 5:30 my husband got out of bed and brought me some assorted ski poles. He said that using them would help me keep the pressure off my knees when hiking. When we found the right-sized ones, our ride arrived and off we went into the silvery grey dawn to begin our adventure.

We drove in two vehicles to the bottom of the forestry road which would take us up to the trail head. We left the car in a clearing at the bottom of the road and all climbed into the 4x4 truck, the only vehicle that could handle that particular deactivated forestry track. The three adults and the dog sat in the cab and the four kids made themselves comfortable with blankets and pillows in the back - they had a hay bale to sit on and a rope to hold onto when the going got extra bumpy. Our driver picked his way up the fifteen kilometers of one of the roughest roads I have ever been on. By deactivated, the sign meant 'full of huge ruts where culverts used to be'. We would enter these drainage ditches on an angle so as not to bottom out. Slowly and with the truck in extra low four-wheel drive, we climbed and we climbed and we climbed, and as the sun rose on a perfectly clear day we pointed out creeks and mountain peaks, wildflowers and stunted fir trees with huge cones sitting like birds on the perfectly perpendicular branches. We chatted cheerfully in expectation of the glories which awaited us at the top. By 8:45, we had reached the parking lot. Six other trucks were already parked, but there was still plenty of room for us. We gathered our backpacks, refilled our water bottles and leashed the dog. We visited the outhouse, tightened our shoelaces and put on our caps and sunscreen. By 9:00 we were off on the trail, its sides a three dimensional tapestry of late summer wildflowers.

The trail started gradually until we reached tiny Spoon Lake which, aptly named, was shaped as if a giant had taken a spoonful out of the earth. The water was that strangely beautiful turquoise colour one only sees in the alpine. After the lake the climbing began. The path was well used and solid underfoot. We climbed switchback after switchback and soon the kids were well ahead. I began to see and feel the benefit of the ski poles and I silently thanked my husband for what was to be the first of many times during the two and a half hours climb up and the two hours back down the trail. Every so often we would stop and turn to take in the ever-changing view. Each time we stopped we could see new peaks in the beyond and new shapes below: trucks climbing the top of the road to the parking lot far below, hikers making their way up the path behind us, and folds and folds of green and blue treed hillsides.

Spoon Lake from above

Some of our group looking toward the Southwest

At one point we stopped to let some faster hikers pass. They all had the same large, nylon backpacks and I wondered if they were going to camp overnight at the top. About three quarters of the way up we met two young men who had spent the night on the top. They were grinning ear to ear and exclaiming about how the entire milky way had been visible the night before and how the experience was like being in a planetarium, only better, of course.

Before long, we had reached the plateau before the final short climb to the peak. We had hiked in the wonderful coolness of the morning and although tired and in need of lunch, none of us was suffering. The kids went straight away the very top of the peak above me. I stopped to rest and take in the incredible and vertigo-inducing view of our home valley below to the north and the sharp and splendid peaks of the Cascade Mountains to the South.

Snow-covered Mt. Baker on the far right

 I began to climb the last bit of the peak when my youngest began to make her way down. "It makes me nervous to be up there," she said when she reached me. I asked her if the view was different up there on that narrow peak with the sheer drops on all sides, and she said, "No, no different at all, and the shale makes it quite tricky to come down." I had still to climb down the mountain, which I knew was often harder on the knees than going up, so, I decided to stay put with her on the plateau. As we ate our lunch and put on some more layers of clothing to combat the cool wind, we watched the group of nylon back-pack laden hikers just below us in a small meadow. Another hiker came up the trail and told us that we would soon be treated to a wonderful show, thanks to the group below. One by one, the hikers who had passed us earler opened their nylon packs to reveal parachutes, and one by one they attached them to harnesses, checked them for safety and then jumped off the cliff below us into the blue. I thought of all the times we had watched them from far below, rising with the updraft that came up the north face of the mountain, drifting and falling with the air currents and taking their sweet time in landing. Often they would land in our high school field 2100 metres below from where we were sitting at that moment.

I had left my heavy camera at home. I wanted to concentrate on not injuring myself more than anything, and my kids were both bringing their cameras. After about an hour at the top the plateau and the pathway to the peak were getting crowded. Everyone and their dog had decided to climb Mt. Cheam that day, or so it seemed. We began to make our way down the mountain, but we took our time. To be eye-level with Mt. Baker, a snow covered dormant volcano, as well as the other peaks we had admired from our home way down in the valley was a wonderful thing and we were reluctant to leave the views behind. Of course, the kids were much quicker down than we adults were with our much older knees. We asked them to wait for us at Spoon Lake. On our way down we frequently had to step aside to make way for all the hikers making their way up. The sun was high by that time of day and many of the ascending hikers looked hot and thirsty. Some were improperly dressed for hiking a steep trail. We even saw one girl in bare feet carrying flip-flops. The black flies were coming out in droves and were nipping at our legs, and by the time we reached the lake, a helicopter had landed nearby with a wedding party. Our peaceful wilderness experience was coming to an end

By the time we reached the parking lot it was packed with vehicles. Trucks and SUVs spilled over onto the roadside below. After rehydrating with a whole lot of water and some juicy peaches, as well as a little coffee brought in a Thermos by our forward thinking driver, we climbed back into our truck with one very tired little dog. Going down seemed a little quicker than the climb up the road, but it was still a labourious process. Our driver moved over several times to let those in a hurry leave us in their dust. By the time we were near the bottom we were surrounded by all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes, their engines whining insistently, their wheels kicking up dust. A system of trails for such a purpose must be in the area, we figured.

Back in two vehicles we made our way into Chilliwack to go for some well-deserved ice cream. Tired, but elated, we sat in our Dairy Queen booth talking over the day. We discussed how every high school student should have the chance to go up Mt. Cheam, and about how the view gives, not only a geography lesson on our area, but also a lesson in wonder and awe, a lesson in the 'big picture' of our existence on the earth. I said that once a person goes up a mountain and sees the world far below from a completely different angle, something in her changes. And then I thought silently, that when she is down in the valley once again, she can look up to the peak she has climbed and say, "I have been all the way up there. I have seen all of this as it really is, from a bird's eye view." She will keep that picture in her mind and refer to it often. She will soar up to the peak again and again in her imagination and may never quite come down again.

Mt. Cheam from down here - in late March

Thank you to my children for taking such terrific photos! Have a wonderful weekend, whatever adventures await you.