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. 

Things I Wrote as a Kid, Part 2

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Good Things Come to an End

The Agassiz Tulip Festival is done for another year. Yesterday was our last day. Due to a couple of days of heavy rain this past week, the flowers took a beating; damaged flowers invite disease, so it's 'off with their heads!' to protect the growing bulbs. The field workers will now be left in peace to tend the fields (and turn their tractors around without waiting for someone to move their tripod), and the First Nation community that owns this land will return to normal life once more.

I love working at this festival. Thousands of people flock from the nearby cities to enjoy the endless colour and scenery. As they paid their entrance fee their shoulders would visibly relax and their faces open in a wide smile as they exclaimed at the sight. They would often be so distracted by the rainbow of flowers that they would ignore the many, many strategically placed signs around the forty acres instructing them to stay out of the rows, to refrain from picking the tulips, and to watch for machinery. Field staff in yellow hats were kept hopping as they tried to keep people from trampling the tulips in their quest for the perfect photo. I'm not sure how many times I repeated the 'Field Guidelines', told the story of the life cycle of a greenhouse tulip, gave directions to the washrooms or told visitors where to park their cars, but that is what a host does, she treats every visitor as if he is her first.

As to be expected I am beyond exhausted today. I am also wondering if the four women who spent an hour at the festival on Wednesday, a rainy, freezing cold day, wearing high heels and light jackets are suffering from pneumonia. While the crew and I struggled to stay warm in layers of wool, polar fleece, and gore-tex, these women posed for each other, smiling and laughing. I remember watching one woman in particular from the shelter of the tent. She stepped, in suede pumps, nylons and mini-skirt into a muddy opening at the front of a row of yellow tulips, removed her leather jacket to reveal a short sleeved red silk blouse, and posed, head cocked to one side for her photographer friend. The crew and I looked on in amazement and shook our heads. Crazy city people.

Last Sunday, our busiest day, I was dropping off my daughter's friends at their farm. Their father Henry, and his father before him, has been working that dairy farm for decades. It was my day off, but I had just come from the tulip fields where my son was entertaining the crowds with his violin (and making piles of money in tips, I might add). I exclaimed to Henry about the thousands of visitors that sunny day. "What are they all coming for - just to see a bunch of tulips?" he asked shaking his head in disbelief.

"Think about it," I said. "A lot of these people live in apartments in buildings made of concrete, steel and glass, and linked by asphalt roadways. To them, this is Nirvana out here. You should see how excited they are."

"I guess so," he said, still incredulous. "But I still don't see what all the fuss is about."

Crazy country people.

The photos above are mine:

1) Monte Carlo double tulips

2) a rogue red among the Leo Visser tulips

3) the view East

4) looking back on my way home from work

I wrote this post back in 2010, but much of it still applies this year as we come to the end of another great festival. The crowds this year doubled last year's and we are having to continually make crowd control adjustments. 

A World of Music, with Small Town Roots

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

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

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

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

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

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

The famous willow tree by the beach stage

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Local Family Enjoys Festival to the Fullest

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

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

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


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


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


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

Long live the festival!

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

The Best of the Fest...and the Rest.

One of the great things about a short term intensive activity, be it a job or a weekend festival, or even one that involves both, is the looking back when the activity is over. The experiences of the event are wrapped up in a neat package for the memory to savour when life again resumes its normal pattern. The Tulips of the Valley seventh annual tulip festival wrapped up this past Sunday evening after two glorious weeks. The festival is put on by my friend Kate and takes place at the site where her husband's family grows the bulbs for their hothouse flower operation. For at least two weeks every April, Kate hires a group of us to help her with the festival. Some of us put up tents, fix fences, and make signs. Others handle the money and help people with their flower purchases and answer many questions. Others deal with parking and crowd control. My job is to assist Kate in managing the entrance gates, the staff and the store where we sell potted flowers and cut flowers, coffee and various local products such as candied hazelnuts and flavoured honey. I thorougly enjoy working at the festival, even when the weather is bad, because I enjoy the group of employees and the workplace is out of doors and full of the unfolding colour and beauty of early spring.

Another advantage of working at the tulip festival is that nearly every visitor who comes is happy to be there. They arrive with a smile on their face and exclaim over the wonder of those acres and acres of colour spread like a deep-hued rainbow on the gently rolling valley floor. Thousands and thousands of visitors came to the festival this year, mainly due to the beautiful weather on both weekends, and they, too were a rainbow of colours and cultures. We staff did a rough calculation and decided that, overall, about seventy-five percent of our visitors were of Asian descent. The other twenty-five percent were made up of those of Eastern European, East Indian, Middle Eastern, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch and other Western European nationalities. One gets used to interpreting the questions asked by those with strong accents or as is the case sometimes, those with no English at all.

The weekend lineups

photo-ops abound

Early on in the festival's history, Kate noted the great attraction the fields had for the Asian population and had a friend make up signs in Mandarin. Every second sign on the fields is in Mandarin and at the entrance gate we have a sign in Mandarin explaining the different levels of the entrance fee. One day during the first week of the festival, a group of seniors arrived to enjoy the sights. The women were friendly and interested in everything, and the group went for a walk down the path which heads the rows of tulips. When they returned the man in the party came up to me. "Why are all the signs in Chi-NESE?" - he said it like that, with the accent heavily on 'nese. He was not impressed.

"Why sir, all the signs are not in Chinese," I said.

"Every sign at the start of a row of tulips that tells what kind they are is in Chi-NESE," he said angrily, " and so we couldn't read them to find out what kind they were."

I supressed a smile. "Oh, I'm sorry sir, but we have no signs which tell the individual varieties. Those signs simply say what every other sign says in English, to keep out of the rows and not to pick the flowers."

"Oh..." he said, "but why the need for Chi-NESE signs at all?"

"Because a huge majority of our visitors speak the language and a great many of them speak no English at all. It is a courtesy to our visitors," I said.

"Harrumph," he uttered, and moved a bit away from me to look at something else. While one of the ladies of the party purchased flowers from me, the man in question noticed the sign in Mandarin, which was taped to the table we use as a till for the cash register. "See?" he pointed at the sign, "This is what I mean - all your signs are in Chi-NESE!"

I thought of telling him that there were about five signs posted around the place that said exactly the same thing in English, but I decided not to proceed. He was obviously determined to find fault with our efforts to make our Mandarin speaking customers feel welcome. For the rest of the day, I was particularly friendly to our Chi-NESE visitors.

Like I said before, most of our visitors were lovely people who are enthusiastic, eager, friendly, and often jovial. Many of them come from Greater Vancouver, and many on bus tours. Although our website specifies the fact that the tulip festival takes place on a farm, and visitors should dress appropriately, many visitors wear the same outfit to the festival that they would wear downtown on Robson Street where there exist seven Starbucks and several high-end shops including Tiffany's. While we staff arm ourselves against the elements in jeans, gumboots, hats and coats, many of our visitors arrive in expensive shoes, delicate skirts and thin jackets. We had a few days of pouring rain during our second week and the fields became saturated and muddy in places. One bus tour arrived and the tourists wanted us to supply each of them with plastic bags to tie over their shoes. Another group asked if we supplied special shoes for all our visitors. I was tempted to tell them we were not, in fact, a bowling alley.

appropriate footwear

slightly inappropriate footwear, though not quite as inappropriate as the

high heels I saw sink into the mud but unfortunately was unable to photograph

leopard footwear

On my last day of work, which was Saturday, the weather was fine and the fields were full of people. Visitors can walk all the way around the tulip fields, just not through them. It is a job to keep all the photographers following the rules and I took my turn patrolling the path. I was returning from the end of the main path when a woman with an Eastern European accent called me over. "Exuse me," she said, "can I ask you a qvestion?"

"Certainly," I said.

"Vat's vis all the Asians?" She said it like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

"They love tulips, I suppose," I said cheerfully. And then I asked her where she was from.

"Vancouver"

"Yes, but before that? I detect an accent." I tried to be polite, and smiled.

"Poland," she said somewhat defiantly.

"Really? I've noticed a real increase in the number of Eastern Europeans visiting the fields this year," I said.

She paused. "Well...ve love flowers, too but..." she said hestitatingly.

"We all do. That's why we're here," I said with a smile, and moved on. Often times, this kind of thing leaves me rather speechless and bumbling. However, after two weeks of playing the tulip hostess I was practised at quickly finding answers to all sorts of questions.

On Sunday, I did not have to work, so my husband and I decided to circle the whole field, which I had not yet had a chance to do. I stopped to take photos about every twenty steps, happy not to have to worry about getting back anytime soon. We passed groups of tourists speaking a myriad of languages as we made our way in the sunshine. I felt like the tulip fields were a microcosm of the whole world that day, and I smiled at the wonderful impossibility of it.

Festival tents

Peeking peak

A Summer Giveaway

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

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

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





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

The willow tree by the beach stage



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

One of my daughters helping herself to a Jelly Belly.

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

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

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



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

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

Good luck! (Now back to the festival)

 

A City Transformed





My parents met in the late 1950's in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia, and even though they had left the city long before I was born, they maintained a strong connection to it and thought they may retire there one day.  Both sets of grandparents lived near Vancouver and any holiday visits were spent exploring the beautiful city on Burrard Inlet. 

The Vancouver of my parents' day was very different from the Vancouver of today.  Back then it was a big town full of bridges they talked about walking across late at night without reservation, a town full of culture and buzzing with activity, but with an expansive sense of space and community as well. I had a taste of that Vancouver on several occasions during my childhood, but even I, at the tender age of sixteen, sensed the city would never be same after Expo 86. 

At sixteen I had been invited to join TheatrePeace, an existing teen theatre group that was to travel to Vancouver on two occasions to perform a play written by the group of kids from the Kootenay area where I was from.  Four of the original writer/performers had moved away and I was one of the newbies who was asked to fill their shoes.  The play was a comedic take on the hot-button issues surrounding Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' policies of the Cold War era, and the question of peace in general.  We held regular rehearsals up at the Student Union Building of the former David Thompson University campus in Nelson with two formidable women as our directors.  In late spring of 1986 we travelled to the central Kootenays to audition to perform in the British Columbia Pavilion at Expo 86.  We were accepted and a short time later we were off to spend a week performing our play for the world.

I remember watching Prince Charles and Princess Diana, with a huge crowd of spectators looking on, open Expo 86 on television in May of that year and hearing about all the concerts and performers who would be on stage every night of Expo, Annie Lennox and Julian Lennon among them.  The theme of Expo 86 was 'Transportation and Communication,' which frankly didn't capture my imagination at the time, although when I arrived at the site and spent my free time visiting pavillions with my theatre group friends, I became utterly fascinated by the imaginative installations by many of the countries represented;  visitors to the Switzerland Pavilion, for example, were greeted by a 25-metre-high watch. At that time, the Swiss made Swatch watch was the must-have accessory and I bought a bright blue one.  Once inside, exhibits included a diorama of the longest tunnels in the world. Built in the 19th Century, Switzerland's Alpine railway opened a much needed route between northern and southern Europe.  (The Swiss Pavillion also had a cool game to play called Jollyball).  I was equally fascinated by the thousands of daily visitors to the exposition.  I came from a small town and had never seen anything like the crowds of people lining up to visit the pavillions.

The giant Swatch

 May 2nd marked the 25th anniversary of the opening of Expo 86; I was reminded of the fact when my husband and I were dining last week at our favourite east Vancouver pizzaria, Lombardo's, and our waitress gave me a little questionnaire to fill out.  Lombardo's is also making the most out of their own 25th anniversary by having a little contest:  they asked customers what we were doing twenty five years ago.  When I saw the question I immediately thought of my time spent at Expo. 

The Expo 86 site was a former industrial wasteland on the waterfront. It has since been home to the trendy False Creek neighbourhood and Concord Place.  I remember busing around Vancouver with my friend and theatre mate Molly.  It seemed that everything was under construction.  The city had finished the first line of its light rail transit, SkyTrain in time for Expo.  Condos were sprouting up everwhere and the roads were lined with brightly coloured temporary fencing guarding the construction zones.  Molly and I were billeted at the home of some family friends of hers.  We came and went as we pleased, taking the last bus home at 11 pm one night and receiving a scolding.  Our host family may have worried about us, but we felt perfectly comfortable navigating our way through the city independantly. There were still hippies in the Kitsilano district then, occupying funky, run down Victorian houses, which are now all restored and selling for a million dollars each. Kids in studded leather jackets, Doc Martens boots and red mohawk hairdos still hung around the fountain downtown near the Hudson's Bay department Store back then, and though Molly and I were slightly less exoticly dressed, we felt at home and completely at liberty.

Bill Bennett, who was British Columbia's premier at the time was quoted in a CBC.ca article yesterday. "We all grew together. Business got better, people were having fun, but they were also making more money."

And according to Darcy Rezak, who was on the Vancouver Board of Trade during Expo, Expo also changed physical aspects of the city: "The SkyTrain, infrastructure, port facilities, the cruise ship business came hard on the heels of Expo," Rezak said. "So, a terrific transformation."

I was there when it was happening, but Expo 86 was just another teenage adventure for me. In fact, I went on to write a rather scathing speech about the exposition for a French language competition because I had heard about the one thousand downtown eastside residents who had been made homeless by the new construction.  Now, however, I look back and think the growth of Vancouver was bound to happen, and Expo 86, just like the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was a reason to build some needed infrastructure for the growing city.

Although they still love the city where they met, my parents never did retire to Vancouver.

The top photo is of a Belgian bumper sticker from Expo, which I found online.  I remember seeing that picture at Expo.



Fifteen Seconds of Fame

After a day of welcoming visitors, answering questions, and relearning how to use a gas powered generator to run the coffeemaker at the annual Tulip Festival yesterday, my tired feet and I returned home and checked the neighbourhood mailbox, which is right outside our driveway.  Amongst the bills and gaudily coloured political party propoganda, of which we have received much as of late, it being the last week of the lead-up to the Federal election, was this unassuming little postcard: 

Today I Saw was one of the very first blogs I ever followed.  London, England's Jill Wignall, artist, craftsperson, and blogger was chosen as a Blog of Note just after I had started my blog, and I immediately subscribed after visiting her unique site.  Each day, Jill draws a pen drawing on a postcard of something she has seen of interest that day, photographs it and posts it on her blog with the name of the person she intends to send it to.  I regret that I have not been the most consistent follower of Jill's blog, although I love the concept and admire her creativity greatly.  I suppose most of us follow the blogs most consistently of people with whom we have made an online community.  As far as I know, Jill is not a reader of my blog, at least, she has never left a comment.  Needless to say, I was surprised and delighted to discover she had pulled my name out of the proverbial hat and sent me one of her whimsical postcards, sent on February 4th of this year.  I had not seen the post wherein she posted the above postcard and announced me as the recipient.  I immediately went to her blog and after scrolling through some lovely artwork and craft projects I found the three month old post: 

I laughed when I realized I had received Jill's 'Year of the Rabbit' themed postcard just in time for Easter another season of the bunny rabbit. I was also relieved to realize I had a subject for this week's post, as humble as it seems.  Working at the tulip festival makes for a busy few weeks every April, and I struggle to find time for blogging and reading my favourite blogs.

After supper, I sat down to watch the news on TV.  A reporter and cameraman from CTV News Vancouver had visited the Tulip Festival in the morning and I hoped to see the product of their hour of work on the fields, which are just starting to bloom in all their forty acres of rainbow-ribboned glory.  The story ran in the first fifteen minutes of the news program and to my surprise (and okay, a slight thrill,) I could be seen, for nearly a full second, welcoming a busload of visitors from Vancouver - although no one except me would have recognized that sideview of a woman standing in the crowd of tourists.  My friend Kate, whose festival it is, was actually interviewed for several minutes, so she got nearly five seconds of full facial airtime, while the tulips themselves earned the most focus - probably a full twenty seconds.  I am expecting a busy day at the fields tomorrow after all that promotion! 

It truly is a funny world.  Little surprises occur when I least expect them, and often when I need them the most.  I have been dragging my backside around these days, trying to keep up with everything there is to do. I am also recovering from the busyness of the Easter weekend followed by a late night spent attending a wonderful evening of music (including my eldest and friends) at the Ignite Youth Music Festival in Vancouver on Monday.  Who knew that a 4 X 6 handmade postcard with a Royal Mail stamp could give me such a lift?  So, today as I gear up for another day at the Tulip Festival I am thinking of Jill in her home in sunny London, surrounded by Royal Wedding mania, and wondering what she is thinking of it all.  I am also wishing her well, and saying 'thank you for the lovely postcard!' from my soggy corner of Canada.