Early Morning Walk

We head out in the dark,
the world to ourselves,
me and the two dogs
happy to be alive.

Cape Blomidon rises up to the north
dark and foreboding,
Rocks piled into Inuksuks
form uncertain shapes,
is someone up ahead?

A thin red line demarcates the horizon
now the shapes reveal themselves
to be innocuous happenings.

My part Border Collie nips at my hands
no matter how much I swat at her and tell her
NO!
Ten thousand years of pure instinct tell her
to herd me to a safe place, even if we aren't sure
where that place is.

Now the toy farms are lit up with a soft
reddish glow
so picturesque they could be on a set of
the Friendly Giant.

We turn for home
Now the wind is in our face,
Bailey rolls in dead animal
What on earth possesses her to do that?

Our walk is done
Our daily bread
Thank you for this walk we had.

John D. Hill Q.C. In Memoriam

When I first started my blog I had a picture of my dad who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  Today I write about him in the past tense because he died last night at age 82. The picture I've posted is one of him as a young man in the reserves because I like to think about him, not as the dementia patient, but as the bright handsome young man who attended Acadia University where he studied languages and Dalhousie University where he studied law, and then headed west to seek his fame and fortune and find the love of his life, Jeanne.

Dad practiced law for many years in Edmonton but his true passions were wood-working and sailing. In spite of a grade 2 teacher telling him he couldn't do math he designed and built two beautiful sailboats. We would sale around Lake Wabamum outside Edmonton in a sailboat that was 24 feet and really too big for a lake. Our boxer Sam would role around in the bow of the boat seasick and I would be sneezing my head off being in such close quarters with her. Dad would be oblivious to all of this, just soaking in the wind and the water, imagining he was in a race somewhere off the coast of New Zealand or somewhere. My mom put up with this with good grace until one day she just figured out it was "boring". Occasionally they would get to the B.C. coast and dad would have a ball in the pacific ocean. He was a land-locked sailor who spent hours and hours in his workshop (read garage that never saw a car) sanding and painting to his  heart's content. One time he and a law partner had a car accident on the way to the coast which resulted in the whole top of the sailboat being sheered off. While rebuilding the boat a neighbour politely asked if that was how the boat was put away for the winter.

Dad loved animals being a member of the Elk Island Society and being heartbroken when our first dog Binky died. Though that didn't stop him from doing what needed to be done to a nasty tom cat who briefly terrorized our neighbourhood. When I was young he built a cage for my rabbits and when the time came to clean it out in the spring I was delighted to discover a fresh litter of baby bunnies. 

Dad built lots of beautiful wood objects: salad bowls, cribs, rocking horses, kayaks, furniture. On his 79th birthday some of my awesome friends and I took dad kayaking. He didn't remember doing it hours later but I know he loved it in the moment. Although he was only in the Naval Reserve for several years (to put himself through law school) he always talked about his time on the ships, and his love affair with the water.

Dad was my protector who never considered what might be politically correct when dealing with a bully. One time I almost died of embarrassment when he dragged me to the home of a boy who had been bugging me and confronted him; that kid never bothered me again. Dad was definitely of the "don't ever hit girls" school of thinking (which I may have used to my advantage when tormenting my younger brothers Iain and David). 

Several times dad was offered an appointment to the Queen's Bench of Alberta; he would have made an excellent judge but that was not his path. Had he been on the Bench and had my mom and dad stayed in Alberta instead of moving to Nova Scotia 15 years ago there would have been a big funeral with lots of Conservatives whom dad would have helped to get elected (until Mulroney came on the scene, dad couldn't stand him). Mom had one of the first tea parties for a young Peter Lougheed and she was so embarrassed because not many people showed up. Peter told her not to worry about it and it turned out he was right. 

But dad was not interested in the limelight; he was charming and liked to tease but was ultimately a shy person. Instead he died in relative obscurity in Nova Scotia where his body was generously donated by my mom to Dalhousie University to be used by students and medical professors. His body was gratefully accepted, Dr. Scott called us last night to tell us. His body can be used for up to three years and then will be cremated. At that point there will be a service and we will hear from the students and professors who benefited from his donation. I think this is a fitting tribute to a man who worked hard all his life for others, who always sought new learning and who was always a bit more of a dreamer than a realist.

Happy sailing Dad, I'm so glad you're free of these earthly bonds. I love you.

Instead of Marking

Things I do to avoid marking:

•  clean the mold off the plastic container in the shower
•  wrap Christmas presents in October - lose them in November
•  re-crop pictures
•  file my nails
•  set the table and invite 25 people over for dinner
• convince my husband to take the day off
•  sort socks, though this is only slightly less painful
•  take a nap
•  play with the dog
•  count the leaves that need to be raked
•  microwave my coffee (again)
•  make lists - like I am now
•  dream of writing in my blog
•  contemplate the role of technology in my life - or not
•  text my kids while they're in class - just kidding - only when I need to ask them how to turn on the t.v.

Focus

I took this picture the other day when Mike and I played hookey and went to the South Shore to capture some last moments of warm fall sun. I call this "focus" because I played around with what exactly to focus on: usually pictures are taken of "Blue Rocks" because it is so pictureque, but I focused instead on what was in the foreground. We can change our outlook on life depending on what we choose to focus on - be it the dead foliage in front of us or the beauty just waiting there in the background.


I Took

Paper Girl

Woke up at 6:15am with a faint headache and an uneasy tummy mostly due to too much red wine the night before and somewhat due to the crappy sleep of peri-menopause. About the last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed on this dark blustery cold winter morning and walk around with a newspaper bag (could have used a "paper bag" though) and deliver the thin news of the day. But I had promised my teenage son a sleep-in so me and my two university degrees are off to work, not the kind of work I had imagined years ago as a young excited student but a job nonetheless. Once out the door the maritime bite blew the crust out of my eyes and blew the fog out of my brain. I walked with my dog and my husband (who does the other part of the route) on light powder snow that in conjunction with the wind, pushed us around the corner. As we separated I acknowledged again how very precious he (the husband, not the dog!) is to me, how I notice the increasing number of grey hairs every time he gets a hair cut. As I walked over to the apartment building I was warmed by the Christmas lights shining through the blowing snow and I became okay with the fact that I was completely alone. I walked up and down the stairs, enjoying the tacky decorations and thinking about who lived behind those doors. Did they realize that I pay attention to a paper not picked up from the previous day and wonder if they're okay? Outside again I noticed some angel figures had blown over and briefly thought about righting them, then realized that they had their own guardians who would fix them, I don't have to fix everything myself.
Having completed the circle I'm walking back to my house I look for the footprints of me, Mike and Bailey but in the fifteen minutes or so they have almost been obliterated. I look again, there they are, so faint. Walking up my driveway I look at my cozy love filled house and I'm so grateful for this moment. I take one last look down the street - the Christmas lights so beautiful, swaying in the early morning light; it's no coincidence that we put lights out at this most dark time of year. There is always a light in the darkness, sometimes hidden from immediate sight, sometimes requiring a second or third look, sometimes requiring an early morning foray into the wilderness. I nod my head in thanks, go inside and go back to my warm inviting bed.

Angels in our Midst

Every once in a while someone does something really kind for no attention, no applause, just doing it because it's the right thing to do. When I was a young twenty something I was swimming across the lake at Lumden's Dam, a man-made lake near our home. An older couple in a row boat insisted on staying with me the whole time in spite of my youthful protestations that I was fine, I was strong, I could do it by myself, the silly stuff you say when you are young and immortal. They very kindly brushed off my "thanks really, I'm okay" and rowed with me and possibly avoided a tragedy. My mother would shoot me if she heard this story, she always told us to swim along the shoreline and not across the water.


Several months ago I was in a situation where I had to leave the house quickly and get to a place where I had to sit in the car and wait. I was really really thirsty and to my amazement a man, a fire fighter, knocked on my car window and handed me a bottle of water. How did he know? It was 2:30 in the morning.


Yesterday Mike and I took our newly minted eighteen year old daughter to the airport to fly by herself to Japan. As we hovered in the background and watched her check in I noticed that the woman behind the counter leaned towards Allie and smiled at her in a truly genuine manner. I could tell from the woman's body language that she had just processed the fact that this young girl was flying around the world by herself. This simple, subtle act of kindness actually broke me up a bit (well I was feeling a bit fragile anyway). 


Acknowledging these angels and others is important for me as I work on developing a sense of gratitude and gratefulness.

Obsolete

Today I feel sad because it feels like everything I love is obsolete: small bookstores, quality products that are meant to last, elderly people, face to face teaching. At age 47 it feels like the world is slipping away on a technological tsunami where fewer and fewer people control a larger and larger share of power/money/control. We recently watched "The Social Network" and the last point made is the billions of dollars Zuckerberg is worth, far far too much for any one person. What brought on this melancholy was the realization that one of my favourite little shops, a camera shop independently owned, has closed its doors for good after 33 years of business. I was forced to go to one of those dreaded soul-sucking big box stores to have a picture printed off, the colours were fake, the process unsatisfactory.

On the other hand, technology has democratized our political systems and countries like Egypt and Libya can rise up against dictators who have been in power for far too long. Through twitter and facebook millions of voices can be heard - that's never a bad thing.
But for today my question is "Where is the beauty?"
This picture is one of those happy intersections of bad housekeeping and good timing. The statue was a gift from my brother, I've had her for years. The cobweb is the result of, oh I don't know, spiders and dust and whatever cobwebs are made of. It makes it look like she is crying. We'll say that she's crying for the state of the world, but at the same time it's actually kind of funny that the spiders created this image. Sometimes in big box worlds and cookie cutter buildings and homes we have to look a little harder to find the beauty - it's still there.