Month: May 2013 Page 1 of 2

The wind picked up as we were making the fire. A few minutes into it, we had dancing flames and also a glimpse into how quickly the wind makes the fire grow. Fascinating but scary.

We talk about fire bans, forest fires and the punishment for the people who start them. “What if they didn’t mean to?” the boys ask. It makes no difference, we tell them. Grown-up world is a different one, you know… You ought to know some things by then.

We’re camping by a small lake under a canopy of grey clouds. It’s been a finicky few days, with a peek-a-boo sun and a few rain splashes. But the boys insisted and we gladly agreed.

We put the canoe on the water and get the tent up. The wind blows the tent fly in all directions at all times, always in the opposite direction of where you want it to go, but two pairs of hands make it happen.

We go for a paddle in what we rightfully assume to be the sunset. The sun is only to be guessed, you see, as it is stretched into a thin orange layer behind the clouds. A bird lands in the middle of the lake and starts calling out to some peers. It sounds like laughing. The boys are laughing too; echoes of life.

We slide on the water over submersed logs wrapped in old soggy moss. The water is shallow and clear and the bottom is undisturbed. I touch it lightly with the paddle and create a short-lived muddy havoc.

A few fish jump and make us think dinner. Breakfast? Neither? Soon, very soon then…But the worms, the boys ask, that must be very uncomfortable for them. A first introduction to the greater good dilemma draws question marks on the boys’ faces. We’d be earning our food, too, we tell them, so there.

We tour the lake and explore a swamp at the far end. Back swimmers play water chess on the surface, gliding swiftly from side to side and we are mesmerized, yet again, by how they bend the water.

We return to the campsite and the boys get busy carving sticks for sausages and marshmallows. They chat about things that happen at school, they ask about the summer and whether we can camp every weekend this summer. Messy hair, muddy knees and shivery little bodies all happen at the same time.

We feed the fire to a nice roasty heat and the shivering stops. It’ll be a cool night but that’s when you have the best sleep. We camped in minus eight in the Kootenays in early spring and lived to tell the story.

Two of the sausages roll in the coals but the boys fish them out. Five second rule need not apply in the middle of nowhere, right? In fact, that’s one of the appeals of camping. Rules go mysteriously missing as soon as we squeeze in the car along with tent, sleeping bags, paddles, fishing rods and all the paraphernalia that even the most dedicated minimalists can’t avoid when camping.

Then we make s’mores. Stickiness spreads from cheeks to chins to fingers and tummies. Faces and coals are glowing the same and we’re but a droplet of orange warmth with voices pinching the thick darkness that has grown around us. It’s almost 10 and the wind picks up again. “Bedtime?”

Not yet. Scattered clouds reveals a starry smile and in that glitter we find the memory of another starry night a few months ago on a frozen lake, not far from this one. We feel rather smug about not being so new here, now that we carry around a handful of “remember when we went to…” slices of life in our heart pockets.

We get ready for the night and huddle together inside the wind-flapped tent like four chubby caterpillars. Coyotes howl long in the distance. The place it’s theirs, we know that. “Are there bears here too?” The boys ask, pretend to be all scared and then we proceed to tell stories about bear encounters.

Ten minutes later, after a few muffled giggles and yawns, sleep is spreading its soft wings all over our sticky faces.

In the morning the giggles resume and we take our sweet time in leaving our warm cocoons. The boys look for frogs and play a boy game that involves sticks and hiding.

In the meantime, behind an old stump I find a most astonishing thing: a fairy’s slipper. Singular and purple, it makes one grow quiet with awe. Gently so, its petals push up into the sky and we name it The Most Beautiful Flower We’ve Ever Seen.

Before we put the canoe on the car rack we go for a late morning paddle. The laughing bird takes its place in the middle of the lake and is laughing again. So long then, see you on another lake perhaps?

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on May 25, 2013)

If you could choose, where would you be?

If you could choose, what would you love to do?

If you could go where you really want to go, how soon would you leave?

From where you are right now, look around and also in that only-known-to-you place inside yourself, and tell me: Are you where you want to be? Are you doing what you want to do? Are you with the people you could not be without?

And if you say no, how far back do you have to go to find the roots of that no? Did you choose a no from the beginning because you told yourself you won’t follow any dreams, or you just stepped out into the world holding a dream like children hold kites, and it got all tangled up and then you dropped it because others said it’s too hard to untangle it and even if you do, the wind might not be there by the time you’re ready to go again…Did you go from making your own path – and not even thinking you’re making one after, because you were flying your colorful kite, and joy allowed you to go far and be strong because that’s what joy does – to being told you have to follow a path that’s already there? Whose path? Did you ask? Did it matter?

We follow paths that are there just because some people (or many) walked them before us. They called them the right ones, and we dare not say otherwise. The paths we follow feel the opposite at times; sharp disobedient thoughts sprout, carrying all those gut feelings that may not agree with the beaten path. They poke through and scare us to a halt. Don’t walk here, there is nothing here. The sides are bare, better go back to your own…They urge us to stop, to look around, to be honest.

Stop? Now? Stubborn thoughts grow like thick trees with many branches we don’t know how to climb and don’t dare believe we can learn. So we cut them down and tie them with thick silent ribbons. There. Then we keep going. Silly thoughts, trying to make you stray…But what if the thoughts are right? What if? Ah, just cold flutters that try to stop you, they happen, people say. They happen to everyone, they say… Keep going.

But is everyone happy then? Yes, no. It’s hard to see the truth in mirrors that copy each other. Which one reflects the truth, there are so many… Ah, just pick one. Is it a game? Hide-and-seek? Yes, with yourself, the silly thoughts point out. Hush again, let me look in that mirror. And you see what you’re told you have to see.

Because when you want to see things a certain way, you tilt your head until they look like that. You might be upside down and hurting, but you keep at it because everyone else does it. Or so it seems. You look at it and say yes, it is like that, and pretend to not know the truth. But you see, even blind people who’ve never seen faces in their lives, they can “see” faces. They feel them with their fingers and know what the face looks like. They trust their fingers to see for them. Even if you’ve never seen the path, your real one, you’ll know what it looks if you dare let the fingers of your soul “see” it for you.

But to dare… We follow paths that don’t hug our soul. Instead of soothing our fears with the joy they allow us to have along the way, they feed it and make it into a wild mean beast we drag along; one that we try to run away from but pretend to be too slow to do it, and we let ourselves be bitten by it once more…Until one day when the wild beast bites too deep, or too soon after the old wound barely closed and then the pain makes you stop. If you take the time to be mad at the wild thing that’s biting your hands, and if you take the time to care for your wounds, then you might just have time to look around.

You don’t quite know where you are, you’ve come a long way. Why are you there? Is there another way? Better, harder but truer? Is there a how to? Where does one start? The beast you dragged along, you let it go. The many knots that tie your fear to your soul, you dare to hold them up and peek at their inelegant mess; most scary. Where to from here? Sigh,cry, stomp your feet, but no more knots please. You hold them up and the sun peeks at your soul right through them. Warmth feels right. Now you know how messy the knots are, but you also know that sun can kiss your soul through that mesh of fear. Rain could get it soft and manageable until the knots fall off. You know that.

Then you walk around. Light and brave, you go off the path, into a place where you’ve never been before. And if you give yourself enough time to smell the air, and enough courage to listen to that part of you that speaks the only language for which you do not need a dictionary, you might just remember the truth of the journey you started a long time ago…

The journey that started with a dream. Or many. You dreamed of where you’d go if one day you could, you dreamed of what you’d be doing if one day you could, you had joy and you knew that it would be worth it. You were ready to cut your own path and make your own music and you didn’t care that you did not know how to or that it might get tough. That was part of it. You were ready. But then someone said that’s crazy, what a waste of time. Take this path, they said, no need to build wings when you can walk. So you took the path.

But if you did, was it the right one? Right and wrong are but rigid measuring sticks, you say. The question is: Does it feed your soul? Where you are now, what you do, the starting of each day? Does it? Is the path you’re on the one you’d choose if you could choose all over again?

If you could choose all over again, would you choose to do what you do now?

If you could choose where to be, would you be where you are now?

If you could choose, what would you choose? Would you really?

Rain has so far been a luxury in Kamloops. The smell of rain has always brought stories and memories of places and people.

On the coast, rain is as familiar as the air you breathe. You wake up in the morning, it’s there. Go by your day, in and out of the house, rain is there. Come nighttime…Well, it’s there. Yet though I lived in Vancouver for almost 14 years, I have not come close to disliking the rain, endless drizzle that it was at times.

Here though, rain is short and precious.

I never quite understood the grumbling about it either. Whether we grumble or not, rain falls until that last drop will be squeezed out of every grey cloud. Unless the wind picks up and scatters them like dandelion fluff in all directions.

The wind has been sweeping the skies for a couple of days now, and ever since the sky turned clumpy with clouds, I kept thinking rain is but a hill or two away. Not yet?

As if to taunt the sky, I put some laundry out this morning. Why not, if it’s all a big tease anyway. Then I went for a long run.

Half an hour later, the wait is over. A few drops to start with. The smell of rain-thirsty pavement and grass is thick and plenty. As if shy about taking over the air, rain picks up ever so slowly. The hills around are dressed in rainy fog and I know we’re next.

Full-on rain. How perfect. An invitation to press on, because you don’t just stop mid-run when rain starts.

The next five kilometers or so, rain comes from all directions and it has no intention of slowing. Plump drops land on my face and I like it. I’ve always liked rain, even more so because of its scarcity.

As I run, my mind splashes in all those memory puddles countless rains left behind.

I think of how so many times during my childhood I’d climb in one of my quince tree retreats and listen to the rain; seduced by the cascade of pitter-patter sounds and fascinated by the glistening trails of water drops left on the leaves.

I think of a camping trip up in the mountains where it rained almost icicles for days. It was early June. It was cold, but that rain made the trip memorable and did not stop me from subsequent ones.

I think of the boys relishing every rainy walk we had. The rain curtain would reveal a whole new world every time. Earthworms chased out of their dirt shelters by the water and perfect half-spheres of sparkling rain on leaves. We stopped for each of those.

“How does the water stay like that mom?” I have yet to meet a kid who, given the chance to observe rained-on leaves, would not stare in wonder. “Look, everything inside the water blob looks bigger.” If learning would happen like this, no kid would resent sciences. Neither would adults.

Many of those walks took twice as long and before we went back in we had to empty the boots. They were filled to the brim. From splashing as if that was the last rain ever. It wasn’t.

We camped in the rain many times and the sound of raindrops licking the tent fly made for a perfect late night tune. Plus it makes one quite good at starting a campfire with damp wood.

With all the rain today the ground is too dry for any puddles to form. It’s cold and the back of my hands feels numb.

A few minutes later, over Peterson Creek Park, the clouds are rolled to the sides to reveal a sky so blue it puts the very color to shame. The air turns balmy and I decide to keep running just to have some more of it. Warmth brings on its own magic touch.

By the time I get home sunshine glitter is all over the streets and the wind has weakened to a gentle swaying of the trees.

Later in the backyard, laundry is dry. Towards the east, dark clouds are stomping their long wet legs over the hills yet again. More rain to come perhaps. I take the laundry inside; taunting can only go so far on a day like this.

As if it reads my mind, the wind picks up and twirls dry petals high over the porch. Some make it into the house with me. The laundry smells of wind and sunshine.

A few hours later, in the west, some thin long clouds pile up over the horizon like tired pencils after a day of drawing in the sky. Their cloudy scribbles spreading all over the city will be drenched in orange sunset glow soon.

It’s been a beautiful sunset and we walk up the hill crest to see it all.

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on May 18, 2013)

A week or so ago I signed up for a race: The Blackwell Dairy Run, taking place in Barnhartvale on May 26th. I was thrilled to have found a race I like, a first after I broke my leg and twisted my knee. I biked in Barnhartvale and I loved it.

The race is a hilly one I was told afterwards. So be it, I said to myself. I am a decent runner. I am not a lover of hills but oh, the things we can change when the mind wants to and gets busy… So I set my mind on the busy setting because time is short and hills must be tamed.

I changed my training regimen from running on mild hills and mostly flat surfaces to running mostly hills. I checked out more details about the race and it looked like a good race with some speedy people and… OK, it is fun to compete, why not.

My morning runs got longer, hillier and I was once again about to discover that the part I dislike more in a hill is the descent. But unbeknownst to me, the uphills had a dark side that was about to become a pain in the …foot.

That’s right. The top of my foot started hurting and I realized that I could not even walk on a hill without hurting let alone running. So I gave it a day, perhaps the laces were too tight or I needed the other running shoes. It’s good to rotate them, they say.

Nope. Pain was still there. Now I know that it is called extensor tendonitis. It happens when you run hills extensively. It takes a while to heal (weeks at least), it hurts if you try to run or even walk fast, the pain extends in the foot and even crawls up the shin and… That’s when you know you have a royal mess. No race, which is disappointing, but no running either for a while.

So I messed up. I wish I didn’t. I will miss my early morning runs and saying hello to the sun as I make my way to the Peterson Creek dusty trails. I will try to walk early in the morning instead and still say hello to the sun. At a slower speed, which means I will have more time to look around and be grateful for the morning. For each morning that is. It’s amazing how we can bend things out of (bad) shape when we set our mind to it.

So I messed up. And learned something I should’ve known. And added yet another tiny regret to that hidden bouquet that only I know about…

It’s Mother’s Day. A bit windy and cool and you’re still asleep. You are the reason I celebrate today. As a kid I would read books and come across parts where they would talk about “motherly instincts.”

It sounded like a big thing to achieve and, being a kid still, I thought “What if I have no motherly instincts when my children are born, then what?” It really sounded like a tall order. It is, thank God. How else would we get better at it, because you see, being better at it only makes sense. Children deserve so much.

Like many fears we have along the way, my fear of not having motherly instincts when the time comes proved to be wrong and unfounded. Should I add unnecessary? It paints the complete image and it is a good word to learn to spell.

My motherly instincts kicked in the moment I knew you existed. They kept growing since. You both made it happen.

I kept journals for each of you, but mostly for the first few couple of years of your lives. The reason they stop rather abruptly is because you took off running and I ran with you. It was quite easy to write while carrying you in a sling, but it makes for more exciting stories once you happen upon them on your own two feet. Happy times. All of them, no exceptions.

You should know this about children. It may seem hard at times, being there for them and all. Yes, you were both a handful at times. But it is miraculous how all those parts fade away as you go (may I say by the end of the day) and all that’s left is joy. You’ll see.

I’ve learned a lot of things since you both came into my life.

I learned that everyone is different and has to be honoured for what they are. Children most of all, because you see, they are the beginning of people. It’s a big responsibility, teaching children to be proud of who they are and encourage them to be all they can be. You helped me see that.

I learned to seek the real in every day, in every action, in every person I meet. Most of all, you have taught me to be real. There was no other way, really, not if I wanted you to be the people you seem to become.

You taught me that happiness is a forest of wonders, where light and shade play intricate games and the mystery of it all keeps you going. You helped me realize that you can see deep in my soul and you’ll feed on both joy and sadness. You made me believe that living joyfully is worth it. Even when the path to it is a meandering one at times.

You made me learn patience. You made me a better person with saying “It’s OK, mom” after every time my words proved too harsh for you. You taught me forgiveness just in time, because now I can teach it back to you.

I learned to stand up for you, to protect you, and through that I learned to stand up for myself. You taught me that I am stronger than I ever thought possible. Your hugs are the very stepping stones that take me to where I want to go.

You gave meaning to my life. To how I live today, to how I think of tomorrow, and how I shape the world around me.

Today and every day, I wish to see you grow into kind men, strong and fair, I wish you’ll learn to love and be loved because a whole beautiful world opens up from there on (more on this later.) I wish for you to learn that never is a word that should be used sparingly and only in a positive context (for example, Tony’s forever question about a cure for me to never grow old and Sasha’s wrapping of arms around me saying “I’ll never let go,” that kind of stuff.)

Have a happy day my sons, and may that happen every day. It’s possible you know. With a wee bit of a catch: You have to make it happen. Yep, believe it or not, you have the power to make every day a happy one for yourselves and those around you. It’s all in you, I saw it. Like I’ve always told you, I can see inside your soul, just like you can see in mine. So there.

Last Friday we returned home after a few days away and found two big beautiful tomato plants on the porch. The note attached to them read “Cherry tomato plants need a transplant to good home. :-).” It was signed by our neighbor across the street. She is 92.

I met her after we moved to Kamloops in September. I saw her puttering around the yard one day and went to introduce myself. It’s good to let people know you’re there.

I was charmed on the spot. She is witty, and knows a lot of stories of Kamloops and western Canada too, and she smiles a lot. The only thing that’s slightly wobbly is her vision, she said. She can’t see further than a couple of meters in front of her and even close range is not what it used to be.

Far from feeling crippled by it, she accepts it as a fact of life. Complaining would not bring her vision back, she says.

During our first chat she tells me stories of old Kamloops, how it changed since and she also tells me that I will love it here. A magpie hovers over her house and she’s quick to point out that a crow will show up soon to chase it away. As if on cue, the crow does its thing. It takes being somewhere long enough to know that.

I find out that the house I live in and others around here were built shortly after the WWII for the returning war veterans and their families. I get a glimpse of old Kamloops and I like it. It’s not every day that I get to hear something like this.

I didn’t keep track of time that day, but instantly freed some of my afternoon time to be there. Relishing my neighbor’s sparkling presence, I could not get over the fact that she is 92. The references we have can sometimes point us in the wrong direction but lucky me…

I always say that age is but a number, but my neighbor really makes it true. It’s been like that every time we chatted after that. She’s funny and her way of mixing old stories with new ones has been locking me into good conversations from that first sidewalk talk.

Last Saturday I went to thank her for the tomato plants. We sat in the shade of an old apricot tree and the afternoon sun made puddles of warmth all around us.

   She then showed me her secret garden patch where she proudly pointed to a rainwater collecting system that brings every drop of rain from the roof into her back yard. Both the vegetable garden and the exquisite flower one benefit from it. If I were a butterfly or hummingbird I would call this my happy place.

Dark purple clumps of lilac hang heavy and fragrant in a corner. I told her about the surprise of discovering that Kamloops is a city of lilac. I grew up in a yard guarded by thick, old lilac trees and they made my world joyful. It was an unexpected surprise to see that I now live in a place lined with the very trees I’ve been searching for since I left home.

Exploding white and purple lilac bushes remind me every day of my growing up in a place where I could just walk across the street to visit my neighbors, old friends of my grandparents. I was four but that was no hindrance to sitting and listening to stories. It was easy to forget about time back then too…

On my way out my neighbor invites me to take a shortcut through her home. A keeper of memories, her home is nice and cool. She shows me the sun-drenched room where she grew the tomato plants. There are family photos all over.

In the hallway I notice a violin hanging on the wall, bow next to it. Quiet as they are, sounds and memories trickle out of them. I ask. Her late husband’s violin, she explains.

Some say that violins carry their owners’ playing styles in the wood. An imprint of some sort. It must be true. I see my neighbor’s hand reaching out to touch the violin as if to cradle in her palm once more the memory of the music that she once listened to and of the man who played it. Her eyes light up. Her soul sees further than her eyes can, and I am humbled to witness it.

I thank her for more than I came for to thank. For stories shared under the shade of the old apricot tree, for the inspiration and for those smiles that make me feel welcome here because somehow they bridge the new world I come from, with the one she has been privileged to witness over the years.

I leave with a beautiful bouquet of dark lilac and thinking that often times the best way to see what’s ahead is to look behind us. And truth is, we cannot have one without the other.

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on May 10, 2013)

To parent an emotionally astute child is not for the faint of heart. Subjective, you say. Be it so, some days take you for a tumble and make you question yourself yet again. As a parent and beyond that. Your child will point out the emotions that surface on your face like bobbing barrels on a stormy sea, hoping that he will find the key to who you are, because there might just lie the answer to who he is as well.

Parenting often feels like you’re stomping on a field that’s emotionally mined anyway. As they grow, children leave that sweet dwelling of “hugs and kisses to feel better” and move into a world where they need you much more, but act aloof because they happened to read the instructions backwards. Go figure.

You want to be there for them as they grow, and they do too, but they still push you away, yet it is striking to realize that they push you towards yourself. So that you face yourself and thus make things better for all involved. You tell them be real, be yourself, don’t take things for granted and don’t waste today and now. They ask “are you?”

A child who thinks as much as you do, though on a slightly smaller scale, is both scary and miraculous. Like a pulsating vein you see contoured on the back of your hand, you can guess its texture but not quite. And because they’ve been feeding on your words since before they were born, they’ll come back to listen to them; they need to, more so when the going gets tough.

They sit and listen to you, eyes and ears pointed to your soul, and you are all there, letting them see the world the way you see it, with all the discoveries you’ve made along the way. They listen and learn, and when they learn they question things the same way you do but their intensity makes for an even sharper spear to slay the unwanted.

Then they call it as they see it. And then you, the parent, wonder if you’re doing it right after all. Because they don’t sugarcoat anything, they let it all out and you think they’re like that because that’s how they are. But they hurt at times because, like you, they see more than they can handle or understand or accept. And that’s when you wonder whether you made them see more and question more with your way of doing it like that.

Schooling has always been a big conundrum in our little circle. Yes and no still clash in midair when I think about it all, and I don’t have an answer that proves to be responsible, smart, visionary and abiding to the laws of the world we live in (or so I am told.)

“Why do I have to go to school? I can learn on my own.” Is it so? Yes it is, you know it is but as you’re weighing your options you feel like the sly merchant who uses the fake heavy weight to sell his stuff. But some days are good, kids roll home with faces dipped in big smiles and you can say it out loud “See, it’s good, I told you so…”

But on the days that make frowning an iron mask for the little faces, you just sit and listen. School should be joyous, right? If it’s not, you’re questioning yourself and the world yet again. And you hurt when your children hurt.

They come home questioning some of the adults they’re supposed to rely on for help or smiles, whichever comes first. Wise enough to avoid conflict with peers if need be, children are baffled by adults who can’t get the right grip when dealing with kids.

To cloud a day, you don’t smile. Adults should know that. Some do and still don’t smile.

The world is not kind and you can ask yourself “why” a million times and the answer will be the same every time “Because it is. So there.”

How to make it right for children then? You cannot change the world for them, and you know that everyone they encounter makes them become who they’ll be tomorrow. You cannot be there for them all the time, but you can open your arms wide to allow them to bring their ruffled selves and hide in there.

You can sit in the backyard in the sunset and eat watermelon. It might drip, ticklishly so, on tummies and legs. The children will giggle and lick the juice off their fingers and you’ll think… So there’s still time to learn, to make it right. And you just know that right is in the eye of the beholder… But you’re not it. Who is then?