Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Author: Daniela Ginta Page 35 of 99

My path is a winding one. I write, I raise my sons, I love and I live.
Waking up to a new adventure every day. I have all that I need at every moment.

Permission To Speak Freely

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On September 2, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Homeschooling, Kamloops, Learning, Social issues

Originally published as a column in NewsKamloops on September 2, 2016. 

It never ceases to amaze me how cautiously positive and uplifting a bunch we have to become or strive to be. Staying away from discussing politics or appearing too negative in how we discuss life in both its mundane and extraordinary details, we have learned to keep our fears, worries, doubts and occasional depressive thoughts caused by life unfolding to ourselves. We do not want to be ‘that person’.

Truth is, ‘that person’ may be the one that sees things, wants them addressed and hopefully rectified while refusing to see the silver lining as more than what it is instead of a positively embellished version that others insist on.

There was never a time when seeing things in too rosy a light was a good thing. Keeping our eyes open to what our chosen leaders are doing is a necessary and responsible thing to do if one cares about the present and future. It’s not about being combative and offensive, but engaged, willing to know what it takes for a community to run on respect, honesty, ethics and by all means putting the rights of all combined before the benefit of a few.

On more than one occasion I had people smiling an awkward smile and saying ‘let’s not get into politics, it would not be good.’ In this day and age when the corporate ghosts inhabit many of the corners of our society and influence how things are run in various sectors, media included, getting into politics and pushing towards knowing the facts and engaging in debates if needed fulfills a civic duty.

Case in point: the new climate action plan put together by the provincial government.

With no carbon tax that would see the big polluters pay, the plan itself should have gone straight back to the drawing board given that it ultimately ignored the recommendations of the climate advisory team. The big LNG dreams that the current government still believes in and wants to make a reality despite many scholars and environmentalists opposing it for logical, survival-for-all reasons, might have us taxpayers fork over significant amounts of money in order to make it happen in a more ‘sustainable’ way. Correction: will have us taxpayers ‘help’ the industry giants have it smooth and not sustain financial losses. This should be all over the news and discussed by many. It is our future after all.

In other words, the environment gets kicked and bruised, communities altered and people’s lives severely affected while a corporation and its shareholders will make a killing albeit it could be a classic boom-and-bust (fracking is not without its own perils and limitations). The documentaries Fractured Land and To The Ends of The Earth offer good understanding of the matter.) And yet, there is but a voice of two calling it how it is. How many of us are paying attention?

By now we should all be talking about the indignity of such prospects, and media outlets throughout the province should have the big topics such as site C, fracking, climate change and the much needed transition to renewable energies as part of an ongoing dialogue with the public. Unadulterated information is key to democracy. And media people should be the guardians of that information and the purveyors of facts that may not be pleasant to talk about but should not to leave aside either.

Whether polite or not, discussing real life rather than sticking to positive only topics will have to become the norm. Our lives are as real as they come and so should be our approach to keeping informed about the decisions that can alter our lives or those of generations to come.

An interesting parallel comes to mind regarding parenting and life in general. When someone asked my sons what they like about homeschooling one of the answers was that we rely upon ‘real books’ and ‘real topics’. It’s true, we keep it real. As far as I am concerned learning is never about walking the line but thinking whether there should be one in the first place.

Being politically correct may keep our conversations sanitized and our social status positive and farthest from being ‘that person’ but it will never mend anything in our society or keep us safe from corporate wantonness which often puts people, the environment and the very fabric of a society at  risk.

Having more independent media might just be the catalyst that keeps the dialogue alive by providing us with nothing but reality and plenty of opportunities to discuss and learn about the ways our society functions, the rights and wrongs, ethics and all. If we insist in truth and honesty at a personal level (I am hoping most of us do) media should keep to the same values and principles. It would be a winning case for all.

Yes, We Talk Politics. Here’s Why

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On August 12, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Homeschooling, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

We do not watch TV in my family. That leaves us in the dark when a question like ‘Have you seen the last episode of…’ surfaces, but it’s a risk worth taking.

I read the news instead and often times conversations around coffee, tea, and meals, have us talk about the latest in politics. Children included. I’ve always believed that most children if given the chance and without having their minds inundated with useless, mainstream stuff, can have pertinent opinions.

We need that in today’s world more than ever. People taking the time to think, the courage to speak up and engage in conversations that may prove challenging, revealing but are overall necessary for pushing us towards knowing more, knowing better and educating ourselves.

We need our children to grow up knowing that it is not impolite or poor manners to engage in political conversations. It is necessary, because knowing what goes on in the political world can just make the world as a whole better. Simply because sooner or later that knowledge applies to voting, a tool that (should) shape the democratic world.

When a child is passionate about nature, for example, specifically the ocean, and tries to understand why people overfish and pollute the oceans which endangers us all ultimately, it is hard to come up with a good enough explanation.

That politics is intimately tied with that too is unfortunately true. Much like trawling, there is a whole lot of stuff that politics drags behind in terms of connections with industries or large companies that work for profit, no matter what’s at risk. That of course puts the politician in a sensitive spot where he has to watch out for the interests of the people, their well-being, that of the world around them, and yes, all of that should be done independent of big money.

Can a child understand that? Can they understand that though it seems Lilliputian in size, our freedom to make choices, from the businesses we support to supply our daily meals to the other utilitarian products provided by big companies, is a very important democratic muscle that grows bigger and stronger the more we use it.

At the risk of sounding overoptimistic, I will say children do somehow understand that or are capable to do so if we take the time to explain that to them. And we should. It’s the world they will inherit so it makes sense that they should have a say in how things are run.

A Canadian company is aiming to start deep sea mining sometimes in early 2017. That’s a lot of drilling and disturbing of worlds we have yet to learn of fully. That there are still species unknown to humans in those depths, that our very lives depend on the intricate mesh that marine life is, should be reason enough to give any company some pause for thinking and reconsidering. When our children grow and have jobs and funds that can be invested, they should know better than to buy stocks that chip away at the world they live in. It takes saying it out loud for them to learn.

Politics can teach a lot about ethics, or lack thereof. That politics is one of the least gracious of all the good conversation sisters is true. Yet imagine what the world would be like if most people save for those in positions of power, would engage in polite, often meaningless chit-chat, and no one would ever remark on indignities, unfairness and downright abuse of power.

We do not even need to cross the border to get close to some of that. As CBC recently revealed, a Canadian company sold armoured vehicles to both war-torn Libya and South Sudan. In both cases, the ethical and humanitarian implications are painful to discuss albeit important to do so. Sure these trades cannot reflect Canadian values. We are after all known for apologizing when someone steps on our foot; we are the kind nature-lovers with a postcard-worthy country and an appetite for wilderness discovery. We’re kind and helpful towards people who are in dire straits (see the case of recently relocated Syrian refugees).

There is enough news and information flying every which way to make this serious and saddening offense towards humanity disappear with no one wiser on whether the company stopped its death-causing trades or if anyone was sanctioned for what could almost pass as criminal acts. There’s been enough cases of ‘forgiveness’.

It is true that there is not enough time in a day to read about all that deserves attention. Canadian politics alone, local and country-wide, is enough to make your head spin. Add to that the heartbreaking events unfolding in Syria at the moment as millions of people are in need of water under sweltering heat and amidst daily bombings. South Sudan with its millions of displaced, famished people too. Millions of African farmers punished severely by climate change.

Yet if enough people talk politics, each bringing some pieces to the big conversation about the world, we might just realize that we know more and better simply because someone took the time to inform themselves, and decided to share it with others. To ask questions, to make us think, to make us do our part as much as we can.

It is by all means easy (not on our conscience) to stick to our summer fun that might or might not include water which we have free access to (imagine the complete opposite), to happy conversations and good things happening in the world, because really, there are many. But we ought to be fair and impartial and give enough attention to issues that can raise eyebrows or make people uncomfortable. After all personal comfort should come second to human suffering, environmental destruction or any other issues where violation of what is humane, ethical and respectful is evident.

So go ahead, talk about Trump and his undignified approach to politics, talk about mines and the site C dam, about pipelines and wars unfolding far away. Allow your children to pipe in and voice their opinion. It’s their world too. We may be personally attached to one issue or another and become reactive when another brings it up (case in point: mines and pipelines). Yet healthy debates can lead to exactly what benefits both sides: consideration and respect for people and the environment. Ethics. It’s possible to have it good in many ways, much better than we do, if we stand up, listen, speak our mind and respectfully learn and educate at the same time. It’s a win-win.

So yes, we talk politics. Now you know why.

Instead of Goodbye I’ll Say This

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On August 5, 2016

In Homeschooling, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

The thing is you never get to say goodbye the right away or at the right time. There is no such thing. Not when you’re trying to chase growing up kids. It’s like trying to capture that gaze of wonder on their faces just to have the camera be always a second slower than their sudden turn of the head…

Today is Tony’s first day on his first job. Allowance stopped yesterday and childhood is leaving wet footprints all over memory lane. He has a bank account and a card that needs to be activated over the phone and it’s no longer me making the call; he has job responsibilities and yes, a paycheque at the end of the month. The road ahead is real and boys become men as they take one step at a time.

Doubts, celebratory smiles and a barely audible sigh as I watch his childhood cling like a wet leaf to a window only to be swooped by a whirlwind of now before I have a chance to say ‘OK, hold on for just a little longer…’ That’s not how it goes. All I can do is wonder if I did it right so far? Is he ready?

We see the smooth parts in our children and the self-congratulatory music blares victorious, and then we see the sharp bits, more painful to feel and look at and our gaze skids sideways, scrambling for justification of why and how the ugly bits came to be. We ask for a second chance when there is none, we promise to do better starting now and we oscillate between thinking ‘it’s no big deal’ and ‘oh, goodness, how could I do that, I messed up my kid…’

Did I do it right? Is he ready?

This is one of the forks in the road towards becoming the bigger version of himself. He turned 14 not long ago and no, age does nothing to me in dictating the next step and yet now it does. He can have a job. His first.

I drove him to the end of the first block of today’s first route. He steps outside, big canvas bag bursting with papers on his hip. It’s sunny and cloudy and the shreds of doubt can’t hang on strong enough. His gait is brisk and reveals the growing man inside. I park under a big tree at the other end of the block waiting to take him to the next route.

Bittersweet it is and I know the taste. I watch leaves tapping against each other though the mid-morning breeze twirls them all in the same direction. Some resist and that’s where I find my answers. All the scraps of memory behind…

I miss the mornings when the sofa was inundated with books and the two of us would share silly laughter over Dr. Seuss’s tongue twisters and bouncy rhymes. I will miss the rainy walks and his small boots filled to the brim with puddle water, muck and all, baby teeth grinning white and happy as the raindrops licked his little face. The snails that had to be counted every time we passed the wall that now reaches his hips and will never again reach higher than his head, them too…

Would I do things better if I had another go? Nah, it’s a wild game this one. We raise ourselves as we raise our kids, becoming better at simply being, learning that it’s not about asking for second chances or for burying the ungracious flight fragments. It’s about soaring and dropping under skies that turn grey and heavy when you least expect, and it’s about finding your wings as you’re about to hit the ground.

It’s about the whispered prayers that you put out there wondering why God would listen to you since you’ve already broken so many promises, and yet you hope the ones you make today won’t go poof into thin air because you put them together from shards of hope and hope is precious.

The radio fills the car with beautiful music. I make a note to remember the name. Ben Caplan, yet another perfect homegrown voice… It happened before, the right music at the right time. I pretend to read but my mind wonders as I spot Tony in the distance. He walks confidently, the list of delivery addresses in his hand, bag hanging loose as he pulls out the last papers. My heart swells and I know he knows that. He smiles before crossing the street.

I smile back. It’s not about wondering I’d do it better if we were to start again.

It’s about gathering all that I’ve learned since the day I held him for the first time, putting it all in a big pile, throwing some tight hugs for good measure and saying loud and clear ‘There you go, I tried my best, even when I stank and we both sulked and I thought “unfit” should be tattooed on my forehead.’ Love patches the gaping holes that let the cold breeze in. as a mother you’re broken many times and put back together, every time a bit better, every time proudly letting the joined pieces show. A story of sorts.

Love is the big secret. The ups and downs that help build the complicated and necessary geography of the soul that speaks of the deepest pits of grief and of the sparkle that sits on the highest peaks where the sun dances and sings… so I’ll say ‘here you go, you ought to have them both and the in between wonders too. Gratefulness is where it’s at, for having had the chance to build it like this so far… and more’s coming.’

Hanging on is where it’s at. He hops in and we drive to the next route. I sit and wait and when he hops back in he smiles and shows me his hands all black with ink. I fall in love with the miracle of the growing boy’s smile yet again. There’s no point in ever thinking that starting again would help us fare better. It’s sunny and cloudy and there is but one whisper to remember to let out every now and then.

Happy 14, lil’ no longer growing boy, and many more coming. It’s going to be alright. You somehow seem to know how to take yourself there. I’ll be cheering you on, as always, whether the road takes you upwards or downwards. Really, you should know the big secret now: it’s what you make of it, so carry on. Don’t forget to smile.

Love, Mom.

Apples and Cherries and Oil Spills

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On July 29, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Social issues

Originally published as a column on July 29, 2016 in NewsKamloops. 

Up the street from where we live there is an apple tree loaded with apples to the point of having its branches snap under the weight. Plenty more are scattered on the grass. There is no one to ask about whether we could pick them so they won’t go to waste, and trespassing is not an option even if there is no fence.

Along one of the trails where I walk the dog there is a yard with a cherry tree where cherries now hang burgundy and withered. I got to see them beautifully red and inviting, until the cherry season almost passed. I took that trail daily hoping that I’d see someone and ask about picking. Again, nobody to ask, and the fruit went to waste.

But this is not a piece about food waste only but appreciation and gratefulness. For what we have and what we’re bound to lose if we’re not paying attention. Whether it is fruit that goes to waste when there are people right here in Kamloops, children included, who cannot afford healthy fares, or water that gets polluted and becomes toxic to the very communities it’s supposed to sustain, the trouble is the same: waste. In the latter case, waste in seen differently by those who cause it versus though who suffer from it.

That apples and cherries and oil spills could ever be connected like dots to reveal a surprising picture is hard to imagine, and yet I am attempting to do just that.

If you have been following the recent Husky pipeline oil spill in Saskatchewan in all its dirty bits, you know it cannot be left alone. Not when the possibility of a new Kinder Morgan pipeline passing through here is looming in the distance (hopefully not). Not when pipeline-related oil spills are happening when least expected (Kinder Morgan had seven spills in BC only since 2005, four of which involved volumes larger than 100,000 litres).

The approximately 250,000-litre spill in the North Saskatchewan River is no little thing. By now the oil made its way some 500 kilometres downstream and four communities along the way have declared state of emergency. The company is ‘deeply sorry’ and will take care of the financial side of the problem. That they call the spill a ‘pipeline release’ is disturbing and insulting.

There are two issues that that stand out with this spill.

The first is that a leak had been noticed 14 hours before the spill was reported. That is a lot of hours to do something to hopefully prevent a larger disaster. At least you can say you tried. They did not. While the initial story mentioned the 14-hour delay, a second version has now been released: no one really saw the leak. From guilty as charged, Husky swiftly becomes the responsible community employer that will try to remediate the ‘mistake’.

What gets a company off the hook easier: admitting that its staff should have and could have done something and they didn’t, or that they took all the appropriate measures but somehow they missed the leak? Accountability be damned, the PR team worked hard on this one and the Ministry of Environment rolls happily with it. Yes, Husky has already been praised for their stellar cooperation by the ministry, who perhaps forgot for the time being that they are called Ministry of Environment for a reason.

The second worrying issue is that the spill happened shortly after Husky restarted the flow of oil through its new extension pipeline. It was the old rickety pipeline that leaked or so they say, yet it is hard to avoid the obvious question: why so soon after the flow was reopened? Is that a known risk? We might never know if this could have been prevented since in 2014 the Ministry of Environment decided that there was no need for an Environmental Impact Assessment for the extension project. Choking yet?

Talk about a lesson being learned the hard way. Not by companies but by communities along the way. Except that those who pay the hardest price sometimes have the weakest voices sometimes. You see, being vocal enough to be heard and slick enough to be believed is often proportional with the finances tied to the issue.

There is but one conclusion: we do not have enough time for all the spills and carbon overload that can still happen with fossil fuels. A greener future must happen or else. We may not read much these days about climate change in our local and national news, except for the independent media outlets, but the 14 repeats of the hottest-month-on-record is one crazy reality that we should all think about.

Switching to alternative energy sources could not happen too soon. People are enthusiastic and willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work (and save money since the source is renewable). It would help immensely if the government, provincial and federal, would stop dancing with the same old rich partners and switch to the environmentally-responsible, albeit less rich ones that are waiting for their turn. It’d be about time.

So what is there to learn from cherries dried-up on the tree, scattered apples and oil spills? We only have so much that we can use in the time we’re given, and waste (of food and water and green clean spaces) is not an option. Not when there are alternatives.

Where to from here? Wherever our collective common sense takes us. The government, despite the occasional impositions, is still ruling over a democratic society so ideally we should function like one and demand that the right to make informed choices be respected.

What Does It Take To Keep A Promise?

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On July 25, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Originally published as a column on Friday July 22, 2016 in NewsKamloops. 

TearsFew things are more disappointing than not keeping a promise. More so when the promise has to do with people who died under circumstances that ought to be investigated so justice can be served. More so when the people who died are all First Nations Canadian women, the majority of them under 45 and mothers.

On our recent trip to Prince Rupert we drove on the Highway of Tears and the overall feeling is one of uneasiness and sadness. There are big billboards warning women of the dangers of hitchhiking. As you stop along the way in some of the small towns, there are signs that grief has touched that community.

And yet… The promised inquiry into the death of murdered and missing Aboriginal women is still far from becoming a reality. It’s not a promise that should be made lightly. Our new PM Justin Trudeau has a full agenda, no doubt about that. But a promise is a promise, and when closure of some sort is at stake, then the promise should be kept.

The numbers are staggering, the grief and pain left in the hearts of the families who are still waiting for answers are too. British Columbia has the highest numbers of missing and murdered First Nations women, 160 of them. Approximately 63 percent are murder cases and 24 percent missing persons cases. The majority of them were between 19 and 31 years old, and 16 percent under the age of 18.

Each of those young women was someone’s daughter, granddaughter or sister before they had a chance to become mothers. One could argue that sadly enough, the system failed many of them before they were born. After all, the drug and alcohol addictions among First Nations people are rampant. So is domestic abuse. A vicious circle that chews up many lives leaving but grieving survivors and unanswered questions.

Which is where the government comes in. the authority that can say enough is enough, vioplence againt women (by strangers in most cases) is not condoned anymore and we will not only find what happened to these women and girls but also work closely with First Nations leaders and communities to educate, protect and offer a way out to those whose are in danger of being mangled by that vicious circle that indifference, political (in)correctness and plain old feet-dragging enable.

It is shameful to not hear the plight of those left behind. And yet…Let’s hope the many questions will be answered soon. Let’s hope that dignity and justice will take their place where they rightfully belong.

I might hear soon that the topics I’ve been writing on are depressing. Or just on the brink of sadness. True enough, yet sadness that crushes many or even a few cannot be ignored. Ideally, we should all be so happy that we’d burst at the seams.

By caring and lending a few minutes and a few thoughts to the side of life that is ungraceful as it is scary, we make it less dark for the ones whose hearts are pounding and crying at the same time. Compassion makes us all better. It’s in giving that part of ourselves which is so vulnerable in the face of suffering that we are afraid to show, that makes us better human beings.

So here’s the answer. For as long as there are indignities and pain, I will bring them up, as many as I can. Some will be screaming louder than others at me. Suffering does not know boundaries. It should not. Yet the case of the missing and murdered Aboriginal women shows that race boundaries exist, though many pretend to not see them.

It’s not negativity to bring these things up but respect for humanity and all its dark and bright bits. It’s not negativity to bring them up in conversations but the hope that one day communities can be safe for all who are part of them.

It’s by letting myself be humbled by people’s strength to carry on after tragedies and heartbreaks that I can be a better person and see beyond my immediate world. That is why I think promises should be kept. Because people matter. Every single one of them.

The Things That Should Never Happen

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On July 15, 2016

In Armchair Mayor Column, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

Today’s column in NewsKamloops, published here. 

tearsIt’s been a week full of news stories, some more terrible than others. Though last weekend had me decided to write about the five conditions city councilor Denis Walsh proposed for the Ajax mine project, I will leave it on the back burner for now.

The week debuted with a little girl in Calgary missing after her mother, a single parent, was found dead in their apartment. There is something that stirs in a painful way when I come across news like that. Less than a year ago a two-and-a-half-year-old girl was kidnapped and eventually murdered and it was the saddest thing for the longest time.

Her killer will be in court next May and one can wonder if our mildly punitive judicial system will give the sentence his heinous acts deserve. We will be kept guessing until then.

This evening, just a few minutes ago, the news came that the body of the little girl in Calgary was found and a man is in custody. There is so much darkness in this act, as in all murders, it’s hard to even bring it up.

It makes me shudder and tear up to write this. I kept checking the news hoping she will be found alive. It made me think of that one-time incident when my youngest was lost in Vancouver when he was almost three.  To this day, those minutes remain the longest and most painful because the fear was so intense. The memory of it still takes me to a place that has no name because fright like that stomps on your mind like nothing else.

Yes, the minutes were long and terrifying and my mind was frozen on one thought: ‘he cannot be gone.’ I remember people shaking heads and shrugging when I asked if they saw him. I remember the helplessness caused by all the horrible ‘what ifs’.

I cannot imagine going through an hour or more, or a day, of panic like that. My short-lived case left a mark that still scares me, though that was seven years ago.

The news that the body of the little Taliyah was found is heartbreaking. Again, someone will be charged with first degree murder, they will appear in court where hopefully a life sentence without possibility of parole (or something along those terms) will be given because nothing else would make sense or seem just, right? Yet truth is many times we hear of sentences so light they resemble a slap on the hand. And the hand often goes back to commit the same or worse…

No one can be brought back from the dead, which is why we need to learn from these harrowingly sad incidents. We need to push to make our justice system fair and, at a personal level, we each need to hug our children tighter today and on all the days to follow. Hatred has insidious and dark paths it follows and it leaves much pain behind, as the recent shootings in the US proved and today’s attack in France too.

It’s hard to understand hatred when your life does not contain it. Yet keeping our heads into blue-sky permanent positivity is not an option, because bad stuff happens, and it could happen anywhere unfortunately. (For the record, I think the media needs to rethink headlines when the location is Nice because headlines like ‘Nice terror attack: 80 killed by truck…’ (The Telegraph) and that is just not OK.)

Where to from here? Hopefully towards learning that if the justice system is not just, nothing will stop some individual from inflicting terrible pain onto others. Maybe a just system with sentences that match the deed will not deter everyone or not enough.

There is work to do to make the world a better place. It will not happen overnight or anytime soon unfortunately, but we cannot give up on trying harder and better, not when the suffering that some people go through is exceeding what most of us could ever imagine.

One thing that I believe is necessary is keeping informed, asking questions, discussing, debating, and fighting for what’s just and ethical. There are many people in the world, children included, who are subjected to wars, famine, slavery and cruelty. There are children growing so close to drug and alcohol addiction they follow the same path when they grow up, save for the ones that manage to get to change their stars.

There is racism and hatred that racism brings about, and there are people who commit horrible acts and they are freed only to do it again because somehow we allow compassion to be taken for granted.

Every time a child loses his or her life under horrible circumstances and we find out about it, we are reminded that the world still needs a lot of kindness and tomorrow is not too soon to start doing our part.

 

The Things I See As I Walk

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On July 12, 2016

In Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories

PathIt’s precisely at 7.30 in the morning that we make our way out. Every morning that is. Routines can come close to boring at times but not this one. Poppy and I take to the trails, each curious to see what’s changed since the day before. Yes, nighttime is a time of secrets and small miracles happening in the tall grasses that sing ever so softly as we walk along, parting them with each step.

I keep my eyes open for flowers – new ones are always a treat. Puppy looks for… well, signs of other dogs. Reminders of time passing from different kinds of clues if you will… Each relevant. I claim no superior knowledge just because I have been assigned to the human category. Every day starts anew in a way that can only be felt as you make your way down the path.

Today I pick but a few Saskatoon berries. They’re getting dry and seedy by now. So many left on bushes, a hint to people being removed from what’s being given to them for free… gifts of sweetness, with a price that is unmatched: gratefulness. An ant climbs on a wrinkled berry and takes the smallest bite you can imagine. It makes no difference to our world but it keeps theirs alive.

There’s scattered berries on the ground, some embedded in tell-tale deer prints. A few steps down the path pup and I stop by a purplish mound of digested berry seeds. Bear? It would not be surprising, but sad in the same way that seeing the occasional deer walking along a sidewalk is.

EyesThe trails pup and I find tranquility on are but islands of wilderness in the midst of residential propriety, shaggy grasses and tall bushes attracting wildlife that used to call it home before any of us did. It is all different now but perhaps this is the compromise that can keep things in balance. For now.

 

 

20160712_075207PoppyThe wild flax flowers are rarer these days as it gets hotter. Along wild-growing poppies, their blue is as convincing as the sky itself and just as addictive. My two most favourite. A few middle-aged red-eyed Susan flowers are staring into the morning sun, feeding on its brightness not realizing it will become the heat punishment of later.

Tragopogon

There are countless fluffy heads of Tragopogons (meadow’s goats beard as I learned the other day), some seeds so determined to leave their birth place they jump onto pup and I as we brush by. Hidden in tall graceful grasses I see daisies and red clover, a poppy that shines red ever so shyly from behind long thin blades.

AstersThere are purple daisy look-alikes that are part of a big family of wildflowers called asters. Shooting stars (also purple, as if that is the choice colour for the wildflowers here) and dandelions, and then, the surprise of a new apparition (yes, purple) delicate looking and of a kind I have yet to learn about.

20160707_141335

 

We stop by the creek where the other day I stumbled upon a raspberry patch loaded with red globes, some drooping heavily in the gurgling water stream. Fragrant and speaking of summer and forgotten worries. A place to steal sweetness from in a most innocent way possible.

 

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20160711_082626We follow the path up into the forest patch. Bugs tasting pollen and sliding on grass stalks, a balancing worth stopping for, there is so much life to see other than where I step next… Mushrooms push out of the dirt in shady areas, making themselves visible to us and the occasional slug sliding its sticky way across the path looking for supper. The very definition of slow food.

 

Evening skyWe stop at the top to look around. Clouds gather over one side of the sky, hinting at the promised last night’s rain that never came close enough to here. We saw it in the distance, a drape of white steam covering part of the northern landscape, making its way across hills of brown and tired green… a big tease in all…

Poppy runs up and down the slopes, picking up sticks and pine cones and chewing them with the careless hurry of someone who knows there’s more to be found. She returns to check on me every now and then before tumbling down a sandy slope chasing rolling pebbles and asking in a way that I’ve learned to know that more rolling pebbles would be greatly appreciated… I oblige. If dogs could laugh, you could hear her every morning. She does. The boys would attest.

We turn to the paved sidewalks and the leash comes on. A herding dog like her might never take well to moving cars. I keep hoping that maybe one day. Meanwhile, we practice civilized walking, turning around in a circle for a reset every few steps. I am patient and she is too. Love makes it so. I speak softly, except for when I say no. Like a kid wanting to please, the pup correct herself but there’s no telling what she’ll do when the next jumping opportunity comes.

PupWe stop to say hello to the traffic ladies, our friends on the road. They see Poppy grow, admire her foxy looks and laugh when I tell them that someone thought her a wolf the other day… We talk about the unfairness of killing wolves to rectify our wilderness-invading wrongs, about the absurdity of grizzly bear trophy hunts and there’s mentioning of bees and pesticides. How refreshing to not have political correctness stop relevant topics from unfolding.

Pup sits and gets gentle petting and sweet words, and I am grateful for being in the middle of the road chatting with people I should only barely know yet somehow I know better than many other I’ve known for a while as acquaintances. I am grateful for smiles and for the bits we share as the days go by. We’re a friendly team, pup and I.

We get home and it’s quiet. In a few days the boys will be back home and wild ways will remind me again of how lucky I am to be humbled by love, laughter and all the slices of life that come in colours ranging from purple to humbling and everything in between. All the things I try to remember as I walk and listen and see. Life to wonder at, sip after sip, step after step…

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