Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Author: Daniela Ginta Page 76 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.

Why, Why Not Do Something?

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On October 10, 2012

It’s Wednesday morning, around 8.45am and I’m on my way to a meeting. Kamloops is treating everybody this morning to a chilly start. The air is so cold it pinches my face. One cheeky degree Celsius…

The sidewalk along the library is adorned with tables full of tomatoes, plums, leeks, apples, eggs and the whole farmer’s market bounty I usually see on Saturdays. It happens on Wednesdays too, I remember now.

Meeting over, I remember Sasha’s request for crunchy apples. I buy a bucketful of green apples, crunchiness included and the promise that no pesticides were used. Same for plums, tomatoes, lettuce, leeks and carrots. Eggs and a chat. About growing and eating real food and how it’s so worth it. I’m charmed by the idea of raising chickens in my backyard. Dream on… For now at least. I tell the guy of my moving into a house with a yard full of fruit and veggies and how I want to grow more next year. No chuckles, he knows what’s out there. Our food getting more toxic by the day and getting the water and air toxic with it too. Say it isn’t so.

It’s the saddest riddle I know: Why do we even entertain the thought of chemicals on, near and in our food? Why use pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers? To increase productivity, to reduce costs and to allow as many people as possible to buy fresh produce, you’ll say. Right? Wrong. People who make it happen without chemicals is proof that it can be done.

I am not a farmer but I’ve talked to enough to know about how challenging it is to grow food without chemicals, yet they do it. It doesn’t result in cheap food, that’s for sure. Not as cheap as chemical-infused food and definitely not tasteless. So you pay slightly more. It’s worth it. For now. Because you see, every time pesticides are sprayed on crops that are I can choose to avoid, I will still get some residue via soil, water and air. So do my children. And yours. Needless to say, those little signs warning of pesticide use on lawns that we see on our walk from school ever now and then only add insult to the injury.

There’s studies showing the effects on children and the results are not pretty to look at. Some pesticides reduce IQ, some may act as endocrine disruptors, many increase the risk of cancer and even more are persistent enough to make us look bad for quite a while from now on. For starters.

And then there’s the GM foods. As long as we don’t request labeling, it won’t happen. Nothing short of a miracle. It starts with not buying a product if it’s tainted or if you suspect it is. The longer we put it off the murkier it gets. France is incensed over a study showing that rats fed GM corn ended up with cancer. How about us? What if it’s flawed or exaggerated (we always doubt the good ones)? … Then we look at other studies. Like the one showing that GM crops (courtesy of Monsanto) require more pesticides than back in 1996 when they were first introduced. The pesticide called Roundup (courtesy of Monsanto) is used for the purpose to kill weeds but it does not live up the the expectations as superweeds are developing and chuckling away. What’s a farmer to do? Use stronger chemicals that will eventually seep into the water and dissipate into the air? Your air and mine. Our children’s. It’s complicated and far from glamorous. But real. Food for thought sounds about right.

Where to start? A tough one. Local farmers who grow real food without chemicals are a good bet. As stated in an older post, eating less but better quality food gives the body the right nutrients. As simple as that.

The choices we make in buying food for our families will shape the offer. As simple as that. We might have to give up off-season produce and cheap food, we may have to steer clear of foods so processed even mold won’t grow on them, and the sacrifice is minimal. Pay more, throw away less or at all and help your children understand why. We have to choose and the fact that we still have a choice is a glorious one. Awareness is a beast but a necessary one. Let’s not kill it with indifference. I know you know that, we all do. So choose wisely and stay healthy.

A Fighting Fish Named Bubble To Save The Day

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On October 6, 2012

“I’ll get a Triops kit with the garage sale money.” Sasha, back in Vancouver at the end of August. And what’s wrong with that.

We had the smaller version of those, informally called sea monkeys but they did not make past the first month or so. It clearly said on the box that they live longer. With good care. Talk about feeling inadequate as a sea monkey caregiver.

We fed them the food they brought with them in those little packages. DO NOT OVERFEED! it said right there but since there’s barely any creatures in there it’s easy to assume that barely anything is too much. I really thought we passed the rookie stage successfully that time. We did. Or so we thought.

At least there was no need to recover the bodies once the (un)thinkable happened. Sea monkeys are too small and translucent to be spotted easily. No bodies left behind, a perfect crime if I’ve ever seen one (I haven’t, really, aside from the occasional mosquito swapping but that’s a society crime if we’re judging it as such.)

So the time has come for us to try again. Sasha’s relentlessness is not new to me. A good trait to have in life. We will make it work this time, the oversized sea monkeys (can’t see how they got this name in the first place, no relation to monkeys, no resemblance.) Regardless. Fifteen dollars later and confident, we set to work. We follow the detailed instructions. Religiously does not emphasize enough the meticulous triple reading of every word that I went through. Just to make sure. Use spring water only. Check. Don’t allow temperature to fluctuate, the slightest change can affect the eggs. You do not need to know how frightening small those eggs are, you really do not. Don’t overpopulate they said. As if. Add grated fresh carrot. Check. The plastic container we’re supposed to use gives me the creeps as it is that no-number-God-knows-what-bad-stuff-is-in-it. I promise to move them to a jar as soon as they are old enough. For now Sasha does not want to go off the beaten path. Beaten? I really want to know who made it work. There must be some Merlin award I’ll never get close to.

The first batch started hatching after the predicted four to five days. The tininess is cute and allows me to breathe. We did it! Ta-da! Two days later the questionable plastic container is as empty as the primordial liquid that was to become the soup. Same as before. We have more eggs though. Replay. Three days into it I’m feeling confident. Sasha’s hopeful. An unfortunate spilling of the water paralyzes my thoughts for a good two minutes. What now. What now.

Replay. Third batch of eggs. Last one. The box says the company has a “don’t disappoint the child” policy. If the eggs fail, send two dollars for shipping and they’ll send more eggs. Ha. Doubt, doubt. Set the eggs in, carefully. Sasha’s overseeing the process and hopes are up. Again. And they hatch. Four of them. The next day two are missing in action. Or maybe hiding in the grated carrot. Maybe. The second day we’re back to the pre-primordial quietness. Sasha’s disappointment doubles mine.

Was it us? But how, how did these creatures survive for millions of years yet they cannot make it past the two days in my kitchen. To this day I say it’s the plastic. Having just researched a mountain of studies about plastic and how they affect life (for an article, not for the the monkeys), I will keep that conviction alive, unlike the very tiny creatures I couldn’t.

Prehistoric creature episode might not be over yet. Sasha’s planning a follow up on the “no disappointed child” promise. Until then, I decided to move up the evolution ladder and bring home the fish. Literally.

A betta fish or if you want the more glamorous name, a Siamese fighting fish. Red and bouncy. Ours. He comes with a seven day warranty (the things we think of these days) but his liveliness makes me think we don’t need that plan B. “Mom, he eats dried blood worms. Cool!” It is. Good thing they’re dried to flakes, but you can buy the live ones should that sound like a good idea. Not to me.

Five days and counting, Bubble is swimming happily and blowing bubbles like any respectable fish would. Swallowing blood worms like a true warrior. The boys were beyond surprised and happy when they first saw him. I picked him up just before I had to pick them up from school. A plastic bag with a tight knot at the top, wrapped in newspaper like a one of a kind purchase. “You got a fish? He’s so beautiful, mom!” That he is. He needs a small habitat and likes solitude. Or creates it, as literature informs us. He kills other similar fish that come close. Right on. Prehistoric critters have nothing on him. Not that he would give a frozen blood worm about it anyway…

A Teepee to Sleep In and A Whole Lot Of Ice

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On October 4, 2012

In Kamloops

It’s Friday, late afternoon, 4pm or so and we’ve been contemplating thoughts of camping all week. We’re so close to everything since we moved to Kamloops, it’s tempting. Deadlines, how to, how to… It drizzles softly and the boys play. What if.

I work out my schedule, grab the writing pad and promise to not stress about the deadline. Gotta have the stuff done by Monday. I will, I will.  Half an hour later, the car is packed and we’re off to Blue River. For a teepee night, you see…

“Is it a real one, mom?” It’s been Sasha’s dream to sleep in a teepee. Max says we have to make this happen for him. So we will.
Making our way to Blue River Campground we battle heavy rain, speedy trucks and listen to The Wiggles and Steve Irwin CD. How many times can one listen to it? I’d say once if you’re over six, countless times if you’re six and under. We listened to it many times.

We arrive to Uncle Ralphie’s campground around 8pm. He’s the jolliest campground host we’ve seen. Rides in the golf cart for the boys, an armful of dry wood and some charcoal to light the fire, stories of coming all the way from Newfoundland. He mentions bears and pine martens and the boys are charmed.Even more so when Uncle Ralphie drops candy bars and popcorn to keep ourselves occupied around the fire, he says.

The teepee is big and rugged. You crouch to get in and out. There are plants growing inside and dust follows you in the sleeping bag. The night stands clear and crisp outside the teepee with a skyfull of twinkling stars like eyes watching us. Sleep then.

“But mom, aren’t teepees supposed to be made of animal skin and have paintings on them?” Sasha’s standards are high when it comes to teepees, you see. It’s all the literature he’s been perusing over the last few months. Well, yeah, you can see that too in some places. Maybe we will one day. “And the flap on top mom…” Kids these days.That keeps the rain in, my dear stickler. But it’s not like in the drawings and photos he’s seen, he argues. True, but wouldn’t you say that Uncle Ralphie’s cheerfulness made it quite right? To be continued… Go pick some blueberries, the last ones of the season, instead of looking the gift horse in the mouth…

We make the decision to drive to Jasper. Passing through a rainbow that chased the rain away. Just like that. My second rainbow in less than a month. I’m slightly apprehensive of ski towns that look new and proper, you know. I like real places with houses that whisper and giggle at you as you pass by. But Jasper looks right. We walk and find a rock and fossil store. “Mom, there’s dinosaur poop for sale,” the boys call. Snicker away, you slipped poop in a sentence the whole store was privy to. Same as always.

Driving through Icefields Parkway towards Lake Louise is a silent celebration. Turquoise moats around giant beautiful mountains. Mountain goats perched on rocks edges make the boys hold their breath. “The baby, mom, will it fall?” No, they know how to. We’re silent. In awe. Slabs of Earth slanted sideways like domino pieces, slippery tongues of ice that might or might not be here in a few hundred years, maybe sooner. “But why?” ask the boys. Because we’re cooking the planet, that’s why.

Global warming sounds so played for us adults but not so for them. “Why do people do that?” It’s not by intention, you see, but we dig so deep in those pockets of goodness that the planet has a limited supply of… it’s the things we want. Oh, the shaky talk about wants and needs. How to raise children and satisfy their needs (with an occasional want) when the wants curl around their legs like stray cats purring and clinging. “People are mean,” they call out. It’s unfair, they scream. It’s all of us, I tell them, we are all guilty of the same. That curled want that you can’t let go of…

In the days of instant gratification and upgrading to the next thing that promises to be better, faster, smarter and more fun, how do we turn to these quiet white giants to listen. Listen to what? Their beauty, I tell the boys. We take it all in and I wonder if they’ll remember passing through these worlds of stone and ice.

It turns dark and we’re almost at the fork in the road to Lake Louise. We turn right towards Yoho Park and after we drive through what looks like a most charming little gem of a town – that’s Field – we camp at Kicking Horse Campground. Nighttime chill makes for fast tent pitching. We talk of enchanted woods and their animal inhabitants. The fire crackles and sticks its many orange tongues at us. Cheeky is le mot du jour. I make the silly discovery of how to create a fountain of sparkles. That primordial fascination with fire is still going strong. Marshmallows abound, but why do they have to be so sticky.

We’re lulled to sleep by gentle raindrops licking the tent. Drum away… Morning… The boys are rolled up in their sleeping bags, their sleepy faces hiding behind that wild camping trip hair. Round nose tips and quiet breathing. Make it last… Will they remember the sweet smell of the fire and the rained-on woods and the crisp mornings you almost hear crunch under your feet as you get out of the tent? Will they remember enough to care?

Because all we can do is take them places, let them breathe in the quietness and hope they will. Pray they will… So that it lasts. Ice giants and all.

The House At The End Of The Rainbow

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On September 22, 2012

It is the third day of playing with fishing rods and the boys have it all figured out. Small hands follow thoughts of big fish and they handle the line ever so gently but firm enough to make me wonder yet again if they’re growing too fast.

“Did you see that, mom? The fish! Did you see how it jumped?” Their voices break and bounce from here to far, much like the fish we’re eyeing. The boys are planning a fish dinner wondering every now and then if it’s cruel to the fish. It’s real, I tell them. It’s when you realize what dinner is. Gulp? But the hook… You eat what you catch, every little morsel of it and there’s no encouraging of ocean overfishing or dreadful fish farms. In their eyes I see the fine line that separates boys from growing boys. The inner workings of the world. You breathe, you eat and live in gratefulness. Will they learn? In the world that offers fast, cheap and replaceable everything, it’s easy to forget. I play the reminding witch. Again. Cast, fish some weeds, the line gets tangled. Again. I untangle their lines. Again. We can barely see the line in the dusky light but how to leave without the fish? Well, I tell them, the fish stays put for now.

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What Do Burying Squirrels and Defending Lance Armstrong Have in Common? Life. A Whole Lot Of It

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On August 25, 2012

I saw the squirrel jumping its endless squirrelly jumps all over the maple tree in the front yard. It stopped, stared at us and moved on with its life and us with ours. His was playing, ours was selling. A first garage sale, you see. A great lesson in so many ways and if it sounds too righteous for some, well, that’s how it shall be.

 

The boys get small packages of soldiers, clowns and pirates all ready to go, dollar and a half or so a piece, but we do accept bargains we agreed. Toys purchased over the years with pleas and smiles, eyes shining and hands grabbing. See boys, all that stuff, new and all, now they’re selling for so little it’s hard not to shake your head. The wheels turn the same for most kids on this side of the world. Get toy, new, enjoy, move on to the next one, that instant jolt of pleasure that all but dies quickly. But how could it not, there’s so many toys to see and touch and grab and scream if you cannot have them… Christmas coming up, wait, my birthday list, where is it? Tsk, tsk, it’s not about that, you silly kids. The real thing that lasts should always come from inside of you, the deepest corners of sweetness get tickled when you make things happen. It’s not the opening of the box with toys. Shiny is not it, you know…

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Tag Day, Figs and Grazing Guinea Pigs

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On August 22, 2012

A few weeks ago I signed up for a tag game. A writerly one. It invites to committing to one’s work, committing to just one thing and getting it done… you still here? I’d be lost by now, you see, because that’s not really me, the one thing at a time person. But I believe that everything that we come across shapes us in ways that may or may not be evident right away and there’s something to learn.

I was supposed to answer ten questions about my WIP (work in progress). Of course there’s articles, querie, short stories and a couple of big chunky writing projects in the mill as we speak, but the chosen one is the one that has priority. So here we go:

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Know What Fear Tastes Like, Know That You Are Not It

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On August 13, 2012

This mosquito would not give up. When mosquitoes were invented they were given one quality: relentlessness. It’s worked for them since. But it’s 3am and if I don’t make it go away I will be spending the rest of the night swatting at an insect that’s minuscule in size and gargantuan in its capacity to affect the quality of my life. Go figure. A good time to think until the next raid.

There were clouds of mosquitoes on Black Tusk. That’s a mountain that could be defined as a magnificent pile of rocks, as accurately summed up by a friend. Edgy, if you will. You’d be right. Every rock on it is like that. After the 9km hike to Garibaldi Lake, you cross the alpine meadows and sincerely wonder why no one thinks of conditional hard-to-get passes for stepping foot through such pristinely perfect spaces. You keep walking, jumping over streams, stop for a sip of water and a cloud of mosquitoes surrounds your head like an ungodly scarf that makes you wonder if this is after all the price you need to pay for such beauty. Be as it may, it’s well worth it.

Stop by the crystalline stream, it’s so loud you can barely hear your thoughts but you only have one, you’re grateful beyond words for seeing all of this, for touching the water, for knowing that you can forgo the purifying drops because it’s so clean and for the simple fact that all your senses are perked up and hungry and they’ll be round-bellied by the time you reach the top of Black Tusk.  The sign that says no trail beyond this point due to falling and unsteady rocky terrain, climb at your own risk does not deter you at all. The carpet of snow is steep and white and surreal. Two people climb ahead and they appear as tiny as mosquitoes. You know it’ll be good. The 30 pound pack makes you slightly unsteady but that’s part of the fun. You’ll do it, you’ll do it. You know you can and you know you won’t give up until you’re up when up is no more. Save for the blue sky but legs alone can’t get you there anyway. For now.

Snow jumping, sliding, crawling, trekking. Sun and snow play tug-of-war with your body, and you love being the center of that kind of attention. Higher up there’s the rock pile. You learn the meaning of immense and you go oh, now I get it. About time, right? Take two steps up and slide down one and a half. Ha, like the mosquitoes tethered you so they can have you for dinner, how else can you explain the sliding down part? Oh, the silliness of such thoughts. But that’s one of the spoiled benefits of mountaineering: You get to be silly in your head, you can be silly outside of it too and your body says yeah, yeah, do it, because you’ve quite earned the right.

You keep going up, no breaks until you get there because you want to get there, you do and you do. Time is of a different texture, the air is too, you are getting so close to yourself it almost makes you feel crowded. It’s good.

 

 

The last part is called the chimney. It’s a half-funnel made of crumbly rocks. The kicker is that some are set in place and some are not. You find the non-budging ones and climb. Avoid the falling ones or you’ll fall with them. No ropes. But you’re good at this, you’ve climbed enough times to say it with confidence. So you climb. Halfway up at an overhang you stop and look for the best way up. The thought slides down the awareness path before you can say stop, no, you have no right to be there. You hate climbing down. Fragmented memories of your childhood attempts of climbing down steep unsafe ladders, doing it because you did not want anyone to make fun of you, to call you scaredy cat or think that you’re not tough enough. Fragments of nightmares of you climbing a ladder, so high up that the sky is a spit away, and the ladder falling backwards. The innards are sucked in a tunnel of fear in both memories and dreams and right now you’re stuck to a crumbling mountain that laughs at you through all its straight and obtuse angles but you can’t move up. Or down. Innards are missing. You’re the shell of yourself and you hate your fear. It can’t be. You’re not a scaredy cat, you’re tough, you are. If you’d have a free hand you’d pat yourself softly and encouragingly on the shoulder. But you don’t. Sigh. Breathe, make acquaintance with the only fear that could paralyze you like that, a demon in its insidious ways of showing up when you’re having an up day. Getting so close to yourself makes you feel crowded but also lighter. You get off the rock wall, you breathe, cry because you feel defeated but smile ever so lightly because now you know you’ve faced your fear. You’ve never been tougher, you are told, you’ve never been braver than today when you listened to your body saying no, not yet. A mountain so majestic you can yield to if you’re not ready and that’s ok. The downpour of paralyzing fearful thoughts that trapped you on the crumbly wall becomes your liberation from your fear. You know where to start.

You find shelter at the bottom of the tusk, camping on the snowy ridge, the sun licks the peaks around all orange and pink and the moon zips you up in silver untroubled silence. Until 6am or so when the sun pulls at your hair, you silly sleepy head come out and see how good I made the world look today. You’re a speck, the luckiest speck of all nestled at the foot at the tusk that both humbled you and taught you the way.

On your way down you read about the tusk and how it used to be a mountain once. You turn and stare at it, you say thank you and hug the big pile of rocks with your eyes. The sky is so blue it makes your heart flutter. You walk through the snow to the alpine meadows with its armies of mosquitoes, drink cowboy coffee by the stream because you wanted one last hug from this place and then keep descending towards Garibaldi Lake. You’ve been very good about not leaving a trace, you packed all the garbage but you know that part of you will stay there. The fear, that integral part of you that stopped you from reaching the highest part of the tusk, you left it there, a tribute to the mountain. You’ll be back, you know that, and you’ll go all the way. By then, your fear will be all but crumbled down with the thousand rocks that do so every day and night. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years. Your fear stands no chance.

As you dry up after a dip in the turquoise waters of Garibaldi Lake, you look up towards the tusk. You can swear you see it wink. But that’s crazy, how can that be? Oh, it’d be, because that’s one of the spoiled benefits of mountaineering: You get to be silly in your head, you can be silly outside of it too and your body says yeah, yeah, do it, because you’ve quite earned the right.

If you’d say that fear tastes crunchy, I’d say yeah, it does. Edgy, too. A friend asked “But why did you go there if it’s like that?” and I could only be a humble reciter of the quote that means so much and I barely got to understand an inch of it: “Because it’s there.” But George Mallory was meters taller than I’ll ever be. Gracefully humbled. But you see, there was more there than the mountain I could see. The abyss I could not see or did not know how to see. I had to see it. Because it was there.

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