Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Life Stories Page 39 of 46

Are We Witnessing The Disappearance Of Something We’re Equipped To Do So Well and Benefit From?

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On June 18, 2014

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

(Originally published as a column in the AM News on Friday June 13, 2014)

In yet another attempt to purge some of the dust-collecting items in our home, I went through the old correspondence drawers. Two of them.

I kept all letters that my parents wrote from the time I left home at the age of 18, same with my sister’s , and my close friends’ also. I kept the greeting cards too.

It was only two drawers, one and a half to be precise, so it shouldn’t have taken too long. But it did. I got caught up in reading some of the letters, including some very candid ones written by my niece when she turned seven and was trying her hand, literally, at handwriting.

Then an old nag surfaced. The disappearance of handwriting. Cursive writing, as we call it.

My sons have always been fascinated with the magic of it. They love the roundness of words as they appear on the paper, and they love the almost mysterious nature of a handwritten letter.

Many of today’s kids type instead of writing down on paper, because they’ve learned to do it so fast you get dizzy just looking at them do it. They get even faster by using acronyms for everything and writing as if they drew letters and numbers from a hat and threw them on the screen. Spelling is taking a hard hit as we speak.

Short words become shorter and so does attention span.

Most of today’s children will not write a single handwritten letter or have a journal. Have you tried handwriting after typing for a while? It’s painfully slow, you make mistakes, and the hand seems to be disconnected from the brain. Patience is a precious, rare commodity these days.

But what also happens is that when you write things down, they seem to stick better.

Some researchers who looked into how the brain does it all went as far as to suggest that in some cases dyslexia may be lessened should we return children to good old handwriting. It’s worth a try anyway.

Because, they say, when you struggle to learn how to write that letter, many areas of the brain fire up and there’s a whole process involved in mastering it.

Printing and typing, or writing the letters following a dotted line just don’t get the brain firing up so intensely.

Journal writing, by hand, has been used a therapeutical tool by many a psychologists over the years and many people swear by keeping a written account of their days. Ideas flow freely, you just allow the brain to drip onto the paper and the time dedicated to it is a time of solitude and an opportunity for introspection.

A mirror of some sort, you could say.

When we write by hand we become mindful by default.

Reflection time gives us a measure of where we are in the world, allows us to think without being rushed and encourages brain and personality growth.

The letters I was perusing a couple of days ago tell more than the stories within. They are a reflection of the people who wrote them; a glimpse into time, then. Just like that, my many journals over the years tell stories of more than just life happenings.

Letters and journals are human maps. You can read emotions, just like you can read words. I cannot escape the feeling that we will lose something precious and essential to our nature if we live them behind.

Typing may be fast and efficient but it’ll never be the same. Acronyms have been around for a while. Journalists and students jotting notes have always employed them with success. While handwriting, that is.

Students taking notes by hand learn better than when they type course notes. Having but paper and pen, and a whole lot of attention directed to the teacher rather than a handling a laptop, while simultaneously texting or updating some social media status, keeps you present in a room where you’re supposed to do nothing but acquire knowledge, think and ideally, ask enough questions to start healthy and topic-oriented debates.

Writing things down makes you think. Hitting backspace starts happening before you write things down more often than not. Perhaps that could serve as an enhancing feature of ‘freedom of expression.’

Which Legoland Is More Real After All?

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On June 16, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood

Because I live in Lego land. Truly so. The living room is home to a half-built castle which is home to a half-built garage which is, temporarily, just temporarily they say, home to some lost Lego souls (plasticky yes, but in Lego land that is norm) that have lost their hats, hair and an arm here and there. Yes, it’s all small parts. Very.

As you make your way into the kitchen – small open spaces allow for little if any delimitation of such areas, but please allow me – there is a box of Lego which I cover out of respect for myself. It’s a bit too much to see. The remains (if you are a pessimist) or the building blocks (if you’re an optimist) of an airport, plus some aircraft bits.

I am a realist, which is why I choose to put a lid on it. Literally. I know it’ll be a while until any Lego aircraft will be on takeoff status. It’ll come, just not yet. There are only that many hours in one day you see.

Just as you veer into the hallway leading to the boys’ room, a nice pine dresser almost invites the unawares to pull open the drawers. The bottom one I suggest you leave be. Yes, it’s the Lego of many sets, grouped under that impossible to describe category that shall not be named.

LostThat’s the drawer where I throw pieces as I find them, when I clean up or, in a more unfortunate turn of events, in the middle of the night. Which I do, more often that a human should be allowed to. I am not at my most gracious when that happens, but there’s nothing like a square little bugger like that to remind you about living in the moment.

If you’re still with me, we are now in the boys’ room. Under one of the beds there are two bins of … Yep, Lego. The Hobbit series came in strong because you see, when the kid has Lego on his Christmas or birthday wish list, you oblige, because, and only because… Lego is a game of building, thinking and well, growing up in a most harmonious way. Thinking, while staying out of trouble. For now. And not every day, but that’s a story for another day.

There are three more bins, a recent and lovingly passed on inheritance from my partner’s busy Lego past. Lots of exciting, now long extinct sets that need but busy hands to exist again in all their glory. Busy hands are here, I see them every day.

They do get busy. Every now and then, a fever runs through the house and I am never sure whether to bask in the fresh breeze of that enthusiasm or pack some quick bags and run out the door to hide until the fever passes.

Why, you may ask? Creativity is my most favourite ally in day to day life, so should I not encourage it when it hits home? Yes. And I do. But here’s the darker side, if you will allow me to call it that. As the fever carries on, great ideas materialize into half-built this and that. Like mushrooms after a copious rain, they sprout all over, especially on the kitchen floor because ‘Mom, I love sitting here while you cook and build Lego.’ Hence the kitchen becoming a mine zone. I am, in many ways, a survivor; a good thing.

Now when we call it a day, nothing really disappears. This plastic new species that inhabits our abode is work-in-progress for days to come, so I have to let the various contraptions be wherever they find some living space. On the dining table is tops. Location, location, location! Then there’s the floor, under the chair in the corner, on the old chest-turned-coffee table-turned ‘don’t you dare brush by it or everything falls off’ and so on.

A mere 800 square feet of living space can only allow for that much storage space though. So once the Lego cavalcade sets itself comfortably all over our living quarters, we politely retreat to dine outside. Al fresco as they say, with complimentary bugs. The bright side is that we get to see growing structures not made of Lego for a change.

Bad weather sends us back inside every now and then but then again, bad weather is a rare occurrence.

LotsSo yes, we live in Lego land.

I’d like to keep on doing so, because you know what? At the end of the day, no matter how many stray pieces attempt to tear my plantar ligaments, and yes, they do, the pain passes like a fleeting cloud and the happy glow of seeing the boys create and getting excited over building ‘something I’ve always wanted to build’ is a sight to behold.

The latest development is that any leftovers are picked off the floors as opposed to being shoved under the bed. Most days anyways…

As for the real Legoland (real is in the eye of the beholder)… well, for now I will choose to maintain the same attitude I have towards zoos. I prefer seeing the wild stuff, if I happen upon it by any chance. As you can easily infer from what you’ve read so far, chance favours me quite a bit. I get to see lots of wild stuff, hence my polite decline to seeing more. For now anyways…

So you see, although challenging at times, life in Lego land means a few things:

  •  That the boys learn patience (ever tried to search for the tiniest, say, white piece, in a big mound of many white pieces? It’s a skill.)
  •  That they learn to be bold in how they create…’It’s a barn’/’No, it’s not!/’Yes it is, because I am the one building it!’ Feel free to replace barn with anything that crosses your mind.
  • That they don’t care much about an orderly house and that allows them to just be. Clear of anything that might hinder spur-of-the-moment creativity, they learn to follow the impulse that allows them to transform ideas into palpable things.

Which in turn allows me to know they are still boys. In no hurry to grow, in no hurry to dismantle their castles, trains, train tracks, barns and people, in no hurry to stop playing.

Which is something we often forget. We start favouring orderly houses and having everything where it belongs at the end of the day, forgetting that children belong in that place where they can play at their hearts content to the point of having to be peeled off at bedtime and waking up early because they have to build further. From one day to the next, life is Lego land is as real as it gets. And seamless.

Continuity… The strongest argument to let Lego land be… A reminder of now and of all the tomorrows to come. Feet hurting or not, it’s a great place to be. Really. Age-proof too.

My Dad, My Poems and The Old Typewriter

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On June 16, 2014

In Life Stories

(An older post, but just as new in expressing my immense gratitude to my Dad, who typed my very first poems on an old typewriter…Because you can never say ‘Thank you’ enough times…)

The albatross...Every day that he did not have to go out in the field, for work, I mean, my Dad would come home with a few typewritten pages. His work stuff that he got to type that day.

There was something miraculous about those typed words. Even the paper smelled differently. And my Dad’s fingers always had some ink on them.

Do you know the old typewriters that go clank clank when you jump with your fingers from one round landing pad to another? Letters come out one by one like odd but cute hollow critters, all lined up in a neat row on the paper and then when you get to the end of the row you pull on this lever with a swift move and the ink tank moves all the way to the left and you start again. Clank clank.

If the paper is too soft then each letter is blotchy and as it sits there all embarrassed by its lack of grace and the big mess around it you feel like you want to pet its round hollow head and say it’s OK little odd thing, you’re on paper, you’re where you should be, that was the point.

Because somehow even though you’re still a kid, the fascination that comes from seeing your words on paper is beyond all imperfections. And when all the words you’ve ever written are handwritten seeing them typed for the first time is a mighty leg-shaking experience. A good one.

The pages my dad holds in his hand today are sprinkled with my words. My poems and short stories that he typed that day. He likes them he says.

I know he’s not just saying it. By the way he looks at me I just feel these solid stepping stones of encouragement that he lays out there for me to walk on and take off flying when I’ll feel like it. I had told my Dad that I want to send some poems out to a few contests.

I am grade 10 and have been writing for quite a while now. Too long, my sister would say, let’s play instead. Up in my quince tree, writing away about the world around and the one inside. Poems, stories, my journal. I am part of a couple of writers’ groups, mostly grown-ups where everybody’s writings is dissected and poked at. My first shot at literary critique if you will. Intimidating but good.

I touch those typewritten pages for the first time and I skip a beat. I read them, fold them neatly in half and put them in an envelope.

My Dad smiles as he sees me run down the cement steps with the envelope in my hand. The walk to the post office is hopeful, how else.

The woman sitting behind the thick glass panel in the deserted post office takes the change through the small round mouse hole and hands me back the stamp. She’s probably bored with her job and annoyed with my bringing my dog in with me. Lick, stick and slide the brown envelope into the long thin mouth of red mailbox outside.

A few months later I buy the literary magazine, yet again, and this time I see my seashell poem there. The albatross one too.They’re both there. I forget to breathe.

The words are not the cute hollow black caterpillars my Dad stuck to the paper for me a while ago. These ones are still mine but they make me think of kids who leave home all rambunctious and bedhead-haired-all-day-long to go to boarding school and return all clean and well-mannered a while after.

I keep reading my poems. They’re mine alright. I show them to my Dad. We laugh, he shakes my hand, a ceremonious thing he does because hugs are reserved for other occasions. And it’s perfect. I feel all grown-up now. I show them to my Mom. She’s happy. They buy two more copies of the magazine so they can cut the poems out and keep them in the kitchen in the old cupboard with the small bible and old photos of me and my sister. For show and tell to people who stop for coffee and chat.

I took a detour from writing for many years. But I missed seeing my words dance and laugh belly laughs on paper. So I started writing again. I’ll never stray from it again. I can’t. And every time my words make it on paper, glossy and not so glossy, but published somewhere out there, all I can think of is how this whole thing started: with my Dad typewriting every one of them and believing they can fly high like the very albatrosses his little girl was writing about.

The gift of published word. How did he know?

Unconditional Acceptance? Is What You Make Of It

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On June 8, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

If clouds were hunks of cheese and you’d take the biggest one, grate it and spread the shredded bits all over the sky, you’d get a milky-white cupola cradling early morning light like one does in a white tent.

That’s the sky this morning. It smells of roses and the noises from far away are dimmed down to a light buzz.

The street I walk on has old fences, shy cats, and garlands of head-heavy roses, bowing to the morning light. I like it. Two blocks more then I switch streets.

This one has been touched by inner city life more than I care to accept. Graffiti is not artsy but offensive. Dirty. Is offensive sprouting from artsy instincts? Creativity is a beast of many shades but is this one?

Cigarette butts and a few empty beer bottles guard the outside of a restaurant that has an intriguing sign in the parking lot. ‘The most amazing show on Earth.’ What, where? Is it a live show? Why not say more. I’ll leave it to remaining a mystery for now.

My walk to the library is complete. I drop the books into the slot (already two days late,) then I head back. The streets are still empty.

It is early Saturday morning. The boys were still asleep when I left the house. I like that. It is like they are left sleeping in a cocoon; they know some early mornings are for running or some quick errand and they usually wait in bed, reading. I like that too.

Today they are just about waking up; warm faces and fuzzy hair, trying to remember yet another dream forgotten in between the place between asleep and awake, the repository of lost dreams.

Since the first sleep after they were born, I’ve loved to watch them sleep and then wake up. The fluttering of eyelids, the first glimpse into the world they’ve missed a bit of during sleep. The smile that follows, an offering of their most inner being. I take it all, I am greedy that way. I like those moments of full acceptance. Arms wide open, eyes lazily hugging my face, slow paced sweet human beings returning from a world of their own and stepping into mine.

The day unfolds. They’ll move from sweet beings to wild, loud, mischievous, unkind and they’ll challenge me to bits. Again. I know they will.

Acceptance will wane during the day and I will logically remind myself of it. It is a trap, I know it is, and it is everyday learning… to accept my boys not when they shine in all that they do, not just when they’re sweet and surrendering to hugs, but when they simply are.

If I don’t accept them whole, how will they ever accept themselves?

I learn to do it every day, sometimes I fail, and then I try again.

As parents, we are stopped frozen in our tracks by memories of conditional acceptance. So did our parents. It is a bad spell that needs to be broken, yet there are no instructions. How to then?

We become more every day, and our children do too, all sides showing. We yearn for acceptance, in all that we are. Gracious, ungracious, sparkling, dull. If we’re loved, all sides show. And we become better.

A giant yellow swallowtail butterfly flutters around the front yard, a dance I perceive both indecisive and fascinating. Latter is accurate, and I will never know about the first. Assumptions can be traps sometimes. Still, I’d like to stop the butterfly. Beauty is captivating in a most primal way. That part of us never grows up, never becomes bored with seeing.

‘Mom, a wasp is eating the pollen off the daisy I gave you!’

Oh, let it. Little boy is not convinced. In his world, wasps are enemies, reputable ones.

‘No, it’s yours. I’ll chase it away.’

Don’t, look at it… The daisy is mine as much as it is the wasp’s. Or less? Wait, it is not pollen. I see legs. Do you see them?

‘Eww! Now I should chase it away?’

No. Let’s not. Daisies come with pollen and tiny spiders and sometimes wasps that eat them. It’s all that could be, and it’s real. Chase the part we don’t like away and then what?

Can we do that all the time? Chase the unwanted, the ugly, the scary, the parts we don’t understand or accept?

Life is unkind, ungracious, ugly at times, but fascinating in how it expands minds and souls. Real is all we get, if we’re ready to accept it. Real is what we grow from. Selecting but the good parts will never give you the full measure of what life is…

Half the sky has cleared up and it is blue. We sit on the porch steps, holding the glass with the one daisy, with many tiny spiders, with a wasp, with a chunk of life explaining itself, no shortcuts.

‘Mom, can you please make some pancakes? It’s Saturday.’

It is indeed. We always have pancakes on Saturday.

 

The Gardens That Grow

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On June 6, 2014

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

Will it rain? Who knows. It’s all a guessing game, though if you were to ask my dad he’d tell you it’s not. You do know, he’d say. There are signs. Humbly, you know it’s true. There are signs, you have a way to go until you learn them that’s all…

You want the rain because there’s tomatoes and spinach and garden peas that beg for it. Water is water but rain is better water, they seem to say.

Rain brings weeds also, there’s more weeds every day and less time, and you wish for a magic touch that will take them all away and make the garden clean of unwanted green. Someone once said that weeds are good, they would not flourish in bad soil. Take heart, is what they meant…

TenderBringing up children and tender crops. The same. Weeds taking over in both worlds. Screams, stomping of small feet and sulking, fights among boys too wild to know the slow art of diplomacy, and they’ll tell you being diplomatic makes you a loser… ‘cuz they know, they’re in the thick of it. Could all of that go like dandelion fluff, all the weedy dragon-like behavior and you’ll see but smiling faces, mannered boys taking turns speaking and never ever talking with their mouths full or stealing from other’s plates, no talking back… Nope. Sigh? No sigh. Joy. Nothing goes away that comes from within. Acceptance, all the struggle that children put into becoming people. The relentless struggle of tiny seedlings pushing through gritty soil.

You pull weeds, and the air is pierced by the boys’ voices. Shrills, screams, laughter, then the loud dragons again… ‘No, no, no, I am not playing with you…’

Should you step up and see about it? You call their names… Silence.

‘We’re good!’

Magic? Perhaps. They are tough, you can see their heads past the weeds just like you can see the corn rising thin and green and brave, reaching high. There’s no going back now.

Weeds, glassy skies, rags of clouds hanging lose, the world seems lazier than a sloth in the leftover heat of late afternoon, but you don’t stop. You can’t. The earth is dry, feels sandy between your toes. Barefoot boys, skipping past pebbles, they don’t stop… They can’t. It’s the game.

It’s the rhythmicity of it that makes it all exist, grow, and become more. Day after day, small things becoming big deeds, small roots holding small bodies, there’s no going back now. Rhythmic. Every day. Enough to fill the spaces in your body where you felt fear so often. You will again, but fear moves up, like bubbles in a glass that’s always half-full. Fear for them, for the crops to grow. But fear withers like the weeds you pull out of the ground and throw to the side. Fear has small roots. It must…

‘Mom, can we go for a bike ride?’ Little boy rides fast, you run to catch up.

Boy, tag‘Tag me if you can…’

If you can. Ha! What cheekiness… Fast becomes faster. You chase him just to hear the giggle, almost touching his back, then you slow down so the mad dash won’t make boy and bike topple. And they do, but there’s no crying. Grimaces, a look of ‘it hurts’ that you want to go and make better, but there’s no need because… ‘Tag me again!’

Remember the day when big brother stopped crying when he fell. That day… he rubbed the knees, rubbed palms, no need for kiss to make it better. T-shirts wiped all that Band-Aids masked until then. ‘Will these scars stay, Mom? I hope they do…’

Signs of time. Scars are not to cover. Boys are afraid no more, now your fear can go away too.

‘Try to catch me on the way home!’

WildYou run, fast, but wait… there’s berries in the back lane, growing wild, kissed by sunsets and taken care of by invisible hands… time. You gotta remember to bring the boys to the back lane bounty in a couple of weeks. Bounty, growing wild. You know it’ll be sweet and flavourful, and it’ll be like that whether someone pulls the cluster of weeds surrounding its spiky feet or not. It’ll be sweet, whether it rains or not, or despite of it… You know everything grows stronger without perfection to choke it. Children too. Bounty.

You follow the boy and his wild head of hair, palms of sunset glowing light caressing every strand and making them into golden streams. You’re at peace, not worried of rains and weeds and magic touches that can make everything perfect.

Magic is when you let go of the fear that you have to have it perfect so they’ll turn right. Magic is when you finally understand that they’ll still need the hug to make it better, but not for scraped knees. For egos that grow too soon, for life so loud it makes your heart pound and for bruises that come with it.

HarvestDay’s over. You pick tender leaves of lettuce, green and red, herbs… The shimmering sunset light is about to plunge behind the horizon. Tomorrow’s roots.

 

 

 

Kids Need Many Things; Among Them, A Community School

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On June 5, 2014

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

Initially published as a column in the AM News on Friday, May 30, 2014. 

One of the books both my sons loved when they were little was ‘The Little House’ written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton, first published in 1942. It tells the story of a house that stood ever so happily on a hill, surrounded by apples trees and the sound of children.

The house stood as the hills became more populated and a new city grew around it until – spoiler alert! – city life almost crushed the little house. Luckily, it was saved by the well-meaning descendants of the people who built it.

Lots of meaningful lessons to say the least.

We read it countless times. Every time they would look at the detailed drawings they’d find yet another thing they’d missed last time.

Here’s what I will always remember about it, unrelated to the way it was written. I bought the book when my oldest son was two and we had just moved into a neighborhood that had an old street with many old stores. Among them, a children’s bookstore with many gems and reasonably priced.

A year later, the bookstore closed and was sorely missed. Rent and maintenance costs were too high.

Many old stores in Vancouver had the same fate and so did many old, yet well-built heritage houses. Unfortunately, there was no timely arrival of well-meaning descendants of the people who built them to save them all…

The recent discussions about the closure of Stuart Wood Elementary brought back the memories of those days and much more.

A few days ago, many feared that the fate of the school was to be announced during a School Board meeting, but the said meeting was in fact a presentation of the available options.

The alternatives to what we have at the moment are many and interesting at that.

One is moving Stuart Wood Elementary to where the Beattie School of Arts now stands and thus following a chain of events that imply a massive shuffling of students between many schools. Or we could renovate it to bring it up to a modern standard and take it from there.

The first has been met with resistance from students, parents and teachers for many good reasons.

The other, which implies a series of serious renovations to the existing Stuart Wood building, a designated heritage building and presently owned by the City of Kamloops, brings out many important issues as well.

Some necessary modifications, such as an external fire escape, are inapplicable due to the heritage designation (though some believe that they could be done nonetheless,) and removal of asbestos can be potentially harmful if not done right. And yes, renovations are expensive. Very.

As it stands now, the school is not suitable for what a school should offer. There is restricted parking for staff members, which could be a serious issue should an emergency vehicle be needed at the school, there is no access for disabled students, staff or parents, and some of the students bathrooms are, simply put, scary to some of the young students. Dark and moldy can do that.

If these problems could be solved, and others too (increased enrollment numbers sound good only on paper when a school is not suitable for increased numbers,) the bright side is that Kamloops would maintain a beautiful heritage building that has long served the community and has seen many generations of students graduate and bidding goodbye to its unique Doric columns proudly guarding one of the entrances.

Another alternative proposed by one of the school trustees, Annette Glover, is to move the students from Stuart Wood to Lloyd George (thus make the latter bi-lingual once again,) so that children residing in the downtown area will have access to a community school.

With options abounding and no solution yet, here’s the most important thing of all: every community needs a school. More so, it needs a school that children can walk to.

Whether we are parents of students from any of these schools, downtown residents or not, we should agree that a community school is not something we should let go.

As it stands now, Stuart Wood Elementary is the only English-speaking school in the downtown area and it is not a school of choice, but one that serves downtown residents, including many low-income ones whose options go from limited to very limited should a community school disappear.

Yet renovating and keeping it as a school takes a back seat to the vital issue this closure has brought forth: the possible disappearance of a community school. That, we cannot and should not allow.

When we lose a community school, we fail our children. Let’s not.

Places Like That

By

On June 1, 2014

In Environment, Life Stories, Self-improvement

CirclesThe lady you met in downtown Bella Coola said don’t drink the water by the petroglyphs unless you want to return, so I set out to not drink the water…

I didn’t. It was crystal clear and I didn’t.

I resisted the beauty of the emerald valley until the last day when we said goodbye. It was no longer worth resisting.
Countless cascades tumbled down every mountain like long white arms grabbing the very edges of my heart pulling it all in like one does a drawstring bag. Inside, all the joy I did not let out fully during our trip to Bella Coola.

I found reasons not to, you see… It’s too far, too isolated, too this or that. But that never works. Because…

It’s beautiful.

It’s peaceful.

It’s a world apart…

It’s a world that calls you to it and if you’re not careful you’ll answer its mermaid song.

…
GiftIt matters less that I didn’t drink the water. In a rainforest, the mist envelops you and you breathe it in. You don’t need to drink the water, you breathe it and then you realize its primal call is already tying your heart to that mossy path in the woods that you followed because you wanted to know where the place came from, how it all started and how people lived back then.

Simply, you find out… you listen and find out.

The old man sitting by the river, rubbing his hands in delight as the young fishermen tango with the fast moving river in their aluminum dinghies, tells of the simple life. It still is, yet many years after the white people came, many things have changed. As always, some for the better and some for the worse.

Back then it was dugout canoes that slipped as if on ice on the shiny surface of a river that misleads the ones who don’t know its powers.

Back then they were still as connected to the land as they are now.

Back then, the river was swollen with fish and the ocean too.

Back then there was a glacier on top of one of the guardian mountains. The old man points to where the glacier was. Gone now.

The next morning, the lady at the small gas station says the same. She came to homestead here 35 years ago, the glacier was shining blue like a droplet of sky, now sorely missing.

PeekingYou know you’ve heard this story before. Worlds disappearing, worlds we take for granted. You know it’s not fair. You know it’s a privilege that you could be here.
You know you’ll be back, though you did not drink the water. In fact you’ll return because of that.

 

 

portraitYou’ll return because you want to drink it. To know more, to understand more and to cherish more.

The journey will have been a humbling one. So much to learn, so much to understand about simplicity, beauty, new beginnings and resilience. About yourself.

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