Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Motherhood Page 12 of 18

Lessons Sprouting Out Of Small Gardens. Eight.

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On August 16, 2015

In Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

FlavoursIt is by no one’s fault in particular that the garden this year is of Lilliputian dimensions and rather drab looking. A far cry from last year’s. But such is life. The road reveals itself as you go and gardens have a way of teaching humbleness. Lesson one.

Like parenting. I said it before. The parallel is striking. The temptation to dismiss the less glamorous results and expect excellence cannot lead to growth of any kind. We’d be stalled in deciphering the meaning of it all. Hiccups give a measure of worthiness. Struggles. Lesson two.

Despite its size and abysmal appearance (tours by request, not that anyone would, and no, there is no fee other than accepting the immutable truth that dandelions are not weeds) a garden is a book to read and learn from. Small print like this year’s in particular.

PagesHaving never read a garden makes no difference. Learning happens as you step outside in early morning and clumps of dry grass become artesian fountains; instead of water, grasshoppers. They waltz in the morning air, so at home in their long graceful jumps you start wondering in whose garden you all are after all… Be grateful, they seem to say, even a small garden can be shared. Lesson three.

 

TeenyLife is always to celebrate. Dead quiet is scary and sad. Gardens are supposed to buzz, I learn as I crunch my way through towards the tiny pickling cucumbers and miniature beans bushes. Feet want it soft, but the roughness reminds of hot summer air and water too precious to waste on too hungry a lawn to make a difference after all. It’s never about my slight discomfort, visual, physical or otherwise. We’re here to sharpen our sight se we can see the big picture… Sharp sight goes well with softened hearts. Lesson three.

Tiny curled cucumbers befriend leaves that keep them safe from the hot son. What if this garden and its humble harvest was all I had to feed my family? What if? What if no one wasted a bite ever again? What would the ripple effect look like? Humbleness, again. So much to say thank you on any given morning. Lesson four.

Keep on reading gardens. Too small you think? Too dry? They never are… You’ll read in a handful of dirt you pick up, in a leaf that sits in the sun but never burns to a crisp as I would, in the bugs that crawl on the dark green kale… Mysteries. Can you see? Hear? Save time for being where you are, for the one blink that teaches you about how fast everything goes. Lesson five.

still thereBloomAs if the garden is not small enough, the bugs make it smaller by eating the kale leaves. Former green lush tongues spike the air as empty stems, sorry looking and slightly confused. Who’s the thief? The nighttime bug show is on every night. I sleep, they crunch and munch their way through the only leaves that made it to full size. We’re only as alive as the world, visible and invisible. Light and dark, up and down, gifts and plundering… Accept it all, choose to not be bothered but enlightened by learning that you’re given challenges as you go. Lesson six.

Boys burst out in the sun, sleepy faces, bug kisses on arms and legs, hugs… reminders. They are one day older, one day closer to learning that it is all in the choices we make. To feel the sun pinching your cheeks, to smell the summer air, to learn that grasshoppers hear with their tummies and to never take anything for granted… not even a small enough garden. Lesson seven.

Orange sunsnever give upI pick calendula orange suns. They’ll become golden oil for winter days. I pick lemon balm and mint for tea, basil and tarragon. Small and fragrant. Life abounds. If only I remember to see it. Through the lenses of my Lilliputian garden where sunflowers match the theme. Small. Despite all, it grew. Barely reaching knee height, my only sunflower never considered quitting reaching for the sun. Lesson eight. 

Consideration Is The Only Way To Go

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On July 22, 2015

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

Initially published as a column in the AM News on Friday, July 17, 2015. 

then and thereYesterday we landed on Denman Island and luck had it that we got a campsite by the ocean in what could easily be called ‘slice of paradise’. Night came and with it clouds and a bit of rain. Might as well, it is not only needed in our bone dry province but it really suits the ocean well.

We had dinner and listened to the waves. Lights flickered on the islands nearby and on the sky that was occasionally cleared of clouds.

A light came on at the site opposing ours. Then musical instruments, and an impromptu band complemented our night by the ocean. A group of musicians, most of them calling themselves ‘old enough to know that song’ who meet every year on the island for a couple of weeks, managed to add a touch of magic to the night.

For two hours or so, they provided us all with music and laughs. It happens when there you can count the sites on the fingers of your hands. We got to chatting and found out about other campsites on nearby islands where partying takes a different path.

Many young people bring enough alcohol and recreational drugs to party hard, which makes it noisy and unpleasant for the rest of the campers there. No softly sung tunes that invite in, we’re told, but raucous and uncomfortable.

It made me think father then just camping. It’s everywhere and it has to do with everything we do, from everyday life activities we have to do, to the recreational ones. Some people live with consideration towards others, while others live for themselves and do not bother think whether their actions impend other people in any way. Everything we do impacts others and it takes a good deal of brain power trying to figure out why some simply do not care.

It shouldn’t be this way with anything.

Raising our children in a way that helps them learn that everything they do might prevent a lot of heartache down the road.

As we drove through a handful of small communities along the northern part of Vancouver Island, we got to talk to a few people and learned a lot. Many communities have been heavily and negatively impacted by the industries that provided work for most of the people for enough years to make people dependent on it, but recent changes in laws (think the last decade or so) created work vacuums that saw the same communities dismantled and people scattered in search of means to survive.

The story repeats itself at every level. Local people are employed by certain industries (mainly logging here) but often times they see things that oppose their communities’ beliefs, yet speaking up might mean job loss and inability to provide for their families.

Just the same, residents can wake up with chemicals being sprayed way too close to their only source of water and no accountability for what could mean health issues down the road for people who form too small a community to have a loud enough voice to be heard.

These are beautiful places, just like the rest of our province and country, where nothing deleterious to people or nature should ever occur. Not if people would live with consideration for others.

People’s efforts to save beauty and the pristine while also allowing the necessary work-providing industries is the same in every community, be it large or small, except that in the small ones everything is more visible.

With enough consideration and less greed, everyone would have a fair chance to live a life they’d earn with decent work and enjoy the places they choose to live in. Consideration cannot be achieved by secrecy or governments that do not consider the impact of their laws on the very people they govern, but by openness that allows for opinions to be shared and consequences to be understood and if negative, prevented.

such isConsideration allows for joy as well. Whether it concerns working, vacationing, driving (rather shocking to realize how many tailgaters live in our very province), building a new home or an industrial project, activities that people undertake, individually or as a group, should be taken through the necessary filter of consideration and respect.

Lack of it benefits a handful, while its presence benefits all. Choosing the latter and educating ourselves and our children in that way of living makes all the sense.

Sliced Mango… And Yes, That

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On May 29, 2015

In Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood

brightThat morning the boys asked for mango for breakfast. ‘Cut in squares Mom, you know how you do that, with the peel still on.’ I do. Squares. Orange yellow, a colour so deep that it draws you in. It smelled fresh and it reminded me of summer mornings, of this year, of last year, of so many summers we leave behind never to look at again because life takes us too fast, too far, too rushed.

They ate the mango, square by square. Yellow mustaches, peels left on the side of the plate.

Then it was time for school. We walked to the bus stop, little boy and I, today’s book ready. Peter Pan. A world of boyish everything, following swiftly after Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. ‘Read, Mom, please.’ Yes.

We snuggle, the sun budges in like it should on this mango-bright morning, and we read. I read for both of us.

We get off the bus and the book is not done. We walk and I read… ‘When a baby laughs for the first time, a fairy is born.’

‘You know, I caught your first laugh. Your brother’s too’… Little boy looks at me, smiles. ‘Really, you did? How?’ I knew it will come, so I waited… and they did. Shy and small like a seedling finding its way towards the world. those first laughs make the world I open my eyes to every morning. So much grew out of them since…

Big little boy and I do school later on. We’re outside on the sun-drenched porch, then in the garden, picking things up, measuring, observing, learning. ‘Mom, I love this. How we talk like this.’ I do too. We’re fortunate. Seedlings to grow… We go for a hike, we breathe in sunshine and make it ours. To have and to hold.

LeftThat night little boy looked straight into my eyes for a brief few seconds before another hug laced his sweet smelling hair all over my face. ‘I don’t want to grow up Mom, because when I do you will grow old and die one day, and I do not want that. I cannot live without you.’

I smelled his hair. His words, like summer birds touched by a sudden winter chill, sat silent in between us, cradled between two deep breaths. Where to from here?

‘It’s a long way away my love…’

It sounded almost ridiculous. I am never ready for this. Big little boy once said the same, a few years ago and a few times since. It chilled me the same and I mumbled the (now you know) ridiculous ‘oh, i will be so old by then…’

Hugs fix something like this. Soul patches of some sort, pain over joy and joy over pain, like a game where you keep building wondering if the tower will topple soon. But what if you don’t? What if you know that it does topple at some point, but you’ll build another. And then another.

boyA game is all, children most of all know that. Thoughts come and go, like river waves lapping over shores. But a river is not just the waves. It’s the many shades of blue and green, it’s the murkiness, it’s the breeze and the skies of blue that ask for a bit of peace so that a mirror can be for a bit, it’s the sound of birds that live alongside and keep alive because of it and more.

The game is real.

You can’t complain that time does not deal a fair hand. You take what you get and make the best of it. Now is what we have. Now is ours. Mine, yours. Time is not to worry about, because you should know, time is what we tell it to be.

Time gameWe deal time our own hand you know, and a measure of worthiness. It’s a game, but it’s real.

Here’s Why. Happy Mother’s Day

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On May 10, 2015

In Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

time...You may think me crazy but I really did not mind this morning’s quarrel so much, you know. I did not want the day to be perfect, so the loudness and messy bits made it just right.

You’ll ask in amazement, two pairs of brown loving eyes, puzzled yet again by what I say. ‘Mom, that’s crazy, how could that be?’

It is. Well, think about it. You set the table, as you did other days, with plates and cutlery and cups that are mismatched. If some days they all match it is by chance alone, not by design. No one should aim for that and I am hoping you’ll know that as you go and you’ll see the usefulness and the freedom of letting go of perfection. It really does not exist. Worse yet, people keep chasing it, though we are shown time and time again that perfection is but a myth…

That plates and cups and glasses and cutlery don’t match is only fitting, you see. Cups and plates and glasses break (my Mom used to say that is good luck) and cutlery migrates in the back yard for digging, playing games of getting lost on islands (glad the cutlery comes in handy) so dwindling numbers of each, that’s a great thing.

Mom? Really?

youReally. I will explain. They remind us of the temporary. Breaking, losing, getting lost, fixing, letting go, regret, it’s all there. Nothing lasts forever. Time alone does, and we do not own it. Rather, it owns us. So we need to remember, because if we do, we will never take each other for granted, nor will we forget about what’s important.

The quarrel made us all sit down a wee bit longer, and we talked about love, trust, the uniqueness of each of you and the imperfections brought out by togetherness if you dare to step in it the way we used to at our secret place in Vancouver where muck was up to our knees and we loved it so.

Remember when we got lost and the tide was coming in and we cut through tall reeds and they were rough and dry but at the same time they sand a song I will never forget… Time is now, they whispered, be here… Now. It hurts at times, you may be scared and overwhelmed, but most of all you will learn to trust and hope that you will find the strength to take your loved ones to safe grounds… I did that time. I took you both to safe grounds, and we hugged, and for days I nursed the scratches on my legs and was grateful for each and every one of them. And the work is never done. It better not be…

It’s not the perfect days at the beach that I will remember but that one… the day I knew I’ll never be anything but grateful for the gift of time with you and the honour to guide you.

The peas in the garden have pushed their green heads through dirt and the sun kisses them again and again. I celebrate that not because of the peas, but because weeks from now you will each pluck green crunchy pods and eat them and the sun will kiss your heads again and again and that will remind me of the fullness of life with you. It’s about beginnings, again and again, about hoping that I will learn to give you what you need most so you can grow to feed others from what you will become.

HeartsGratefulness. You taught me that. I will remind you of that.

For lunch you asked for miso soup. I had all ingredients but mushrooms. We sat down to eat and neither of you remarked they were missing. Mouthfuls of seaweed and noodles and laughing over silly things and there was nothing missing, really. Nothing at all.

It was then that I knew I had something else I will have to remind you of. That you’ll never have everything, no one does, so instead of mulling over what’s missing, taste what you have, share it with those you love and steep yourself in the moment that you have and will never come back, but know that the moment will become, I know that it will, the magic dust from which new growth will push out and become life…

GoldenHappy Mother’s Day my sons. It is because of you, all of this. That is why. You are the answer, and for that I am forever grateful.

Pink Helicopters To Go and Humbling Truth Bits

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On May 5, 2015

In Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

Pink wings‘I find them sometimes, Mama, aren’t they so nice?’

Little boy holds a pink helicopter in his hand as we walk hand in hand to school. ‘You can have it.’ So I will, my little one. It is morning, crisp and sunny, and his hand is warm and nestled in mine. I love the simple moment of just being here with him, I love it to no end, and the pink helicopter that comes with it.

‘It’s all natural colour, you know?’ I know, little one, and I celebrate that you can see the colours in the tapestry of rushed mornings. I do too. Let’s keep it that way.

Hug. I kiss the his forehead, he wraps his arms around me and I melt. He runs one way, I run another. Life unfolds.

I sit in the sun and write this down. Like putting extra wings on the pink helicopter, I build wings out of words. This day, like so many others, will be the kite I’ll fly under skies of blue and grey… Life with boys is miraculous. Tearing me apart at times with moods and sharp wills, strong as they can be as they grow, they won my heart a long time ago when I invited them to be part of my life. That makes the everyday dance worthwhile.

Every day adds more questions as we go. Do I know enough to help them understand the world? Do I know enough to guide them towards solid rather than illusory? Do I do it with fear or joy? I fly by the seat of my pants so often, wondering if that’ll wear them too thin and render them see-trough… and if yes, what will you see, should you look through? Inadequacies. Life is like that.

Inadequacies, imperfections, truth. They go together. Children know, and they braid it all, ever so elegantly, thoughtless in their innocence and trustful that we know the way better than they do. Truth is, we do not.

How then, do we find our way?

We feel it, as you feel your next step in the dark. Safe, solid ground, go. Shaky, unsafe, try again. Do we heed our own instincts enough to know when to stop? Hardly. How then, do we teach our children?… We jump in with both feet, splash, apologize too much, feeling too guilty for splashes we have no control over, remember to smile as we lose frowns and dry our tears, remember to breathe… Tying all of that with ribbons of fresh beginnings, learning that if you don’t show up, you’ll live with the regret of not daring to be present…

GiftsMy morning is gifted a sliver of laughter as I sit by the river with a friend. We talk about motherhood, the rushness that makes it all go fast, too fast… Do our children know enough before they show up for real life, by themselves? Do we? Do we give them enough to trust that they do? I am the lucky one, she says, my boys are still little, sheltered, and I am still saying good night with hugs and see their sleepy faces in the morning. There’s still time…

We sit by the river, watching its fast pace and listening to the morning. A duck is carried by the current, though it tries to swim against it. Don’t… Swim with it. Ha! As if I know how to. I know why we should swim with the current. Trust. Trust that it will all work out right. Don’t miss the sunshine, the breeze, the birds that glean beads of water as they brush over the surface with grace. Trust. Life is about trust and gratefulness.

Motherhood is what helps me see it as such. There’s beauty and wonder in every day of growing together. Little boy and big boy, struggling at times to be seen and heard and understood, refusing at the same time to see, hear and understand anyone else but themselves and me thinking how selfish… but truth is, if they don’t make enough room to hear their own voices and understand the heart echoes that sprout from them, how will they ever distinguish other people’s voices…

RedI am heading home. I know nothing more than I did this morning, but I know enough to make it through another day. A big little boy awaits so we can delve into another day of learning together. We do. Togetherness. Learning. School and more. And the pink helicopter will stay in the journal that has a red leather cover and a long leather tie that wraps around it to keep it all in, all together.

By now the struggling duck would’ve reached the shore, or would’ve understood the joy that comes from letting the river do its thing… It’s all about trust. And gratefulness. For the day, for the moment we are given and for knowing that it is never about right or wrong but about giving it all you’ve got; inadequacies, imperfections, and most of all, truth…

 

Mindfulness – Why I Walk This Path

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On April 28, 2015

In Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement

We walk to the bus in early morning, little boy and I, and I expect shivers. It has been chilly lately. Instead, the air feels warm, though with a touch of crispness.

Little boy plays with the purple marble he found yesterday just outside the school on the way to the library. ‘I like how perfectly round it is, Mama, and that it has something inside. It cannot be just glass…’ I smile and lock the very scene in my memory. Marbles, little boy with long hair shading his eyes from morning sun, squinting and smiling, noises around and the awareness of living that moment as deep as one could. I can hear the morning.

We walk on the bus and I pull ‘The last of the Mohicans’, we have three more chapters to go. My voice reading the story is often sinking under the loud noise of the bus engine but little boy is paying close attention, his head close to mine. I see lilac bushes in people’s yards and I can almost smell them.

We read, approaching the last chapter… The end comes all too soon and unexpected. I read the last words, close the book and look out the window. There is a path that leads to a place I have to go see yet… A wild place in the middle of the city. I peek at little boy and his serious face. We are both silent.

‘That’s a sad ending, Mama.’

Yes it is. I tell him how movies nowadays have a happy ending but that is not an accurate description of life. Life has pockets of happiness, it has pockets of sadness, it has so much that happy ending is almost forgotten in the process of assessing the richness of it all, of every moment that passes by.

purpleflowingWe part ways and I walk home, passing by lilac bushes that smell heavenly, and listening to birds. On my left, a flower bed brims with with yellow and white petals suspended in sunny air. Birds and flowers, the whoosh of the city behind, thoughts of today. Mindfulness. Am I there? To think that I am forever prisoner to the moment would be belittling the experience. Instead, I think of my mindfulness as the pact I made with life a long time ago. To make it all worth it, every moment of it. If I do so, my thoughts of tomorrow, my actions, my words to my sons and my husband, to my friends, they all come from a place I can call my own. The only one I know. My life, the moments that build the path I am on.

I pass by lilacs and thoughts of gratefulness surface. I bring forth thoughts of childhood and so many things I can remember about lilacs. They guarded the steps from the house to the street, draping heavy with rain and sun, seeding today’s thoughts. I was there then, I am here now. A child then, now I have my own. I think of them as I walk uphill. My sons. What will make them grateful along the way? I have to teach them the way. It’s the path I build as I go, learning as I go. From lilac smells that remind me of who I am. Mindfulness.

sunI stoop over a perfect little sun: a dandelion. I like to eat fresh dandelion leaves in spring, I love the yellow umbrellas and will never understand why people call them weeds. At natural food stores you can buy dandelion tea, leaf or root. They are good liver cleansers. helping with detox, the word that buzzes around me nowadays. There is no magic solution. It starts with rethinking dandelions… Mindfulness, reason to never be idle in thought and reasoning.

I continue my speedy walk up the hill on the portion I loathe. It’s dusty and noisy from vehicles too big and engines that roar too loudly. If you drive, you drown the noise in music or news. If you walk like I do nowadays, the sounds are deafening. There is a lilac bush in bloom and I feel sorry for it. The air it draws its life from is dusty and dirty. Its air is mine too. If I walk, I see it. There are wrappers under bushes and the word ‘energy’ from one glares at me. No one wins.

I will soon walk up the last portion of my morning walk. It is quiet here and the city is behind me. I like belonging to a world that challenges me. There is so much to know about belonging in a world that does not comes with rules but with responsibilities. I am not alone. It is quiet and the air is hot, though it is not even 10 am.  Too hot. I think of what ails me, a world that we toast on both sides with incessant wants. We’ve learned to forget, to overlook, to conform. I want to remember, to mind, to speak up, if such is needed. It is, as we raise our children.

How do I think of mindfulness? I think of it as an ability to see details, to be where I am, to know the consequences of my actions on the world around, be it people, my garden, my writing.

If I am mindful, I stand for the truth and I face myself in hope to grow, to understand my world, to live in it, to never just brush and wonder whose life I am living after all.

The day unfolds hot and windy. The radish plants are tiny but bold and today I planted peas too. The boys play, squabble, I munch of thoughts of what is life about anyway and I think to myself that if I keep being in the moment the answer will come. Persistence pays.

sun is...The sunset is a fiery one. Dollops of flames blue and orange and purple engulf the sky and we all stand on the deck and sigh. This is very beautiful.

I am here, seeing the sunset. Truck drive loud and speedy on the road nearby and I resent the noise. Because I want to hear the sunset. For a second, I quit the moment I am in to immerse myself in one where I’d stand to see the sunset that can he heard too.

Then I am back. I am here now. Mindfulness. Today I got to know more.

Why I Write What I Write

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On April 21, 2015

In Armchair Mayor Column, Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood

Initially published as a column in the AM News.

Last year in May the boys and I hiked to Gibraltar rock near Paul Lake. It was sunny, we hoped to see chipmunks and we also love the view from up there, all perfect reasons to venture up the trail. What we did not know was that on the way up we would spot some fairy slipper orchids.

butterI am far from being a wildflower expert but I succumb in fascination to any wildflower I encounter. Every one of them is a reminder of the magic that unfolds constantly around us and we are rushed enough to ignore. Kamloops has a richness of gentle beauty, I came to learn as we hiked on many hills in spring and early summer. From yellow spring bells to buttercups, to the bright yellow symphony of arrow-leaf balsamroot flowers covering an entire area, and the gracious mariposa lily, it’s a carousel of wonder that will never stop, unless…

I guided the boys to kneeling gently close enough so they can see their absolute grace but careful enough to not harm them in any way. They did so, but giggled also, pleasured to see my penchant for wildflowers, again, knowing they will likely see them framed as photos in our home.

yellowAnother time while hiking in Valleyview, we came across yellow cactus flowers. It was a first that left us breathless. It was a most serene yellow and a most delicate collection of petals, surrounded by the sharp prickles of the cactus plant.

I went back a few days later to see them again. And then again, until they withered and became dust. I took photos of the flowers and the green bees collecting the pollen. Yes, green and shiny, as if the bees I’d known forever just decided to get new armour. Quite the scene.

The landscape from there was beautiful. The Thompson was winding its way through the wind-carved hills on both sides and distant mountains in shades of blue and green stole my gaze. The cloud-stitched sky was the kind of intense blue you feel happy for no reason just by looking at it. No reason to hurry, not even one… And nothing taken for granted, not even one thing.

Little sunsI often get reminded of my first impressions of Kamloops and the areas that surround it. It was hot and dusty that day and I missed the green lush Coast even before getting out of the car. But I was also of the opinion that every place has its secret beauty, if only we are patient enough to see it, curious to follow new paths and keep our eyes open to both large and tiny worlds that we come across.

Since moving to Kamloops we have been discovering places and their treasures, and countless times I have been reminded of how no place is ever devoid of nature magic.

I was recently humbled while hiking on the rather stark looking hills guarding the lake near Savona. Nothing was stirring and it seemed that every living thing had fled long before we got there. A few gnarly looking trees and the clumps of tired cacti made me think of old cowboy movies where bones littered the ground, which was, of course, cracked and dry. Yet a sweetly sounding bird song shattered that deadly silence and filled the space with life.

Then, out of nowhere, four mountain goats appeared on the cliff above us. They stopped, studied us with as much interest as we studied them, and continued their trek over cliffs, gazing back at times. Magic was there, I was all too blinded by expectations to see it. Tiny purple flowers lined the path every now and then and, as we made our way back, the sky was alight with orange glowing clouds. A symphony of some sort, just in a different tone.

And yet, all is not ideal not when we set out on our adventures. On some portions of the River Trail we notice bags of dog poo left behind, and they are more than just eyesores. they spell the kind of ‘I do not care right now’ that has no place in the world that shelters beautiful blue skies, gracious flowers, and countless wonders that are so selflessly shared with us humans.

As we walk along the river or on the shores of Kamloops Lake, we see various garbage bits, from cans and bottles to plastic bags and other plastic debris, new and old, equally sad and depressing. We collect as much as we can and repeat as necessary. An endless pit of despair really, yet coupled with an ever growing love for the world that so patiently allows us to be.

More so, since my sons have been born, I have been discovering the world through their eyes, skipping a few steps ahead trying to imagine what the world will be like when they grow up, striving to keep it as beautiful as we have it now, as worry-free as I once believed it to be when I was first opening my eyes to it, and for all of that, no effort is too small or insignificant.

starOn any given day, whether I peek at the dance of the magpies in the front yard, or kneeling to observe the almost surreal beauty of a flower ever so gentle yet sturdy enough to withstand the wildest weather elements, or paddling on lakes and windy canals that feed them, I am constantly reminded of the reasons for writing about topics many consider uncomfortable or less pleasant, and for making certain life choices that allow me to look in my sons’ eyes and say ‘I did what I could, to the best of my knowledge’, and also to immerse myself in the most beautiful and wildest of places knowing that I see their worthiness but I am also responsible to preserve it.

TenderThe world… It is never ours to trample over, but live in gently and pass it on, because truth is, we are alive and well only as long as our world is. And that is reason enough to do what I do, and reason enough to try to convince others to do the same.

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