Slip sliding away

Wiping the last vestiges of cacao from my lips as the car pulls into our home. Heaving the bags of laundry carrying memories of spaghetti stains, dubonie, corn chips, and too few cloths worn for a week out, indicates success. Thoughts of crusty colleagues, and endless work projects creep into my mind during prayer while away, pleading with Christ this summer for a break, what I have learned is his intent of teaching me to discipline my mind. Life's been so good for so long I've become lazy, real lazy, in spirit, mind and soul. Forgot how to memorize scripture, no wonder vagaries reside in my head, tossing it this way and that like my mother sizes up cabbage at the grocery store. Away from idleness life begins, first in your brain, then the body follow.
Vast valley of greenery disguises the anxiety breaking the surface of my heart, as my head pounds against the waves needing to relieve, what, years of conformity to someone I never was. They say it's too late to rejig in your 5th decade, it can't be too late to be honest. Out in the wilderness is where I feel sane, at peace, out of touch with society and in touch with me. Me, what a concept, I plead my students to reveal, create, imagine, what the best of themselves is, and I face them desperate to get out, but my good conscious, duty, obligation and patronage, and responsibility to my mortgage, inanimate objects keep me from "loafing" - defined beautifully in The Razor's Edge, by Maugham, a character named Larry, 20 years of age, born at the turn of the 1900 century, that yearns to 'loaf', read 10 hours a day to become learned in his realm, to breath British history, taste its literature, feel the curves of Renaissance, and conquer the Greek God's, instead of being indoctrinated by a courses that contorts, and asphyxiate the last vestiges of our creativity at University.
Lying on a beach towel absorbed by the Somerset Maugham, I recall the first time I read, truly read 14 novels in a row, Jeffery Archer,  dodging work, my parents, boyfriend and rowing commitments. My first addiction, words, 26 letters necking, pecking, massaging one another, bringing tears, screams, revolts, a satisfaction like no other.....and don't say sex...regrets have weights.
Quiet nights, listening to squires drop bombshells, pine cones, hunting and gathering for winter feasts as the National Camping Parks close, leaving an even further peace without the intrusion of late night profane neighbors that didn't get passed the "F" section of Webster's dictionary and under the influence of bad beer, as Hal would say, they played with fire, the earliest invention to keep man warm, entertained with a stick, and drawing one's name in the sand, over and over again.
Sun lathered our bodies with warmth, caressing the endless nerves soothing years of under sleep, overwork, adrenaline junky, and the need to please all, feed all emotionally, psychologically, etc.
Each dip in the lake took layers of undealt with bullying releasing it into the waters, feeling lighter by the day. While others frolicked watching clouds crest the mountains forming shapes of animals, fairy tales, and fantasies kept me occupied.
With my parents reading, sleeping, beating me at cards, and wondering about further vacations, it was lovely to be in their presence, listen to their lives, over and over again, I never tire of it. Delicate movements, motions, once tight and precise, take time to form, yet sharp minds catch us watching them, caring to much. Don't do this, be care about that, "Stop pestering me, I'm not dead."

July 1st. Learning Patriotism

July 1st comes and goes and do we as Canadians' truly honour our country, well think again. We ventured down to Bowness Park and found the UN of Calgary. Large gatherings of Islam's, Jews, Nigerians, Somalians, Filipino's to name a few of the clans gathered to celebrate this day. Throughout our walk some were singing O'Canada amongst themselves while others quietly displayed our countries flags while others still others had face painting with maple leafs, and all enthralled to be in a beautiful park with extended family. You know what we didn't see, my family, with my extended family, that was so common when we were younger. Aunts, uncles, cousins, playing an assortment of games, eating cake first our course, then watermelon, spitting the seeds as far as we could, skipping my aunts tomato aspic, moving right into egg, cucumber and ham and cheese sandwiches, hot dogs cooked over open flames, and smores. No the absence of those of us that immigrated one to two generation ago was gone.
The question begs to be asked, are the new immigrants teaching us old timers how to live again. I think so.
My step son is dating a Filipino and twice a year they gather in large numbers to celebrate life, participate in the play egg toss, dress and run games, walk like an Egyptians four to a board, and dance the Zumba. I've never laughed so much, had so much joy and seen so much inclusion.
We decided right there and then to meet as our extended family, as we used to.

I thank the new immigrants who rekindled our family values, beliefs, and how to gather with our kin.

Finding Truth

I recently heard a podcast on NPR about a police unit in Denmark that decided to change how they were tracking boys that went missing in 2012. It all began when a distraught couple called the police station to inquire of their missing son, within 3 months 23 boys were missing. All had gone to ISIS. Originally they asked questions of the local Mosque, and this only sent the media into overdrive and the members of their community into a lack of comprehension and hatred grew quickly. The leaders of the Mosque were as equally upset about the boys and together they devised a system to begin inquiring.

Torlive and Allen, Danish police officers, got a hold of several of the boys who had returned from ISIS and simply asked them in for coffee. Coffee? No arrests, no questions, simply coffee.  When their trust had been established within months more and more boys intending on going overseas began showing up on their doorsteps. It was a 24 hours shift.
I call it the Complementary Shift. Instead of inundating teens and young adults with queries, they decided to allow the boys to fill in the gaps, regardless if they believed them, they took them at face valued and their community started to rebound.
The crime against Muslim's decreased, the bombardments of comments in schools about Islamic cultures declined. Did they save everyone ones, was their no hate, no, but they had found in the face of adversity that Care, Love, Understanding and admitting wrong brought humans of all races together.

Here is my challenge. Watching the hate crime against the blacks in the U.S. rise daily. Wouldn't it be past time that American police precincts begin to train their officers to do the same. Approach every pulled over vehicle with questions, instead of accusations. Form bonds between police officers and the communities they work in, opportunities for people to have coffee together. To begin to comprehend what each one is fearful of, dreading when they drive home, yearning in their lives, assisting one another instead of alienating one another.

Trump has an opportunity to speak about how they yearn for All American's to be Great, and truly include All American's. When I head the divisive advertisements coming out of the Trump Campaign, I am angered that All American's aren't demanding that he begin to see that if he truly yearns for a leadership role he can't alienate the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Women, and live in a world where he doesn't have to face poverty, homelessness, drug issues. A true leader is able to walk with his people when they are at their lowest, lead from the front and be able to nudge those that need support from the back.

All I hear is a campaign of bigotry, defamation of character, slander and biases, that divide a nation. It allows the worst of all of us to come out, and it will. He will be left with a 330 million people hurting on such a level he has no means to support them.

How about a campaign where both candidates truly dedicate the next 4 months proving how they are going to make America Great by placing policies into place and were the money is going to come from. Not lofty empty promises and cartwheel out of control, simple health care, education, and social services that all American can attain. Offering opportunities for All American's to be heard, have open mics, at all levels of government, set up websites where citizens can make constructive contributions to their community. And make all civil servants accountable to the citizens we serve.

There isn't time for hatred, we have lives to change, minds to mold, body to heal, and soul to hold. American's deserve to Campaign that outlines goals, at all levels and a congress that is truly for the people, no American left behind.

Sunshine Coast Wonderlust

    
     Majestic blues penetrate our souls on our first moment of arrival. The district smell of the ocean pierces our nostrils as we turn away yearning to see the vista but escape its odors. The lapping of the waves eases the driving aches out of my neck and shoulder that have been stabbing for hours. With my parents riding side saddle their comments come as wafts in the wind, "Kathryn, your driving too fast and too close to the next car." I take pride in my driving expertise and believe the smoothness of the trip wasn't appreciated. We arrived in Hope, just in time for me to order some oatmeal, as 2 slices of cantaloupe wasn't going to satiate the simplest of souls. My father was always honest with his wishes and ordered a Big Mac as if it was the last one he'd ever order. My mother was a guessing game, she never liked what my father would order, but hesitated getting what she really wanted, this was her curse.

    We'd planned on taking highway 7 but then decided against it when the tourist guide in Abbotsford was greatly suggested that it would be "way....too....long... in her 20 year old wisdom...and besides she said, what for?" as if we'd lost our minds.

     We were to meander along the coastal route of Vancouver oohing and awing at all the homes architectural marvels yet that turn came and went along with the light house that never made itself present.

     Roberts Creek was truly a stones throw from the port up a lovely deeply forested road that appears on the map to be secluded, that is except for the hundreds of people that live here and are never seen. Each house is nestled into densely forested woods, shrew over in vast amounts of black berry bushes, holly and thistle. No home the same for in God's time their was choice, diversity and no universal paint that was on sale for home exteriors at the same time.

    With mom and dad nestled into the Adirondack chairs overlooking the ocean a few meters away Hal and I busied ourselves with unpacking. A stroll along the beach in high tide revealed tens of aqua,violet and mauve clam shells colors no canvas could duplicate, flowers hung from branches begging to be photographed and fifteen shades of green canopied the foliage. Nature had arrived, with contrasts to take us to the moon and back.

     We feasted on local fish, vegetables, and home bought cookies, our first of 40 days. I don't like to say that Hal and I gave up anything for Lent, for it is truly nothing in compared to what the Lord gave us, but perhaps to mention that we withheld from cookies, chocolate and cake and thus to indulge in a cookie was delightful, flavours burst forth that otherwise might have seemed mundane. Life was grand as we watched the sunset for hours from the upper balcony. The lapsing of the ocean gently caressing us to sleep at night, all was right in the world.

    
   

    

Bonded by Family

      

       I distinctly remember my mother being curt with a woman at Steinberg's when I was five. I recall looking at both of their faces and seeing how different their expressions were. From this day forward I observed how these abrupt tones, words and expressions affected me.

      Married to a man that has 4 siblings that have all done very well either in business and the oil scene, I have observed how differently their children see the world. Money does change things and perhaps the best word to describe it is, entitlement. I don't say this lightly and I am not judging yet when some parents present money to children, and inform them of their difference to others in wealth, their minds form differently than those that see the financial freedom their parents have yet are not entitled to it, or are taught how it was achieved, through hard work.

    My mother was brought up in an upper middle family and I recall her telling me that her cousins had to live with her because of their financial difficulties. Wouldn't we see this as a blessings as kids, more time with friends, and family. My older siblings informed me that our mother had told them that they were different than others, and that they were special, more so than other children. I never heard this message and as a Christian I would have had to rebuke it, as I've always believed in at a young age that we are all EQUAL, everything single last one of us. Rich, poor, fat, slim, gay, heterosexual, educated and ignorant, are EQUAL.

     We all want to be loved and humans will gravitate to people, and circumstances that will fulfill those needs if they are not met at home. I was the child that manifested what my siblings were feeling. I became quite ill in high school, eventually being hospitalized. I blamed the world, myself, my parents, and God for something I truly couldn't comprehend. Why was I in need to control my world. My world was unravelling around me and the only way I knew how to hang on was to control my eating and exercise. I had no real interest in either before, yes, I danced, swam and played basketball, yet I wasn't the star nor did I have any interest in being one. I was the kid who was athletically gifted without the competitive drive. What was striking to me was my parents lack of interest in anything I did by high school.

     The one sport I did finally entered at the end of high school took me so far away from who I really was, it was devastating for all involved. I was desperate to fit in and be with my older sister, and to her unfortunate timing, she was trying to strike out on her own. I was floundering,  I lost my compass, so I followed her University path and her sports. Destroying our relationship that I so yearned, I couldn't see the writing on the wall, and my parents weren't strong enough to say NO!. Most of my friends had gone to different high schools and I wasn't one to beg...thus although I enjoyed high school I wasn't focusing on my future, I was stuck in a vortex.

     My parents had their lives and it seems we were to somehow fit in. Both my parents worked, and so many times I had wished my mother was at home with me, but it was never to be. She was happy with her career, or at least that is what I thought, but there was always something lingering. She spoke often of other Aunt, neighbors, friends back in Montreal, categorizing them as wealthy, unproductive, fat or lazy. I recall in high school asking her why she did this, she never answered. My oldest sister was privy to far more of this banter than I and she became a manifestation of what she thought my parents wanted. Success to her was being slim and making lots of money. This couldn't be further from the truth, what I valued, and what we had been brought up with, and what I believed my parents to value as Christians.

     They brought us up like many families going to the cabin in the Laurentian's during the summer, and on week-ends to ski and hike. We moved out west and something changed dramatically, the distances were metaphorically and literally larger between homes, schools, work and eventually our family. By the time my oldest sister hit high school, I could our family was separating. She sought out avenues to attain love, then my next sibling did something else, by the time I came along, my parents thought that by the time I was 13 I was an adult, and thus no curfews, and few discussions. I was to behave as an adult with a child's mind, too scared to ask for permission to come home at a certain time. I began restraining myself in all aspects of my life, I bought my own clothes, I worked from the age of 12 and I didn't want to rely on them to heavily. Too bad for me I was the kid that yearned to held, loved, communicate to. I loved having discussions  at the dinner table, and those disappeared too.

   I recall asking my parents to "ground' us, they looked at me rather perplexed, "Why would we need to do that? You are all so well behaved?" How blind were they....did they not care, not see what was transpiring in front of their eyes. We needed boundaries to feel safe, boundaries to know someone loves us, and cares where we are? I got scared and my anxiety went through the roof. Weight dropped off my tiny frame long before I controlled my food. Several of my friends parents asked me if I had 'Anorexia?' I didn't know what it meant so I responded No!"

     Fast forward 30 years, still observing the world and finding that the same answers that held truths then, are still holding truths today. My sibling still thinks that success is found in being slim and finically wealthy. For 30 years our voices have been strained by the bonds of family, she not realizing that slimness and wealth are merely outside appearances, real success is what lies inside of each of us. How much we have pushed love into this world, sleep each night knowing we've changed a life for the better, seen the wonders in a tiny flower nestled in a rock, looked out over the ocean and felt small, worked for a cause that assisted another's life, and sought out family members in good time and bad. For family should never been bound they should be bonded by unconditional love.


   

The Perfect Day

 

 Seattle, 2016, February 27th, 2016. The three day conference was behind us as we woke up on Saturday to mixed skies with wild abandoned notions of what could be.
Like kids canoeing at the cabin, anything could happen, we could capsize with the joys of splashing under the canoe, making echo sounds or hanging onto the top stretching our arms across the bottom till we thought they might truly lengthen.
This was it, we had no plans and for me that is truly a rare occasion. I let the day take me rather than guiding, or shall we saw domineering what was to pass. Hand in hand we strolled uptown from the hotel into unknown territory in search of Hal's first cup of Joe.
Sugar Bakery, wafts of pastry filled our lungs as we entered, stretching our necks to see croissants, lavender shortbread cookies, decadent jam filled crumbles, cinnamon rolls dripping with maple sugar, macadamia cookies, and palmers decked in chocolate, and heart shaped shortbread with raspberry filling and eggs-spinach and mushroom quiche, Hal's favorite. My misto was made to perfection as we watched the frothing of the milk while our eyes wandered to a coconut cake creation just feet away.
Scents lingered like good perfume walking up the side streets lined with mauve, purple and pink hydrangeas. A feast, a cornucopia of colors as azalea met our eyes three houses up, aqua in color the veranda had the perfect French swing on it, tempting us to try it out.

Hand in hand two content kittens absorbed he heat of the sun working from one park bench to another till we reached the Arboretum. World trees exhibited, cared, and nurtured by horticulturalists year round. We meandered along pathways through a labyrinth of forests from the coastal range to Japanese gardens hosting lanterns, sand raked patterns, and ornamental trees bursting with five star flowers painted by hand.

Oh...and ah....were met at every turn, mother nature has never failed to intrigue us, if only humans had the capacity to exhibit all their creativity, what an amazing world this would be.

What goes up must come down, we had ventured down to the gardens and the hike up through glorious communities where every home was a masterpiece unto itself allowed our eyes to capture the curtains, doorways, fences, furniture and garden features for some time. A local watering hole had taken the bottom half of a home opening it up to a tiny restaurant/grocer of craft beer/ and a café all in one. People flowed out as the sun warmed the chairs outside. Doffing our coats, we too relished the welcome atmosphere of the lovely yellow café.

Climbing higher we found a watering hole for Hal to taste yet another craft beer, hopvine IPA. His smile, savoury delight is enough to send goose bumps up me spine. Up and down Capital Hill district enticed into artisan shops, boutiques for wine tasting and consignments clothiers. Within three blocks there are 12 count em, 12 coffee shops are thriving. Starbucks, being incepted in Seattle has more of a market, yet all of them seem to be doing well.

Down the backside of Seattle, back down it spine to the waters edge to be met by succulent food at "Black Bottle", hosting Gastro pub food, this menu was eclectic. Hal started with another craft beer, a stout no less, for our last evening and I had a glass of Chardonnay, a shocker as it doesn't normally pass my lips. Spanish fried olives blasted our taste buds right out of left field, ensuit, chorizo and penn cove clams, Hal was silenced for long moments as his tongue, lips, and old factory nerve sought out what flavor concoction this could possibly be. Asking the waiter too many times what spices were in our food was becoming obvious, his chuckle enticed us to keep asking questions. Two chicken breast on long skewers deep fried on a bed of collars was divine. And the piece de resistance was the lemon curd ricotta cake lavender crust. Died and gone to heaven!!! We didn't want the evening to end, we gazed into one another's eyes trying to find the reason...there was none.....let the day unfold while miracles abound.

Home

The sanctity of home is one of the most precious spaces that exist. We often treat it with less dignity than we should, for the purposes it serves are unsurmountable. Firstly, after a long day away, it opens its arms to all that arrive, and provides warmth, comfort, silence, a resolve.

After completing, The Shining Houses, by Alice Munro, a short story and a must read. I have come to comprehend that home presides in some people more than human connections. "Husbands may come and go but a home of 50 years, well that is just where I know things are." I learned more about my home through her than I'd imagined.

Renovations are my love and our home has lost walls, rugs, flooring, and for some this is a process, for me it is a love of creating a space for energy to be recuperated, a reading room where language filters, fills and creates fanciful escapes, with light streaming in, what could be more Shakespearean than creating my next masterpiece.

Going against builders molds, our home has become a place for ingenuity to take hold, we've placing laminate on a wall, not the floor, take that. And, we are placing windows in walls that aren't one the outside, simply allowing more light to shine through rooms. Wooden doors have glass in them now and a hanging door to place paintings on is our motto.

Instead of large garden beds, we've been using large, huge tubs to grow: carrots, beets, kale, kale and more kale, onions, garlic and tomatoes. So the next time someone tells you to do something a la carte, tell them your going ROUGE.

We are presently in Seattle for a week, staying in apartments that were refurbished into a hotel, and our bathroom is 2 rooms blown into one, closets with all our clothes is adjacent to the washroom and to the shower. Saves time, space and it is so cool. Our living quarters are small, quaint and unique with a feel of 1950 in the window décor along with our chairs, painting, and the fancy intercom system to order Hal's beer from the bar, 4 floors down. The best part, it is 4 blocks from the conference center and 2/3 less the price. Free Starbucks coffee in the morning and by the speed I'm typing at nothing can stop me now.