They are not there.

Back in the summer, I returned to the neighbourhood where I spent a big part of my growing up years to discover that our neighbour's house was no longer there. The foundation was there and the front door, complete with the numbers, and the front steps were still entact, but the rest of it was simply not there anymore. The chunk of front step evoked the essence of what had been and, as always happens when I come across an empty space where a structure once stood, I had that feeling of air sweeping through in a way that it hasn't for about 100 years. The air circulated through that space in a certain pattern before the walls, for ages and ages, and then it did not and now it does again.

I picture the fights that were had within those walls , the groceries that were put away, and then cooked and eaten and discarded , the floors that were scrubbed, and the roof that was fretted over. The tea that was sloshed onto a table, the phone calls that were missed, the mirrors that were smudged, all the things that occurred within those impermanent walls that likely had once felt like they would never go away. It wasn't even a question. They just were. Perhaps the inhabitants secretly wished they would disappear or maybe they begged that they never would. Either way, those walls, between which doors were slammed and tentatively creaked open, they are not there anymore.

Comments

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Fists full of lettuce

It is a pot of a variety of lettuce plants. It was planted by my mom. She has been living with Stage 4 bile duct cancer for at least 1.5 years (that we know of, probably a lot longer). Standing and gardening are becoming harder as time goes on. She learned about gardening from her dad as a kid and kept on gardening every year of her adult life. Sometimes the gardens were tiny or rudimentary, but with the help of my dad , they have become major and, at times elaborate, growing projects over the years. Now it is a collection of raised beds and regular beds that hold a host of plants, vegetable and flowers. Something that was clear that first spring with Stage 4 cancer is that gardening would continue in a big way, cancer or no cancer. It was important to order the seeds and start them inside and get them planted outside, no matter what. Spending time together in the summer with cancer now consistently involves gardening and following instructions. Planting, and prepping and weeding

Shake your Bummy

In recent weeks, two things have come to my attention, this article by Mary Beth Williams, T he real key to good health and the viral hit created by Dr. Mike Evans, 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? Both coincided with when I was turning my attention to new years resolutions and reflecting on the year that was. Thanks to both, a reckoning came to be. Mary Beth Williams' candid advice was to get your heart stronger because you never know when you are going to need it. She herself has been receiving treatment for lung cancer. Dr Mike Evans' way of putting the exact same thing? "Try to limit your sitting time to 23 1/2 hours a day". In my day job, I sit a lot. I occasionally rise to retrieve something from the photocopier or to make a coffee, but an awful lot of the time, I'm on my bum. This is in steep contrast to my night job. At the end of the work day, occasionally in the middle, I have to burst out of the doo

Growing Versions

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