Growing Versions

The fourth post I wrote on this blog was called  Artifactual Communication .  It came to me one day a couple of days after I started the blog when I overhead my husband listening to a talk about it on the internet.  It started to turn some gears in my mind and I can still remember the rush of endorphins that coarsed through me as I turned an out of context, random idea into something personal.  I knew little about artifactual communication, still don't, but the general concept struck a chord as I began my journey paying closer attention to my surroundings. Since then, that post has been viewed more than any other post I've written.  People in Thailand, Australia, Ukraine, the U.K., Brazil and Indonesia and South Africa have read it and it makes me want to know what they were looking for.  Did they find it in the post? Maybe  or maybe not, but somehow, in a tenuous way, we connected, however briefly. Life got exceedingly hectic in the intervening months and my desk

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.  I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.” -Michael O ndaatje, The E nglish Patie nt

On the weekend, we visited our beloved cat Cleo`s grave. She's buried on a beautiful hill overlooking the ocean.  Initially, when she died, we feared our kids` reactions, but both of them have taken it in stride. The season has changed and new cats have made their mark(s).It is only now, months later, that the questions and the wondering has begun. My daughter urged us to read the book  Island Boy .  When we finally read it this weekend, I learned that it is essentially a fairly linear story about a boy who grew into a man and lived more or less his whole life on an island.  He travelled on the schooners up and down the eastern seaboard, but he always returned home to his island.  The book ends with his death where he was buried under a beautiful apple tree. I was curious to know why my daughter liked the book so much.  She proceeded to explain how even though he is dead he remains on the island and that is somehow important in her mind. After we visited Cleo's l

There are sce nts i n this world that bri ng me back to somewhere, places where I ca n not go.  I smell that smell a nd get a hit of some time before that will  not come agai n.  For me, lilac sce nt se nds me o n a be nder .  Upo n sight,  I begi n to remember what they smell like.  However, it is the smelli ng of them directly, which I ca n o nly  really bri ng myself to do  a doze n times a year (3 times so far this year), that fills me with such a mix of regret a nd pla n maki ng u nique to them a nd me  that I ca n barely sta nd to look at them.  I have bee n avoidi ng them, I see them across the street a nd a ki nd of lo ngi ng takes over. I remember a spri ng. I remember my gra ndmother's garde n a nd a freedom that I have  not really felt si nce. I remember glass upo n glass filled with lilacs, sce nti ng every room a nd shapi ng  pla ns I made. What sce nt makes you remember a place?  Does it eve n have a  name?  Or is it a mixture of smells you ca n      nev

3 year old version: 1. Is it a dog? 2. Is it a skunk? 3. Is it a strawberry? 4. I know! Is it a strawberry? It IS a strawberry, isn't it? 5.Um okay, is it a tree? 6. Is it a toy? 7. Is it...okay give me a clue. I am hungry, I need a snack. 7 year old version: Kid: Okay you have to guess. Parent : Is it an animal? Kid:  No Parent: Is it a vegetable? Kid: No Parent: Is it a mineral? Kid: Yes!! Parent: Is it machine made? Kid: ugh ugh sometimes... Parent: Is it small enough to fit in your pocket? Kid: well yes, but you really shouldn't put it there. Parent: Is it hard? Kid: No Parent: Is it squishy? Kid: No Parent: Is it soft? Kid: Yes, sometimes. Parent: Is it edible? Kid: Yes, okay let me give you a clue...you can eat it on french fries... Parent: You mean it is a vegetable? Kid: No!!! It is a mineral! Parent: Oooooooh, I think I know...

               When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thi n king.-Albert Einstein  

As I alluded to the other day, I went on a fantastic weekend away with the kids and our friends and their kids.  We ate and drank and hiked and played.  We went whale watching and saw fin whales huffing and puffing to the surface multiple times. We saw seals and chickens and sheep and fish. The kids stayed up late with their friends and watched movies in bed together.  They made up games and played board and card games and had a car washing competition. After all that, we capped off our last day with a trip to a beach to watch the sunset over Maine (we later found out) and the kids scrabbled over rocks while we sipped wine. Perfect. Before the sun set, our daughter, in her rock climbing mode, discovered an "antique".  It is an oddly shaped machine made metal object.  It looks old because it is rusted and also because parts these days aren't usually made with metal.  We're stumped.  We do not know what it is but it is precious to her. She believes it came from a s

We lob chunks of thought... we trail off... we scrunch up our faces and wonder aloud, "where was I"? We abandon lines of thought... We save stuff up to tell each other .. between .. the  ..  interruptions We lurch from point a to b to g and j and back to a again. Followed by c. We stop mid-senten and resume at some other juncture,                                          further down the line. (After the kind of crying or the drenching by juice that makes it impossible to wait until the punctuation point.) We blurt things to      keep     us      going        until     next                                                        time We wonder what she was about to say... we keep talking, picking up speed, trying to cram in as much as we can before the next  ... We walk away trying to be as satisfied as possible, leaving unsaid so many things. We are parents trying to maintain other kinds of relati

Here is 55 seconds. Watch them. What do you think about while you watch them? Do you think about when the 55 seconds will be over? Do you think about the ocean? Do you think about what you need to pick up after work? 55 seconds.  A chunk of seconds can seem so long and pointless, it can also seem all too brief. I am so reckless with my seconds and so protective of my hours.

I went away this weekend.  I went to a place where I have never been before.  Sea, sky, and whales set in motion a trickling down to an artesian well, deep below the surface.  I left my home on Friday in the spring and returned tonight in the summer. Okay. Let's begin again. The petal unfolds, the leaf unfurls, the wave returns.

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. -Leonard Cohen

Sometimes the beauty is easy. Sometimes you don't have to try at all. Sometimes you can hear the wind blow in a handshake. Sometimes there's poetry written right on the bathroom wall. -Ani di Franco, Good, Bad Ugly So I took it, that first step.  I started writing things down.  I started and once I did, I could not, cannot stop.  Maybe it is like me and exercise and after the initial endorphin rush wears off, and after one too many days in a row of not doing it, the drive to do it will subside, but for now, it is feeding me.  Writing/photography, no matter how amateurish, is helping me to be in the world making creative decisions instead of just parenting and financial ones.   Deciding to write things down,and choose pictures that I've (mostly) taken to go with the writing and share what I am doing as I go were the first creative decisions I've made in a long time.  I guess I was making them in imperceptible ways but they went without saying, they happened wit

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”  -John Steinbeck Thanks to a ferris wheel and budding tree flowers, I looked up.  Tilting my chin upwards, smelling a world that is beginning to have a scent of soil again and I lengthened.  The fug of early spring made me forget the blue sky. Seeing the sky, way up there, and the planes streaming through it, surprised me. How about you?

You have to try  and not jump in the water  if you do, your wings get broken.

Really, what could be better? Are those socks not passing the sniff test?  Fret no more, just slap on some scratch and sniff stickers and transform those boring old, stinky socks into something you can scratch and sniff with pleasure.  Feel free to adorn those socks further to up the "oh wow" factor. These socks were a cinch to make.  Simply cut the bottoms off of an old pair of tights and then decorate to your taste.  You may choose to add additional scratch and sniff stickers as required.

I just found out about this cool project. It is called  Aday.org .  People all over the world are being encouraged to submit photos on May 15th that sum up/depict some aspect of their lives on that one day. They want photos about the home, work and technology use.  Check out the website and get ready to take some pictures.  All the photos will be gathered together and a selection of them will be published in a coffee table book by Christmas.  I love the idea of this kind of project because it reminds me of one of my favourite heroine's,  Busybody Nora , ideas about living in an apartment building. "Their home was an apartment building in New York City near Riverside Drive. The building had eight floors, and there five apartments on each floor.  Some apartment buildings are much,much larger, but this one was large enough.  Nobody had ever counted all the people, but Nora had once told her mother, "A million people live in our building."  Mommy had corrected

So, I have this not so secret secret. I like to drink beer on Sunday mornings. I like to drink beer and watch  Coronation Street . A friend of ours, who grew up in Scotland, first got  us hooked 14 years ago by giving us informal tutorials on who was who and who was related (and who used to be related) and who did who wrong in the past.  The tutorials were critical to our ability to get sucked in. There have been countless weddings, deaths, accidents, fires, firings, affairs, babies born in unusual places since then.  Secrets are not kept for long on Coronation Street. It is re-broadcast on CBC here in Canada throughout the week and in one big 2.5 hour block on Sunday mornings. Nothing beats the cosy relaxed feelings that come over me as I sip my beer and watch both the minutae and mayhem unfold on the cobbles episode after episode, year after year. The kids don't have much interest in their parents watching a show for 2.5 hours at a stretch, so we have not been able

Mama's legs, 2012 I let the kids loose on the camera on the weekend.   My personal favourite was the portrait of me by my almost four year old.    Castle, 2012 Backyard, 2012

Within two days, 20 years ago, 30 workers in our province either lost their lives abruptly and violently or in the case of one of them, had their life brutally altered.  The Sydney River McDonald's murders happened first on May 7, 1992, ending the lives of 3 young people and permanently disabling a fourth.  Two days later, 26 miners were killed when the Westray Mine exploded due to lax adherence to safety standards by the mine management. It was the most deadly coal mine explosion since the Springhill disaster in 1958.  Both radically changed forever the lives of many families and communities. The McDonald's murders were committed during a botched robbery by one of the victims' co-workers and his friends. They made off with $2017. And who forgot to let the canary out? Westray, Weeping Tile The Westray Mine explosion, it was later determined, was the fault of the owner and managers of the mine for allowing the dangerous conditions in the mine to persist w

I'm a piece of time too small to name.  -Crossing a Canyon, 54-40

Last week, I shared my confusion over this  new game .  So, I got my daughter to write down the rules so I could understand them better. 1. Set the game up 2. Roll the die. 3. Go how many steps the die says. 4. Try to get past the evil markers that are trying to block you. 5. Get your right birthday penny. You win by the getting the right penny of your birthday. The prize is your own birthday date which you can make 3 wishes on. I have to say, that clears things up considerably.

Being invited to birthday parties spurs us on to seek out more and more things to wrap and decorate.  Yesterday, there was a flurry of wrapping. Tissue paper and pipe cleaners were in abundance, tape was not. I was sweeping out the living room later and I stumbled on this hidden package.  It was tucked away, and lovingly secured with a handmade pendant.  The best part about it was that some cheese burger wrapping paper got a new, redeemed identity.

WifeMotherExpletive  extended an invitation I could not refuse: " Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking" on the word, Real . real is what I always strive to be.  in a hurry to be as real as possible, I've overlooked so much.  I have denied myself things that would have helped me understand things better.  real, but real for who? as I age, I want to be more real to me because I suspect that there will be many surprises. hard to believe that I will be surprised since I have lived with myself for 36 , going on 37 years, but I don't doubt it for one minute.  Honesty is where I falter.  I can achieve "real" (does it qualify as real if it is in quotation marks) but it may not be true.  In general, I want things to be tied up in a package and smooth even it is too jagged to fit.  I want this, I know that to be real, it cannot happen but I think true is what I need to really aim for.  I know some things are true for ages befor

There are so many recipes within reach. Despite all this choice, I'm having a tough time boiling down what I actually need to eat.  I labour over heat but produce little that actually fills me up. I submerge my doubts with foods that my body does not understand. I  relinquish my hunger for a deeper one.  What is  it that will nourish me, without taking advantage of me? What do you eat to feel peaceful and fed?

So, this game got invented last weekend.  I really don't understand the rules but I'm so intrigued by the set up. I have trouble remembering jokes and rules for games.  I'm hopeless at card games.  Once I get the rules I can't stop playing, but if I stop, darn it, they all drain out of my brain.  My daughter patiently tried to explain how you win but it is all too complicated for me.  There is still hope, I used to discount scrabble. I used to have a terrible track record.  I am on record tyring to get points for "wispygale" but despite this rocky start, I now enjoy a good round of scrabble.  Are there any games that you've decided are just not for you?

The last two music shows I went to I burst into tears upon hearing the first line of the first song.  For once, I did not try to analyze why but rather allowed the swelling music to float me up and crack me open just for a little while and see where it took me. It paid off.  It sent me in new directions I hadn't thought of before. I have never paid much attention to music.  I like what I like and I have phases where I cannot get enough of what I like.  I put a bunch of my favourite songs on my ipod once and about every 3 months I obsessively play it until I don't feel like it anymore.  I make an effort to send myself emails or post stuff on facebook to remind me of songs I like or that I happen to hear on the radio or whatever.  I guess the best way to put it is that it does not come naturally to me.  It never really occurs to me to seek it out. However, there are those times when I am with a friend and they introduce me to someone or I have an experience that exposes me t

Just like when we come out of a matinee and we are unreasonably, but predictably, surprised by the light, we emerge from the winter blinking in the sun. The outdoors is beckoning. The back door was open yesterday afternoon, airing out our stale winter den.  Some days are colder than others, but the scent of spring is rapidly dispersing.  Mud pies, watering plants(and occasionally cats)with a spider man squirt ring and planting orange seeds with great hopes are all taking place in the outdoors  these days.

Today I heard an inspiring interview with American artist Wayne Wright on Q on CBC radio.  He is best known for his work designing puppets and sets for Pee Wee's Playhouse but he has gone on to do a range of creative projects. He features in a documentary about his work called "Beauty is Embarrassing".  In the trailer (below) he says at one point that  something  is "so beautiful it hurts my feelings".  I strive to be that vulnerable to beauty.  I can't wait to see the documentary.