Growing Versions

This video Daylily fritters  changed my brain chemistry. The creator behind this exquisite video is Aube Giroux from right here in NS.  She was even nominated for a James Beard Award. This video kickstarted my determination to see summer in every petal, every blade of grass no matter how grey, squashed or covered in dog poop it is.

The Yellow Rail  is highly secretive,  the Red-Headed Woodpecker  nests in dead or dying trees,  the Southern Flying squirrel   is capable of gliding 50 yards between trees.  These are all vulnerable species, all needing protection because they are vital elements of our biodiversity.  Without them, we'll all be a little less resilient as an ecosystem. * The other night, I accepted an invitation to a house concert. I had never been to one before, and I was intrigued. The artist was  Tanya Davis .  I have long admired her work from afar and now, finally, I was up close.  My favourite (which she played that night) is  Art .  She is most famous though for How to be Alone (see above). The night of the house concert, we were ushered into my friend's cosy and beautiful cottage, festooned with fairy lights and we snuggled in to hear Tanya sing. Tanya is a delicate singer and writer.  She speaks and sings of her accepta...

There is nothing quite so thrilling as making fun plans, outside, in the open air. The list we made, the ideas we had on the plan making bench.

Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get outside and breathe the air deeply again! -Gustav Mahler

I am trying hard to go outside after work with the kids. It is never that easy, but staying home and falling asleep on the couch is not great either. The other night we had a drizzly, foggy walk over to the school yard. It is a school yard with a lot of contours, a hill, and big boulders. It has a life outside of school, just like us.

"No can be no or know. Ate can be eight or ate, like the number and eating.... One question...why does the river not run in the morning? Why does it only run after lunch and after school?" Well, what do you think happens in between morning and lunch time with the sun? "It warms up?" Yes. "It melts the snow banks?" Yes.  Is that the river over there? Yes, but it is turned off in the morning, remember?

 We are slowly,  (for some too slowly) melting free.

This week we were confronted with the death of our pet gecko Cornelius. My son who was sort of "in charge" of Cornelius decided that death was a side effect  of losing his tail about a month ago after he got scared by our very curious cats.  Did you know that gecko's drop their tails when they get spooked by a predator and that the tail wiggles briefly to distract the predator? We learned all this and more this past month. Yes, death is a side effect of the events of our lives. The next day, my son overheard me discussing  the health of our elderly aunt.  He wanted to know if she had some kind of "itis".  No, I said, "No "Itis", she is just getting older".  She, like us all, is experiencing the side effects of living.

"   I suddenly knew that I had lungs because they were empty and collapsing.”   The Woman who Walked into Doors, Roddy Doyle

Before I had  even properly woken up, they built an addition onto the house in the shape of a hotel.  If renovating was usually so easy and cheap, I'd do more of it.

"Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly." -Charles Addams

We just found out about this free and community based art space in our city. It is called  Wonderneath . We head over there on Friday and there were audible gasps from my daughter and her friends (and me).  After months of being boxed in by snow banks, we were set free.  The door was open, the light poured in and all the art supplies we could ever imagine ( and many we could not) were neatly kept in little drawers and containers and shared with us for those sweet hours.

This is the season of delivering promises.  As soon as the snow melts....we will find new games to play. In the meantime, we will search for the deliveries and they will pile up. There will be so many that they will be enough to hold us over for a while.

"There was a way that you could sleep properly when a house had been straightened up, when all the Ranger Ricks were put up on the shelf and the toys were put in the plastic box and tomorrow's clothes were laid out neatly on a chair. But then again, when everything was left out all over the floor and the dishes were still in the sink, there was a way that you could dream." -Lullabies for Little Criminals (Heather O'Neill)

With a cup of  lego you can make a speed boat,  a dock, a car, a car that can do tricks, water that you can swim across to the dock, a trailer, a camper, what else? You can also make a different kind of speed boat, a different dock, a car that can do different tricks, a different body of water that you can swim across to a different dock, another trailer and another camper.