Uncomplicated

Last night two families joined us for dinner (East Indian food – yum!), including four children between the ages of three and ten. To keep the kids entertained I pulled out a big bin of Lego left over from when my own brood was little. Our young guests had a grand time building all sorts of things. But what fascinated me was watching the three year old girl. While she enjoyed playing with the Lego, she was more intent on locating everything in the box that was NOT Lego. She found two Pokemon cards, an old twist tie, a few coins and part of a Yu-Gi-Oh card. She came to the dinner table carrying her treasures with pride. When I found her a little cloth ‘treasure bag’ to put them in she was over the moon.

We’re currently going through some pretty challenging times with our teenage son and I struggle every day with knowing what to do and not do, or say and not say.  So it did my heart good to be reminded that something as simple as a cloth bag can put a smile on a child’s face.

I know having young children is exhausing. But for the most part, it’s also uncomplicated (as long as your children are healthy). Their needs and desires are pretty simple. It’s not until you get into the double digits with your kids that the complication gauge gets turned up a few notches. Lately I’ve felt as though that gauge has been cranked all the way to Extreme.

Would I want to send my teenager back in time to when he was three again? No, of course not. But one day of uncomplicated would be pretty nice. In fact one day of uncomplicated would be a gift from heaven right now!

Three Decades of Hold

It was 29 years ago today that I found myself wandering for the last time around the little one bedroom Toronto apartment I shared with Joe; the apartment with the drafty front room, the life sized poster of Bogart, the red shag carpet and the pinkish-red leopard skin patterned curtains that I had hand sewn myself.  Joe and I must have been in an altered state when we bought that slippery fabric, spotting it in a store on Bloor and Bathurst beside Honest Ed’s.

While on that particular day those garish curtains still hung in our livingroom window, there was little else left in the place.  The movers had carted off most of my wordly possessions, meagre as they were at that point in my life. Little more than books, records and a sound system. Little treasures.

The boxes were bound for Baffin Island. I was bound for the same place…Frobisher Bay, later to be named Iqaluit.

I don’t remember much of what I thought about during those last few hours before I boarded the plane. Joe was to join me six weeks later and I do recall wondering if he really would take such a leap of faith. For me it was easy…I had a job to go to: my first full time position as a reporter with CBC Radio. And after all, I always had wanderlust in my blood.  I couldn’t wait to embark on this new adventure. Joe had no job and at that point was a city boy through and through.  For him it must have felt like falling down the rabbit hole blindfolded and head first. And while it was tough for him at the beginning, we both stayed. When we chose to leave three years later to travel and later settle back in Toronto, all we could think about was coming north again. And so we did. And we haven’t budged since apart from holidays and Joe’s educational sabbaticals.

So what keeps me here? It’s sure not the weather. I don’t like the cold and I don’t like the darkness in the winter. I desperately miss being able to grow corn and vine-ripened tomatoes in the field. I don’t like being at the other end of the country from my family and some of my oldest friends. But for most of 29 years, something has obviously overridden all of that; something that I’ve never really been able to put in words when people ask me why I choose to remain in the North.

Sure, there’s some obvious stuff, like clean air and water, beautiful scenery, the ability to live so close to nature, and the lack of traffic jams, crowds and noise pollution. But it’s more than that. A lot more actually.

So here’s where I need the help of those other Northerners who are reading this. How do you explain to non-Northerners why you live here? Maybe collectively we can help people better understand the magic hold this place seems to have on all of us; a hold that for me has lasted nigh on three decades.

A Smattering

Some links for you that you may find interesting:

No pets served here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7003032.ece

And who wouldn’t want to know the story behind this: http://current.com/items/90722254_do-not-make-a-rice-dick.htm

And finally, here’s a little travel tip that may come in handy for you sometime: http://huggingthecoast.com/2009/08/15/how-to-cook-a-gourmet-meal-in-your-hotel-room-weekend-video-spotlight/

The Burns Supper

Our official photographer last night was a charming eight year old. When she wasn’t taking photos she was helping me dish up the meal and serve tea and coffee. By the end of the evening I was teaching her some highland dance steps and she was teaching me hip hop!

The good stuff!

Toast to the Lassies

The Great Highland Pipes

Me in my Scottish attire

Self portrait of the photographer

Burns in the Shower

Some people sing in the shower. Not me. I recite Burns’ poetry. At least that’s what I was doing at a quarter to six this morning, as I prepare for our Burns Supper on Saturday night. It  has fallen to me, once again, to give the Address to the Haggis, and while I have done it several times, each time I need to work on remembering the words once again.

I turned to YouTube for a little help with the pronunciation. Here is one version. Here is another I particularly like.

I hope you’ll take some time to raise a wee dram to Robbie this week-end. To the haggis!

Could You Live With Just 100 Things?

I am envious of Dan Kern. He’s the fellow from Winnipeg who is, over the course of the next month, trying to eliminate all but 100 things from his possession. You can follow his progress on his blog. His point, with which I concur, is the more we have the less we do. Our things start to own us; engulf us; trap us. I remember how liberating it felt travelling around India and Nepal with all my worldly possessions on my back. There was nothing more that I needed. I’m looking forward to feeling the same way during my trip to Spain.

I look around this house and see thousands and thousands of things. Grant it, there are four of us. If it were just me, I think I’d get rid of just about all the furniture except the pieces that were owned by my parents or grandmother. I might or might not decide to keep my bed. I rather enjoy sleeping on the floor. I could happily reduce all my kitchen gear by three-quarters. My books? I used to love being surrounded by books. Now I have come to understand that’s what libraries are for. My CDs? Ditto. Clothes and shoes…hmmmm, I might have a problem there, as some of my clothes/footwear I really love. But definitely they could do with a good culling. The art on my walls: these are a couple of pieces I would hate to part with but most of it could go without too much heartbreak on my part. My growing wine collection…I’d have great fun getting rid of this with the help of friends and family. Which raises the question: why the heck aren’t I drinking  more of the stuff instead of stashing it away?

What about you? Could you live with just 100 things? What could you not live without?

Windows and Wanderlust

We have two very large cathedral style windows in our home (the type that has a curve at the top). One is in our bedroom; the other in the family room. While they make for lovely views, there has always been a fair amount of cold coming in through them.  Our bedroom has been perpetually cold.

Well, not anymore! I bit the bullet and had both windows replaced. While the pricetag was painful ($6,500 for the two of them) I think they’ll pay for themselves in the long run. There was a noticeable difference in the temperature of the room this morning when I woke up. Eventually almost all the windows in our house will need replacing, but this is all my budget can afford this year.

Which leads me to the wanderlust part. One reason I can’t buy more new windows is that I’m heading off to France and Spain in a few months. I can’t believe in less than three months I’ll be on the Camino de Santiago. My plan had been to stay in Paris overnight before heading to the south of France to start my walk, but one of Joe’s students who is from France said I should stay in Biarritz one night instead. In his mind it’s one of the most beautiful cities in his country. From there I’ll take a bus ride (about an hour or so) to the start of my trek. I’ll have a couple of nights at the end of the trip in Paris, so I don’t feel I’m missing anything by not staying there at the beginning of my adventure. My flight to Biarritz is booked (cost about half what the train fare would have been) and my hotel there is confirmed (thanks TripAdvisor.com for all the great advice in this regard). I’m getting excited!

A Son’s Worst Nightmare

I was picking up my oldest (22 year old) son from work the other day. He came out of the office with a co-worker. The co-worker looked at me, turned to Alan, and said, “Is that your girlfriend?” While Alan might have been horrified, it was the best thing that happened to me all day

Making Plans

Things are starting to fall in place for my Camino de Santiago de Compostela.  I have almost all my gear, I’ve read practically an entire library of books on the Camino, and now I’m in the process of booking places to stay while in Paris and St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port (the community where I start my walk). I know where I want to stay in St.-Jean…a little place called L’esprit du Chemin’ seen here at the right (photo taken from this web site).

Paris, however, is more difficult. I’m looking for someplace relatively close to the train station (Gare du Nord), clean but inexpensive (not that anything is really inexpensive in Paris!). Anyone have any suggestions?

Ten Years Later

At the end of 1999, to mark the passing of the millennium, Joe, myself and our three kids wrote down what we thought we’d be doing ten years into the future. On New Year’s Day of this year, we pulled out our predictions and read them to one another. While I won’t share what everyone else wrote, here were my thoughts in the dying days of 1999:

It is of course hard to even fathom what life might be like for my family and myself ten years from now. I pray that we’ll all still be alive and healthy and that we have more happy days than sad.

I hope that none of my children has been at war, or is now at war, or will ever have to be at war.

I like to think that Alan, now 22 and Iris, now 20 have found some purpose in their lives – something that drives them and makes them feel good about themselves; something that they know in their hearts is worth sharing with humankind. I hope Jamie, while still only 16, will soon find that too…if he hasn’t already. I suspect he has, although maybe even he doesn’t know it yet.

I also suspect the amazing sense of humour that all three of my children were born with thanks to their father has fully blossomed for all to enjoy. As I write this in 1999, I can’t wait to know you kids ten years from now!

Ten years from now I will be 50, and probably rather puzzled at how it is that more than half of my life is over. If I’m lucky I have another 30 or 40 years left. If I’m really lucky I’ll get to spend all those years with Joe…someone who I have no doubt is still the most complicated man I’ve ever met but someone who has stretched me and allowed me to grow in ways he’ll never know. I love you dearly Joe and hope that your sense of peace and faith has continued to grow. I hope that some of your amazing qualities that our children couldn’t see when they were younger have become apparent to them, or will as they themselves grow…your sense of integrity, your firm belief in what’s right and wrong, and your understanding of why so much is to be gained by working hard for what you want.

I hope that the piano is still a big part of my life and that in some way, I am able to impart to others how much music can feed the soul, spirit and mind.

Most important, I hope that I was (and am) a good mom. I hope you kids remember above everything else that I love you more than life itself. If by chance I’ve passed on when you’re reading this, believe that I will do everything in my power to be with you from whatever place I find myself, in whatever way I can. Happy 2010!! 

Reading this now, it strikes me what a hopeful and optimistic person I was back then. Sadly I think I’ve lost some of that in the last 10 years. Truth be told, I feel a bit battered and bruised from raising three teenagers. Some people who were important to me are no longer in my life, without me understanding why (my sister-in-law for instance, who died after mixing two cleaning products…now what was the purpose of that?!).

While I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, I would like to set a goal for myself of finding that hope and optimism again. Not that it’s totally gone, but it has lost its shine just a tad. Maybe that in part is what my Camino will be about.

Hmmm, I didn’t mean my first post of 2010 to be such a downer! I really am excited about what this year might bring and in fact what the next 10 years might bring.  Happy New Year everyone and may the good guys win!