Direction and Reaction
I have a story about life and where it unexpectedly “directs” us. In the last eight years, my direction has changed from my garden to lower Yates Street in Victoria. Gone is planning and certainty; in the world of disability, you live by reacting to the direction that the day, the hour and the minute dictates. Recently, the Society I belong to had a booth in the Health & Wellness Show at Saanich arena in Victoria. I had put in a lot of years at that ice arena, with my two sons playing hockey and lacrosse; never did I think I would end up in my senior years in this booth, promoting our...
Read More“Big Name” in Nanaimo!
You know what I love love love? Watching live music. You know what I love even more? When I don’t have to travel to Vancouver to catch some of my favourite “big name” bands. Which is why, when Sarah & I found out that Tegan & Sara were coming to Nanaimo, we absolutely HAD to get tickets. Taking place at the Port Theatre, almost everyone I talked to was shocked that a band with such stature as Tegan & Sara were playing in little old Nanaimo. It started to make a bit more sense as the concert got underway – Sara explained that as kids, their family spent a...
Read MoreButterfly Wings
Butterflies can make quite a racket. Not a big noise, but a persistent whir as they flap in the sunbeams, in the millions. When they start to flutter, the air is filled with orange flecks against the dusky beams of sun that filter through the pines. Observers like myself who have struggled up the mountain path to see them are transfixed as they land on a hat or an arm or on the ground around. Millions of Canadian expatriate Monarchs in a blizzard of colour. It’s a wonder of nature. Millions? Well, no one knows how many there are in this tiny acreage high in the forested mountains of Central...
Read MoreFaith and public life
For many years what has come to be known as the religious right has been a very powerful force in north American politics. They publically and loudly promote their beliefs and the way that society should be moulded. Their beliefs are insular and non inclusive. I am an Anglican. My beliefs are very personal and mine alone. As such I respect other peoples beliefs as long as they are not intrusive to others. I recently read the following article in the Anglican Journal about Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich and the Gulf Islands, regarding her faith and the role it plays in her public life. I was...
Read MoreEverybody is I
“Everybody is I” … I read this phrase decades ago in the autobiography The Growing up Pains of Adrian Plass. It resonates even more deeply now as I attempt to be understanding of my mom’s skewed world. Her panic is rooted in dementia not reality, but it is not unfounded in her own mind and its effect is extremely challenging for me, the ‘I’ in my world. I am a therapist but I never have it ALL together. I’m not sure this is a bad thing – not sure that as a client, I would want to be sitting across from a chair in which sits someone who has it easy or is...
Read MoreIsland Acclimatization
If you’re like me, you’ve been none too pleased with the nippy weather we’ve been having this past week. Now, coming from northern Alberta, you’d think I’d revel in how cold here relates to -5C, not -45C. But I’ve unfortunately become acclimatized! Anyways, last Friday, I decided to catch the sunset at Neck Point Park. We’ve featured Neck Point multiple times on this blog but that’s just because we love it so much! On Friday it was super chilly, but it was so beautiful with the pink skies and the snow capped driftwood. It was such a beautiful evening. but I’m sure glad today...
Read MoreOn the streets of San Miguel
The other day I was shocked out of my reverie as I walked to my teaching job. I missed it by inches. A tidy steaming pile left by a street dog. This is not an uncommon sight on San Miguel streets in the morning, until the Senoras can get out to clean up their part of the sidewalk. So it was an irritation avoided. Still, it made me think about my next blog instalment. “Hmm,” I mused, “Perhaps I should just describe my walk to work”. Because, feral dogs and all, the streets of San Miguel are fascinating. They are clean too. The town takes great pride in all its services, and that...
Read MoreColour your Winter
Island Woman articles breed articles, as do casual emails from family. Two of these, juxtaposed on the same day, incubated this one. Sarah & Sean’s “Beauty on a Cold Grey Day” led me to remember the outdoor colour present even on the most miserable of our days, and a note from my daughter in chilly Fort McMurray, in reply to my dismay at dismantling holiday décor, suggested we needed that indoor colour through February. Pandora’s box popped open! Away with the winter blahs! In the midst of some other necessary but mundane job, I made the first splash. The aging Christmas...
Read MoreBeauty on a Cold Grey Day
Living here in Nanaimo, people from the prairies and eastern Canada love to tell us how good we’ve got it with our weather. It’s warm in the summer, but not too hot and cold in the winter, but not too cold and we have a few days of snow. They also love to tell harrowing stories about how places like the inside of their throats would freeze when they stepped outside. Now, I’m not saying these people aren’t telling the truth, but it has been COLD here ya’ll! I keep telling people that this is the COLDEST I”VE EVER FELT and then the harrowing stories come out. But the thing is,...
Read MoreCrafting a Second Life
I’m back in San Miguel de Allende, living the second life I’ve crafted for myself over the last few winters to round out my Island existence. For four months, as the rain drips off the roof in Qualicum Beach, I’ll be living large here in Mexico. My agenda will be heavy on volunteer work and my own efforts to write meaningfully and for posterity. My life here will also be crammed with the particular joy of women friends. Though we come from all over and from all walks of life, we share a commitment to a journey of discovery of ourselves as creatives and as elders. So I will walk all over...
Read MoreA Walk on the Mild Side
Once a week I take care of my grandson in Victoria. Six months ago, my attitude about that was, “I still have my life!” as the new identity of grandmother threatened to swamp my other emerging identities as writer, traveller, learner, keep fit senior, and friend. I was afraid of being taken over. I was edgy. My attitude has changed. It’s now “whatever it takes!” and I gleefully get in the car every week for the trek down Island. Someday neuroscience will prove that a grandparent’s brain is different from that of a garden variety elder. For now, what is true for me is that my...
Read MoreMothers of invention
Like most people, I get articles sent to my Facebook acccount that cover a whole range of topics. Some are warm, some are funny, some are weird and others I wish people would not send to me. But every now and then, I receive one that really tweaks my interest. This link on women inventors was one that really surprised me. It showed amazing things that had been invented by women; mainly American women. I had no idea that that so many things we take for granted in our daily lives were the result of the ingenuity of amazing women. It also had me wondering “What about Canadian...
Read MoreNo-stress Hostess Gifts
Bringing a hostess gift to any dinner party need not be a stressful event with this delicious twist on the standby cranberry sauce. Put it in a glass jar and decorate it any way you wish with some Christmas cheer. Cranberry-Orange Relish Ingredients: 2 cups Fresh Cranberries 3 tablespoon(s) Dried Cranberries 2 stick(s) Cinnamon 1 teaspoon(s) Fresh Gingerroot, minced 1/2 cup(s) Dark Or Light Brown Sugar, firmly packed 1/2 cup(s) Apple Cider 1 teaspoon(s) Fresh-Grated Orange Zest Additional Cinnamon Sticks, (optional) Orange Slices, (optional) Directions: In a...
Read MoreDIY for the holidays
I am lucky enough to have a fully functioning shop on my property, but all that is required to make these light weight Pine Band Saw Tree Decorations is paper, felt pen and scissors, wood scraps, a band saw, sandpaper, artist’s acrylics and a paint brush. I started out with an outline drawing that I drew on a scrap piece of paper, cut it out and then used it as a stencil on some pine wood scraps. The next step is the hardest, cutting the ornament shape out of the wood using a band saw – if you try this out, please be safe; nothing is worth loosing a finger over. When all the...
Read More… musings from Ms. Butterfly
Perhaps our most poignant writings come from those life experiences that impact us in ways least suspected. Perspectives shift as our eyes open to what is around us. Sometimes such experiences find expression in the written word. The story you are invited to read speaks to this. ‘Totally Unexpected’ is a work of creative fiction based on one such life experience. It is my encounter with a younger brother living on the streets of the Vancouver’s Downtown East Side … an encounter both humbling and joyful. I now see a brother/sister in every homeless person I meet. Editor’s Note:...
Read MoreAma’s Sleep Strategies
Sundvik is empty. Cedar will have nothing to do with his new crib. He’s made that clear by instant keening the moment he’s laid in it, as if this memory foam mattress is a bed of hot coals. Sleep deprivation has set in, as night after night the battle of Cedar-slumber has been heroically waged. Now there’s a truce. For now at least, Cedar is co-sleeping. My son Jamie, and daughter in law Deirdre rationalise this solution as normal in most cultures. “Besides”, Jamie muses, “cave baby would never have become cave man if he’d not been cuddled all night by the fire”. He points out...
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