The Lupin Lady

Recently, my mother and I drove to one of my favourite spots at this time of year – a “secret” place (okay, it’s not really so secret, but it seems a little more mysterious if I think of it as a secret place!).  I think it is an old quarry, and at this time of year, it is filled to overflowing with wild lupins of every shade of pink and purple you could imagine, with a few white lupins thrown in for good measure.  A few days later, my husband and I drove to “the shore” to spend time with some co-workers and friends.  On the drive, we marvelled at the many lupins we saw, and at one point, I was left almost breathless as we passed a field which must have held millions of blue flags (wild irises). 

This, I think, is my favourite time of year here in the Maritimes, maybe even more this year than usual.  We have long hard winters here, very different than the prairie winters where I grew up.  It can get very cold, and the northeast winds are bonechilling and penetrating.  It thaws, then freezes, leaving the world coated with a layer of ice, beautiful and sparkly in its own right, but not really very pleasant for the outdoor activities that I enjoy.  We wait so patiently for spring to arrive, and this year, we waited even longer, enduring a cold, wet, windy, and pretty unpleasant spring after a long, cold, unpleasant winter. 

Now, all of a sudden, the trees are in full leaf, the lupins are blooming, and the wild roses are opening.  This early summer world in the Maritimes is breathtakingly colourful.  It almost hurts the eyes to take it all in.  The marsh grasses range from deep green to the lightly shaded greens of hay grasses, highlighted in places with reddish yellow marsh grass and dotted with daisies and buttercups.  The blue of the irises is so subtle that you can easily miss them unless you are looking for them; once noticed, they add a rich layer to the colours of the marsh.  Pink and white sweet rocket, creamy white heliotrope, and the minute flowers of bedstraw punctuate the lush greenness of the landscape and leave their sweet scents lingering on the air. 

Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel Prodigal Summer, calls this time of year “the season of extravagant procreation,” and the most extravagant procreators of the early Maritime flowers are the lupins.  I am constantly amazed at how different each lupin is from the other.  Some are dark purple; others are deep pink.  Once I was fortunate enough to find a lupin that was almost a lavender blue.  I haven’t seen one like it since.  And then there are the bi-coloured lupins – dark purple on top and white inside.  Or pale pink with fuchsia highlights.  So much variety, every one different, and just when you think you’ve seen every shade of purple or pink imaginable, you find yet one more. 

There is a children’s book called Miss Rumphius that my kids used to read.  In order to make the world more beautiful, Miss Rumphius spreads lupin seeds all over her town, and becomes known as “The Lupin Lady.”  I have aspirations to become another “Lupin Lady” and spread lupin seeds in ditches where they don’t already grow. 

Soon, the lupins will give way to fireweed and devil’s paintbrush, and all too soon, they will give way to the burnished colours of autumn.  I guess in some ways it’s the shortness of the season that makes them all the more precious.  Already, since we visited the lupin quarry last week, they are starting to go to seed.  But what beauty they give every year.  Happy lupin days!

My Dad

Two years ago at this time, I was in Manitoba with my daughter, my mom, my brother and his family, and friends and family.  We gathered on a hot Manitoba summer day at a small country cemetery near the town where Dad had his last church, a congregation that was like family to him and my mom.  We had a short service at the cemetery and Dad’s earthly remains were buried in the prairie sod that he loved. 

My dad died unexpectedly almost three years ago.  He was 82, and had suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for several years.  His condition was progressively getting worse, and we were facing some difficult decisions about his care.  So while his death was shocking and unexpected, it was also somewhat of a relief.

I think about my dad a lot.  He was a quiet man, and as he got older, he was more content to sit in a chair and observe life going on around him.  He loved sports, and was always active when I was growing up, playing Oldtimers’ hockey, curling (once his team got an 8-ender!), baseball, pickup football, cross-country skiing, camping, canoeing, hiking, and enjoying manual labour.  He built two houses for us over the years, a cedar-strip canoe which now resides in my shed, and beautiful furniture for his family, including a rocking horse for his first grandchild (my son) which has been well-used over the years, not only by my children, but by dozens of others who have visited my home.  He also built for my children a replica of an antique Quebecois cradle which was given to my parents when I was born.

Dad grew up in a family that struggled at times with poverty, like many others on the Prairies during the Dirty Thirties.  They moved a lot until they finally settled in the Lower Mainland of BC when Dad was in his teens.  He didn’t finish high school, but he was the first person in his family to receive a university degree.  I think that his experiences of being unsettled and unrooted gave him great sensitivity to those who were seeking to belong.  He was the fourth of six children who lived to be adults, and although most of our life as a family was lived far from most of our extended family, he was close to his siblings, and there was always lots of laughter when they were together.  

Even though Dad was quiet and was unable to fully participate in our activities at the end, his presence was large in our lives.  He loved children, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he actually enjoyed being a grandfather more than he did a father.  He had the freedom and the time to watch his grandchildren play, learn and grow.  My kids were lucky – they remember him before Parkinson’s overtook him.  They spent a lot of time with my parents, and I know that their memories of him are of happy times, playing hockey in the basement, and going to every playground in the town, then buying them treats on the way home; setting up a model railroad in his basement, helping them with various projects, cooking their favourite meals (breakfast for supper – Poppa’s porridge and pancakes), and building sandcastles on the beach.  I can’t even imagine how proud of them he would be now if he could see all that has happened in their lives in only three years. 

Dad had a deep reserve of patience.  I honestly can only remember him losing his temper once, and that was after my brother and I were adults and had left home.  He always had time for us.  He was a minister, and usually worked from home, so there were many times when we would disturb him with questions or showing him things we had found.  I often wonder how many great sermons he never preached because one of us had interrupted his train of thought and he hadn’t been able to pick it up again.  He never begrudged us the interruptions, and never attempted to rush us through whatever it was we had to say.

More than anything, my dad was wise.  He was a great listener, and seldom “advised.”  But somehow, he always knew what questions needed to be asked, and he was able to gently guide us when we asked for advice.  I know that in his role as a minister, he was compassionate, caring and non-judgmental, and I am aware that he probably made a huge difference in the lives of many of the people he served without anyone else ever knowing about it. 

He had a hidden but very active sense of humour.  We always knew that if we could get a chuckle out of Dad, we had found a truly funny joke.  Many times, we would be sitting around the table with all four of us laughing uncontrollably at some funny pun or joke.  His favourite joke had to do with toilet paper and airplane wings, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the whole thing. 

My husband and I got engaged while we were both working at a summer camp in Manitoba.  We did not have telephone access, and we decided that we would wait to tell anyone about our engagement until we were able to tell our parents all at the same time.  Dad was volunteering at the camp that week, but the problem was that my mom had stayed at home.  To this day, I don’t know whether Dad somehow knew that something momentous had happened and was teasing us, or whether it was a coincidence, but the very next morning, he invited us to join him in an early morning canoe trip around the shores of the lake.  So there we were, the three of us, two of us bursting to share our news, and my dad.  We managed to keep it in, but I imagine my dad chuckling to himself through the next couple of days, watching us sweat until we finally had the family together and broke the news. 

For the past several years, I planned to plant a crabapple tree – not one of those showy pink decorative trees, but the kind that produces edible fruit, like the ones that grow in the prairies.  My dad loved crabapple jelly, and my plan was to grow enough crabapples to make him at least a couple of jars.  But I never followed up.  This spring, we finally planted one.  Every year when it blooms, around Father’s Day, I will think of my dad, and when we finally get some fruit on it, I’ll dedicate my first jar of jelly to him. 

Even though my dad was not the kind of man who was larger than life and boisterous and loud, his absence leaves a hole, a figurative empty chair at the table that will always be there.  I miss his quiet gentleness and wisdom, his chuckles, and his ability to revel in the small joys of life.  I miss his presence, and I am so thankful for all that I learned from him.

What is it about PEI?

It’s our last night on Prince Edward Island.  We have enjoyed five days of rest, relaxation, peace and quiet.  Calmness has returned to our souls, at least for the moment.  My husband has had his annual meal of mussels, and we have spent time walking the beach near our rental cottage.

I love PEI.  I don’t know what exactly it is about the Island that keeps bringing me back.  I’ve heard some people say that there is a certain mentality about being on an island.  I’m not sure if that is the case.  Maybe it’s the intensity of the colours: the red soil, the blue sky, the intense greens of the trees in June.  Or maybe it’s the fact that you can’t ever be more than 15 minutes away from the ocean.  Or a lighthouse.  Maybe it’s the sheer number and variety of beaches and all their treasures (the beach at our cottage has starfish of all sizes).  Or maybe the rolling hills and river vistas.  Or the myriad of small fishing harbours.

Maybe it’s the Island architecture.  I love driving the back roads, looking at the homes and yards of the people who live here.  People on the Island seem to take particular pride in beautiful homes and neat yards, although, as anywhere, there are those places which are a little rough around the edges.  But there is something special about the old farmhouses of PEI.  I don’t know exactly what it is, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to identify different features.  But there is a particular blend of large verandahs, gables, and sea-facing windows which calls to me.  If had the money, I would buy one of those deserted old homes and restore it, and I would live there forever.

Or maybe it’s a soul connection with my childhood hero, Anne of Green Gables.  When I was young enough to have the time, I read the entire set of Anne books every summer.  There was something about that spunky, red-headed orphan, who wanted more than anything to belong to someone and somewhere, that connected with me, and with so many other girls and women.  I wanted to know her, and I wanted to know the places she loved.  Place is intricately connected with Anne and her identity.  As someone who moved around a lot when I was a child, I envied her connection to this place, and to her natural surroundings.

Since I’ve become an adult, I’ve read a lot about her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and her love for the Island.  I have to admit, I am a bit of an Anne snob.  I don’t enjoy the kitsch of Cavendish (where all the touristy Anne stuff is located), and I have no desire to go to the musical.  But Anne is so inextricably linked with PEI that they have created an entire tourist industry around her.  Anyone who has read and loved Anne of Green Gables would surely feel at home the moment they stepped on the Island. 

Whatever it is, I have enjoyed this peaceful time.  Thank you, PEI.  See you again soon!

Moncton

About 10 days ago, something truly shocking happened in Moncton, New Brunswick.  A young man shot five police officers, killing three of them and injuring two.  After a manhunt which lasted about 30 hours and involved the lockdown of a major part of the city, the shooter was captured. 

As I write this, I am sitting wrapped up in a blanket with a book and a cup of hot tea in the screened-in porch of a cottage at Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island.  It is cool and foggy and there isn’t a breath of wind. The only sounds I can hear are the crows, songbirds, and gulls and other shorebirds, the occasional hum of the hummingbirds as they hover at their feeder, and the gentle rain.  I have been watching the resident Canada Goose family, with four little fluffy babies, swimming and eating the new grass in front of the cottage.  The tide has been coming in since I got up a little after 6 a.m.  It couldn’t be any calmer or more placid, and right now, the events in Moncton seem a world and a lifetime away.

I don’t want to make what happened in Moncton any more tragic by claiming that I am personally involved.  I didn’t know any of the Mounties who were shot, I don’t know the shooter or any of his family or friends. 

Yet somehow I feel as if I were personally involved.  Moncton is the city where I shop, eat out, have medical appointments, and go to sports and cultural events.  It has been our city centre for the past 21 years.  We recognized almost every location that was shown in footage and photographs, and we know exactly where the shooting occurred, and which area was locked down.  Some of the RCMP officers from my town were among those who responded after the shooting, and we have friends across the country who are officers in the RCMP and other police forces. We know people in the area which was locked down, and others who live in other Moncton neighbourhoods.  Moncton is a small city.  This isn’t supposed to happen in a small city.  It isn’t supposed to happen in Moncton.

And yet it did.  And the truth is, it could happen again in Moncton.  It could happen in the small town where I live.  It could happen in your neighbourhood, town or city.  We are not immune from the issues that contribute to violence and tragic death.  We feel as if we are, because we know our neighbours and we live in small, “safe” communities.  Things like this only happen in big American cities. 

Right?

Each time there is a tragic event like this one, especially in Canada, we feel sad and shocked, and ask questions about our society and our collective values, and wonder how this could ever happen.  We Canadians pride ourselves on having a more caring society than our American neighbours.  Is the fact that we are still so shocked by inexplicable real-life violence proof of that?  I’m not sure it is. 

The tragedy of the Moncton events is that three men are now dead.  Their families have lost their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers.  The deeper tragedy is that even in our supposedly “safe” small towns and cities, there are people who are so hopeless or so angry or so unwell, that shooting someone with the intent of killing them is somehow the only action they feel they can take.  These people live among us.  Do we see them or hear them or even notice them enough to be concerned for them?

Last weekend, I attended a lecture by a psychiatrist who works in the Emergency Department of the regional children’s hospital.  She told us that what children in crisis need most from the adults around them is to be present, and to be heard.  Later, I came across a quotation in a crime novel I was reading.  The Swedish detective was trying to find answers to a crime that involved South Africans, former Soviets, and other immigrant and foreign nationalities, and was getting frustrated with the different ways that other cultures have in expressing themselves.  He realized that "...people... have to be allowed to tell the story their own way... They are often put off by the hurry we're always in, and they think it's a sign of our contempt. Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful of them" (Henning Mankell in The White Lioness – emphasis is mine).

We all have moments when we run into someone, and we instinctively know they want or need to talk.  It’s almost impossible most times to interrupt our schedules and stop what we are doing and take the time to really listen.  I think it’s also frightening.  I have my own issues and priorities and problems, and it is risky to get involved in other people’s affairs.  And yet, as part of a community that is supposed to care, isn’t that exactly what I am supposed to do?

I wonder how many more shootings, stabbings, suicides and beatings it will take before we collectively have the time to sit in silence with our neighbours, and take the time to hear their stories.  I wonder how many it will take before I have the time.

Happy anniversary!

29 years ago today, on a cool but pleasant prairie day, my husband and I got married.  It was a church wedding, relatively small and simple.  I wore my mother’s wedding gown, the groom wore a new suit, and we each had two attendants (I had my best friend and my cousin, my husband had his best friend and his brother).  Our fathers (both Baptist ministers) both took part in our ceremony and there were several other ministers in the congregation (so we were well and truly married).  Lilacs from my mother’s garden and ivy from my aunt’s west coast garden, which she brought on the plane, were our flowers.  We were surrounded by family and friends.  After afternoon tea, served by the church ladies, we left for our honeymoon in the nearby national park.  It was a beautiful time, full of joy, love, hope and promise. 

Now, 2 kids, 4 homes, and several cars later, here we are, on a cool, grey, Maritime morning with not even the suggestion of a lilac in sight.  We are older, hopefully a little bit wiser, have a few more pounds and lot of grey hair (or in my husband’s case, a lot less hair...) and we definitely have moved way beyond that first mad blush of romance.  We have had disagreements, we have acted rashly, we have made some really bad choices.  We have faced serious house problems, and the resulting financial issues, we have experienced major health challenges and death, and we have definitely had times when we weren’t feeling the love.

We have also raised two incredible children, and worked hard to create a home which is welcoming and comfortable.  We’ve had amazing adventures (spending four months in Japan when the kids were younger is just one) and we have met so many incredible people who have become part of our extended “family.”  We have experienced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat through our involvement with our university sports teams, and in other more personal experiences. 

So what has brought us this far together along the road of marriage, when statistically half of all marriages end in divorce?  Is it because of the centrality of faith in our lives?  I know others whose faith is just as strong as ours who have been divorced.  Is it because we have the perfect marriage, with just the right amount of give and take, and we’ve figured it all out?  I think anyone who knows us would laugh at such a notion.  (My husband and I certainly would, and our kids would blow a gasket).  We definitely have our own interests and opinions, which are not always compatible, and our personalities often clash.

I don’t know why we’ve made it this far together.  We are no longer the young, idealistic lovers we were then.  We are no stronger or no wiser than many others who haven’t made it this far.  Is it just a case of “there but for the grace of God”?   I wonder, if we could have seen then how our life together would unfold, would we have made the same decision to walk down that aisle?  Is our life together better or worse than we once imagined it would be?  I don’t know. However, I do know that I can’t imagine having the adventures and facing the challenges that we have had with anyone else.  And I know that whenever I have needed him, my husband has been there for me.  He has been my strength, my source of comfort, my encourager, my shoulder to cry on.

There is a song by Dan Fogelberg from the 1980s called “Longer.”  It is a love song, and part of it goes like this:

Through the years as the fire starts to mellow
Burning lines in the book of our lives
Though the binding cracks
And the pages start to yellow
I'll be in love with you.

I love that image.  Our book isn’t finished yet.  The binding has started to crack, and the pages are not as pristine as they were 29 years ago.  But there are a lot of empty pages left to fill, and I am looking forward to finishing the story together.  The story thus far hasn’t always been happy or pleasant, and I am sure that we will face more challenging chapters in the years to come.  But I am pretty confident that when the last word is written, it will be “love.”  Happy anniversary, to my best friend, my confidant, my husband.  Here’s to the book of our lives.

Hello!

Hi there!  Welcome to my blog.  I am new at this, so bear with me as I experiment with this whole blogosphere thing.

I should introduce myself.  I'm quickly approaching middle age, and I seem to spend a lot of my time these days thinking about life while I do mundane things like ironing, driving or washing dishes. I don't know if I have anything to say that's worth sharing, but you never know.   At the very least, this experiment will give my family plenty of fodder for mockery at inopportune moments. 

The first real thing you should know about me is that I love my family, deeply and passionately, and I am (so far) immensely proud of them.  I have a husband and we have been married since 1985.  We have two kids; a son who is almost 24 and a daughter who will be 20 this year.  They're both pretty awesome kids, and I am quite sure they will figure prominently in some of my posts.  Being a mum is by far the best and most rewarding thing I will ever do in my life.  I'm sure there will be more on them later.  I also have a Mom, who is one of my heroes in life, a Dad who died a couple of years ago and who I miss terribly, a brother who has a wife and two small boys, and some in-laws who I actually really like.  Yes, I sincerely like my in-laws.  I also have a fairly large extended family who all live on the other coast.

Second, I am proud to be a Canadian, and I love Canadian history.  My husband, who studied British history in a previous life, says that "Canadian" and "history" do not belong in the same sentence; I, however, am continually amazed at how interesting our history as a nation is.  I have lived on the East Coast for the past 20 years, but I grew up in the West, and it astounds me to consider that when the Prairies were being settled, Atlantic Canada already had generations of settlement under its belt.  I'm also pretty sure that some of my posts will be historical in nature.  Or maybe that should be "hysterical..."  I feel that I know a lot about Canada, because I have lived in every province from New Brunswick to British Columbia at least once.  I've spent a lot of time in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, which is almost as good as living there.  I am longing to visit Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Northern territories, which I have never done.  I consider myself to be a prairie person, although I haven't lived there for many years, but it is where I did a lot of my growing up, and when I'm homesick, it's usually for the prairies.  I’ve moved so much, though, that sometimes when I wake up in the morning, it takes me a minute to remember where I am living.  I'm proud of my heritage (Mennonite on my father's side, British via Jamaica on my mother's side with a long line of Baptist ministers in there), and I have done a fair bit of research on my family's history, particularly on my dad's side.

Third, I am a huge football fan.  Let me be clear: I mean Canadian football.  The Canadian Football League, the one with the bigger field, bigger ball, and 3 downs.  I don't enjoy NFL football, or European football particularly, although I do enjoy cheering on our local university soccer teams on occasion.  I am a fan of my local university football team, and have attended almost every one of their games with my son since he was 7 or so.  Those of you who knew me when I was growing up will be a bit puzzled, and might even have had to re-read the first sentence of this paragraph a few times, because until I was an adult, I was an avid (some might say rabid) hockey fan.  Hockey Night in Canada was sacred time in our house, almost as sacred as church time (my dad was a Baptist minister), and at one point, I ate, drank, breathed and dreamed about hockey.  I never played, but I loved the game.  Until I married my husband and moved to southern Ontario, where the only game in town was the Toronto Maple Leafs.  And they were pretty bad, especially compared to the Gretzky era of the Edmonton Oilers that I spent my teenage years watching.  So I stopped watching hockey and started watching football.  Since we moved away from southern Ontario and the Leafs, I have started watching NHL hockey again, and I even won the annual family hockey pool in 2011.  I also have become a big fan of women’s hockey, and I enjoy watching all the university sports that our local university offers.  I like watching many sports, but I am not very athletic myself.

Fourth, I am interested in social justice issues, like poverty, equality, education, and health care, both on local and global levels. These issues occupy my thoughts frequently, and there are certain issues within the larger ones that particularly absorb me, such as the reality of Canada’s First Nations. I have done some reading and researching about things like the Millennium Development Goals, and I admire groups such as the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, the Mennonite Central Committee, and Free the Children who try to make the world a more level playing field.

Fifth, I like a lot of other things, like reading, snowshoeing, knitting and other kinds of crafts, cooking, baking, snuggling babies and small children, and listening to music.  I'm not particularly technologically inclined, but I have an iPod, and on my iPod, there is a fairly eclectic range of music, including Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Springsteen, Kate Rusby, classical music, Steve Bell, Hedley, Avicii, Ella Fitzgerald, Eva Cassidy, and many others.  The only music I generally don't like is country music and technocrap.  My idea of a perfect day when the kids were little was a snow day vacation from school, all of us curled up on the sofa watching a movie together, or gathered around the kitchen table creating something. 

Last, but definitely not least, I think it is important to say that I am a Christian.  Sometimes I don't act like a Christian, and a lot of times I don't think Christian thoughts, but at the root of it, my faith is part of who I am, what I'm passionate about, and most of the time, how I act (or at least, how I want to act).  That doesn't mean that my posts will be religious or spiritual or even particularly deep, but I hope that what I believe will be reflected in what and how I write.  Having said that, I am just a little bit opinionated, so I am sure there will be times when what I write will be at odds with what I actually believe.  I hope I don't offend anyone too terribly. 

A friend posted a quotation on Facebook the other day that pretty much sums up where I am in my life at the moment:

 My to-do list for today:
- Count my blessings
- Practice kindness
- Let go of what I can't control
- Listen to my heart
- Be productive yet calm
- Just breathe

Till next time! Thanks for visiting!