Things that deserve the stink-eye:

Let's be honest, learning to spell is hard, but adorable, and perhaps unintentionally awkward? Ask any seven year old, especially this one who has a good grasp of the letter sounds, if not technical clarity. A+ for phonics, 'not yet meeting' for orthography. :)

This young writer responded to the sentence stem, "Peace is...." 

Do you, ahem, agree with her? Or how would you complete the sentence? 

Oh, and peace be cwit you, ha.

(If you're struggling to solve this, unscramble these letters: etqui.)

....

source

(I've been trying to write about the world for weeks and I'm still struggling to find the words, but currently, this is it.)

One June I discovered them. About nine feet high, our deck looks out over our backyard, more of a balcony. Walking along the deck to our back door, I was startled by a robin that flew from what seemed like directly under me. Looking downward through the narrow gaps in the floorboards, I glimpsed movement. Startled, there were three newly hatched, featherless, and blind baby robins in a nest just centimeters from my feet, their mouths open, silent. 

Anyone arriving at our back door would be unaware their feet walked over a nest. It made sense to be excited by this discovery, by this intimate window into nature, but those three robins troubled me. 

Master nest builders for millennia before me, who am I to question the bird's nest, its design, its location, its anything? But there was a better choice. That fragile, hidden nest rattled me: why would a bird construct a nest it should know is unsafe? What prompted this mistake? Were resources scarce? Did some other danger prevent the bird from choosing a better location? Or was this something I couldn't fathom? Whatever the reason, I couldn't shake my doubt for those birds' safety.  

That feeling is the feeling I'm feeling: confusion and an unsettledness. And that nest is the current state of the world. 

I don't want to sound irrational. All over the world, (despite the news), parties continue to be planned, pregnancies are announced, concerts continue...plus, at the moment, my own little nest seems secure: we're healthy, we're finding meaning in new work, we're preparing for Christmas and a holiday, we're reading compelling books, savoring chocolate, playing Dutch Blitz and laughing with dear friends, and enjoying our grandchildren and yet... there's something else in the ellipses... something like those birds once under my deck. 

I don't aim to ruminate, or dampen spirits...but those birds...it feels like we're those birds.... One day they were gone: did they survive?

Perhaps though, there is another perspective to consider? Robins don't exist if they don't take risks. Nor do we. Why continue building a shaky nest? Because the risk is worth it, friends. Perhaps that's a lesson to live by in this shaky world. Whatever risks we face, we face them until one day we can, hopefully, fly away and build anew, more sturdy than now.

Fingers & Toes Crossed

I, M, & L

My three grandkids were together recently. I is almost 11 months, M is 3 1/2, and L is almost 18 months. 

Like my grandson in this pic, I grew up with cousins, two girls close to my age, one older and one younger. 

Gen X kids, we mostly raised ourselves. It wasn't easy. We knew how to fend for ourselves and how to disappear, but we filled our hiding places with music and candy and pretend and stories but mostly laughter, that sort of laughter that makes breathing sporadic. (You'd understand what was so funny if you watched us perform The Most Beautiful Girl in the World in a freezing cold unfinished basement for an audience of one bored and one bewildered cat.) 

With much to learn and no one safe to ask, we figured life out together, without judgment or shame—so relieving for a group of offbeat oddballs. Uncertain about ourselves, but relying on each other, our promises were kept: we crossed our hearts and hoped to die. We forgave each other's mistakes, all of them, I hope? Throughout childhood, there were few people I trusted more than those two. 

Inevitably, life led us in different directions. I miss them. I'm grateful for the cushion we constructed between ourselves and the world, and so of course I will foster this bond in I, in M, in L. And perhaps someday, fingers and toes crossed, my cousins and I will spend an entire sunrise to sunset with each other again. And since we no longer have to sneak whiskey shots, perhaps karaoke? 〵(⌒˽⌒)〴

Dear friends, did you grow up with cousins? 

Take Hold

I's hands

Ten-month old toddler hands rarely cease. 

Curious, her hands examine all things in her path from the stuffed bunny's button tail to the start "button" on the dump truck. Chewing a toy then dropping it and crawling to the next, climbing up the coffee table and inching her hands to one coaster, then the next, and the next. 

She absorbs this life hands first, then into her mouth, her eyes darting from one pursuit to the next, her ears perked by toys that beep or spin, then kitchen noises, then my voices. I wonder, what does she smell? Perhaps smell develops slowly, thankfully unadvanced until post-diaper life? 

I use ASL to encourage her with my own hands: yes and yes and yes. 

Oh to be a new human again, and take hold of the world. 

Coining it?

Perplexed, I discovered these coins in our kitchen sink. Literally, money down the drain?

My wife was away, so I texted her this pic. Later, she explained, "while cleaning our vehicle, I found the coins in the console, dusty, so I tossed them in the sink and ran water over them."

My (Dad) brain: 

1. Ah, so dirty money? 
2. Like nickel and grime?
3. Perhaps we should have laundered this money?
4. A penny for your "pots" (and pans)?
5. If only we had more than two nickels to scrub together....

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't forget.

October 2024, Northern Canada

 Decades ago when we bought our home, I noticed something that made me love it even more: walking up the staircase, we have a window from the main floor to the ceiling. It's like having a skylight visible from the lower floor. As I walk up the stairs, there's a fairly clear view of the sky and occasionally, the northern lights are framed there above me like garments of light. 

As a northern Canadian, I can't imagine a sky without them. Years ago, while traveling in Scotland, locals told us how they longed to visit Canada someday to see the Rocky Mountains and the northern lights. The Scots helped me understand that we Canadians—even though we've literally grown up with them—must avoid taking the northern lights for granted. 

As a young boy (when seatbelts barely existed), I recall lying across the backseat of the family car staring up through the rear window at the northern lights, my Mom driving us home from somewhere. I recall telling her that I thought the northern lights "might be the bottoms of God's curtains?" 

Even as a preoccupied teenager, I remember driving on backroads with my friends, pulling over, all us jumping around like Walt Whitman, "yawping" into the night sky as it shimmied like a woman dancing, her colourful dress twirling in slow-motion. 

And as a parent, I never missed an opportunity to point them out to my children, to teach them to wonder, to awe.  

Our modern world boils over with distractions and strife (there's a sort-of numbing creeping into life), but the northern lights remind us we are alive and more in sync than we realize. Mary Oliver said it better: the northern lights remind us to pay attention, be astonished, and tell others. 

Dear friends, notice, celebrate, share. Don't forget. There's a comraderie in any sky: whether it's a lingering sunset, a shooting star, or a sheer-costumed sky, these experiences mean more collectively. The northern lights are unifying, and today, for me, there's a longing in them too, a longing for those no longer here to share the sky—those good friends who forgot or those whose pain was too overwhelming to remember how we celebrated being alive, together, astonished, our feet on the ground, looking up, clapping, whooping, laughing, loving this one short, extraordinary life. 

Things one should never outgrow:

"Music can change the
world because music can
change people." Bono

making music, even if the best you can do is the washboard-tie aka musical instruments made for people like me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you play a musical instrument, or perhaps some sad substitute, albeit with absolute glee? 

(Whatever your response, I hope there's an abundance of music enriching your life.)

Sheesh or Yeesh?

I noticed that my blog tag widget displays both "sheesh" & "yeesh." I did not realize I was using them interchangeably, so I researched these interjections and discovered they are indeed related. 

Several sites declare they are both used to express "annoyance, disapproval, dismay, surprise, impatience or distress." The urban dictionary explained that yeesh is "yikes" and sheesh combined and etymologically they are variants of the exasperated expressions, geez/jeez (and their profane origin)...or, at least that's the hypothesheesh. ;)

Either way, I love them. 

I checked my tag stats and discovered I use "sheesh" far more often, and this made me wonder if this interjection is regional. Do you use sheesh or yeesh or both, or something a little more spicy to express your irritation? 

September

September is such a slow burn in Western Canada. Until it isn't. 

Among the greens, hints here and there of new colours, mostly yellow, and then all at once everything's yellow and those leaves flutter away like ash.  

Even though they are still fruiting, our strawberries are ignited too, showing off with so much (fleeting) beauty. 

Let's be honest:

Spotted in this restaurant (5 stars)