Something engraved

Ever since I was a kid, I've liked graveyards.  Invariably, whenever people find this out about me the first thing they say is "WHY?", usually accompanied by a look of confusion on their face and incredulity in their voice. Now, of course this reaction makes sense. After all, the first thing most people would think of with a place where one buries the dead is...death.   Ooooh, isn't that an uneasy topic! Psychological studies have shown that death the #2 biggest common fear for people, only beaten by a fear of public speaking. My statement about liking graveyards has the side effect of plunging people into unintended mental proximity to one of the scariest things in life! *insert evil cackles here* And, if it's not death that gets them rattled, then it's ... ghosts.  You know, that thing that people say they don't really believe in, but actually kind of do in a spirituality-adjacent-but-creepy way.

Occasionally, however, following my declaration of graveyard love, the response I get back surprises me.  "I get it!" or "me too!"  There's something about these kind of responses that conjures a warm sense of fuzziness all the way from my heart to my toes. 

Look at this graveyard in the spring!

The people who get it usually understand this simple fact: graveyards are peaceful. There is the separation that occurs within a graveyard from the hubbub of society, and simultaneously with this separation comes a return to nature.  There is stone, grass, trees and quiet, calm. If this was the one redeeming quality of graveyards they would still be very lovable, but to borrow the words of the world's most infamous infomercials: wait, there's more! 

Beyond the space to think and breath within a busy life, there is also an incredible sacred dimension to graveyards.  In my graveyard wanderings I've found myself drawn into the story of life and death - of the circle of life.  I've become aware that I am part of that circle, part of the loop of common humanity.  I am not alone in my humanness.  The people who are buried around me are people who lived, laughed, loved, suffered, cried, felt trauma, failed, succeeded.... they weren't perfect but they did come before me and they paved the way for me to be here, now as I am.  Drawn into this story I feel an incredible sense of connectedness that transcends time even while including time. 

In memory of that time I sat on the kindness bench

Part of me is very aware at how long this preamble has been, but I felt like it was necessary to provide some context before I start posting pictures of random tombstones on my blog.  You see, this morning I decided to go for a walk and ended up in the nearby graveyard.  Once there I started with an activity I would recommend people try: reading tombstones.  And by "reading" I don't mean just look at the words - rather, take in their meaning, figure out what story they are telling.

 For example, take this gravestone family story:

From what I can piece together, we have John and Elizabeth, who were married (she was three years older than he was) and their daughter Christina who lived to a ripe old age of 92. It's hard to place Frederick - there's no age - but one would assume there is at least a 20 year age gap between him and Christina, judging by the dates of death and from what we know about normal life expectancy. So, I'm guessing Frederick is a grandson to John & Elizabeth, perhaps Christina's son??  If that is true though, why is he the one who gets to go on the tombstone over any other grandchild? Were there no other grandchildren?  The fact that Christina has her maiden name and no listed husband makes me wonder more - did she have this child out of wedlock?  Where is the father?  Was she a single mother and Frederick was her only child?  Are you not as fascinated as I am that we have stumbled into this mystery with only names, ages and dates?!

But I'm not done yet, there's more to the story this tombstone tells.  There's another name on the list, Alida, and she stands out because of the footnote that came only moments before.  She is not called the "wife of" Frederick, but he is called her husband.  If you study enough gravestones you'll realize how rare this is.  Women are often treated like belonging to the man rather than the other way around.  There is a subtle sense of hierarchy in this presentation, that when repeated indefinitely across hundreds or thousands of tombstones diminishes the value of women in general.  And yet here, I immediately felt the sense of respect in these words towards this woman who even though she is not related by blood to this lineage seems to be granted this place of esteem. He was her husband too, she was not just his wife.  

~

On my way home I found myself reflecting on some of the most common engravings to be seen on gravestones: "in loving memory", "loving wife", "loving husband", "I am the resurrection and the life" .... one of these things is not like the others.  There is so much that can be said in a few a words that adds context to the whole story. And yet, some phrases are used so often they have almost lost their meaning, they're basically platitudes.  So, I was wondering, what it might be like if we started including in these few words a story about the person that was a little less conventional?  Something like:

    "kicked ass in life"
    "epic level friend"
    "beloved by her cats and husband"   or
    "Canadian to the core"  

What do you think?  What story would you want people to read about you, if a random stranger was seeking your story on a gravestone and you only had a few words to tell it in?

Something pricey

Let's talk about my current living situation. 

Ultimate cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space.

This is my bedroom.  It is also my office, my living room, my coat closet, my library and my game room: my only option that I can truly go to to have my own space when I am home.  Not so apparent from the photo is how small the room is - only made to appear bigger by virtue of my ingenious furniture arranging skills, where I have pushed the single bed against the wall so as to have a scrap of floor space that struggles to accommodate my flailing limbs when I attempt yoga within the confines of its boundaries.  If I lay down on the floor, my feet touch my bedside table and my head is next to the wicker chair that I salvaged off the street to use as a desk chair.   

"Surely," you might say, "There are more places in the house you can go to other than your room?  What about a kitchen?  A bathroom? Living room?"

You mean the mould-infested bathroom with the discoloured floor and the salmon-pink tub, where in desperation one day I took a scrub brush in order to scrape off the strange yellow substance growing in the grout between the ancient tiles?  That bathroom?

 You mean the kitchen that is so long and thin that the only way to have two people in it at once is for one person to squeeze themselves into the counter-top and suck in all their bits so the other person can pass?  Where the best way to make dinner is to wait for the other person to finish making dinner, however long that might take? That kitchen?

Oh, the living room!  You mean the living room that is occupied almost 24/7 by the only other occupant of the house, both my landlord and my roommate? 

 ...  I suppose this would be a good time to introduce my roommate.

CHEESE!

This is Tony, an 87-year-old Italian immigrant, a lovely man who is respectful of my boundaries and who couldn't remember my name for the entire first year we lived together (My name was "Nme" mumbled really quickly in hopes I wouldn't catch on). There is definitely a generation gap between us, complete with a difference in values.  He's finally stopped telling I need to get a real job that is 9-5 and not work on weekends.  Sometimes he appears at the door of my room to tell me his phone is broken, because his finger accidentally hit a button on the smartscreen of his cellphone and he doesn't understand the interface.  

The COVID pandemic was not easy on my roommate.   Before lockdown measures he would go out multiple times a week to play cards in an Italian bar for candies or to community dance events to rip up the floor with the good old-time rock-and-roll (he likes the fast songs).  Of course, once the lockdown began, all of that ended and he found himself with nothing to do, except to stay home and watch news that he only marginally understood the context of, and nostalgically reminisce about returning to his native country one last time before he dies.  I've watched as he's lost enthusiasm to go out and as his health has begun to falter.  It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the day is coming when he's either going to need to move into a home where there is assisted living, or that one day I might come home and find out that he's had a heart attack.

Not happy thoughts.

But they are practical thoughts, because despite the cheap rent, it is clear that the day is coming where I will need to find my own place.  Also, I would like to be able to enjoy the pleasure that comes from being able to sit on a couch in the living room without having to listen to someone's life story or watching wrestlemania on tv.  I would like to be able to make dinner when I'm hungry without having to delay it for an hour if my roommate is concocting something in the kitchen.  It would be nice to be able to see my virtual clients from my home without having to worry that they are getting a professional view of my bed, or worry that, half-way through the appointment, my half-deaf roommate might answer the phone and loudly ask the person to repeat what they are saying or give a "F*** YOU" to the telemarketers.

Now that I have described my living situation you might be able to understand why I would possibly want to buy a house in this horrendous market that we are experiencing right now, where all housing is over-priced and interest rates are jacked to their highest rates since 2008.   You might even be wondering why I haven't moved out sooner.

 Believe me, it's been a test of patience.

 First, I was in university and planning to move back to BC afterwards.  Then I was graduated, in student debt and making a pittance. In fact when Canada's CERB benefit came out at the dawn of the COVID era in the summer of 2020, $2000/month was about $600 more than my monthly living allowance.  (It was a bit of a disappointment that I wasn't eligible to apply).  Since then I have pinched pennies where they could be pinched and then, when I finally felt financially secure enough to consider renting my own place, rent prices surged.  Now the cost of rest is equivalent or higher to the cost of getting a mortgage, even with $500+ condo maintenance fees and property taxes in the thousands of dollars and interest rates at the highest they have been in over a decade.  Voluntarily raising my living expenses by 4x the amount with nothing to show for it at the end sounds like the quickest way to say to someone else "Take all my money."

I talked to a mortgage broker yesterday.  My penny pinching has paid off and I have over $30,000 prepared for a down payment on a home, over half of that saved in the past two years.  I don't have a steady job but as a self-employed business owner my income has been stable for over a year now.  Now, with home prices looking they might fall in the near future and two years of provable self-employed income in my tax records, I thought maybe I could take a chance and get prepared by seeking pre-approval for a mortgage.

....yeah.... Yesterday I was told that, with my current income, I wouldn't even qualify for a mortgage within the $300,000 price range.  That's the cost of some of the cheapest condos in the city.  I was told that if I wanted a bank to take me seriously, I would need to double my down payment to at least 20% ($60,000), and that I should consider trying to borrow money from other people.  When I expressed my frustration at the system the broker had the nerve to try and justify the situation from the perspective of the banks. I interrupted him and changed the subject.  I get it, from the bank's perspective it's understandable, and I don't give a rat's ass about the perspective of the banks in this moment.  

 What I do see is that I am in a lucky position - at least I live with an 87-year-old Italian roommate who doesn't milk me dry for all I'm worth in rent.  At least I have the option to save money.  What about all the other people who are being taken advantage of?  Who can't save to buy a home because inflation has vastly outstripped wages?  Who are stuck paying off other people's mortgages while banks won't even consider them for their own mortgage, because on paper they aren't "good enough"?

I hate feeling like I have to hope for other's poor fortune (e.g. a drop in home prices or bank foreclosure) in order to have a hope that one day I might have a place to call my own: a place where I can paint the walls, own a cat and maybe even have my own coat closet to put my shoes in.

Something about a tree

 Once upon a time a long time ago in a family Christmas far away I received a tree in a Secret Santa gift exchange. It was a cute fluffy evergreen looking thing with tiny little needles covered in glitter...Lots of glitter.  It was the kind of gift no one else wanted.  

This is the best picture I have
of the tree in its original form,
cropped from a much larger picture. 
It is the one in the red pot.

 

 No one but me, that is, because as soon as that tree fell into my lap I was besotted.  It was just too cute!  Also, I have a thing for trees.  There's something about how tall they get, about the branches that grow outwards like nature's ultra-climbable jungle gym, and about the shade those branches provide, when you look up through the leaves and can catch a glimpse of the sky without being perpetually blinded by the sun.  When I was a child I remember swearing a promise to myself in the middle of weeding one of my mother's six gigantic flower beds, "When I grow up I'm not going to have flower beds - I'm going to grow trees! You don't have to weed trees - you just prune and fertilize them once a year then they practically take care of themselves!"  Plant perfection, as far as I was concerned.

This tree arrived at a clutch time in my life.  It arrived the same Christmas that my dad died. .... (I just had this realization...).  It was also at a time when I was struggling to learn the secret of how to keep house plants alive.  (For more about my plant growing chronicles, you can read this entry).  When I received this tree I remember dreaming of it one day growing into a large and proud Christmas-sized tree that could fit presents under it and be a shining example of my ability to keep plants alive!   It was a symbol of life and hope in a world that had been rocked by the shadow of death.

... Nearly ten years pass by and this tree continues to grow in its pot. It moves with me back into my mother's home.  My mom's cat decides that playing in the dirt in the pot is fun.  We booby trap the dirt with plastic forks to keep the cat out.  The cat is understandably upset about this. She starts to dig around the forks.  We put more forks in the pot until the dirt is filled with point white spikes.  It's s a true battleground standoff.  The cat surrenders, and we win!

... The tree continues to grow.  I move away, leaving the tree with my mother.  "Please take care of it." I beg her, perhaps a bit unreasonably, thinking that one day I would return and this tree would be part of my life once again.  She agrees like a saint, and keeps watering it despite the awkward amount of space it now commands in her office.  The thing is, I don't return... instead I get my master's degree and get a job, deciding to stay in a city that is on the opposite side of the continent....

... The tree continues to grow.  It now looks impossibly huge for its small pot having never been repotted in the ten years it has been alive.  My mom buys a new home and needs to downsize.  It's time for the tree to go.  And me, still somewhat attached to this tree although I haven't lived with it in over five years ask "Do you think we could plant this on my aunt and uncle's property?"  Yes, I knew my mother was moving, and was super busy and had no time or energy to her name.  Yes, I felt like I was being a huge imposition on both her and on my aunt and uncle for asking to use their property for my thing.  But, despite all this, I ask because it's my tree and I feel responsible for its life, even if it is a plant!  I want it to live a full and happy life, a life I can no longer provide for it.  Be free tree!  Be free!

 

It's grown so big!

I got this lovely picture from my aunt a few days ago.  The tree has been planted in its new home with love and care, a large painted rock I once used as a doorstopper decorating the plot.  My heart leaped with joy and excitement as I opened the message on my phone.

"What kind of tree is it?" My aunt texts me the question.

".... I don't know." I reply, explaining that I got the tree in a Secret Santa.

About few hours later she replies, "After a bit of research we came to the conclusion that "the tree" is perhaps a Norfolk Island Pine...which is usually available at Christmas time as a cute indoor mini alternative Christmas tree.  It is apparently a tropical tree and is in no way suitable for our Canadian winters."

I stare at the text message mortified, then I start laughing.  All that to-do about a tree, and it was doomed to begin with!  All that effort put into preserving its life, and yet, alas tree, I fear this may be your last summer.

 RIP: Tree.

2012-2021

Something français

STOP!  In Montreal.

 

"Excusez-moi? Parlez vous anglais?" I asked the man behind the desk at the Metro in Montreal.  My innate sense of direction was not accessible this far underground and I needed to find the bus station so I could purchase my ticket to Ottawa. Unfortunately old-reliable Google maps couldn't get a signal either, so I was forced to approach a random stranger and reveal my general incompetence at speaking the French language in the hopes of garnering some directions.

 

The man did indeed speak English and pointed the way asking, "How old are you?"  I hesitated for a moment, not sure of the relevance of the question.  What did my age have to do with getting to the bus station?  Figuring there was no harm in telling him, as I am not one of those people who feels like they need to perpetually lie about how young they are - who would I be fooling anyways? - I answered him "I am almost 30."

 

"Almost 30!" He says incredulously, "You don't know French and you have had 30 years to learn the language?!"

 

I flushed in embarrassment, swallowing the words of protest before I took anything needlessly personally.  The comment was rude, but the man was right; I had 30 years to learn the French language and I still can barely say anything more than "Je ne parle pas francais" (which itself is an oxymoron in that I claim to not be able to speak French while speaking French *sigh*).  What that man didn't realize though is that I have tried, more often than most would, to learn a language that is as elusive to me as the legendary Canadian ogo-pogo lake monster.

 

My handicap began at a young age.  Unlike most average school-attending children in Canada I did not go to a public school that offered French education from the elementary grades. The private school curriculum I was studying did not offer French until grade 9.  Incidentally, grade 9 was when I moved to a home-schooling curriculum where French was required, BUT the course-work was all done by correspondence.  Have you ever tried learning a language by correspondence?  It's like trying to whistle, not realizing that you don't have lips! It was a complete utter disaster and waste of time!  When I entered public school at grade 10, French became an optional elective, and realizing that I was 10 years hopelessly behind in the subject compared to my peers, I exercised my option to not take it.

 

Now I have to admit, in those mid-teen years of my life French was not a language that appealed to me.  It was too flowy, too elegant.  Words blended together like the notes of a melody, indistinguishable where one left off and the other began.  Personally, I was much more a fan of the harsher sounding languages like Russian, or Japanese, or Klingon.  "P'tak, get me my borscht! Itadakimasu!" But as I grew older and developed a greater interest in all things Canadian, my interest in the French language began to change too.  I began to realize that there is something very precious and unique in being a bilingual nation of people.

 

I tried to rectify my previous reticence to learn the language in later years.  I took an intro course in Fruitvale offered by my bilingual pastors, and there I learned that the bathroom is "la salle de bain". I took an intro course in Calgary as part of a continuing education program and there I learned how to ask for the time "Quelle heure est-il?"   I took an intro course on my computer using the Rosetta Stone software.  I can now identify articles of clothing by their French name, and construct a few rudimentary sentences. "Je porte un manteau blanc" = "I wear a white coat".  Every time I take a new intro course I retain a little more, but I've reached that uncomfortable impasse where I am absolutely sick of intro-courses and yet my French is still at a beginner level!

 

You see, what that man failed to realize is that it's not that I haven't learnt French for the lack of motivation in taking French courses.  It's that I haven't learnt French because I haven't lived in the right environment to help me retain it!  And one thing I realized as I travelled this autumn is how wonderfully multi-lingual Canada is, especially out east.  That bilingualism made me jealous.  I want to be a good Canadian too.  I'm already struggling in that regard because I don't really like maple syrup or hockey, but maybe, just maybe I can learn to speak French.

 

Today I arrived in Quebec City to embark on a 6-month long French immersion educational experience.  I've had about 6 hours of pitiful sleep over the last 24 hours that I was able to squeeze out of the uncomfortable bus seat and 3 plane transfers. I am exhausted but excited because finally I know that the legendary lake monster that has been evading me all my life will be mine.  I am here to learn French, in an environment that is overwhelmingly French Canadian, and this time no English-dependence/addiction will stop me!

 

Quebec City, from my week-long visit to it in September of 2015

Something full of holiday cheer

"I wanted to put up a Christmas tree for my birthday", my friend tells me as I visited her in Calgary at the end of November, "but some of my friends have a problem with Christmas trees."

"How can someone have a problem with Christmas trees?" I ask incredulously. "It's a tree with balls.  Lots and lots of balls!"

She takes one look at me and bursts out laughing.  "Oh, I missed you."


Runaway ball!!!

When I was a kid I remember being absolutely mesmerized by the concept of a Christmas tree.  After the tree was dressed I would sit at the base of the tree as the northern sky dimmed at its ridiculously early hour to complete blackness, allowing the multi-coloured illumination of the tree to become a spectacle that would enthrall me for hours on end as I stared up at it in wonder.  In those moments there was no need for thought or agenda; there was only a need for a deep sense of gratitude and joy.  My hyperactive imagination would pause as it stopped to consider the simple and majestic beauty the Christmas tree in front of me represented.  Needless to say, the Christmas tree has always been one of my favourite parts of Christmas.

Four years ago in December my dad died rather suddenly in a car accident. That year there was not much energy to celebrate Christmas, and so the Christmas tree did not go up.  The following year the tree went up only out of duress since we were hosting the family Christmas, but it was a half-hearted effort, going up at the last moment and not staying up past Boxing Day*.  Last year, our version of a Christmas tree was my mom's fake potted plant with multi-coloured lights on it, which we hadn't bothered taking off from the year before.  Maybe that passes for a Christmas tree in some households, but for my family the display was a lack of Christmas spirit at its finest.

Tree-dressing!

Which is why you should be able to understanding my surprise this year at the beginning November, when in mid-conversation my mother suddenly looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and a mischievous grin on her face and announced, "I feel like putting up the Christmas tree!!!"

I laughed and brushed it off, as I headed out the door to play board games at a friend's house.  After all, it was the beginning of November - and who puts up a Christmas tree at the beginning of November?

Well, apparently my family does, because when I got home I was shocked to discover a Christmas tree that I did not recognize standing proudly in the centre of the living room, completely decorated.  While I had been gone for the past 4 hours my mother had gone to Canadian Tire, bought a Christmas tree with my brother, brought it home, had my brother help her set it up in the middle of the living room and then decorated it and went to bed.

The funnier thing though is that this isn't the end of the story.  Dissatisfied with her choice of baubles, balls and lack of ribbon, on November 11th while we were exiled from the home to provide her housekeeper some personal space, we proceeded to travel across half of the West Kootenays in search of new ornaments to dress the tree with.  Then, after we got home, we promptly un-decorate the already-decorated tree in order to re-decorate it with the new decorations.  By the way, that was a completely decorous sentence. ~grins at bad pun~ 

Finished product! ~"Oh Christmas Tree"~

 

So suffice to say my family is in fine Christmas spirit this year.  The tree is up and it is beautiful and mesmerizing.  It has lights that can alternate between pristine white, and psychedelic multi-colour with patterns.  There are lots of balls on it.  The cat has already pulled the ribbon off of it at least once.  Yes, the tree this year is pretty much perfect in every way.  Merry Christmas everybody!

*Boxing day: December 26th, the Canadian equivalent of Black Friday - shopping day extraordinaire that was originally intended to be the day when people would "box up" the tree.

Something trippy

Field trips. What do those two words bring to mind for you?  I think of gold mines, railway museums, and now-abandoned towns full of people pretending that they lived 100 years ago and had just started making a new life on an untamed land. 

Field trips are the educators attempts to remove children from the plain boring history of rote and plunk them down in a setting where the past comes alive for them.  At least that is their hope - that the children will be able to engage with the physical environment in such a way that they realize that the events of the past actually mattered.  Warning: there is more to the world than whatever it passing through your twitter feed right now.

The thing was, I grew up in a place that did not have much history to boast of.  Growing up, my field trips consisted of the incredible unexciting opportunity to go on smelter tours! Woo-hoo.  How many ways can you melt rock?  Or mines: how many ways can you hit a rock?  Or settling a village on the edge of the Rocky Mountains: how long will it take you to grow a garden in a field full of rocks?  Don't mistake my words - I love rocks!  But, there has got to be more to life and history and Canada than rocks.

The first day I arrived in Halifax I immediately became aware of a fundamental shift in the nearness and realness of history.  Instead of a railway museum I walk into a Via Rail station where people can still take the train as a passenger across Canada.  I take a tour of a church where a piece of shrapnel is buried in the wall from an explosion that tore the city apart 100 years ago in the middle of the first World War.  I walk into an old garrison on citadel hill where people dressed up as soldiers tell me how in this place they built this fort to be an impregnable defense for the city against invasion 200 years ago.  I might have had a friend who stuck his head into a cannon from the 1850's. He had the same deprived childhood I had so all this history was very new and exciting. 

Very exciting indeed.

Canada is not a country with much history, but the history we do have is irrevocably rooted to place.  And the places where we Canadians live will ultimately determine the history we know and experience.  It is the places we live that shape who we are, and I don't think one can have a conversation about Canadian spirituality without having a conversation about place and its central importance to our national and personal identities.  The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote "Tell me the landscape in which you live and I will tell you who you are."  That seems like something worth pondering.

Something involving rainbows

 

 I have a strange obsession with rainbows.  This I blame on my childhood, where the house we lived in was situated in prime rainbow-viewing territory. It was not unusual on a rainy day to be able to look out the window and see a full double bow illuminated end to end. Think about what that can do to the imagination of an impressionistic child.  My father thought the real-estate value of the house should have been increased just for the rainbow view.  I find myself wondering if other people would agree with him...

 

 As I grew into an adult the fascination for rainbows stayed with me. I remember once while living in Calgary (in my 20's) dashing outside my house and running as fast as I could to a nearby park in the rain, just so I could stand underneath one of the most beautiful and vivid array of colours I had ever seen. I had never been so close to the base of a rainbow before. If there had been a pot of gold I definitely would have found it! 

 

 This preoccupation with rainbows has become my chocolate of picture-taking.  It is so sweet and delicious, I just can't resist! A couple of months ago I was minding my own business, playing around on my computer in my apartment while a torrential downpour raged outside, when suddenly something caught my eye: sunlight, glorious setting sun-light, the kind of sunlight that makes the whole earth glow with the brilliance of its dazzling presence.  My eyes widened in horrible realization. The thought that went immediately through my head was "There is an incredible rainbow happening outside somewhere, and I'M MISSING IT!!!". I dashed throughout my house like a whirlwind, grabbing a jacket, shoes and my camera - quickly throwing on a pair of pants - and then vaulted out of my house in a full sprint.  This is a curious re-enactment to my experience in Calgary years earlier, now that I think about it.  I ran to the park nearby my apartment with the prayer on my breath that I was not too late.  I had to see the rainbow!!!
 

As I rounded the bend:

 I am curious, is there anyone reading this who would say that they share a similar fascination for rainbows? Or am I'm just a little over zealous for the colourful and completely wondrous interaction of water and light in the sky?  :-D

 

Something botanical (part 1)

Some people are blessed with a green thumb. I am not one of those people. The first plant I ever had was a charming little pink and green leafy thing that had polka dots.

Having never seen a plant with polka dots before I decided at the ripe age of 19 that I needed to venture into the botanical world of house plants.  At first the polka-dot plant thrived. It was doing so well that I decided it needed a bigger pot, and so I put the plant in the biggest pot I could find - a huge plastic white thing that might have been more appropriate for a tree now that I think about it. I didn't know at that point that plants can experience shock and post-traumatic stress disorder at being transplanted into a pot that is way bigger than they are accustomed to.  Plants are people too. Within a month my polka dot plant was dead. I was devastated.  What did this say about me as a person: killer of houseplants?

My next major house plant project was raising potato plants.  Yes, you read that right, potato plants.  Seeking to vindicate myself after my previous failure I decided one day to plant an old sprouting potato inside a pot to see what happened. Maybe if I was lucky I would get potatoes out of it!  The potato started off well: it was so cute and tiny inside the pot, like a kitten or a puppy or a baby gopher. Like a baby animal it was easy to coddle and exclaim over it how adorable it was.  However, like a baby animal the plant grew; and just as adult animals rarely retain the charm that their childlike selves had, the potato plant lost all charm it had  by being tiny and quickly became one of the ugliest houseplants you can imagine. It looked like a weed in a pot, all scraggly and bent over, a half-naked weed.  People would come over and wince and try to politely avert their eyes from the hideous eyesore it was. I stubbornly loved that plant, like a mother who refused to acknowledge that her child could have any faults.  I continued to coddle the plant watering it regularly, encouraging it to grow and yield me baby potatoes.  But then tragedy struck - my plant got bugs. Little flies that resembled fruit flies got into the soil of my plant and within a month that plant was too dead.

I was not ready to admit that maybe house plants were not my destiny. Having found two baby potatoes in the pot I tried planting them to continue the legacy of ugly houseplants.  But eventually, like their predecessor, they too got flies and died.  By then I was beginning to seriously doubt my abilities as a human being, and as a woman. I couldn't even keep a plant alive, how could I hope to ever raise an animal, or a baby?  Would people judge me if they knew how my plants ended up?  It wasn't over a lack of love, of that I was certain!  Desiring so much to be a good plant mother, I watered my plants almost every single day.  I spoke to them, breathed on them, named them.  Why were they contracting mysterious ailments and dying?  Was I cursed?

Are you as conflicted as I was about the situation? Go to part 2!

Something beautiful

Once upon a time (about a year ago) I discovered that one of my core values is beauty.  And by beauty I am not talking about manufactured attractiveness - the "if I visit my hair stylist and wear makeup for the pictures then maybe I won't be embarrassed to show my driver's license to everyone" perception of beauty, or the "I don't care who I date as long as he has a six-pack (and I'm not talking about beer), yum, yum, yum" deluded manner of thinking.

 

 No. The beauty I am talking about is the beauty of creation as demonstrated by the sun dipping behind the mountains setting the world on fire with an almost other-worldly glow. 

 

 

It's the beauty of a person who finally finds his or her self-confidence and learns how to smile from the heart. It's the beauty of a community that unites together and supports one another through tough times.  It is found in the simple and spontaneous moments of life.  It's when you see or hear something that just takes your breath away and you think to yourself "Ah, that's beautiful."

 

Beauty is all about perspective; about seeing the world as God made it and realizing that it is good.  It seeks to find the value in everyone and everything.

 

 



Another core value for me is "sanctuary".  And no, before the question comes up, I am not talking about a television show, a wildlife reserve for birds, hippos or iguanas, or the sacred interior of a church building (although the word could apply to all three, and I have watched the television show).  The "sanctuary" I am discussing is found in the silence, the stillness, the solitude; there is beauty there too.  But sanctuary for me is not simply an absence of people and of noise.  It is a state of being: of being completely myself, of being completely whole.  It is when I come face to face with myself and with God and see myself in perspective to Him and realize that I am loved and complete in who I am – even if the person who I am is not perfect and does not always act in a way that is beautiful. 

 

 

Sanctuary is an inner space where I feel a sense of worship towards the divine.  It is where I surrender and release the need to be in control and turn my eyes to the El Shaddai and in the process of losing myself in Him, I rediscover who I am.

It might be the influence of the these two values that have helped pique my interest in photography.  That or it was all the hiking with my crazy friend where we kept finding amusing photographic opportunities like this:

 

Either way, the fact is that I have become addicted to the feeling of finding moments of beauty, sanctuary, and yes even humour and capturing them in that instant so I can share the same wonder that I feel with the rest of the world.  When you learn how to look at the world in a certain way it becomes all the more amazing.

Something somewhere

 

If you haven't figured it out already, I will spell it out for you: I am a small-town girl.  I grew up in the heart of the Kootenays in British Columbia.  I was born in the same hospital my dad was born in.  I had the same teacher for social studies in grade 10 as he did too.  It's one of those communities where everyone knows your name, or at least knows someone in your family.  "Who are you related to?".... "Oh yes, I used to be good friends with them! We used to play pictionary together every Sunday night while the kids watch the weekly Disney movie on CBC.  How are they doing?  Tell them I said hi!"

When I was about 19 years old I decided I had enough of the third-party identification through my parents.  I wanted to be known simply as myself, and not as the daughter of so-and-so.  That's one reason I decided to move to Calgary.  It wasn't a place I necessarily wanted to go.  It was the big-city, too big, and I was a small town girl.  They had divided freeways with four lanes!  I remember the wonder and awe I felt the first time I drove up the Deerfoot, my brain trying to compute the logistics of four lanes all travelling in the same direction.  When I finally found a place to live, I decided to limit my experience of the city as much as possible.  If I was going to live in the North-West quadrant, then I was going to work in the north-west, and I was going to church in the north-west, and I was going to shop for groceries in the north-west, etc., etc.  I was going to join a small church and go to a small Bible college and lead as quiet and sheltered life as I could within the big city.  You can take a girl out of the small-town, but you can't take the small-town out of the girl.  Touché.

As the years went on I began to develop an attachment to Calgary. At first it was really hard for me, being away from the mountains and everything else familiar.  But as I began to explore and expand my horizons and take beautiful pictures like the one I posted above, of downtown Calgary from Edgeworthy park, the city began to feel more and more like home.  That process only took about 7 years.  Some things have taken longer, like a raising a child.

Now I am back to living in the small town that I grew up in.  And, to be honest, there has been a bit of an adjusting period here too.  Like the first time I went for a walk downtown after 5pm and realized that absolutely everything was closed.  It was a tragedy!  There wasn't a single coffee shop open, with the exception of Tim Hortons or the newly branded McCafé.  My broken heart is still trying to mend.

  

Something about me

 

This picture says something.  Such as, I don't easily fit into a box, especially a small one.  Or, that all the world's a stage and we are only actors within it.  Or - at the very least - I am a goof, when I want to be. 

 

Of course, the picture also comments on the season: obviously summer since shorts are not usually winter fare in Canada.  The event: it's a place I would wear sandals and take my red purse (it seems I like pops of colour in my wardrobe), and yet isolated enough that no one seems to be staring at my obviously ridiculous antics.  The place must be old, since the moss is overtaking the abandoned rock platform I am standing on.

 

All of these inferences would be correct.  But what the picture doesn't say is that I was taking a walk around a historic island that day in the heart of the Kootenays, in British Columbia with a friend I met in Bible school.  On that island is a quaint little old home from the 1800's that was styled after a Russian Orthodox cathedral.  Outside on the lawn I found this rock base and pretended it was a stage for a performance.  In the midst of my "performance" that's when my friend snapped this picture.  And we laughed about it. And then we moved on.

 

Another thing the picture doesn't tell you is that my personality is not only goofy.  It is actually quite reflective.  I actually have a hard time blogging without spending time totally focused on my thoughts.  And as fascinating as those might be, they don't make for interesting pictures.  (Or do they.....?  Note to self: spend one entry posting pictures entirely related to my thoughts.)  To tell you more about my reflective personality I would probably need a picture like this:

 

What this picture says: I am a person who likes to journal in beautiful places.  I also like to take pictures of myself journaling in beautiful places.  I will sometimes hike by myself to these beautiful places just so I can journal.

 

What this picture doesn't tell you is that this place is only about a 25 minute walk from my home.  And that this particular day, as I walked up the path of the mountain, I had come across a bear.  In fact, I walked up behind one that didn't see me and quickly backed up so I wouldn't startle it.  Since it was blocking my path down the mountain, and I didn't have any bear spray, I decided to walk up the mountain instead.  Maybe not the best decision - but join me in my logic, which thought if I went up, maybe I could find another way down. 

 

The only problem was that when I had taken no more than two or three steps up the path, another big huge hunk of brown shaggy fur ran across my path away from me.  I had just startled another bear.  So there I was, trapped between two bears on the side of a mountain with only my journal to protect me.  I pulled out my cellphone so I could phone my mom and tell her where to find my body.  I got her answering machine.  Deciding not to leave a message (no point in causing unnecessary panic right?), I recalled what lessons I had been given in my childhood on how to deal with bears - the kind of lessons that all good rustic mountain folk receive.  Point#1: bears are more scared of you than you are of them.  Point#2: if you make noise while hiking, that will usually scare off the bear before you come upon them.  Point#3: Never come between a mother bear and her cubs.  Point#4: If a bear attacks drop to the ground on your face and put your hands around your neck to protect it. Point#5: Don't go hiking alone.

 

Since I couldn't do anything about point#5, and I had gotten lucky on point#3, I decided to take advantage of point#2, to trust that point#1 would remain true and I wouldn't have to deal with point#4.  So I started talking aloud, looking for a big sturdy stick with which to defend myself if necessary, while angling myself down the mountain, off the trail, away from the two bears.  I bent down to check one hefty looking branch only to find it had been rotted through.  Then I looked up to check on the situation.  Another brown furry face was staring at me. Was that a third bear, or the second back to take another look?  It looked like it wasn't sure if it wanted to run away, stay and stare at me, or attack.  Human burgers? I decided that it was a fantastic time to keep talking and walking.

 

So that was what happened before I took this picture.  I walked away from the bears, and instead of going straight home as most sensible young women would, I found a rocky ledge overlooking the valley and sat down and started journaling.

 

See what kind of stories a picture can tell!