Scary Scary Halloween #FightTheFear #HocusPocus #RIPSirBond #SoCS

I want to not be afraid. I want the knot in my stomach and the clenched fist in my heart and the nagging in my head to be held at bay. But how?

Thoughts. Fears. Prayers. It’s all a lot of no good.

I wonder, on this final weekend where October and November meet, what exactly is the
trick
to how I may accomplish that.

Notice, I do not place a question mark at the end of it because I know I, as a Canadian, that I can’t do much to help relieve myself of all I’ve been feeling. I know that some questions aren’t meant to be questions because I’m not going to get answers that suffice.

Not this weekend at least.

I try to focus on the light hearted fun of Halloween today, but I want to scream from world and North American events specifically, not some silly haunted house.

I Am horrified and I wish it were only horrified that my darling nephew loves his awful Jason, zombies, and vampires

Instead of the real and lasting decisions from world leaders and politicians and so many that stay silent, even with mouth hanging open wide in horror.

What is the answer to my dread at this point?

Halloween will come and go, tomorrow we’ll wake up having lost an hour, and I will wait to see what November brings.

All I can do is be here and watch what happens, all while I’m left viewing things out of my own ability to influence. It feels like slowly sliding down into a dangerously bottomless casm and I’m powerless to hold on.

If November brings worse news than I’m daring to really believe such a thing could happen, I don’t know what I’ll feel or do.

I’m listening to protest songs this weekend because I know art has power for good and for change.

Who are the gatekeepers who let the dangerous humans through?

Honestly? Seriously?

Honestly. Seriously. I say to myself, and I sigh.

I hate to speak dramatically because I know it sounds alarmist and radical. Ooh, what a scary word is radical, but I feel fear pushing me into a future I don’t want to live to see and I can’t bare to keep it in.

So those who think I’m being dramatic, both those who know me and love me, along with anyone else who might come across these words, I throw my hands up and I sigh because I want to wake up and feel something else, anything else but what I’ve been feeling since #45 went from some ridiculous reality TV star to commander in chief.

I wrote about my fears last time, in those weeks before November the last time.

I wrote about the misogyny coming at #45’s running mate, last time.

I wrote about what giving him power, real power would say to him, would give him a green light for, last time.

I wrote about my, it turns out, justified fear, last time.

I wrote about all this, the last time, while Lenard Cohen passed away, while his words gave me comfort, even when I’d always felt unable to connect with his voice, no matter how iconic and how poetic.

I practiced my violin and went out to dinner, the night #45 was to be elected, still being free to openly eat dinner out. I saw the writing on the wall, last time.

I drank and I waited.

I had a successful time of it, these last four years, for me anyway and that all was a big deal to me. I did well and I am safe in Canada, but Canada is, four years later, far too close geographically for my liking.

I wish we could put a bit more distance between our two countries now, but our border is used by many, even still.

Any thoughts that a pandemic would show up, now, I did not think it would be now. I did think that, if given four years with such outrageous power, that would swell his head so intensely that we’d have to work even harder to dislodge him from a place he has no business (businessman though he is) in being.

I’ve never been a reality TV fan. In fact, I think the rise in reality TV culture got the worst person, unfit to be a president, where he is today. I could have gone on, rarely being made to think of him and I can’t tell you how disgusted I am at a country who would put him in such a position of power, and put me in this position of having him shoved in my face, in control of so much right across that border.

I have other things going on. In this country, I can go on and not let the elections of another country distract me all that much if I so choose.

But now you tell me how.

I want no trick-or-treat, but only to know the trick to not being afraid.

And now Sir Sean Connery, Bond, has died.

It’s odd to think of those who’ve recently died, RBG and now Bond for example. It’s strange to think of anyone who was here of late and now will not be here to see what’s to come, whatever it may be.

Today the organization I am a part of (the Canadian Federation of the Blind) is having an Eat The Fear Halloween event.

Of course it’s virtual, as covid is 2020, but it works because blindness and fear often go hand in hand.

This day is all about fear, fearing scary movies and gory costume choices.

This will go on until October ends, until those clocks jump back an hour, giving me one extra hour of fear while I wait everything out, but all the fears I have I would like not to have. I am not in a movie or in some dream.

I recently got into a travel writer by the name of Dervla Murphy, an Irish writer and chance taker and she and I are nothing alike.

She went places I won’t go. She did things I wouldn’t do. She biked from Ireland to India, took her young daughter overseas with her.

It’s fear that she speaks about that has had me reeling since I read her words. She does not fear any bridge until she comes to it. Oh, how to not fear the bridges I’ve not yet come to?

I have family members much better at this, better like Murphy, but not me.

Happy Halloween!

TToT: An Ode and Lament For “No Need to Argue” #FlashbackFriday #10Thankful

Had they but courage equal to desire?

William Butler Yeats – Poetry Foundation

It’s around that time: celebrating The Cranberries biggest and best of all their albums – No Need to Argue, 1994.

First off, I just like that message, being someone who never liked to argue much at all myself.

It’s not only one big time radio single that’s on offer here, but a lovely and haunting collection of songs, that moves me from start to finish.

From family ties to Ireland’s well-known Troubles to a tribute to a long-since-passed Irish poet.

During the later half of the 90’s, I’d place the tape in my walkman, crank the volume in my headphones, and drown out the world, a world of medical tests and uncertain outcomes. Not all my childhood was about, but a big big part of it and this album was a piece of that.

And it all started with my sister (thanks) and an Irish boy on our school bus.

RIP again, Dolores, and a great owing of gratitude to the entire band for this album.

What album (not song) has been there, done this sort of thing in your life? Albums are often neglected pieces of art as a whole.

Ode and Lament (From my 20th anniversary post for this album.)

I’m back for another round of
Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful
and this week I am thankful for more than ten things, but for every song on this memorable album and for those who made it – those still alive and those no longer with us.

I think of that quote from the top of this post and hearing her murmur those words of W.B. Yeats (in that song on the album) and I often wonder if my courage is equal to my desire for so many things.

Her haunted voice will forever ring inside my head.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

Had I? Have I?

The Beauty Is In The Process, #JusJoJan

I love the violin, love everything about it, including the instrument itself. It is curvy, smooth, and so dear to me now.

As I returned from a break from my weekly lessons, this first full week of the new year, I reflected on all I’ve learned and how far I’ve come.

Still, I won’t ever entirely
master
the instrument I love so much, but that’s to be expected.

My bow stays straight now, which is an achievement. My teacher sees my progression of skill, even if I have trouble seeing the same.

I am fascinated by everything to do with this beautiful instrument. When I started, that’s all I knew. I knew I loved the sound and I had no idea, at that time, all that a violin is made up of. I got a rather pleasant sound out of it, even on my own, before the lessons first started. This leading me to believe it might not be as hard as I’d always heard.

Was it harder than learning the piano? Would it be more difficult to learn to play than the clarinet, which I played briefly, in high school?

I knew I loved it and wanted to learn to play, more than I’d ever wanted to learn to play guitar. You played it with a bow, but I’d never really seen one, let alone held one in my hand.

I was turning thirty-two, (it’ll be three years now) next month. I rented a violin for my birthday. I liked it so much, with no guarantee of how the practicing would go, where it might take me or not. Yet, after only a few months, when I went back to renew the rental, I walked out as owner instead.

I didn’t grow up loving classical music and still don’t love that style. I do have a lot more appreciation for it now though, whenever I listen to some. I do see, after knowing my own violin teacher for all this time, all that it takes (the commitment and the skill) to become a strong player. I mean strong, physically, which is something I couldn’t have known until I myself felt all the muscle groups it takes to play.

I want to set myself a 2019 resolution, if I can bring myself to use that word, for what I want from the violin this year.

I’ve have a lousy practice schedule. I don’t play for very many people. I don’t realize, well enough, how far I’ve actually come.

I do know, something inside me, it keeps me going with it, when setting it aside and just not picking it up often feels like the easier option. Of course, it would be easier, but why would I want to take the easy rout anyway?

I think often on what it takes, the mastering of something, anything but especially a tricky instrument such as the violin.

Some people would be super impatient by now, with the level of progress I’ve arrived at, but I choose to not look at my situation in quite that way.

We spend our lives, working to master one thing, before we think we can move right on to something else. I’d settle for having confidence to be able to play a violin part, a solo, on a song my brother wrote. That would be nice.

I’d like to master the craft of writing and the art of it too. Same goes for the instrument that I love. Fingers crossed, but I think I’ll ask other people to do that, as I need my fingers, uncrossed, to be able to play.

Next week’s practice theme: harmonics.

This has been day six of
Just Jot It January
and the word giver for today was
Sadje
to round out the first weekend of the month.

TToT: Time, Place, and Space – Lost On Spot, #FamilyReunion #LaParada #Panorama #10Thankful

“It helps, too, to dream big, to make plans for future projects that are beyond the scope of my current experience, to make connections with other people who work in the arts, to apply for grants, send out stories, throw bottles into the sea. Make space for more opportunities to unfold. Here’s a fun thing to try: write a letter to yourself, addressing yourself like you would a dear friend. What advice would you give yourself? Can you name all the things about yourself that you like, that give you strength and courage? What questions would a good friend ask you? (I did this at the beginning of June, and reading over my “Dear Carrie” letter now, I recognize that it has helped shape my summer in positive ways.)”

–Carrie Snyder

I read this blog post and wanted all of it. I want to think good things about myself and write it all down. I want to know art and other artists. I like the bottle in the sea idea.

I have been slacking, not keeping up reading other thankful posts. I have let myself down, in a couple ways this summer, but then I’ve taken on so much that is new and thrilling too.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful for feedback that is hard, sometimes/at times more than others, to hear.

I know I am learning from it. I know I need to hear it. I know it is part of the deal, of being a writer.

I’m thankful for a surprise offer.

It came at just the right moment, right after the difficult-to-hear feedback. It was a strange contrast of a day.

I was unable to trust in it, at first, because I still don’t expect good things to come my way much in life. (Bad habit/trap to fall into.)

I could sure use offers like this one to come along, once-in-a-while. It was from a well-known company, with a healthy budget and reputation. I was discovered, just by having my words, in existence, out there in the world.

I should be able to brag, but still I am uncertain whether or not to speak details of the thing in question, while contract is still being worked on and leading up to the release date.

Still, I had to include it here, in this list, this week. I won’t ever forget that contrasting day of offers, for feedback and for growth and opportunity. I only need to make sure I get it right.

I’m thankful for friends/writers who offer me a bit of encouragement when I’m starting to doubt.

Editors are unknown and unfamiliar to me, but then that means their job isn’t to make me feel better about myself or to buck me up. I know, logically, that isn’t their responsibility, but yet I probably still am looking for that, somewhere, deep down. Working on it.

Friends, those who know the world of writing (creatively or business wise) are the ones who are there, when I need them the most, to remind me that I am a writer, still learning and growing, but yet not at all without merit.

It’s just nice to hear it. I am indebted to both editors and writers/writer friends/friends and family, for the contrast.

I’m thankful I got to check out a live radio studio.

Radio Western (94.9 CHRW)

I was in there, going and observing the action live, while my brother put on his Friday music show. I told him, on air and off, that witnessing him in that environment made him seem a whole lot cooler.

I was there to celebrate his year on air (48th episode or so) and to talk about the summer social we have coming up, for our work with and as the
Canadian Federation of the Blind
and also, to get any listeners, familiar with his show, familiar with him and I together. (Keep reading to find out why that is.))

I’m thankful the woman who runs it wants to give us a chance.

She has offered us a weekly half-hour talkshow. We are doing it (based on our podcast/Canadian Federation of the Blind) as a theme. We will talk about disability, accessibility, and equality/equity. We will be current (have call-ins/live guests).

She has also offered to air already recorded episodes of
Ketchup On Pancakes
and so that’s why we don’t want to do a total copied version of our already-existing podcast together. That is about family/creativity/humour, not strictly about disability issues.

It isn’t mainstream radio as most people think of it, known by everyone, but a university radio station supports the arts and local talent, as well as community. It will be more of a reach than we’ve so far had, be broadcasting us to more of an audience than we’ve had as of yet.

And so, we are (soon-to-be) available to people, driving in their cars, across London, Ontario and beyond. Also, we are available, online and on Rogers (channel 943).

Now, all we need to do is come up with a catchy name for our talkshow that captures what we are about. We have a little less than one month to do this. Sometimes names and titles are easy to come up with and other times, not so much.

I’m thankful I got to see a talented singer/performer live.

She is a local girl, someone I’ve known from a writing group, full of talent, and full of life. She is animated and energetic. She is many things I wish I could be, but have no stamina to be for long.

She is multi-talented creatively. She went to school for musical theatre and she ended up singing some opera (in English/German/Italian I believe). She had to practice, in front of friends, family, and local community, to attend nationally, after having gone to perform in provincials.

She sang about men and about eating children. She sang and had two young men performing, so she could take a break. It was inspiring and fun.

I’m thankful for a long awaited family reunion.

We used to see each other (my mom’s side of the family) at Christmas every year. Then, with every passing year, our group increased in size. Then, both my grandparents passed away, (2005-2010) and we would’ve needed to rent a hall for our gatherings. The decision was made at that time, to stop holding holiday celebrations, and we’ve seen a lot less of each other in the years since. Some of us see each other more than others.

It was a beautiful day. I tried to enjoy the day. I don’t do well in big groups, even when it’s family. These are people I have known, more or less, all my life. Some came along in the nearly 35 years since I was born.

Cousins have children and some didn’t or couldn’t make it. The children don’t know me. Some of the adults don’t know me anymore and I don’t feel as if I know them now.

Still, family is important. There are connections (no matter the time that’s passed us by or the place/life’s circumstances that have occurred). I know we’ve all changed. We’re not the same people we once were. I know there’s a set of roots there, those that run deep. I wanted to reconnect. I can’t make that kind of connection happen again, not with the wave of my hand or by snapping my fingers.

It was nice we did it. I do hope we can make it happen every so often. I wish some things were different, but we share a common thread of where we’ve all come from, no matter where we might now be or where we end up.

The food was good and the kids had fun. It was on my uncle’s farm, where I grew up staying, for summer holidays, as a child. I was never a farm girl, but my mother had been, like her mother and father before her, and my cousins were, though I did grow up a country girl who would eventually move into town.

It ended up the perfect spot for a summertime family reunion.

I’m thankful for my August birthday boys.

I’m thankful I met these talented writers in Mexico and that I get to go on another journey with them, if only by reading their wonderful words:

Go on a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina with Angela Lang

or else…

wander through time/space/place with Kristin Vukovic

These two writers, along with the rest that P publishes, make me want to keep working to become a better writer myself.

I’m thankful for
this literary travel journal
they are both featured in, and for “Lost,” the most recent issue.

It is full, with each and every new issue that gets released, with the best writers around.

It is soon to celebrate its two-year anniversary. Happy Anniversary Panorama!

Your name continues to thrill me to no end. The bigger picture indeed.

TToT: The Mercurial April of 2018 – Foreshadowing Farce, #10Thankful

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

—Maya Angelou

This week, all of Canada is mourning loss of life, young and promising players, in a horrific bus crash in Saskatchewan.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful that all of Canada has come together in a time of grief.

A GoFundMe page has been set up, which has already raised over 4 million dollars for families and survivors, and Justin Trudeau visited the injured. With all the bad in the world, even in moments of shock and loss, I feel better to sense a coming together of my country, from coast to coast to coast.

‘Hockey stands with you’: Condolences, support pour in for Humboldt Broncos | CBC Sports

I am thankful that hockey is what it is, means what it means to so many Canadians, even if not always especially and specifically for me.

From small town teams to the NHL, support to those (on and off the team affected) has been swift and strong.

https://ca.gofundme.com/funds-for-humboldt-broncos

I’m thankful for an angel who is going to leave something behind in tragedy, to be able to at least help someone go on, in good health again.

Lethbridge hockey player’s organs to be donated after fatal Humboldt Broncos bus crash | CBC News

I read that one of the young men recently signed his donor card. This is a tough subject, but as the sister of someone who five years ago received a kidney from another person lost, I know the other side, that the side of organ donation.

I don’t have a clue about the tragic side of having to let go like that, but to know a gift is being given, I can’t pretend I don’t recall that relief I felt for my brother’s sake and for my own.

I don’t know what else to say. It’s one of the hardest things any person could experience, I’m sure. Still, I had to speak up about it, to include it in this list.

I’m thankful for beautiful art that remains after death.

One of the fifteen killed was not only a hockey player, but he could make brilliant music on the piano. (See performance link above.)

I will start and end this TToT post, speaking of music, but as things must and do go on…

I’m thankful I got a sudden call that a cancelation came up for me to get a physical therapy appointment finally.

I’ve been waiting for this call for over a year now.

I’m thankful the therapist took the time to go through my lengthy medical history with me.

It took up her whole allotted hour. We didn’t even have time to get to any stretches.

I’m thankful she plans to educate herself, to read up on my rare syndrome, before our next appointment.

I am thankful for the smooth and textured needs of two new bracelets.

Some are smooth, but other parts are made up of lava stone. They have tiny grooves in them and you’re supposed to drip the smallest drop of essential oil on them. Then, I can have a gentle and soothing touch of scent against the skin of my wrist, wherever I go.

My cousin, who runs a hair salon, also sells handmade items, such as jewelry and things. I like to shop, supporting local makers.

I’m thankful I got to attend my violin teacher’s masters recital.

I met her family after and they, along with her friends and other students/teachers, were all so proud of her, including this one student of hers in particular.

So many people, all there to support her. She has worked at it nearly all of her life. Her skill has taken years to develop. I will miss her and everything she’s done for me, once she moves on for further education, but this show was outstanding.

I was in a mood all that day, before her show that night. I don’t know what it was or why. I kind of wonder if it wasn’t me, feeling anxious and nervous, for her sake. I get more nervous for others more than for myself, if possible, when someone I know or care about is going to be tested or performing in front of people, like when my brother plays guitar.

This time, I am not sure, maybe it was just a bad day. Then, when I sat down, the song she played on her violin seemed to calm me, changing my mood and reducing my anxiety. The song was something I’d really never heard before. It was abrupt and anxious sounding, but it seemed to put, into music, the exact feelings I’d been experiencing. It took it all down several notches and I felt like it expressed precisely how I’d felt.

I’m thankful for not only a piece of music that speaks to me, but also a passage in a book.

This one is from A Wrinkle In Time. I read it and it brought together the elements of my own head, the themes that have been with me most of my life, something deep inside, of which I’ve put into my own song lyrics in the past. I’ve even dreamt this sensation:

“This movement, she felt, must be the turning of the earth, rotating on’ its axis, traveling its elliptic course about the sun. And this feeling of moving with the earth was somewhat like the feeling of being in the ocean, out in the ocean beyond this rising and falling of the breakers, lying on the moving water, pulsing gently with the swells, and feeling the gentle, inexorable tug of the moon.”

From the moon to the sea…RIP to those lost and deepest condolences to all those who’ve lost loved ones.

TToT: Alright January … Enough Already! #HolocaustMemorialDay #10Thankful

When asked by author Angela Yuriko Smith what we’re looking for, Editor-in-Chief JT Lachausse replied:

“We want what you haven’t seen. Allow me to be dramatic: Imagine that every piece of art is represented by a stone. Many stones make up the mountains and buildings, but even more hide beneath the surface. We are so familiar and fond of the overground rocks, but in the caves and oceans-deep, there are stories that tell things wildly. Desperately, furiously, without great laborious sanitizing or editorial puncturing.”

This is the kind of writing I want to be doing.

And, if I’m not, that’s on no one but me.
The
Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for
Just Jot It January
and the writing it has helped me do all month long, but even good things must come to an end.

I hear, when going through a rough time, that it can’t last forever. I guess.

I did peter out as the end of the month drew near, but I wanted to share
this here from Judy
because I enjoy her and her blog/writing.

I am thankful for another enjoyable lunch with a friend.

Talk of movies she has not seen (Forget Paris) and drinking mimosas on Valentine’s Day, for brunch and going to hear Margaret Atwood speak in Stratford.

I am thankful for a catch up violin lesson.

Our practice room this time contained a piano and that helped me with my scales.

I am thankful to get the chance to have an introduction conference call with the other writers participating on the project about braille.

I am thankful for the movie
The Post
because of the inspiring role, (Katharine Graham) played expertly by Meryl Streep as a woman who had to make a super hard choice and did it with grace and dignity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Post_(film)

Not an easy time to be female and in charge of a newspaper like that, having to make the hardest of decisions, so much at stake.

I am thankful I got a chance, before the movie, to speak to the manager in charge at my local theatre.

He couldn’t be of much help with the issue of audio description at Woodstock’s movie theatre, but he gave me the card of the head office out in B.C.

I am still determined to work, this year, on changing this policy of there not being enough demand, so I can see a movie and not have to make family or friends describe while they, too, are trying to enjoy the show.

I am thankful I could listen in on a conference call about
Braille Literacy Canada
and the importance of braille today.

I am thankful for family and their warm, heated homes to flea to, when I wake to a freezing house and such icy cold tile floors.

My heat crapped out again, twice in one month.

I am thankful for a quick fix and heat returns.

A leaf stuck in there, somewhere.

Silly. I am thankful February is near.

Farewell January.

TToT: Jury Duty Jury Duty, Pink Slip Pink Slip, Jury Duty #10Thankful #Farewell2017

“I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind, that I put down in words, how wonderful life is now you’re in the world.”

—Your Song

Sohia.

I am feeling rather emotional today, as the world begins to ring in 2018 in many parts, and I can’t seem to decide what to write on gratitude, reflection, and resolutions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9AFMVMl9E

So, I will dedicate this whole thing, the final
Ten Things of Thankful of 2017
to my favourite seven-year-old.

I’m thankful for her hugs, even if it’s goodbye for another time.

I am thankful for the next time when she bounds in and excitedly shows me her new Christmas present from Santa, an interactive tiger who’s so soft and even purrs.

I am thankful for a story about potatoes and erasers and recess. She’s reading so well that I was glued to her story as she read to me. Everything she will get from reading is so much more than I can state in thankfulness here.

I am thankful for what a beautiful, creative girl she is. It’s all the colour of art, all that’s alive inside her, that I am thankful to see, to see so much through her.

I am thankful for her curiosity, in asking and wanting to know, to understand what I see and what about the kidneys Brian and I have received, and so much more. Everything.

I am thankful for quiet moments watching The Grinch on my phone, even after we were tossed out of the front room so the little one could nap. Haha.

I am thankful for how my oldest niece loves my youngest. They are both so amazing to watch, in the seven year gap between them.

I am thankful she liked her pen, clipboard, hamburger and fry lip bombs (even if one did break already…cheap but cool), and all the other Christmas/birthday presents I gave her. It’s hard to shop for both, but may be even harder, in a way, to be born this close to a giant holiday like Christmas.

I am thankful for the relationship she has with my parents. It reminds me so much of how it felt, that special grandma/grandpa bond. It moves me deeply, every time I see them together.

I am thankful for that date, seven years ago today, where she came into our lives and showed me what this new love could feel like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DBJRSMP8Uw

What did we do before you Soph?

Happy Birthday, XOXOXO

Hello All.

Here are a few images from the weekend.
DOBO AKE!!!

Incase Kerry wants to use the images:

DADbday2017-14 = Sophia Hugging Mya.
DADbday2017-23 = Close up of Mya, Surprised look on her face.
DADbday2017-50 = Sophia decorating cupcake
DADbday2017-51 = Kim and Kerry watching the decorating. Talking/smiling.
DADbday2017-54 = Sophia laughing with a hand full of icing.
DADbday2017-61 = Grandma holding Reed close, Reed laughing.
DADbday2017-66 = Kim lighting candles beside Sophia.  Both laughing.
DADbday2017-70 = Reed trying to hide from the camera with his head on the bench.
DADbday2017-73 = Reed hiding his face with his hands on the bench, one eye peaking.
DADbday2017-80 = Mom, Reed and Sophia singing Happy Birthday with cake in foreground.

Hello All.

Here are a few images from the weekend.
DOBO CAKE!!!

Incase Kerry wants to use the imagesy

DADbday2017-14 = Sophia Hugging Mya.
DADbday2017-23 = Close up of Mya, Surprised look on her face.
DADbday2017-50 = Sophia decorating cupcake
DADbday2017-51 = Kim and Kerry watching the dorating. Talking/smiling.
DADbday2017-54 = Sophia laughing with a hand full of icing.
DADbday2017-61 = Grandma holding Reed close, Reed laughing.
DADbday2017-66 = Kim lighting candles beside Sophia.  Both laughing.
DADbday2017-70 = Reed trying to hide from the camera with his head on the bench.
DADbday2017-73 = Reed hiding his face with his hads on the bench, one eye peaking.
DADbday2017-80 = Mom, Reed and Sophia singing Happy Birthday with cake in foreground.

In You We Trust

Some excellent advice in this one. It’s all useful for me, as I work on one of my final submission goals for a truly special year in my writing journey. Thanks Allison. Back to work on telling my story through the art of brevity of the written word.

BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog

…maybe just stop talking.

We’re settled into our seats, ready to watch Meryl Streep perform in the new musical adaptation of Gone Girl (“Gone!”). We’re leafing through Playbill, counting up Oscar nominations, when suddenly Ms. Streep steps out in front of the curtain to address the audience.

“Hi everyone, I’m really excited you’re here for this show, based on the book about a woman who fakes her own disappearance and sets her husband up for a murder rap. I hope you’ll especially enjoy the scene where I write all the journal entries at the same time with different pens.”

Wait, what?

Or she says, “In rehearsals for this show, I worked on my high E notes with a noted vocal coach at Julliard, maybe you’ve heard of him?”

Um, no.

We’re already here, Meryl. We’re ready to watch. We trust you to deliver. Just let us watch you–don’t tell us…

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TToT: Blood Red Sun In A Smoky Sky – Lucky and Thankful, #FridayThe13th #Podcast #10Thankful

Okay,, I did it again. What week is this, exactly, that I came late to the party and linked up last? I keep this as a priority, but it does end up falling down a point…or five.

Birthday photos come a week later, first of my time holding my niece, by the swing set she is too young to enjoy just yet. I am still thinking birthdays…my parents and a friend and so on.

But forest fires continue to burn on the west coast and far away there is violence, such that I cannot imagine, and here I sit, writing another list of what I am thankful for in this life.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for the best spaghetti dinner ever.

My brother made it. spaghetti has been a favourite food in my family for a long time, since our traditional spaghetti dinner, every Christmas Eve when I was young.

Now my brother makes it so well, as he’s been perfecting it. We went another way with the food in the title of our podcast (the one I was there to make when this meal was made) but, if I could have come up with a clever enough name using spaghetti, I would have.

He now takes care, not to eat sauce from a can, but to make it with vegetables and spices, allowing it to simmer.

My brother has perfected spaghetti and my sister has perfected cupcakes.

I am thankful for the birth and birthday of a lifelong friend.

We’ve been friends since we were ten. She was one of the few kids to approach me, on that first day at a new school. I had felt like a bit of a sideshow then, but our friendship grew into so much more.

I think of her now, so far away and on a path I never could have guessed at, and I smile and put my hand to my heart.

I am thankful for a long chat with a writer friend.

She writes about science. She is a scientist who loves to write, I suppose it would be better to say.

We talked for a long time, about everything concerning writing, as we are both trying to make it, using our skills, on our own.

Though our lives are vastly different from one another, our thoughts often come back to the same thing, something involving the art and the struggle of being a writer.

I am thankful for a gift of Gummy Bears.

I was working on a piece, on deadline, and someone knew it.

They sent me a treat, even if it was just a picture of that treat, a virtual treat as it were.

Still, to know they were thinking of me, there in that moment, was a nice thing, plain and simply.

I am thankful for superstitions like the famous Friday the 13th.

They have given me something to write about and to think about. They have caused me to challenge what I think and what I believe.

I am thankful for a visit with my neighbour where she helped me figure out how to take action in a few areas of my life.

She is good at narrowing an issue or a particular problem down. She keeps me thinking ahead and on task. Checking in on me periodically has helped a great deal since knowing her.

I am thankful for a delicious lunch/latte with another writing friend.

The wrap and the latte were just the thing for a Friday, as tired as I felt. I like hearing her take on things and I hope to be an ear to listen with for her, someone she knows she can trust.

I am thankful for a challenging violin lesson and yoga session, both within two days.

New poses to strengthen. New parts to repeat and drill into my thick head.

It is all a challenge, but a giant breath of fresh air too.

I am thankful for a friend’s writing getting published and read this week.

Kerra makes her opinions known on CNN.

She is speaking up, speaking out, and writing.

THE PRICE OF REDEMPTION – Panorama Journal

I am thankful we got a 60 minute episode of Ketchup On Pancakes recorded and up on our SoundCloud page.

KETCHUP ON PANCAKES: Episode 6 – Mom and More

When I think of my mom, I think of growing things, like flowers.

Apparently, so do others.

TToT: A Pile of Sleeping Sharks – Idiots and Animals, #10Thankful

“Isolation offered its own form of companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tranquility of the evenings. The promise that she would find things where she put them, that there would be no interruption, no surprise. It greeted her at the end of each day and lay still with her at night.”

—From “The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri

Recently, I’ve only wanted to stay home with my cat. Maybe I really am becoming a cat lady.

I’m so sick of the idiots (and worse) in this world. There is so much immaturity and lack of care or concern for other people. Animals are where it’s at.

All I wanted was an enjoyable visit with family, but I was the one who didn’t choose to leave my phone at home that day, the day of rallies and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful that my brother’s band got back together, to practice for a gig, by playing in my basement once more.

It was all the songs I love, those I became so familiar with after months of hearing them in my basement.

Secrets Revealed

This is a photo of their set list from the show the other night. My brother wrote it out in braille. They thought their fans might like to see. My brother didn’t really need it. He had the list memorized already.

I’m thankful to join in with a friend in a worthy cause.

He wants to start a branch of the National Federation of the Blind/Canadian Federation of the Blind in Ontario. The one currently going is out west only.

The biggest organization for the blind in Canada is still the CNIB (Canadian National Institute of the Blind) and yet it isn’t enough. It isn’t fulfilling all the needs, according to us, the ones who are in need of the service.

This sounds like a lot of work, but my friend sounds up for the job and I want to do what I can.

I feel so helpless with so much going on. I need to be able to do something good.

I’m thankful for peaches and ice cream for my nephew’s birthday.

I may have had both a small sundae and then a small cone.

Fresh peaches are the best part of August. When you mix that with my favourite vanilla soft serve, I am in paradise.

For the birthday, we did things backwards: ice cream first and then dinner. Dinner was pizza anyway.

My nephew is still grasping the concept of what a birthday is. He isn’t overly interested in why people sing and light candles, depending on the day. You say Happy Birthday to him and he says it back to you, like it’s a greeting. He makes me smile with his total innocence. I need more of that to fight the overwhelming stress and gloom that often threatens to bring me down.

I’m thankful for a mild night out on a patio, listening to some relaxing music, until the rain came.

A friend of ours was playing at a local restaurant. We got through ordering drinks and appetizers before the rain started up.

Until that point, I was enjoying the guitars, both with his singing and as instrumentals.

I’m thankful for all the amazing art my niece made at art camp.

She is artistic, like her father. She is the little girl who loves to create things. She reminds me of myself at that age.

She is a natural at making things.

They made letters for their first names out of crystals and jewels. She showed me an ocean in a jar, made with water and oil and food colouring. She made a polar bear mask. She tie dyed a pillow and made another pillow, so soft and with many knots around the edges instead of sewing.

At this camp there was something called the splatter paint room. Nothing but bright colours, paint splattered all over the floor and walls. You can go wild, make as much of a splatter mess of colour as you want, and it’s all okay.

I thought, since I am so bad at interior decorating for my own house, even though I can no longer see colours: why not make myself a splatter paint house?

Her love and pride for the things she made, as she was showing us, made me miss colour, art, and made me so happy for her and so proud to be her aunt.

I am thankful for the bottle of water my newly four-year-old nephew gave me when I said I was looking for something to drink.

He just opened the fridge and got it for me.

He is the master of his fridge and his home at this age and it is so sweet to witness.

I am thankful for what a thoughtful little sweetheart he is.

He told us, the moment we arrived, that he wanted to get his mother some flowers. He had previously told his dad that he was “thinking” about getting her some flowers.

He’s been thinking about this. It constantly amazes me, the kind of kids they are, and the sorts of things they think about, before deciding to share with the grownups in their lives.

I am thankful for the Max Mix.

My brother is a music fan and he has a lot of it himself. When he noticed my nephew had a love of music, he made him a mix of all the songs my nephew seemed to love.

He remembers lyrics and loves to sing in the car. He is so cool, cooler than me anyway.

I am thankful for a beautiful day to sit outside for a five-year-old’s birthday party.

People gathered, kids running and playing, while I sat and had a cool drink.

They have a big yard, the yard we had as children, and so much room to run and play games.

It wasn’t too hot. It wasn’t humid. The air was perfectly summery and pleasant.

I’m thankful for his amazing little mind and imagination.

My nephews are both so smart. He knew people were coming and he worked on a show to perform for us, all week long. He prepared a screen with a border, like a TV, but when we were all outside, he set it up like a play or puppet show, using chairs as the stage.

It was a form of fan fiction with his favourites: Littlefoot (from Land Before Time), a T Rex, and Curious George.

It turned out to be this whole epic adventure story and it all came from him.

Desired Consolation – Bjork

Basically, it was the kids that kept me sane this week. Then I think of Bjork’s question in the song: How am I going to make things right?

I wonder if I can. What that will look like, I do not know, but I have to try something.

The woman who was mowed down was nearly my age. What made her come out, to such a place, on that day?

“If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.”

—Heather Heyer

RIP Heather