Retirement

There are a lot of clichés that surround retirement: you will be bored, you’ll miss your job, or at the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll be so busy that you’ll wonder how you ever had time to work before. None of these have been remotely close to how I feel so far, six months after walking away from a long and mostly happy teaching career.

For most teachers, summers are how we practice for retirement, and I think years of spending long stretches of time unwinding and recharging have made the transition easier; my sabbatical year seven years ago was an added rehearsal, where I enjoyed the creative process of editing and publishing two novels during the fourteen months away from the classroom.

So, what exactly have I done in the last six months? The truth is very little, by choice. The glorious summer was spent in the back yard and around the neighbourhood parks with the new addition to the family, Stirling, our delightful German Shepherd rescue. September was the only frantic period as we headed to Europe; for three weeks, we visited family in Germany, explored Vienna and Salzburg before flying across to our beloved Scotland to hike around the Isle of Skye, finishing the active holiday with an Icelandic stopover, where our self-guided road trip included visits to a glacier, hot springs, waterfalls, and canyons.

Since coming home, life has settled beautifully. The puppy and I begin most days with a walk to the waterfront, where he runs with his pals before we meander back home along the lake. Over many weeks, this practice has had such a grounding effect; the light, fresh air, and gentle exercise has helped keep me calm, contented, and in good health. I make it to coffee and lunch with friends on a regular basis, find time each day to curl up with a fresh cappuccino and read (eight books and counting since the beginning of July), keep ahead of the housework and appointments so that weekends are spent enjoying my working husband’s company, and head to the gym diligently. It’s a pleasure to eat more than I used to and yet add so much mileage with dog walks that weight management is not an issue.

When I see former colleagues and old friends, I happily answer their questions. Do you miss teaching? Honestly, no, not one bit. I had a happy, satisfying career that I left on my terms after a great final year. No regrets and no desire to go back. Aren’t you bored? No, there is a beautiful rhythm to doing things slowly and purposefully, to realising that you are no longer tied to a clock. Stress washes away when you can manage everything without rushing and playing catch-up. How does it feel or what’s it like? Like summer vacation, except you don’t have to cram everything in before heading back in the fall. Do you miss the kids and the staff? The honest answer is a mix of yes and no. There are students I have missed in all of my thirty years, those I wish I could have taught, others that I would have loved to keep in my class one more year. Staff is a trickier answer; of course there are people to miss, but I’ve quickly realised that I need to make the effort to invite them out and arrange meetups as they are very busy the way I once was. They are also right behind me, and in a few years, we will be able to reconnect and enjoy free time together; under no circumstance do I reproach anyone who cannot find a way to join up now. Our moment will come again to be together, for good friends can be apart for a time and find each other once more.

The most beautiful epiphany I’ve had in the last few months is that you need to let go of expectations and just embrace what each moment has to offer. To this end, I have thrown out whatever ideas and plans I had before I finished the school year and decided instead to enjoy every day as it comes, however that is. I am at once more active and less busy, physically challenged by the energy and needs of the puppy, but the biggest transformation has been the awakening of my senses from our time spent outside. Toronto is a city with parks, ravines, and waterways, and I’ve found myself seeking them out to give Stirling stimulation through experiences out in nature. In our treks, I’ve found such beauty around me as autumn has turned to winter: beaver dams, yellowing grasses, leaves that have turned from green to gold and red, the brilliant reds of cardinals and sumac fruit on winter trees, the pastel skies of dawn and dusk with their pale lavenders, pinks, and blues, the brilliance of the hoar frost hanging from the bare trees, the crashing of the waves against the greyish sand, the cluster of ducks and the swan pairs keeping safe in the nearby creeks and curves of the bay, the snow carving patterns on the rocks and evergreen branches, the chatter of birds seeking shelter in trees, the howling of the wind and whipping of rain pellets, snowflakes on your tongue, the glare of the sun over the lake. I’ve felt reconnected with the area we have called home for ten years, and had the pleasure to be able to capture some of the moments with my phone camera along our daily adventures. Some of them are beautiful snapshots of our encounters, though none of them can equal what our eyes have witnessed.

Our next travels will be in late May, back to our beloved Scotland, for what I hope is an exploration of the North 500 road and a first trip to the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Between now and then, there will be a new year and a new decade, and I am so looking forward to seeing how alive the "dead of winter" will be in the city before it turns to spring. Perhaps we will even venture beyond it to the countryside, but wherever our walks take us, there will be beauty to be seen and heard. I look forward to taking it all in with eyes and ears, and to sharing the best photos that I might snap along the way, and encourage you all to go find your own adventures in the beautiful natural world just outside our doors.

A Thousand Memories

A picture may well be worth a thousand words, but a single photograph can trigger a thousand memories.

This is our beautiful boy, Whiskey, posing for the camera at his doggie daycare on Thursday, December 20th. He’d been sent for the whole (rather than half) day for the first time in close to a year because he needed his nails trimmed back and the groomer was only available in the afternoons. It was sure to exhaust our old boy, who had been struggling with arthritis and slowing mobility for many months, but it was the only logistical way to ensure the pedicure.

                                 Whiskey's perfect day with his doggie daycare pals.

When I picked him up in the afternoon, he was limping, and the stiffness that was apparent in his movements was initially attributed to his overly active day. Twenty-four hours later, he was in our veterinary hospital infirmary, running a fever and needing IV fluids to restore him to good health. By Saturday morning, he was on his way back home, his situation more precarious as he battled an infection, elevated white blood cell counts, and some kind of internal organ hemorrhage. We were given pain and healing medication after he’d received an injected antibiotic, and the hope was that he would recover enough by Monday morning to make further decisions. By Sunday morning, his breath was shallow, and his cat siblings were watching over him with concern as he rested in his little bed, which he hadn’t left since his return home. As the afternoon passed and he grew alarmingly worse, neighbours came to say goodbye because we had made the decision to end his obvious suffering; we called our family and they came over to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge peacefully and lovingly, with the kind help of our vet who made the house call. My sister’s dog Scarlett, his lifelong bff, cried on the kitchen floor after he was carried out; if there is ever any proof needed that dogs are capable of the greatest empathy and love towards others, Scarlett’s tears of grief are all I will ever have to remember.

                                    Scarlett and Whiskey; a bonded pair of lifelong friends.

And so we come back to that photograph, snapped almost routinely but which has taken on a greater meaning for me now that Whiskey is gone. When I look at it closely, I cannot reconcile the young face I see with the pained senior boy who deteriorated so rapidly in the three days that followed. He is looking happily at the camera and posing in a way that he disliked doing at home in recent weeks, and seems very comfortable sitting for the photographer. His eyes are alert, and despite the slight turn of his left hind leg, he is focussed and attentive.

I have come to realise that he must have sensed his own decline, and that he knew his good days were largely behind him and that the end was nearer than we thought. We knew climbing stairs were challenging, and that walks were now slower and shorter, and I had made remarks to friends that he was going to break my heart sometime next year, but I didn't sense that we were facing his final days or week quite so soon. I think he went into the daycare that morning believing that it was his last visit, and he was determined to make the best of the day and just go all out with his pals and have the time of his life with them. Indeed, one of his caregivers made the remark to me that they could not get him to rest at all, that he was in the thick of it all day long, resisting timeouts, determined to make every minute count despite the pain it might have caused him. For eight brief but magical hours, Whiskey was a young pup again, running and playing and enjoying being social with all his friends like he had done at dog parks years before, when his legs were faster and his body more agile.

I am grateful that he got the chance to have this final adventure, this beautiful gift of a perfect day before he died, and I am equally thankful that we were able to let him leave this life surrounded by everyone who mattered the most to him, including Scarlett. His passing was loving, gentle, and peaceful, and after a long and happy life with us, it is all I would wish for this wonderful friend.

RIP, Whiskey. I will love and miss you every day of my life, and I will cherish the thousands of warm memories of our ten years together. Run free, beautiful boy. <3

There by the sea and sand…

My love affair with rocks is decades old now. At some point in my travels, likely after I quit smoking in the late 80s,  I traded my habit of collecting matches and ashtrays for natural mementos of the places I’d visited. And so it began, the tucking of pebbles and stones into a pocket here and there whenever I was in a foreign country or new province. I gathered stones from California’s Pacific coast, from Prince Edward Island’s Cavendish beach, and suddenly, a new tradition was born.

              Rocks from Cavendish Beach, re-arranged in our backyard to make a dragonfly.

In 2014, I transferred to a new school and a different teaching grade, and suddenly, rock and minerals were a part of the science curriculum I was expected to teach. That summer, on my first trip to Scotland since 2001, I decided to gather samples from all parts of the country, including some from a day trip to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. I came home with some interesting specimens, including a silvery triangular one with a fossilized fish from Loch Lomond.

                         A beautiful blue rock given to me by one of my students last year. It's from
                          Newfoundland, and therefore connected to my beloved Scotland.


My students quickly pored over my bagfuls of colourful rocks and minerals, and before too long, many of them were returning from their own vacations with gifts for me. From all the presents, I’ve made small bee baths for my front garden, and decorative art for the back yard. For the most part, the rest of the collection is kept in glass vases or smaller decorative bowls. I can easily recognise many of them and pinpoint their exact location and the memory associated with each one.

                       Two of my bee baths, with rocks brought back home from all over the world.

Today, the most beautiful one of them all landed in front of me, unexpectedly and with the most touching story attached to it. Yesterday, as our school held its year-end graduation ceremonies, one of my students was recognised for an award. For many reasons, I was proud of her achievements, especially because she has been very enthusiastic about learning French since the year began. Her unusually profound love for this language, which her father told about in the schoolyard back in September, coincided with my determination to continue the ongoing process of decluttering our home over the summer. I decided that I would go see if I could find a childhood book to pass onto her as a remembrance of this successful year and milestone in her school career. I found an old weathered copy of the Winnie-the-Poo hardcover novel in French, which my school librarian had given me when it was in poor enough condition to warrant its removal from her shelves. I treasured it over 40 years ago, and have kept it all this time. Yesterday, without hesitation or regret, I gently passed it forward to another pair of hands who will take excellent care of it and enjoy the words between its old pages until she too one day will do the same thing.

         This is the same edition as the book I gifted my student. I forgot to take a photo of my
         copy, but I'm sure you can picture it with white medical tape supporting a damaged
         spine.

She cried when she unwrapped it, and told me it was the best gift ever. I explained to her why I wanted her to have it, and we went on to have a beautiful afternoon graduation ceremony.

Today, I found a gift bag on my desk from her, filled with some of my favourite chocolates and a very touching thank you card that reaffirmed how much she loved the book. And then at the bottom of the bag, I found a rock. It was big, pinkish, with a porous surface, and when I turned it over, I saw it: a white heart had been formed and imbedded at the centre. I locked eyes with my student, she smiled, and I completely understood why she had cried the previous day because I felt the same overwhelming emotions. A few tears left my eyes, and I assured her that I would find the perfect place for it at home. 

The beautiful rock from St Maartens, with its little white heart.

And so I have. I've placed it on a special shelf, nestled between a beautiful, special caricature made by a close friend and my two handwritten notes from Pete Townshend.

My new treasure, with the Pete Townshend notes on the left, and my Tigris caricature on
                                                                    the right.

My Beloved Scotland

For the past four years, I’ve chosen to spend vacation time in Scotland twice a year, in August for a few weeks, and then each March for a quick eight-day visit. Last summer marked the first time I didn’t go back, and I missed my Highlands in a way that didn’t surprise me in the least. It only made me look forward to my recent trip even more than usual.

It’s fair to say that a lot of my friends, family, and colleagues haven’t fully understood my great love affair with Scotland, and it would be equally fair to add that beyond travelling there in 2001 with my then-boyfriend-now-husband to heal the wounds from my father’s death, I’ve never fully understood either how it got under my skin in the summer of 2014 and just never let go. After this holiday, though, I think I am as close as I will ever be to making sense of why this place is so special to me and why I need to return as often as I do.

There is the landscape; stark, majestic, with the most incredible combination of colours I've not found anywhere else, the browns and greens of an island climate and the black and grey of rock peppered with purple patches of heather. At every turn, the mountains rise up from the empty road to remind you that you are in the middle of some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth. You literally run out of “holy fucks” to say, but it never ceases to take your breath away for those few seconds of wonder. I’ve never felt tired of looking out the window, and never once thought it will be my last time driving through Glencoe because I’ve seen all there is to see. It is really that magnificent.

The Grey Mare's Tail in the Southern Uplands. It was too dangerous to attempt the climb, but I was so happy to have seen its beautiful outline again.

Lochan in the village of Glencoe. Canadian fir trees make it seem like home.

The wild reindeer herd in the Cairngorms National Park.

There are the people. The ones I know there that I am so lucky to call my good friends are some of the kindest, funniest individuals I’ve ever met. It matters little that we only see each other once or twice a year, or that it must be a quick coffee stop, or that we manage a longer lunch or dinner at what have become favourite restaurants in Glasgow, Falkirk, and Edinburgh. The willingness on their part to come find us whenever or wherever we are nearby is what makes the reunion special, and I am grateful that they all make the effort to rearrange their schedules to make it happen. Once we hug and settle down together at the table, the banter and chin wags begin and you would swear we have known each other all our lives because the flow of conversation seems effortless and natural. They are all people I met online due to my love of music, and some more specifically because of connections through the novels I wrote, but it makes me smile that they have also formed new friendships with one another and in some cases discovered new places in their own land as a result of coming out see us. I cannot imagine never seeing them again, even though there are trips when we don’t manage to fit everyone in: there is always next time, because we know the return is inevitable and that the tables will be waiting for us.

The usual suspects, or as I love to call them, our Scottish clan. <3

And there is me, the scatterbrained and hyper social butterfly with wanderlust who has fallen in love with Scotland’s landscape and its people, which absolutely includes those I don’t personally know but encounter on our travels. They have a welcoming attitude that immediately makes me feel back at home; there is a playful banter that I recognise, appreciate, and happily engage in at every turn, knowing that the give and take of affectionate teasing is how one moves from stranger to acquaintance and sometimes beyond that to become friends. It has made me happy to share Scotland with my friends on the last three springs there, and to see that I have not been the only one deeply affected by this magical place. It is much like finding a favourite restaurant and wanting to bring people I care about there, and making sure that every time I return, I try something different on the large, inviting menu. 

The last thing I have mused about has to do with expectations and disappointments. Our flight was delayed by one day, and we had to rearrange a few things to keep to the itinerary I had planned for the group. None of it mattered in the end because we all got along famously and were flexible in switching our daily plans to accommodate the changes and challenges that we faced once or twice during the week together. This time, the weather was colder than I’d ever seen it in March, as it had been back in Canada. I was dreading going over and finding the same cold and damp, and instead found sensory delights I didn’t expect:  the roads were always clear, and the blanket of snow on the mountains made the roaming wildlife so much easier to spot; there was a reindeer visit, and there were deer, goats, and Highland cattle to enjoy. When we couldn’t hike the Grey Mare’s Tail because of the freezing rain storm, we delighted in a return to the sweet shop in Moffat that had been closed earlier and detoured into the capital ahead of schedule for a different adventure. The snow in Edinburgh made the Royal Mile postcard pretty and we all found a silver lining to each cloud that rolled by. We could not have booked better accommodations, which my fellow travellers attributed to my diligent efforts but which I will also admit has much to do with an off-season trip: we had access to saunas, swimming pools, and excellent dinners and breakfast at every stop. We finally got to see the inside of Eilean Donan Castle and get some ‘extra’ attention from their guide because it was fairly empty, we walked the hallowed grounds of the Culloden Battlefield, sampled some of the finest Speyside whiskies, and got some interesting geography and history lessons at the Roslyn Chapel. 

The marker for the fallen of Clan Fraser at the Culloden Battlefield.

The magnificent Eilean Donan Castle, on the road to Skye.

The snowy garden view of our favourite B and B just below Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

Through it all, we drove up and down the most beautiful and empty roads I’ve ever seen, listening to great tunes and having relaxed conversations with my travelling companions. I realised that I need two things in life to be happy: an attractive but decluttered backdrop to slow down and still my overactive brain, and the company of affectionate and kind people to fill my heart and soul. In Scotland, I have found both these treasures, and that’s why I will always return.

Round Two!

What a difference ten weeks can make in one’s mindset. As I suspected, the arrival of the new school year has meant an abundance of work and a busy, often crazy pace that has left me little time to reflect or do much of anything at all outside of my work and home responsibilities, and my continued determination to keep fit. 

It’s been almost eight months since I gained or lost any real weight, which is as comforting as it is frustrating in equal measures. As easily as I’ve gone up two or three pounds when I’ve had an indulgent weekend (or a longer spell away from home), my body readjusts downward as soon as I readopt my daily routine. It seems ridiculously easy now to be moderate, to maintain the status quo and to enjoy a dedadent treat once in a while without fear of climbing back up the scales. That is the comforting part of this new lifestyle where I have a healthier diet and daily exercise, and actually enjoy my activities and the foods and drinks that slip past my lips. People raise an eyebrow when I tell them I splash cream in my coffee, indulge in full-fat yogurts, and occasionally indulge in forbidden desserts and wine, but the truth is that I have discovered a balanced way to live that I doubt I will deviate from again. Fingers crossed, right?

But with this comfort comes frustration as well, and it largely stems from deciding whether or not I should be satisfied with what I’ve achieved thus far. I am happy with my “medium” dress size, the 50 pounds I’ve shed, and my overall fitness and wellness; I also realise that any kind of weight loss at my age is difficult and for that alone I should be proud and pleased. All that said and done, I still feel that with a bit more resolve and some refocussing, I can push myself beyond my current limits.

For the first year and a half, I kept a daily food and exercise log on a great phone app called My Net Diary, carefully entering my meals and workouts. Likewise, I took a photo at the start of each month so I could “see” the changes in case the scales were deceptive. I stopped doing both those things in the last six months, though I have continued to track my weight each morning, happy that it has been stable since losing those pesky holiday pounds from Scotland last March.

So it’s time to do go back to “tried and true”. The app is getting fired up again, and I’ve added weight resistance and Zumba classes to my aquafit routine. My body is fit and strong enough to rise to the challenge, and I have also decided to reconnect with yoga practice twice a week to compensate for the increased activity by stretching my tired muscles.

Oh, and those photos… Time to stand in front of the mirror and smile for the camera again, just to capture whatever progress I make. Looking back at how far I've already come, I can now use the knowledge and experience from what worked the first time. So here we go! Round two begins today.

                   November 2015 on the left, and November 2017 on the right.

Unsettled

In less than a week, I’ll be back at work after the summer break. Normally, we spend our first days together asking each other how our holidays were, and sharing stories about our adventures. “How was your summer?” is the “How are you?” of teachers returning in September after long absences from one another.

“Unsettled” will be my answer, and it won't be a reference to the relatively cool weather that marked most of the past two months. I say relatively because we are used to baking beyond 30C on most July and August days, and we've mostly held at or just beyond two-thirds of that since school let out. It's been unusually rainy too, and my vegetable garden has been a failure with all crops except strawberries, who seemed to thrive in their little corner whiskey cask. The rest, sadly, drowned or saw too little sunlight to produce much: at last count, I had nine green beans, one pepper, five cherry tomatoes, and the beginning one lettuce head. A pathetic yield, really, and uncharacteristic of my normally greener thumb.

Soaking up the sun by the sea and sand in Cuba.

In many ways, the break was very good. I took three short trips abroad, and the weather everywhere was warmer than the summer that never was in Toronto. My visit to San Francisco was prompted by the sudden death of a close friend, but amidst the shock, grief, and wish that he could have lived a long, beautiful life,  a gentle healing took place between me and members of his family, and for that, I am grateful. I was reminded by walks on Ocean Beach of how much I love that city, and how I’ve missed it in the four years that our families were estranged. My short jump to Pennsylvania and then to Atlantic City to see The Who reunited me with dear friends, gave me the chance to meet new ones, and also brought me face to face with old bloggers in the Who family I’ve known online for over a decade but never 'met'. It was a wonderful concert in a smallish venue, and once again a stroll along the Boardwalk on the opposite North American ocean shoreline was soothing. It's funny to me how much the presence of water has a calming effect on my psyche, and how I need a dose of sea and sand to ground myself every now and then. Finally, at the end of the month, I went down to Cuba with close friends and my sister, and the week on the beach surrounded by a hot sun, warm turquoise water, and great company was the perfect tonic for recharging my batteries. In the city itself, I also got to see Tears For Fears, U2, Queen, and Coldplay give four completely different but wonderful live shows, and I do hope to give them all a proper review when I get settle my brain down to turn my notes into coherent paragraphs to do them all justice.

30th Anniversary of the Joshua Tree Tour, June 23rd, 2017, at Skydome.

Queen with Adam Lambert, Air Canada Centre, July 18th, 2017.

The Who in Atlantic City, July 22nd, 2017.

This was the first August spent at home in four summers, and my “On This Day” Facebook reminders made me miss my friends and family in Europe and Scotland more than I expected. I do wish whoever is in charge of inventing teleportation would get on with it so that I could hop over for weekends at regular intervals. While the summer weather continued to elude the city, I didn’t mind so much after Cuba because I’d had the tropical beach escape and it was time to tackle the renovations that had started in late May. The inside of the house got a major and much-needed decluttering, and we are now approaching the latter stages of a serious backyard and front porch makeover. Not only will it look stunning when all is done, but it will be the oasis I’ve always wanted. I quite fancy the idea of spending my next few summers (and beyond, when I retire) listening to birds and other music as I write and try to add colour to my legs and arms, not to mention having garden parties again. I have been watching the metamorphosis with a big smile, because this mess of a farmhouse we bought eight years ago is slowly becoming the sanctuary I always thought it could be with a few changes. In the meantime though, the clutter and mess are disruptive and unsettling, because visual disorder is overwhelming and stressful to my ADHD brain.

The nearly completed back yard retreat.

The unsettled part, however, is more mental at the moment and beyond the temporary discomfort of my physical surroundings. I feel rattled by the world around me, by the news of white supremacists in a country of immigrants, by the devastating floods of Houston, Mumbai and the Niger river, and by the sadly predictable summer terrorist attacks in Europe and Africa. This time, though, it is not only strangers who have been the targets of horror and violence: a former teaching colleague and her husband were among the victims of the Burkina Faso shootings, and their deaths shook me because of the endless senselessness of such acts. What do they actually accomplish, except to discourage people from making the world a better place by cocooning and growing more isolated? Is the goal of terror to immobilize us and keep us from talking to one another, or is it just deep frustration and anger that can't pinpoint its target and therefore lashes out randomly? It enraged and saddened me because the woman I knew who died in that café was making a difference in the lives of less privileged people and we are all now deprived of her future contributions, which I know would have continued to be important and necessary for those she helped. I'm sure people who knew other victims would say similar things about the friends and family they've lost, and I just can't help but wish that these angry folks gunning down strangers would just do us all a favour and remove themselves instead if they think so little of the world around them.

Both her passing and the death of my friend in California are also a sad reminder that this beautiful life is fragile, and that we never know how long we have or how cruelly people can be taken from us. It is often said that you cannot appreciate happiness without experiencing sadness, and that both states are forever fleeting. Whether it is a good thing or not, it’s how life is, and we must learn to ride out the waves and be grateful when they are gentle and warm. I suspect that by next week, I will be so busy with my new classes and all the responsibilities and work that go with a fresh school year that I will not pay attention to the news as much. I will resettle into routine and not have the time to cry over animals and families rendered homeless by the floods, or over people who should still be living their beautiful lives had fate not cut them short. Being busy is a blessing of sorts, and one that I hope I can appreciate when it happens.

My furry heart, Creemore.

Perhaps I should take a lesson from my beloved calico, Creemore, who despite the cloudy days, always seems to find that little spot of sunshine wherever she is.

Lives Remembered

A few years ago, when I was in the middle of writing my rock fiction series Behind Blue Eyes, I had to include a funeral scene. In it, two characters were explaining how once you have lost someone close to you, every service afterwards will being you back in time to that first loss. Today, I realised just how true those fictitious snippets of dialogue really are.

                                      Two beautiful smiles on their wedding day in August 1990.

My stepmother Gabrielle was my father's second wife, and I knew her as a member of our parish and school community as well as a friend of both my parents when we were little; we hosted her family for dinner and were invited to their home many times, and my earliest memory of her was of her beautiful voice as she sang "Minuit Chrétien" to begin the traditional Midnight Mass at our French-Canadian church every year. After her first husband passed away and my parents divorced, she and my father found each other and were married in 1990. They had 11 happy years of travel and adventures before he passed away, and she continued to be in our lives as a member of the family until her passing last month at the age of 93. Today, we held her memorial service in honour of a long life well lived.

                                                The note card from Gabrielle's service today.

My sister and I were honoured to read a letter she herself wrote back in 2009, much of it explaining the many things in her life which inspired her, including her quilting, her passion for travel, history and reading, and her love for her family and friends. One of the things that left a huge impression on me were stories of her learning to read as a three-year old in rural Quebec in 1926 so that she could read the morning paper to her father. Despite little formal education beyond primary school, which would have been the norm in those days, she was a lifelong learner who passed her passion for the arts and history to her children and never lost the gleam of curiosity and the willingness to better herself by pushing beyond the limits of her modest circumstances. I am so glad we got to know her again in her later years when she married my father, and that they had many happy years together gallivanting the globe. At the end of the afternoon, having been reunited with her children after more than a decade without regular contact with them, it was lovely to see that they are all still well and happy, and that there were fond recollections and anecdotes on both sides about our father and their mother. We were given a box of items she had labelled to be returned to us after she passed, and the photographs she had bundled brought back a flood of memories of times long gone.

I felt my father's presence very strongly today, and not only because the service was in the same chapel as his was 16 years ago. Looking at the box of photographs just now, I am reminded of just how much time has gone by and how little all those years have altered my feelings and longing for him. One of Gabrielle's daughters told us how grateful she was that he helped her physically escape an abusive relationship by driving her to safety, and how she always remembered his kindness and willingness to help. In some of the eulogies, we recognised the adventurous spirit that my father and Gabrielle embodied as they travelled to Egypt, the Galapagos, and the Manitoba tundra to see the polar bears, among many trips they took together. I also found this travel snapshot of my father, taken at the spot at the foot of Lake Superior where Terry Fox was forced to abandon his Marathon of Hope to find a cure for cancer. My father, as you can see, is gazing up at Terry's statue in a contemplative manner: he had, like Terry, beaten cancer successfully when this photo was snapped, and sadly, like Terry, cancer would come back and claim his life too. It remains one of my favourites, because both men were optimistic in the face of their own pain and suffering, and I can only imagine what my father was thinking when this was captured on film.

                                           One of my favourite photos of my dad: he and Terry Fox, kindred spirits.

All in all, it was a beautiful service, and a gentle reminder that though time continues to pass, the love you feel for those who are gone never diminishes but finds a permanent place in your heart.

Et in Acadia, ego

The Cabot Trail is a scenic drive that goes through Cap Breton Highlands National Park in Cape Breton, a small, ruggedly beautiful island off the coast of Nova Scotia. The island is also famous for its Acadian culture (see the lobster trap picture for a likeness of the Acadian flag), and its world-class fiddlers in the likes of Ashley McIsaac and Natalaie McMaster, among others.



We decided to see the entire trail, which is a 200 km road around the national park. During the drive, we found two moose at the side of the road, the young one (pictured above and the star of numerous videos that are too long to upload here) not bothered at all by the attention he was getting from cameras and my video attempts, the older one not so friendly and annoyed at my husband's camera clicking. He didn't stay too long, as you'll see below.





As you can see from the pictures I took, the park is incredibly breathtaking to go through. It reminded me of our trip to the Scottish highlands, and is well named. Being there was just as beautiful and memorable as our trip to Scotland. The next time we go back, I want to do some real camping there and hike the trails. There are black bears, coyotes, and moose to encounter inside the park, and I would love to actually walk those paths. Next trip...

Here is my video of the older moose we saw. The clicking of my husband's camera seemed to irritate him and you'll see that I dropped my camera suddenly because he looked like he was going to charge our way. In fact, he crossed the road and went off into the woods for some peace and quiet. I can't say I blamed him one bit. Is it me or do they look like camels with antlers?