Friday, March 15, 2024

Spring Rituals

I knew I was in the wrong job when a month into my (very short) stint as an editor with Chatelaine, I heard a colleague talk about Spring rituals. Her mind went to pedicures. Mine went to birdwatching. In fact, soon, we’ll drive two hours to Long Point, on Lake Erie. And we’ll park at the edge of a farmer’s field, stand out in the wind, and watch at a very long distance through binoculars a white blur of tundra swans, pit-stopping their way north for the summer. They look majestic. They honk majestically. It wouldn’t be Spring without them.

Inspired by Spring. Photo by Nancy Kay Clark.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

A Bright and Future Home

Songs of a bright and future home settle in
Are these shores reachable beyond the beckoning of war drums and convulsions of paroxysmal gods?
May we not be sullied by malignant stains nor reach for transient temptations
This time may we accept grace
May we anchor in safe harbour
Here, pain is tempered; we are healed
Here, we lay our foundations down
Here, here and here are where we grow, let our roots entangle, branches entwine
Every spring is a spring to relearn the lesson
Hate buries the hater
We only rise through love
And everything that rises will converge

Inspired by Be Still. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Be Still

In her four walls, mortality whispers in her ear. Moments are ever fleeting. The child she was is gone. The young woman from oh so long ago, she still wants to be. The regrets swirl. It is her own private torture chamber. But then, she steps outside into the early March morning. Frosty white roof tops steaming, robins whistling. Air cool and fresh.
The sun is peeking through the semi-barren trees, warming her eyes. She walks, into the woods, and inhales the intoxicating smell of new muddy earth. The four walls of her mind collapse around her. Presence is everything. 

Inspired by March Approaches. Photo by Andi Edwards.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Mrs. Eva Doughty

In 1908, Eva and James Doughty, purchased a brand-new house in Parkdale, just off Roncesvalles Avenue—$2850, $800 down. They moved in with James’s son, Howard (from James’s first marriage) and their two-year-old daughter, Melba.
      Although the family followed James south in 1915, to a new job in Cleveland, it seems Eva never really gave up on Toronto, because, by 1939, after renting it out to a string of year-by-year tenants, she was back in the house, her house now, listed in the City Directory as the widow of James, even though he was very much alive and living downtown.
In the years that followed, she would open that house to her far-flung family and uncountable lodgers—her only child, her dear darling Melba, after the second divorce—her elderly mother, Emma, when running her own household became just too much—her granddaughter, Barbara, when she was busy getting her own family started.
      Mrs. Eva Doughty lived to 101. There’s a picture of her in the Toronto Star, celebrating her 100th birthday. She lived in that house 50 years.
      Eva and I aren’t related, but I wish we were. Our only connection is that I now live in her house.


Inspired by Les 18 (1898-2024). Photo of Eva (left) with her 100-year-old friend, Nellie Sims by Mike Slaughter.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Les 18 (1898-2024)

Les deux Marguerites, vieilles belles sœurs 
Les deux Thérèses, plein de bonheurs 
Léocadie sauvegarde à nos racines 
Suzanne prend bien soins à sa poitrine 
Ma Tante Alice, en plein aire 
Était devenu la bonne chasseuse 
Ma Tante Eileen, méchante si vers 
Vécu en vie de grandes douceurs 
Ma Tante Marie, Mère secondaire 
Ma Tante Simone, tenait ma Cœur 
Rolande, Fernande qui prient toujours 
Envoient le Seigneur ses laine nounours 
Gentille Madeleine, la femme qui rompe 
Bluffant Lillian, la femme de trompe 
Jeanne, Yvonne, les peu connues 
Yvette, si jeune pour sa perdue 
Finalement Anne-Marie, rossignole-ardu 
Toutes Mes Tantes ont disparu
Inspired by Anne Marie Leclair Armstrong, 1935-2024.
Photo: Mes deux grand-mères, 1954.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

March Approaches

The month of March makes its entrance like a thirteen-year-old who doesn’t know how to brush or (dare I say) wash his hair or even how to move. Messy, dishevelled, awkward, unpredictable. Cool one day. Too hot the next. Full of bravado. Always uncertain. He’s easily hurt and quick to lash out, but also equally quick to forgive and melt your heart.
He sheds his skin overnight and grows it anew in the morning. He is alive with possibilities and hope and energy. I breath more deeply in the early Spring and feel more keenly the change all around us.


Inspired by flipping over the page on my wall calendar. Image by Copilot Designer, prompted and edited by Roy Schulze.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Promised Land

Ricky’s twenty one and Jackie’s nineteen
but she’s done things he’s never dreamed
She’s got a devil’s smile, angel’s lips,
she’s drawing blood just swinging her hips
She says, “Boy, why don’t you tell me what you’re needing.”
He laughs but his heart is already bleeding.
She says, “I’ll show you something you don’t want to miss.”
He says, “You can have my soul for just one kiss.”
So she pushes her mouth to his
And she takes him by the hand,
takes him by the hand.
She takes him in her hands
And brings him to the promised land.

Recycled, and upcycled/inspired by Deep Thoughts. Photograph by Fred Ni.

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