Popping Bubbles and Stomping on Dreams

This might be a bit of a difficult post this morning, so if you're looking for something light and entertaining, you may want to give this one a miss. Just saying...

When we first got married, my husband found my constant optimism a bit much, and he gave me the nickname Pollyanna. (For those readers who are too young to remember Hayley Mills, she was an actress who played a little girl named Pollyanna who was overly and unrealistically positive all the time). Whenever I chirped about sunshine and roses, he'd roll his eyes a little. I figured he was just of a more sober temperament than I. Life, mortgage, children, work, news broadcasts, and general existence have toned me down over the years, which likely needed to happen in order for me to function in the world. However, the last little while, I've noticed a new tendency in myself---whenever I see someone being optimistic online, I have this grumpy urge to pop bubbles, scorn dreams, and roll my own eyes.

This morning someone who is probably a very nice person posted on Facebook their vision that in fifteen years, the world would be a peaceful place, the oceans would be clear of plastic, everyone would have geothermal heat pumps, and diapers would be biodegradable. And sure enough, my first response was to think "Sweet innocent, most of the planet won't be inhabitable in 15 years." 

My own thought brought me up short. Do I really believe there's no hope? Have I really lost any hope for the future of humanity? We certainly haven't got a good track record of cooperation and making wise choices. But does that mean such a dream is impossible?

I do have a deep religious faith regarding the future of our souls. I do believe ultimately the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory, as promised in scripture. But as far as our human existence on the planet over the coming decades...? We can't agree on pronouns, for pity's sake. How can we agree on climate action? People won't budge on what they perceive as their rights. How will they willingly deny themselves of their former excessive lifestyle in order to drastically reduce the human footprint on Earth? We're trafficking children and pushing those who are Different out from among us. Why should we have hope that we'll consider the non-human world important enough to sacrifice for? We're willing to drop bombs on our neighbours to take their territory, and meanwhile we're careening through space on a tiny speck we don't even steer. Even if everyone on Earth suddenly became altruistic overnight and politics instantly became moot, we're past the point of no return on certain climate factors, and the beautiful dream this person expressed online cannot come about.

So yeah. I guess Pollyanna is dead, and I have no hope in humanity as a whole. Does that mean I give up and embrace the coming difficult reality? No, of course not. As has been said, it's too late to live hopefully, but it's not too late to live compassionately, responsibly, meaningfully, intensely, even vibrantly. Will it make a difference to the trajectory we're on? As a group, no. But individually, yes. Will my actions matter to the planet as a whole? No. But they'll matter to me, and the few people around me. Will my getting a heat pump stop the feedback loop of global warming? Not a bit. But we do things not because they're successful, but because they're right.

As I've quoted before, when the plane is going down, the best thing, the only thing, to do is hold the hand of the person next to you. Will it stop the crash? No. Will it make any meaningful difference? Yes. To me. To the person next to me. In the end, it's all we can do. For me, it's the only path forward. So I don't choose hope. I choose meaning. I choose compassion. Which, I suppose, means not stomping on others' dreams even when I don't share them.

Handbook on Gardening

A reminder that my latest book, Mom's Handbook on Gardening: Everything I Know About Growing Food, is available as either an e-book or PDF at Kristen's Books (https://kristenmckendry.ca/kristens-books)

Adventures with Hearing Aids

My husband recently got hearing aids, and it has taken some time to learn how to drive them. Gone are the days when you just had a dial to turn them on and off and adjust the volume. Today's hearing aids are run by an app on your Smartphone. There are programmable settings for different environments and to get direct feed from microphones or TV sets. So you end up with the scenario of him plugged into the TV, watching a show fed directly into his ears, and me sitting beside him on the couch reading a book, and I don't have to hear the TV at all. Unless I want to, and then I can turn up the external volume. However, it also means that if I want to comment on the show we're watching together, I have to pause the TV and he has to grab his phone and change over to allow himself to hear "background" noise. I am now relegated to being background noise. I suspect I'll have fewer comments to make in future. I do think it's an improvement, though, not having to stumble down from the bedroom at 1 a.m. to ask him to turn down the volume of the TV. Silence is bliss!

The hearing aids nestle in a little recharging box, content to be together as long as the power is charging them. If you turn off the power or remove them from the box, however, and they are anywhere near each other, they let off an unpleasant high-pitched squeal, like distressed canaries. Are they wailing for sustenance? Feed me! Feed me! Or are they throwing temper tantrums? How dare you confine me to this stupid box with him! It's deafening even to me, from across the room. They settle down once they're in place in Hubby's ears or if they're separated, like children being sent to their respective Time Out stools.

The weird thing is that he can't---or hasn't figured out how to---adjust the volume. You'd think that's a pretty vital feature, no? So when he plays his bagpipes, the sound is amplified to a truly painful level, and he has to remove the hearing aids and put them in their travel case. Except the travel case doesn't recharge them, only holds them. Together. My husband could hear them screaming in the trunk of the car all the way home.

Ahead of Schedule!

I've basically sat at the computer for the last couple of days and went through the manuscript twice, rewriting and inserting citations and generally polishing. I've sent it back now, as I wanted to leave plenty of time for any further questions or tweaks before the June 17 deadline.

I'm stiffly rising from the chair now, to go find my family and reconnect. They are always so lovely and understanding about my need to disappear while immersing myself in my writing. I haven't really cooked or anything for the past three days. Feel like I've been hit by a truck. Time for food and a walk outside, I think!

Oh, and it's my birthday today, so it feels momentous, submitting the manuscript today. Grandkids coming to visit tonight. Yay!

Rewrites and Proofreading

I just received the edits from my editor for my next book, Simply Beautiful: Making Your Life Reflect Your Values, which is due to come out in January 2026. I have ten days to do my rewrites and get it back to the publisher. 

I enjoy this stage of the process. The hard labour is done, the bulk of the work is finished, and now it's just polishing and finessing and catching mistakes. I set up the laptop with the version that shows her edits and use the desktop computer to do my changes on the final version (less eye strain!). It allows me to go back and forth between manuscript versions without confusing myself as to which one I'm in at that moment.

This is also what I would call the "powerful" stage. Earlier writing can be beset with imposter syndrome and self-doubt, but once the manuscript has been accepted and gone through someone else's rewrites, it feels...valid, maybe? As if it has passed the first test and now I can move forward with confidence. This is my thirteenth book, so you'd think self-confidence wouldn't be a problem by now, but it is, every time. I once read a post by Louise Penny, where she'd just sent in a manuscript and immediately felt the same kind of fear and trembling I always feel when I send something off, and I remember thinking, "My word, if she feels like that, then it's completely normal! It's not just me!"

I have only ten days to get this finished and return it to my editor, so I'll dive in full of energy and dedication. I'll hole up with my computers, forgetting to eat, ignoring the other people in the house, and immerse myself in words. I'll emerge days from now, wild-haired and gasping for air and wondering what year it is. I'll email it to my editor and promptly forget everything about it. And then I'll reward myself with Chapmans ice cream. It's my process.

The kindest gesture

What does the world's most thoughtful husband do when his wife is stuck away from home at the beginning of gardening season? He sends her photos of the garden so she doesn't miss the first flowers, and so she can be assured that everything is fine in her absence. Aww....

(The peonies are a couple of weeks late this year.)

Bloom Where You're Planted

The last two weeks of May are planting season here in southern Ontario. For weeks, I've been coddling and coaxing seedlings under the grow lights on my counter, then gently introducing them to the outdoors a little at a time. I've repotted, babied, and nourished them to be their best selves. Then I carefully planted them, adding fertilizer, arranging insect netting over them (to keep the squirrels out more than the insects, at this time of year), and fixed mesh cages over the zucchini hills. I've built barricades with sticks to try to keep rabbits from jumping into the raised beds. I've sprinkled chili flakes on the soil to deter squirrels. I've fiddled and fiddled with the watering system to get it just right. In short, I've done everything I can to give my seedlings a fighting chance.

And then I abandoned them.

Yep. Plunked them into the ground and left them for two weeks, while we went up to the old church we're renovating to install a kitchen. Insanity? Perhaps. But it was the only window of opportunity my husband had to spend time there.

Except he didn't.

He dropped me and the kitchen units off, with our sons helping to manhandle them into place, and then he and the boys took off back to the city and left me here to organize everything. He was supposed to be back a few days later, but he ended up with some commitments back home that he needed to attend to, so he didn't come back. The plan now is that he'll come Wednesday and take me home Thursday, having spent a total of two nights at the church.

While I've been here, I've kept busy with a few different projects, but it's been an interesting exercise in trying to be "in the moment" and "here," instead of pining to be back home in my garden. I've tried to tell myself that there's nothing I can do for my darlings, so it's best not to think about them. They'll either survive or they won't. The squirrels will dig them up or they won't. The Jerusalem Artichokes will either take over in my absence or they won't. The sprinklers will work or they won't. Since there's absolutely nothing I can do, there's no point fretting about it.

For the most part, I've managed to do that. I've organized the new kitchen, worked on stained glass, weed-whacked the back yard, baked cornbread and cookies, crocheted, washed laundry, read a lot, written a little, applied for a job, gone for long walks, and watched too much YouTube, and I've been pretty good at pushing my tomatoes and cucumbers out of mind. No doubt when I get back to the city, I'll have to do it again in reverse, trying not to think about the church and all that needs doing there. Why is it that, no matter where we are, our minds are always somewhere else? The key to contentment is being where you are and finding joy in the now, but even though we understand that, it's very hard to do.

While at the church, I've also tried to envision what life would be like if I didn't have a garden at all. If I lived in a condo and could only grow a tomato plant in a pot on the balcony. If I had to buy all my produce from the farmers' market instead of growing it myself. Would that be feasible or would it be torture? Would I relish having free time or would I miss working in the heat, fighting off mosquitoes, battling bunnies and weeds, worrying about soil alkalinity or the dominance of Sunchokes? 

Probably the latter. Because even though gardening can be a hard slog, the rewards are innumerable. Not just the produce, but the exercise. The fresh air. The satisfaction of bringing in bowls of the harvest. Filling the fridge with greens and cucumbers. Knowing where lunch came from. The smell of damp soil. The watchfulness of robins. The pleasure of taking part in creation.

But until I can get back to all that, I'm here. Now. With cookies to be baked and books to be read and stained glass to restore. Good luck, my little seedlings. I'll see you soon.