Truth and Reconciliation

September 30 is Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. Some years I've attended a pow-wow or watched a documentary about it. This year, I attended a concert on Saturday where an Anishinaabe elder drummed and taught us a song, and I will be doing some reading about the subject to commemorate. Sept 30 is a poignant day for me anyway, because it's the anniversary of our adopted son's death. Always a day for introspection and reflection.

Vegetable Garden Harvest

As this year's garden harvest is still ongoing, I thought I'd share photos from a year or two ago. There's something joyful about going out in the back yard and gathering everything you need for lunch. Blanching and freezing bags of green beans. Dehydrating carrots into hard little nuggets that---impossibly---rehydrate into plump, perfect rounds. Shelling dry beans and gathering seeds for next year. Taking bags of cucumbers to the local food bank. Gathering bouquets of kale. Lining up jars of tomatoes that glow like jewels on the shelf.

Sometimes there are challenges, and even though I've been gardening for almost 40 years, not every harvest is plentiful. Sometimes rabbits get the zucchini and squirrels behead the kale. Sometimes earwigs find the cabbage and heat takes out the spinach. There are some years things just refuse to germinate or thrive. There was the infamous year the bought-in sheep manure contained weed seeds and I basically had to garden with a machete.

By the time September rolls around, I'm tired of salad and ready for hearty soups and stews. This year I've grown my own black lentils, and I'm looking forward to trying them out. They'll probably make about a tablespoon-worth of soup, but at least I'll know I can do it. The time to practise growing food is before the famine hits.

Busy Hands

One of the things that gives me joy is doing things with my hands. Crocheting, knitting, needlework, weaving, woodwork, gardening, painting, baking -- I'm not great at any of them, but they all give me immense satisfaction, even if the project itself doesn't turn out very well. For me, it's joy in the journey more than the final destination.

Also, it's impossible for me to sit still. I can't just sit and watch a movie without also crocheting or doing a puzzle. Which means if it's a K-drama and I have to watch the subtitles, my hands (more often than not) keep busy with things that don't require looking at, such as popcorn or cookies...and unfortunately, I watch a lot of foreign films!

This is what my brain does at 6 a.m.

My Bachelor's Degree is in linguistics, and I've always been keen on language in general. I like to play with words (I once wrote an entire paper on the meaning of the word "for.")

Have you ever noticed that most of the words that start with the letter D have something in common?

Dig
Delve
Down
Deep
Ditch
Dungeon

They all have something to do with going downward. Going lower.

Devoted
Devout
Dedicated

Same connotation. Going deeper, digging in. Now consider:

Doom
Depress
Destroy
Darken
Depose

Same again. All have something to do with bringing down.

Divert
Depart
Dispose

These are a little trickier. They have to do with motion or direction, going to the side, but not necessarily downward.

Then I start coming up with D words that this doesn't seem to apply to, such as the Hebrew word Devorah, meaning honeybee (so maybe it doesn't translate across languages), but then I start thinking of honeybees and hives, and my mind comes up with the phrase "Dark Hive," and that's now going to be the name of the mystery novel I'm writing. Thus I come up with ideas and titles and plots...

Two days later, we're to almost 233,000 views this month

However, I have heard that some real, live humans are also following this blog, so I will drop a post occasionally, if for no other reason than to say hi. Hi, Carol! Thank you for reading!

I was woken up at 1:00 this morning by a herd of buffalo coming in the front door (i.e. grandchildren coming back from a movie), and of course my brain kicked into gear and I couldn't get back to sleep. Rather than fight it, here I am, catching up on emails and reading William Kent Krueger and contemplating making a breakfast cake. I'll regret all this by about noon, but for now, I'm ready to start my day.

I've been considering what to do about my vegetable garden. The raised beds are elderly and need replacing, but wood is so expensive. The metal beds are even more expensive, and I don't think they're tough enough to handle the abuse I'd give them. I think they'd also heat up more in the summer. I've considered going back to in-ground gardening and eliminating the raised beds all together, but then my back twinges and I remember I'm not getting any younger. I've thought about scaling back and putting half the garden into berry bushes or fruit trees or grapes, to lessen the ratio of annuals to perennials. I've thought about flattening the whole thing and putting in shade trees and a bench. My husband even suggested I rent out parcels like a community garden.

That's something I've always struggled with---the grandiose plans and dreams vs. the reality of arthritis and a pinched nerve in my back. The vision of rows of bottled tomatoes and pressure-canned potatoes vs. the fact I'm almost at the empty-nest stage. I see crabapples going to waste on the boulevard trees and long to pick buckets and buckets to make into jelly...and then remember we're on a diet and avoiding toast. Sigh.

We're also looking at having the last of the lawn removed and replaced with a stone courtyard, which would be lovely, but that feels like a final decision to absolutely not get another dog in the future. And I'm not sure I can make that decision yet. I don't want to get another dog. I tell myself I could never replace Brio, and I couldn't. And yet letting go of that last bit of lawn feels so definitive.

These are the dilemmas my brain presents at 1 a.m. 

214,000 views of my blog in one month

Obviously, these views are coming from bots, not humans. I have three official followers, and I haven't had anyone leave a comment in ages. A total of 232 comments have been left by humans over the past 15 years I've kept this blog. So... I'm not convinced anyone's actually reading my posts.

I can see how having the blog as a "pressure valve" to release my creative energy may have contributed to my lack of enthusiasm for writing books in recent years. I may pause this blog, or discontinue it completely, to focus on my books for a while. I've entered a new phase lately, moving away from traditional publishing and exploring self-publishing. I know the manuscripts could use the wise, guiding hand of an editor, but at this point, I just want to rescue things that have been languishing in my filing cabinet and put them out there. Not for fame or fortune (traditional publishing hasn't brought me that!) but just for the simple pleasure of telling stories. I want to return to that joy and not worry so much about writing for a specific editor/market.

So...I'm taking a vacation from the blog for a while. I may come back to it. I may not. We shall see. Either way, it's been a pleasure writing it for the past 15 years. It's helped me capture my thoughts and preserve important memories. It's been a repository of photos. But maybe its purpose has come to an end.

I'd welcome any human input!

My Next Book is Out!

The next Detective Inspector Manookian mystery is out! Tiny Little Murder is the sequel to Monk With the Steel-Toed Boots and is now available as a paperback or an ebook.

When the founder of a Tiny House intentional community is murdered, DI Manookian is on the case. Who wanted the kindly, elderly man to die? As if interviewing seventy potential suspects isn't enough, Manookian must deal with an exasperating partner in training, family troubles, the increasingly intriguing owner of the In Your Face Bakery, her disconcertingly clever ten-year-old daughter, and his own conviction that it's time for a career change. But how to make the leap to a life entirely different from the one he planned?

Order your copy today! Many thanks!

(Cover photo thanks to Erin Pocock)

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