Brio's "Gotcha" Day

Fourteen years ago today, we brought Brio home. Best dog I've ever had. I miss you, buddy.

Nate Hagens' Thought

Just watched a good talk by Nate Hagens about the future of energy. One thing he said really stood out to me: You don't have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life (i.e. fret about your purpose); you just need to take a step toward what feels right to you.

In other words, we don't have to see the whole path before setting out on the journey. We can live with uncertainty and act without knowing everything that's going to happen. Sometimes it takes a leap of faith, but sometimes it isn't a leap, it's just a waddle in the right direction.

When Life Seems Overwhelming...

 Sometimes things look complicated or scary 

until you see them from a different perspective, and then...

oops, nope, still big and scary.

The Great Purge, Kristen-style

My personal observation: When you're in your 20s to 40s, your aim is to accumulate stuff, and when you're in your 50s and older, your aim is to let go of stuff. I've been doing a bit of a purge, getting rid of furniture, clothes, books, and knicknacks. I've even gone through my cabinet of garden seeds and asked myself if I'm really going to plant 4-year-old garlic bulbils. Of course not! Out they go.

Part of the decluttering process has been going through my filing cabinet and thumb drives, cleaning up old manuscripts I've never done anything with. They've been weighing me down, always in the back of my mind like a neglected obligation. It feels like I just don't have the time or energy to take the usual approach with traditional publishers, and some of the stories are novella-length, not really book-length, so it's easiest just to put them out there through self-publishing (which, I'll fully confess, I've hitherto considered a bit like cheating).

But you know what? It's been very freeing. No stress, no deadlines, no sales mentality. Just rekindling the forgotten joy of writing. Polishing and editing and setting them loose into the wild. I think after so many years of dealing with the traditional publishing scene, books had become a product. I'd become a bit jaded and lost the pleasure of words. I'm recapturing that now, and it's been wonderful. Now it really is all about creativity, not commerce, and that makes all the difference.

And THAT, my dears, is what AI users don't understand.

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)

 Shop the Independent Bookstore | Lulu

Get Lost

I was the weird child who actually loved school most of the time. I loved the smell of new markers, chalk, fresh clean notebooks waiting to be written in. Binders with dividers made my heart happy. The best day was when we got to go to the library and sit on the carpet while Mrs. Condie read to us. Or those glorious and rare occasions when we got to lie on mats in the lunchroom and eat licorice while having a read-a-thon.

I loved delving into both new subjects and familiar ones. I'd spend summers memorizing Shakespeare or practising Italian conjugations just for fun. My favourite spot was sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor with a book or my typewriter. I remember the day I got the shiny, satisfyingly-pink card that admitted me to the grown-up section of the public library. I lived for the arrival of the summer Bookmobile, where I could check out Hardy Boys mysteries (I still remember the smell in the back of that van). I thought driving a Bookmbile would be the best job ever (I still do). 

In high school, I lost patience with the pace of things and started taking university courses on the side, eventually leaving after 11th Grade to attend uni fulltime. I remember looking through the catalogue of possible courses, marvelling at the range of offerings and thinking how lucky I was to get to choose whatever I wanted to study. I took classes in seven languages my first semester. I found physics fascinating. I walked through the art gallery and attended plays and took the guided tour of trees on campus. I fondled textbooks in the bookstore between classes. I sat in on courses I wasn't even enrolled in, just for the joy of soaking up information.

After two aborted attempts to complete a Masters Degree while working fulltime and raising three kids, I dropped out of formal school and just audited the occasional course. I took summer Parks & Rec courses with my kids. I've signed up for a Welsh Ladies' Chorus. I continue to read constantly, both fiction and non-fiction, and I prowl the neighbourhood Little Free Libraries daily to see what's on offer.

And I spend entirely too much time on YouTube, learning everything from Irish crochet to how to build my own solar collector from pop cans. But there's a bit of a dark side to YouTube. Aside from the trolls and nasty comments you often encounter there, the lure and attraction of YouTube itself can be detrimental. I get sucked into the rabbit hole of the day (How to use a portable power station to run your freezer, How to properly plant grape vines, American Sign Language instruction) and forget to clean house, cook, do laundry, write, garden, or any number of other things I intended to do that day. For someone who loves learning, YouTube can be a boon or a complete timekiller. I start off watching a gardening video and somehow end up watching opera-singing parrots or political podcasts or Breton country dances, and then look up to see my whole morning has gone and I've accomplished nothing.

At some point, one must set down the screen and go out into the world and DO the things learned. It doesn't feed me when I watch others eat lovely food online. I might know everything in the universe about growing perfect tomatoes, but if I don't actually put a shovel into the ground, none of that knowledge does a thing for me. Watching someone in the Philippines patch his roof won't stop the leak in mine.

On the other hand, I don't believe knowledge is ever wasted. All of it expands your mind and makes the world---and your brain---a more interesting place to be. But with so much to choose from, so much on offer, it's important to be selective. Time is limited, the brain-cell capacity is also limited, and not all knowledge is equally valuable to my personal situation. 

I'm still trying to find the balance between passion and practicality. Diving into education vs Doing what needs to be done. But learning gives joy, and that's no small thing these days. There's so much to discover and absorb! So go get lost down that rabbit hole now and then. But if you get lost for too long, be prepared to find the world may have moved on when you resurface.

The Hazy Lazy Days of Summer

My "get up and go" appears to have gotten up and left. I have a ton of things to do -- projects in the yard, weeding, painting, building, organizing -- but it's 37 celsius out, and suddenly it seems most pressing to lie on the couch or lounge by the pool and read novels. Two of the grandkids are here for the summer, and all I want to do is play board games and kick the soccer ball around and take walks to Baskin Robbins. I have zero interest in cooking or cleaning. I'm buying store-bought cookies instead of baking them as per usual. I've even gone to Nations to eat at their salad bar rather than assembling a salad myself. Anyone who knows me knows that's really weird. 

Maybe when the temperature cools and autumn draws closer, my pep will return. For now, I'm not going to push myself. There are some things more important than productivity.

A New Season -- Reevaluating My Purpose

I believe that our life purpose or the role we play changes according to the season of life we're in. When I was younger, my purpose was to learn and develop my talents and get an education. Then I entered a season where my main role was to raise my children and establish my family. I've had periods of my life that were all about prepping for the future, or focusing on my writing, or whatever.

But now I'm in the prime of my life (59 is a prime number, you see), and my life path is changing. I lost my job two years ago. Lately I've been pondering what I've accomplished in that two years and wondering where the time has gone. What do I have to show for it? I mean, I've accomplished a lot and I've been very busy. But have I grown or changed or developed in that time? And now, as my children are leaving the nest and my grandchildren are getting older, what do I want to do with this next phase of my life? How do I want to progress? What remains to be done that I wanted to do? How can I be of most use? What is my life asking of me right now? What would make me a better person?

I'm not sure of all the answers to those questions yet, but I keep coming back in my mind to the phrase: "A soft place to land." I think a lot of people need comfort and safety. Can I provide that in some way, whether through my gardening or my writing? In what ways can I be there to love and comfort my children and grandchildren? What service can I render? Do I have a larger role than just "being there" for them? All good stuff to think about.

There are times I get caught up in the politics going on in the world, and then times I think "The world's going to go up in flames anyway, regardless of what humans do" or "Why prepare for long-term retirement? The earth won't be habitable by the time I'm 70." But then I push all that noise aside and just think, "A soft place to land." Whatever the future holds, I know it's going to difficult. There may be war, or famine, or climate catastrophe... Whatever comes, there will always be a need for compassion and solace. How can I best equip myself to provide that, so I can ease the experience for my family and others?

People don't often leave comments on this blog, but I'd really appreciate some comments on this post.  What do you think lies ahead, and how are you preparing for it? Do you see your purpose changing as you grow older? In what role do you want to serve?

Garlic Harvest

One of my favourite times of the year -- harvesting, curing, and cleaning the garlic. It smells so good around here right now! I grow about 60 heads every year, perpetuating the German/Music garlic I got years ago from Bruce, a fellow piper who is no longer with us. It's nice to know his crop continues.

It's always a guess how much to hold out for planting and how much to save for eating. Last year I also sold some, but I think this year I'm keeping any extra so I can plant even more this fall. 

Last year I also tried the experiment of planting bilbuls, which grew nicely this summer. I'll leave them in the ground for another year, to see what turns out next year.

Every summer, I also find volunteer garlic growing all over the garden, thanks to the squirrels. It usually turns out small, and I think this year I'll just let it go to seed and get some more bilbuls out of them.

Don't Go Quietly into the Night

We are being bombarded with the message that there's no point in protesting, things are inevitable, and we should just accept the future others have laid out for us. This message comes from those in politics, those wanting to erect data centres, those with more money than the GDP of a small country, those in the oil and gas industry, those who want mining access to protected lands, and a host of others. Their intent is clear: if we think resistance is futile, we'll bend and cower, or at least give in and not cause a fuss. There are those who don't seem to care who and what they harm, so long as they get what they want. They have short-sighted vision and put money or personal power above all other considerations. It doesn't occur to them that some things are more valuable than wealth.

They only get what they want if we hand it to them. We don't have to. We created the billionaires, the oil markets, the demand for data. We can choose differently.

Battening Down the Hatches Under a Blue Sky

There's been a welcome break in the heat, and I've been venturing out to catch up on things in the yard. Hedge trimmed, lawn mowed, garden weeded, tomatoes and roses pruned, gravel garden zapped with weed-killer (yeah, I know, but I've been weeding by hand for years and it's getting away from me). I've also found time to take long walks, picnic outdoors, and kick the soccer ball around at the park with my grandson, but I haven't gotten back to swimming yet. The bird-feeder is full, the air conditioner is cleaned out, and we're finally getting around to fixing up the trenched side yard to deal with rain overflow.

It feels lovely to be under a clear blue sky again, after the smoke and haze from the wildfires. It's nice stepping outdoors without immediately feeling like I've been thrown into a furnace. It also feels good to get away from the couch or desk and use some muscles again. I never feel better than when I'm outside in a fresh breeze, with plants and trees around me.

My husband and I have decided every decision we make and every reno project we undertake needs to be with weather and climate in mind going forward. The heat will continue to intensify in summer, the rainfall will continue to be torrential, the winds are growing stronger, and the snowfall will likely continue to break records in winter. If I can't sell everything and build an underground house (my first choice), I need to find ways to climate-adapt this house and the church we're renovating. We have to come up with ways to shield the sides of the house from the baking sun, first off. We may not come up with the most aesthetically pleasing solution, but practicality needs to win. I also need to consider how best to continue to garden and grow food, because outdoor gardening is going to become impossible here, and it will cost a fortune to run a climate-controlled greenhouse. Maybe a walipini? Could I even get permission from the city to do that? Do I turn my garage into a hydroponic shed? Time will tell...

There's a distinct feeling of battening down the hatches and preparing for something intense. A sense of urgency to act while we still can, and while we can still get materials. To put back-up systems in place. To get creative with our limited budget. My husband's on board as never before, and now's the time to strike while the iron's hot...and getting hotter.

Dense Canadian Forest

About 35 years ago, my husband and I invested in a treatment centre for abused teens. It was located on 50 acres of scrub pine forest an hour or so west of Toronto. When we were looking into the opportunity, hubby and I tried to trek through the forest to explore the property. We thought it would be a good idea to at least walk the perimeter and see what we were purchasing. We made it about thirty feet.

You see, it wasn't just densely planted. Fallen trees, thick underbrush, and large areas of knee-deep swamp prevented us from making any progress. It was also disorienting, because once in amongst the trees, we couldn't see the sun, and we worried about walking in circles. Not to mention being eaten alive by mosquitoes. We gave up and turned back, and in the months we lived there, we never did manage to go any deeper into the forest than that. 

One day some men with rifles knocked on the door of our log cabin and told us to keep the kids inside, because they were going to hunt wolves on our property. Yes, wolves.

This was only 50 acres of new-growth forest, not old, within a short drive of Canada's biggest city. Canada has about 912,000,000 acres of forest (1,389,968 square miles). Most of it is just as impenetrable or more so, inaccessible by any roads. Stats Canada says 66% of Canadians live within 62 miles of the U.S. border on the south. There's a reason for that, and it's not just the black flies. 

My son used to live at the literal end of the road in northern Manitoba. Any intrepid people who live further north have to fly in, and the season and weather can isolate them completely for periods of time. Vast tracts of Canada are completely uninhabited, and in fact, there are parts of the country that haven't even been mapped yet. We can get an idea of what's there from satellite imagery, but no one has set foot there.

Lightning strikes can smoulder and fires can go underground and not show up until days or weeks later.

Just pointing out the scope of the fire-fighting problem.

Also pointing out how difficult a place this would be to invade or occupy. 

Heat Wave!

Today feels like 115 F. The silicone caulking around our home's windows is bubbling. Our air conditioner was working too hard and froze the coils, so a man is here now trying to get it working again. Just walking out to the back gate to let him in made my skin feel burnt. My husband cancelled band practice, because trying to play the bagpipes in this heat would be dangerous.

Tomorrow I head to Quebec, where apparently they're experiencing heavy rain and possible tornados. 

And this is really just the start of summer.

I sincerely want to sell everything I have and build a home into the side of a hill further north. Being mostly underground would mitigate the hot/cold temperature fluctuation, and it would protect us better from tornados. I'd like to be off the grid, too, or at least have better back-up when the power goes out. I think we're getting to the point where growing a garden outdoors won't be feasible anymore. It will need to be done in a climate-controlled building.

Rethinking My Pace and Space

I've been trying to pace myself a bit better this summer, dividing large chores into smaller ones and allowing myself to take a few days to do something that I used to push myself to do in one day. The heat is extreme in the late afternoon (the glue in our front door actually melted, and one of the highways buckled), so I've given myself permission to siesta. To swim. To go sit in the massage chairs at the gym. To eat salad and sandwiches instead of cooking, so I don't heat up the kitchen with the oven. I even bought yogurt this week instead of making it as I've done for years, because the idea of warming up the kitchen with the crockpot was off-putting.

As a result, I've given myself more writing time, which has been nice. But my husband and I have also been visiting more with neighbours, just sitting in the shade in the backyard and chatting. It's the first time we've really let ourselves take the time to do that, which is a shame. They're wonderful people, and we've been missing out.

I'm letting this heat-driven attitude spill over into other aspects of my life, too. Maybe things don't need 100% of my effort. Maybe it's okay to drop some activities and put less-important things aside. Maybe it's okay to just sit sometimes. I've come to this realization now and then throughout my life, but this heat is just reinforcing it now. The heat just sucks away all motivation and energy. 

It's also carried over into my stuff. We had to move the furniture to install new windows and doors this week, trying to weather-proof the house a bit better, and right now the rooms are bright and light and empty. And I like it. Maybe we won't move the furniture back in. Maybe the time has come to put it all on the curb and create more room to breathe. Less to clean. Room to stretch. I could see throwing out the couch and sitting on pillows on the floor. Using the coffee table as the dining table and getting rid of the massive square table (the whole family is only here a few times a year anyway -- we could improvise with folding tables for those times). Son #2 is heading to Korea for a year, and Son #1 will be in school downtown starting in the fall. We will have fewer people in the house. We're minus my beloved dog now, too. Maybe it's okay to live in an entirely empty house...

Except for the books, of course. There will always be books. Oh, and yarn and fabric. And, um, the guitar and banjo and bagpipes are non-negotiable. And my recipe boxes (yes, plural). And...

Okay so maybe not entirely empty. But more spacious. More bright. More open to possibility. I could use this heat wave as an opportunity to re-evaluate life more generally and make bigger changes.

A while ago, I wrote a book that talked about taking a closer look at our lived space and pace. Paring down to the essentials. Maybe now is the right time to dig that out and reread it and remember.