I bought four mugs at a thrift store yesterday. I am hardly the ‘I must have it if I see it’ type of person, but these were just right. The colour and shape and the way they felt when I picked one up. A mere $4.99 later, they came home with me and four of the ones we had for a while will go to a thrift store. Maybe they’ll become someone’s favourite mug, who knows.
My (now) occasional columns are originally published on the Armchair Mayor News, this one included.
I saw the tiniest hummingbird the other day, while on the morning hike. No bigger than a (small) dandelion flower, it was hovering around a Saskatoon bush. I got home and promptly put up the red hummingbird feeder in the backyard.
It was a week ago that it happened. It was a windy day, so I tried to blame it on that, because we always try to bring sense and logic into the happenings that rattle us.
The loud bang was indeed rattling, more so in that early morning silence. The pup dashed in her safe spot in the bedroom, and I ran outside. It was a robin!! Of all things that could’ve happened, a robin hit the window.
The sun is shining, and spring is in the air. It’s beautiful and yet there’s the heaviness of the last few weeks… While fully aware of the privilege of being able to walk, breathe deeply, and recharge my reserves through a morning walk in the woods, or through writing and reading, I am perpetually humbled by the feeling of helplessness in dealing with the many big problems unfolding in the world.
It’s been almost two years in the making. I am now ready to share with you the project I’ve been working on and mentioned a few months back.
There is a story behind it, and I keep returning to it whenever I get bogged down by the questions and worries that are inherent to any new beginning. Of course, new beginnings are where we get to learn that daunting, exciting and admittedly, scary, can morph into one.
I wrote this back in 2016 and it’s just as relevant today. Of course, little boy was being dropped off to Forest School back then, and now he is a teenager taking himself places. But the rest is all there…
It’s only fitting that the robin came flying by the side of the car as I am driving slowly on the dirt road after I dropped little boy off for Forest School somewhere in the grasslands for a day of exploring.
It is March 8th, and that’s Mother’s Day back where I was born.
No bells and whistles, no marketing campaigns to make you buy this and that for mom. Flowers, yes, the grownup men bought flowers for their wives, and kids like me picked snowdrops, tied them with a nice little ribbon and presented them to Mom. No Hallmark cards, but carefully hand drawn cards featuring snowdrops as well. They were easy to draw and the earliest of all flowers. I always thought that was quite a feat for how fragile they looked.
I will tell you why the 13th is not unlucky.
Take February 13th for example. It’s early morning and the sun is shining. Pup and I start on a morning hike with the intention to get to the top of a particular hill above the woods. I mean, what better day?
These days the trails are a mix of ice and crusted snow which makes for a good challenge in some parts, but if hikes are to be likened to life, at least occasionally, then the tougher sections are but good reminders of what our journey is about.
After stopping to take in the view, again, (and to roll on the crusty snow, again), we make it to the top. On the day that bears the number deemed unlucky, pup and I find ourselves in sparkling morning sunshine and with front seats to admiring birds in flight from above (the ultimate ‘bird’s eye view’ one could say, pun and all).