A Day at Harbour View

On this beautiful Friday morning( finishing it on a Saturday morning) in the quietness of my office I reflect on my busy, bustling, demanding day yesterday. In 2012 I began doing author visits through New Brunswick's WISP. (writers in schools program)I have done many visits and gone to a lot of the Saint John and area schools.I have visited Nova Scotia schools through the Hackmatack program and toured Ontario as an author in the TD Children's Book Week event.I have presented to more students than I taught in my teaching career and feel privileged to do so. Some schools have had me back for repeat visits and I have my favorites from the ones I've done. I also have a few not so wonderful moments but overall have been very rewarded in the experience. As a teacher of 29 years I bring experience and classroom management techniques to each visit . I for the most part can handle a small medium or large group of pretty much any age student.(kindergarten scares me the most , followed closely by grade nines)I am always pleased when a booking comes along, happy when a teacher reaches out to invite me and pleased I get such an opportunity. I think it is a valuable program for the students. I am happy if I have several visits a year and this month I happen to have two. Next week I will return to Bayside Middle School for the fourth or fifth time. I am thankful for that. But each visit fills me with fear, nervousness and doubt. A day or so before I struggle with the wisdom of my choice to participate.I second guess myself and my ability. I pray for a storm day or a power outage, a fever or a broken bone. Not really but I do get myself in a bit of a state. My wonderfully supportive husband talks me off the ledge so to speak. The morning of I get up and put my best professional foot forward. I dress appropriately and give myself lots of time to find the school. I rally so to speak and enter the building ready to do the best job I know how to do. I am seldom disappointed with the outcome. Each presentation takes on a tone and a substance of its own . I usually start the same way but veer off in many directions. By the end of the day I am exhausted but filled with a calm and thankful relief that I accomplished what I set out to do. My presentations are honest, emotional, personal and challenging. Some groups are more difficult to reach but always even if only for brief moments I feel a deep connection with the students. I try in small groups to learn the kid's names, see the individual , build a temporary bridge . I expose my sorrow, my vulnerability and I try to speak honestly. I am so often rewarded with morsels of honesty in return. There are always the bright lights shining back at me validating my effort. My husband always says I told you so when I return at the end of the day happy with the memory and glad I made the effort.Teaching held the same fear , the same challenges , the same self doubt, as does writing and putting ourselves out there in any way. Harbour View High School is a grand old building, an architectural gem and a vibrant institution still serving young people of the region. I sensed a pride and a community within its walls and feel honored to have been a small part of it for one day.For school visits I must take myself away from my warm home , my office and my writing and for that I am always rewarded.

Another Passing

As I drove up the Reach yesterday on my way to another funeral I spoke the names of the women who have gone on and left us. Charlotte,Audrey,Irene,Isabel,Audrey,Blanche,Edith,Shirley, Irene, Muriel , Alice ,Dora, Faith, Helen,Alice, Edie, Ida , Iva, Clara, Hazel, Betty, Ethel,Lynda, Zetta, Newcomb, Vida,Grace,Ruth, Pauline, Marjorie, Vera, Jean, Bessie,Mabel,Willa, Helen, Mary, Winnie. I am sure I may have missed somebody but in saying the names I remembered the women of my childhood, my young womanhood , my past. After the service a friend said " We are loosing our mothers" Another person remarked that "we are the old people". I feel an awakening to the fact that roles are reversing. It is funny that the list of names holds so many of the character names I have chosen for my writing. They are the women who have shaped me, the women I aspire to be . In listening to a daughter's beautiful eulogy I reflect on the words that could be said of me when it is my day to be remembered. So much of the fabric of these women's lives is similar to my own. Times change and stay the same. In this amazing place we live out the lives we are given and make the mark we are meant to make. We build our marriages,raise our children , make our homes,welcome our grandchildren,do our work and effect others around us. We are given the length of days afforded us and it is entirely up to us to live them as best we can.I know this is the way of things and has been as long as time but somehow it is just dawning on me. I am but a small kog in the wheel, one light on the vast string , one woman in a long line. My light will fade and be extinguished and a flicker of it will remain. I will have made a difference, left a legacy and my time here will have mattered just as every woman who went before me and every one who follows.So on this beautiful January morning, a fresh snow covering the landscape, I embrace the day. I will step up to this stage I'm in and live it.

The Gift of Gladys

For the last five weeks I have made a weekly visit to see Gladys. I knew she would be entertaining. I knew she would have stories to tell.I knew I could ask her things. I knew I would enjoy my visits but I didn't know what a gift they would be to me.Last night after returning from our visit I realized the wonderful reminder spending time with Gladys is for me. It reminds me to pay attention to the details, remember the important stuff about this life we live and treasure each day.These are precepts I try to live by anyway but what really shouts at me as I leave the nursing home where I see so many who have lost so much of their former selves is to value the stage of life I am presently in. Gladys is making the best of her current location. She has paintings and photographs of several of her previous homes on the walls and shelves surrounding her. She recalls with precise detail the rooms of each of them . In the small room she now inhabits she has dreams where she is upstairs in one of those homes. She watches her days unfold in a much different rhythm than the days of being a busy mother, farm wife, grandmother and a vital part of her community.I leave and come home to the life she had thirty some years ago. I watch this amazing woman still so sharp sitting now in the decline of her final days, months or whatever time she has left and it causes me to truly appreciate my day to day. If I am to be as lucky as Gladys and see my 95th year I hope the remainder of my time will be even richer from the lessons she is teaching me.Thank you Gladys!

The Tree is Down

Despite keeping water in the tree stand every day without fail my tree was very dry. As I pulled off each ornament vast amounts of needles fell. By the time Burton pulled it through the front door the floor was covered in green. But I loved every day it stood in my living room and every night I loved its twinkling lights. Another Christmas has passed , different in many ways and the same in other ways. Regardless of its disappointments, its sadness , its failure to meet some expectations it was a blessed beautiful season and I am very thankful. Now during this first week of January we regroup, we replenish, we rest and rally looking to the year ahead.The days already seem longer and despite the cold I feel the sun's warmth and promise. I look ahead to my work knowing the second round of edits will soon come and feeling confident about getting back to a work I have barely started. A reader's kind message encourages me to return to Rachel's story and the Walton Lake Road. Jasper who was a baby in 'Waiting For Still Water' has a story to tell and I plan on sitting at my desk and telling it. I will return the same day my grandchildren get on the bus and head back to school. What a blessing those grandchildren have been this wonderful Christmas. Oh so much to be thankful for.

While the Snow Gently Falls

What a beautiful morning. It is a quiet,peaceful day between Christmas day and New Years day requiring very little of me except to take it in and let it unfold. The snow is falling out side and I have decided to stay put and just enjoy this day. I will reflect on the blessings this season and this year have brought.I am awaiting the second round of edits for my eighth book, Fear of Drowning. I look forward to seeing some cover options in the next while. I saw the book written up on the Indigo site a few minutes ago with a anticipated release date of May 2019. How great is that? I read back to some of my first entries on this blog when I started it in 2011 which was before my first book was released.It is interesting how things change and stay the same. I just had my 62nd birthday and am so grateful for my health and all I have learned in my first 62 years. Yesterday I sat with my friend Gladys in the big room at her nursing home. A man had come in to entertain and every song he sang spoke loudly to me of so much. Gladys and I were among only a few of those residents who seemed able to participate. The music was reaching them all though I believe. I remembered how Mom could play her organ pretty much right up to her leaving home,how my Aunt Lois still responds to music even though her moments of clarity are few. Gladys was still able to tell me little morsels of entertaining stuff. Who was who in the room and so on. One song seemed to be perfect for dancing and we remembered her husband Eldon who loved to dance. I came away so thankful for so much and glad I made the time to drive to Hampton and visit Gladys.Today is another day I have been given and I will not take it for granted. Every day that came before and all the days I will yet be given add to the beauty of this one. A fresh snow will cover the ground and I will be snug inside my home not knowing what comes next but truly appreciating where I am right now in the life I have been blessed with.

What Christmas Really Is

You know what. Christmas is not a perfect family movie. There is not always a happy ending. Sometimes there is sadness, disappointment, hurt and anger. Sometimes there are tears and sleepless nights. Sometimes you find yourself wishing for something you believe you see in other people's stories, other people's Christmas photos and other people's lives. Sometimes you watch a platform filled with children and wish your grandchildren were standing there. Sometimes you wish your own small children still made up the crowd. Sometimes you sit in the sparkling light and wish you were a little girl again, possibly to have a do over or maybe just to appreciate what those childhood years held. Sometimes you squeeze your tear filled eyes together and conjure up a scene from the past. Your mother in her housecoat sitting at the end of your bed while your kids open their stockings. Your Dad uncovering the Kenmore sewing machine with your name on the tag on Christmas morning. Sometimes you just wish for a perfect Christmas , one made to order with all the moving parts exactly as you wish them to be. Sometimes... But Christmas is not any of those things while being all of those things. It is heartbreaking and heart mending, joyful and sorrowful, maddening and wonderful. Christmas is like every day of our complicated lives. It is all of the above and on this Christmas Eve 2018 I claim that and make the choice to be thankful for it all..

My Mother's Voice

Last night a dream gave me something I have not had for a long time; the sound of my mother's voice.In my dream I was passed the phone , my parents were calling from Florida and it was Mom I heard on the other line. She spoke without a falter. I said "Mom you are speaking really well, are you on a new medication or is Florida just agreeing with you? I did not want the phone call to end or the dream to get over. My question this morning is why did I not treasure those days more when the daily phone calls would come. It was always Mom who called. Sometimes Dad would get on the line and say a word or two but Mom was the lifeline of news. That was always Mom's only condition; she would leave for the winter and be away for Christmas only if she could call me every day.Sometimes her calls would be inconvenient, I would feel her disapproval or she would voice a negative opinion but always I felt her love and concern for me and mine. Oh how much I miss that. Dad is in Florida alone this year. Reading in my journal from this time last December I remember how difficult things were for him, caring for Mom and the silence accompanying that . But this year the burden has lifted leaving loneliness in its place.But the memories remain, the sound of her voice still echoes in my ears and I am thankful for the call that came to me as I slept.Call again anytime Mom. Love you!