Posts Tagged: canada
warmed
Two days in and I already figured out why Vancouverites are happy to live here in all this rain and dampness. It's not the clean mountain air. It's not the breathtaking vistas.
It's Beer Soup.
if you had one last thing to say to the world and you knew a lot of people would listen, what would you say?
I don’t let politics get on my blog much. Once in awhile I might let go a little rant on this space, because in real life I have strong opinions about social and political concerns, and everyone who knows me knows pretty much what my stand on things is. That stand hasn’t changed much in the 40 or so years since I started to pay attention.
But I decided a long time ago that this space isn’t going to be about people I don’t like. And I’m sorry to say, I don’t like most politicians, and I sure as hell don’t like what politics has become.
Public service is an honourable calling. Politicking turned it ugly. These days you rarely see an elite politician behaving honourably; it’s all about the win. Politics has become a tool of power, and those who get it will do anything to hang on to it, even if it means fucking over the people who have hired them to govern. The recent debacle over the debt ceiling in the US is a spectacular example of that.
For one day here at home today it wasn’t ugly. Today politicians of all stripes and people of all beliefs mourned the loss of Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, who died of cancer early this morning. Despite that he looked emaciated and weak last time he showed up on TV a month ago, everyone was shocked.
Jack was widely liked and respected for his principles and determination. He was fearless and unrelenting in his message and people were inspired by that. You never felt like he was playing you. Don’t think this popularity came up in his death; in the past four years, he took a party that clung to a few measly seats, hanging on the brink of irrelevance, to one that swept past the most dominant party in our history to become the official opposition for the first time in history.
Jack made us remember people like Tommy Douglas and Ed Broadbent and how they connected to people; he made us look past the conservative rhetoric and think “well yeah, it CAN be done.” Jack made us remember that it was the NDP that shaped a large part of who we believe we are. He was another feisty NDP leader who rose up out of seemingly nothing against the bigger, older, louder, more moneyed old school parties. The right and extreme right parties in this country might have merged their money and forces and won a majority, but we yeah we also got an opposition with balls to keep them in check. We sure felt a lot better than we would have if the lamo liberals had taken that spot.
This afternoon my dear New York pal Sheryl posted on my facebook: “I wish we had more like him here.” I replied that I thought it was sad that politicians who actually inspire people are rare anywhere.
Jack’s not getting on my blog because he’s dead. He’s getting on my blog because of the message he left with Canadians in life, and in a letter he wrote in these last dying days:
“…consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
That’s the kind of political messaging that gets on my blog.
Now go say something nice to your neighbour.
(A country coming together to celebrate a true public servant and inspiring leader: beautiful thing number fifty nine.)
dinner and stars
Tonight I had dinner with Kels. There was chicken, simmered slow with mushrooms and barley, which we had with roasted beets and steamed asparagus and wine. And talking, mostly. Before dinner I put on the movie No Direction Home and we listened to it and glanced at it and chatted about it in between conversation about real life.
These videos aren't from the movie, but the movie got us talking about these songs, and the writer…
a haiku wish on a mean december day
Sled, swoop down and whisk
me ahead of Mad Wind’s rage,
thrashing icy whips.
This is a Magpie Tale. For more creative takes on this and other beautiful visual prompts, click here.
a magpie tale: kicking and screaming toward a fanciful season
the year drags me
kicking and screaming
toward winter
never ready to stand on cold feet
slush sprayed over me by lurching taxi cabs
I still haven’t found my red gloves
and I don’t want to wear that
serviceable warm coat
I’d rather wear the one with the flattering cut
and the not serviceable boots
the kind that men turn to look at
and well I never much liked being cold and
I’ve slipped on sidewalks
more times than I'd like to remember
winter steals my dignity
though when I was a kid I didn't care about dignity
much
or the cold
forgotten
in the fervour of intense play
outside so long
your legs would sting like a thousand pins were pricking them when you came in
but mom would have hot chocolate in the cupboard
the kind made with milk in a pan on the stove
in the stove light and
you got new flannel pyjamas
with that sweet smell that went away after the first wash
but they got softer
and Mr. P. on the corner would put up Christmas lights all over his yard
I never went for such an ostentatious show
when I grew up
but man could my old house get pretty
smelling like pine
cedar
and cinnamon
all that oak trim aglow
against the frost laced windows and indigo tinted atmosphere in the street
the furnace would kick in
like a benevolent grandpa
when you came in the front door
after chatting with the neighbours
while we shovelled the sidewalks
and the walks of the old people
a job I loved
it made me feel strong and capable – that most satisfying exercise
and full of that proverbial good cheer
I think it's the pink cheeks
dreamy
under the descending flakes
under the incandescent street lights
later I’d sit by the pretty old windows
admiring the street and generous porches and warm lights coming from the windows behind them
recalling life in the country
when the snowstorms that bound everyone in for a few days
were the best ones
I am always kicking and screaming
going toward winter
but
I fancy it when I get there
This is a Magpie Tale. To find more creative responses to Willow's weekly photo prompt, visit here.
remembrance day, and a Park who lived
I wrote this post a year ago. So many of us have stories – of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, uncles, grandfathers – and first cousins once removed… Find the stories – tell the stories. We mustn't ever stop telling the stories. If we stop telling the stories, these events will never stop.
When my sisters and I came into this world, my mother had no parents, one sister and one first cousin. Her cousin Allan Park was a half generation older than her. Like most of our family, he was known to us more in story than life. That scar on his head was legendary. It was from a war.
World War II was mythology to us kids born in the sixties. I have fuzzy recollections of my dad watching the news on tv and seeing footage from Viet Nam but that wasn’t real, it was on tv.
Allan’s war, to us, was a story wrapped up in that scarred head we saw a few times over our lifetimes. All we knew was that we were lucky he was with us, that his injury very nearly killed him and if it had everything would be different.
In 1979, the story of that scar revealed itself via the words of national favourite storyteller, Farley Mowat, in his novel And No Birds Sang. It was a different story than the one any of us had known.
The blanket that screened the shattered cellar door was thrust aside and a party of stretcher bearers pushed in amongst us. Al Park lay on one of the stretchers. He was alive, though barely so… unconscious, with a bullet in his head.
As I looked down at his faded, empty face under its crimson bandages, I began to weep.
I wonder now… were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go?
Or was I weeping for myself… and those who would remain?
- Excerpt: And No Birds Sang, Farley Mowat
You want to talk about how a story can bring new light to a family?
To a nation on Remembrance Day?
a lunchtime walk in autumn
Today I went for a walk at lunch, exploring the settings on a new phone camera app. It was very blustery, and I sacrificed a good hair day in the quest of trying to capture some of the colours.
a magpie ode to a season grown up
August I want to hide in you; to bathe alone in your ethereal yellows and purples and greens; and then float away with the Queen Anne’s Lace on the side of the dirt road.
I want to crawl into your burgeoning ditches and sleep away long nights while you tread slow, waving breezes with your arms, making soft kisses on my skin.
I want to awaken with your dew in the grass in morning and find that the new pears and apples and rhubarb and gooseberry and tomato upstarts have already started the coffee and breakfast which we will of course have outside.
Rubbing my eyes I’m begging now, don’t leave August.
I need you with your lolling boats in the pendulum waters; your mellow and rich demeanour bewitching, casting sunshine diamonds on the water and pulling warm breath from the rocks.
August, you are summer grown up; I have caught up with you.
I think.
But don’t go.
This is a Magpie Tale. For more creative responses to Willow’s wonderful visual creative writing prompts, visit here. Go ahead – give it a try! Stretching your creative muscles is good for you.
published in the beautiful Bella Grace!
