Tag Archives: Ottawa Valley

What you might learn on a silent walk

I spent the past weekend at the Centre de Vie in Ripon, QC at a yoga retreat led by Andrea from Body and Balance. While there, we went for a walk on the large farm property. Andrea encouraged us to walk in silence, and then to journal about what we noticed. Here’s what I pondered as I walked on a November day in Canada.

Don’t ever believe that your life is aimless. Look for signs to point you on your way. You will find them. When you see them you will worry, because you don’t know where the sign is pointing to or what lies ahead. All you might see are obstacles and uphill climbs. Keep walking anyway.

Three birch branches laid on the ground in the shape of an arrow. The arrow points ahead to a bridge made of logs and a small hill.

A red arrow painted on a sign that is attached to a post erected in a farm field.

The mosses and and puffballs that aid with decomposition, and the brown composting leaves might lead you think of death and dying, but they are preparation for rebirth. The time of “wintering” is a necessary dormancy that will recharge you, and evolve you, and take you to the next stage of your life.

Stumps of dead trees covered with green moss.

A cluster of puffballs on a forest floor.

After you have skirted or surmounted obstacles, and after you have climbed the hills, you will descend. You think this is going to be the easy part. But going down is just as challenging as climbing up. You must take care on sharp drops and slippery slopes.

A leaf-covered forest path sloping downwards.

Soon you may realize that you have circled back to the crossroads where you started, but you aren’t the same person you were the last time you were there. You are stronger for having climbed, you are more experienced for having learned, you are more confident and prepared to take on other challenges. You climbed, you navigated, you descended, and it was good.

The same birch arrow and bridge, from a different angle.

Then you wander past an old piece of farm machinery, and it sparks memories of a childhood on a farm, a time and place that was both carefree and fraught with uncertainty. You’ll recall your hands in dirt and romps in fields of crops grown to feed the family. You’ll reminisce about the times that crops grew for months, tall and healthy in the sunshine, only to be struck down minutes by a violent storm. Income lost in an afternoon. You’ll remember pet calves, cherished and bottle-fed that became ill and died from disease. It was more than the tragic loss of loved animals. It was an economic blow. But your family grew other food, so you didn’t go hungry, you lived in an old farmhouse, so you were never out in the cold, and you had family.

Old farm machinery in the middle of a field of shorn hay.

As you walk silently back to a different farmhouse in a different time, you’ll recall that money isn’t what’s most important. Food, shelter and community are all that really matters.

3 trees and a snowy walk

Some days I feel like this: snapped off with jagged edges exposed.

Trunk of a tree left behind after a derecho snapped off the top. Jagged splinters jut out of the top. — Tree snapped by a derecho in Ottawa, May 2022

Some days I feel like this: uprooted and toppled.

Evergreen tree lying on its side, roots exposed. — Evergreen tree blown over, probably by the same derecho.

But most days I feel like this: strong, straight, and reaching for the sky. I have a broken branch or two, but that’s okay. The morning sun shines on me and the skies are blue.

Morning sun reflects of a healthy evergreen tree shot against a blue sky. One broken branch hangs near the top.

What kind of tree are you today?

3 joys and a book

Here is the first joy from my week. Her name is Farley, and she is my daughter’s new puppy. Look at that face!

My second joy is this colourful arrangement of heart cookies I made for Valentine’s Day. Yum!

The third joy was a sunset cross-country ski outing – with horses!

And now the book, which is also a joy. The Poetry Circle of the Canadian Authors Association branch in the National Capital Region published an anthology. Five of my poems are included in the book. You could buy it if you wish. (It would bring you joy.)

Book Cover: Merging Waters: Poetic Voices Flowing Together.
The poetry of Blaine Marchand, Tsippi Guttmann-Nahir, Kati Lyon-Villiger, Christine Beelen, Adrienne Stevenson, Arlene Somerton Smith — Available at Amazon.com

Where are you finding joy this week?

Power, prickly pears and puffballs

A doozy of a storm blew through Ontario, Canada on Saturday, May 21. In Ottawa, the storm caused more damage than either our legendary ice storm of 1998 or our more recent tornado. The tornado destroyed 80 hydro poles; this storm toppled 300.

We lost power for 7 days.

At that, we were lucky. Most houses in our neighbourhood are still without. As I write this, I hear generators in the distance. And chainsaws. And sirens.

An man sits in front of a huge felled tree trunk, the sawed surface approximately 3 feet across. — My husband in front of the trunk of a massive felled tree.

A crane is in position on a city street, preparing to live a 7000-pound tree trunk up and over a house. — My husband in front of the trunk of a massive felled tree.

Living without power for that long is disorienting for people of the 21st Century. We couldn’t focus. Routines fell apart. Sleep patterns were disrupted. We ate differently, and our digestive tracts protested. We moved from one room to another with a flashlight in one hand while flicking a (useless) light switch with the other.

Unable to work, or do pretty much anything, people moved around neighbourhoods like zombies. We mourned the loss of beloved trees. So many trees toppled or torn in two.

The event reminded us of the cruel indifference of nature. Sometimes a perfectly healthy tree had snapped while older, sicker ones nearby stayed standing.

The storm was not “fair” or “unfair.” It was its wild self.

7 huge pines trees lie where they fell across a forest path. — Healthy pines snapped off, blocking our forest walking path.

A temporary set-up for power when the generator ran. One cord leads to a freezer, another to a kettle and another to a phone charger. — Healthy pines snapped off, blocking our forest walking path.

Through it all, when we met neighbours on our walks, we counted our blessings:

We didn’t have bombs falling on our heads.
Gunmen were not shooting up our schools.
We had access to generators.
We had to worry about losing food, so that meant we had food to lose.
We had no internet, but we had data plans!

I found another blessing while burning up data on my phone powered by a generator, I read a post on one of my favourite Facebook pages: The View From Connaught Pond, Grant Dobson | Facebook. I learned that the prickly pear cactus can thrive in Canada. I never would have thought it! That simple knowledge gave me joy in our time of frustration.

Another spot of joy came when I dug around in my garden and came upon some puffballs. I hadn’t seen them since I was a kid tromping around our farm woodlot. It was a simple, silly thing, but it brought light to my day when electricity couldn’t.

Watch the puffball, and tell me, what brought you gratitude and joy today?

My husband demonstrates proper puffball technique.

Living the first draft

I posted this on a previous blog. It’s come to my mind again in recent weeks.

Sometimes I wonder . . . Did someone ever say to Mozart, “Ya know what, Wolfgang? I think that should be two quarter notes instead of one half note.”

Have you ever been lost for words in an emotional moment only to think later, “I should have said this . . .”?
Or perhaps you said the absolutely worst thing possible only to think later, “If only I hadn’t said that!”?
Or maybe you have thought, “If I could do that over again, I’d do it differently.”?

We don’t get to edit our lives before publication. Everything we do is first draft.

Anne Lamott encourages writers to “Write shitty first drafts.” She knows that getting something—anything—down on the page is key. Writers can’t believe that words are supposed to sprinkle gracefully onto the page in perfect pearly rows. We’d never get anything done, we’d be so frozen with apprehension.

A mediocre mess of an idea out there is better than a perfect pearly idea hidden.

Every day we meet people and choose words to speak to them. Sometimes we choose appropriate, helpful words. But sometimes we choose hurtful ones.

Every day we choose clothes and do our hair. Sometimes our wardrobe and hair could be on the cover of Vogue. But sometimes we manage only sweatpants and a washed face.

Occasionally life kneecaps us with unexpected blows. Sometimes we rise above it with wise, rational choices. But sometimes we solve problems with beer and a whiskey chaser.

We can’t edit our lives before publication, and that means our words and actions won’t sprinkle gracefully in perfect pearly rows. We have to live our delightfully shitty first draft and forgive ourselves for it.

Because one mediocre mess of a life out there is better than a perfect pearly one hidden.

Rose petals scattered across an light pine hardwood floor. — Scattered rose petals. A beautiful mess.

Ravenous and peckish: Eating like a bird?

This sign stood propped outside the doors of the Lake Louise ski resort.

I contemplated the raven and asked myself, “Is that where the word ravenous comes from?” As in, so hungry you’ll tear something to bits in search of food.

Apparently not. According to etymonline.com, the word comes from an old French verb raviner meaning “to prey, to plunder, devour greedily.” The word is not etymologically related at all to raven.

In light of that sign, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

A few days ago, my husband said that he was feeling peckish. The word is not commonly used, but it was a favourite one of his parents. He adopted its use for when he has that, “I could eat” feeling. I asked myself, “Is that word related to birds, as in how they peck at their food?”

I prepared myself for disappointment, after the ravenous let-down. But this time my good friend etymonline.com brought me joy. The word originates from Middle Low German pekken “to peck with the beak.”

At the moment, I am not ravenous, but I expect shortly I will feel peckish. When the time comes, I will eat like a bird.