december

Yes, we're still alive and well.

Life is busy. Head-spinningly busy. But I call it "rich" to reassure myself that all is well.

The laundry piles up, and when washed, sits unsorted for weeks. A lot of kitchen clutter was swept into boxes to allow for some space to decorate for Christmas.

We are slowly preparing for the holidays with Advent gifts and decorating store-bought gingerbread people. Jude was in a play with his grandma, and Norah turned three.

We survived our Christmas concert, cancelled fiddle lessons this week, and are going to a potluck karaoke party tonight.

We're looking forward to being OFF for two weeks!

Will try to check in over the holidays if the spirit grabs me.

There Goes the Train

It's been a busy fall!

In addition to kicking off a new school year with a whole new group of little Kindergarten students, I've been performing every weekend in a theatre production about local railway history with a wonderful cast of musicians and actors. I was in the original cast of Stone Fence Theatre way back in 2003, and performed for two summers before the demands of motherhood took over my life. 

It has been a whirlwind! The night before each performance I carefully paint my nails red in 1950s style. The fun and glamour of performing as a travelling company never wore off. Some nights we changed our costumes in a boiler room that reeked of oil fumes, and others we were offered vanity mirrors and change rooms with stars on the doors! I got to perform with my mother-in-law which was a hoot, and made some new connections that will carry on into "real" life.

I loved every minute of it. Singing with a band of amazing musicians backing me up, dancing in high heels, thinking on the fly, improvising, and connecting with the other actors while drawing the audience into the magic are all second-nature to me. I'd almost forgotten how much I loved being on stage, and backstage, waiting in the wings for my cue.

There will be no holding me back now that I've sipped at that excitement again!

Tickets are on sale now for Stone Fence Theatre's Holiday show, "Valley Vic and the Christmas Temptations", featuring my mother in law, husband, and son! Three generations of the family treading the boards...dreamy!

spontaneous camping trip

I was about to do a whole glommed-up mess of photos from our late summer then decided I really must break them up into their chapters, so to speak. My need to write and share ebbs and flows but lately I miss the ritual of chronicling our days here in this quiet space. 

A spontaneous invitation from my intrepid friend, The Wabi Sabi Wanderer resulted in me packing up the four kids and heading off camping. Alone. With four kids. Did I mention that my husband didn't come with us?

But dear Wabi Sabi has been taking these kinds of trips all summer. She said, "Yes, you can!" So I did.

There was the night of the screaming toddler. Then the day of constant rain where we had to eat lunch in the tent. We ended up going to a movie at a local theatre to pass the time. Good plan! One more night with the restless toddler.

  I called my mom and she picked up the toddler and her big sister who had had enough camping. The last full day was spent on a beach on the Ottawa River, playing in the sand. The girls discovered a mine of clay under that sand, and spent the afternoon sculpting beautiful wares. 

I saw my oldest daughter reveal glimpses of her woman-face, all cheekbones and beauty. I saw hints of my son as a teenager. I felt their wonder at a wild creek, as magical as the doorway to Terabithia. I listened to their jokes and stories around the fire, happy to pass the torch of entertaining everyone on to them. And my love for this friend and her children grew all the deeper for all the memories we have made together over the past 10 or so years.

Glow stick performances in the dark, tall tales of the Wild Banana, taller tales of wolf-eyes by the privy (teeny tiny wolves about the size of, ahem, raccoons), and lots of stories about the Titanic. Sharing food between campsites, shifting from fire to fire, greeting each other in pajamas, welcoming each other's children to our outdoorsy hearths.

It was a joy.

When we talked about that trip recently, you know what my kids remembered and enjoyed the most?

The rainy day. 

The day where all we could do was sit in the tent eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches, playing Mad Libs with friends, and snuggling into our sleeping bags. 

And I thought that rain was among the worst things that can happen on a camping trip, caught up in the logistics of keeping things dry, making sure everyone was warm and comfortable.

Camping teaches children to live simply and to be grateful for a warm fire and hot chocolate when they wake up, a towel after a swim, and dry socks at bedtime. 

I felt most grateful to see their faces in the early morning tent-glow, sleeping safely and peacefully, ready to face a new day outdoors with a smile and a sense of wonder. I learned a lot too.

circle of warmth and light

We wake up early. 

My husband starts a fire while I start the coffee. Pull the breakfast makings from the cooler. Enjoy a quiet moment of sunrise before the kids slowly emerge from their tents, heralded by the buzz of the zipper being opened. 

I warm milk for them as they awaken, stirring in some hot chocolate powder. They gather around the fire to draw in its warmth and look ahead to the day full of nothing, the day full of everything.

We've camped at Bonnechere Provincial Park for five summers now. My children are growing up here and are spreading their wings; they can walk to the beach on their own. They giggle with glee as they run to the camp store for ice cream without a grown up. They seem incredulous that I let them eat chips and eat ice cream every single day.

 They're allowed to stay up late, to see the stars that blanket the sky so incredibly. 

Every evening Margot asks, "Are we going to have a bonfire tonight?" I reply, "Yes, honey, we have a fire every night". 

"But do we get to stay have a bonfire in the dark?" 

And the answer, when camping, is always yes.  Yes to full days at the beach. Yes to ice cream every day. Yes to late bedtimes. Yes to not tidying up their beds in the morning. 

No wonder they love it. No wonder I love it.

I spent the trip reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Signature of All Things" (so good), knitting on my hand spun Ten Stitch Twist blanket, and trying to drink in every moment, trying to kiss every new freckle and caress each sun-kissed shoulder. 

An afternoon paddle with my sister up a winding river led us to a sandbank where we drank margaritas and read uninterrupted while the sun settled low in the sky. 

The simplicity of warming water over a fire to wash minimal dishes, of hanging the tea towel in a tree to dry, of living under the sky and sleeping under a nylon roof, and of eating simple, nourishing foods always leads me down the same path: how can I bring the simplicity and joy of camping into our everyday life? 

How can I nurture the engagement with life that camping allows, with simple chores, with living minimally, and with leaning in to each child to hear about the wonders they beheld that day and focusing on nothing more than that? 

Every moment while camping feels like a meditation, attached to a mindfulness and a mindlessness that I don't even realise is missing from my everyday life until I leave it to come here to the outside. A quieting of my mind and the many things I always feel I have to do, a calming of the busyness that fills every day. 

Too soon, five days pass and we start to pack up again. I hug my husband as we begin, reminding him of the annual pitfall of tension building as we try to get this job done efficiently while the stress we left behind creeps back in. We know from experience that this part of the camping trip often leads us into the pitfall of snapping at each other and the children.

We agree to be mindful of our breath so that we can commit the same calm focus to this task as to any other we've performed this week.

We agree to be mindful of how stress colours outside the lines of our lives: the care of children and livestock, the interminable chores of maintaining an old house and farm buildings, the late nights and early mornings.

We agree that, when stress threatens to swamp our canoe, we will revisit these days under the stars, where all we need and all we love fits within the circle of warmth and light cast by our small fire. 

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kitchen table in summer

I've nurtured a new habit this summer of completely clearing off the kitchen table every evening before going to bed. It isn't always easy because it is such a hub of activity during the day. 

But being the first one awake most days, it has become a beautiful way to start the day. While I wait for the coffee to perk, I get set up to do a bit of school work. Yes, I'm a teacher on summer holiday but I spend an hour a day prepping and planning for the coming school year as well as reading about approaches to education to improve my teaching practice. I like staying in touch with my teacher-self during these months "off".

This table gradually gets cluttered through the day as various children read here, draw here, snack here, and play games here.  Sometimes a friend comes by for lunch. 

Violet reads here every morning, often wearing daddy's protective ear muffs (usually used for chain sawing but Violet has adapted them to block out the noise of her siblings so she can completely enter the world of the Greek Gods and Goddesses).

Since my return from France I've more consciously used this table as a canvas for culinary creations, and find myself dreaming of kitchen equipment and place settings to enhance the many dinner parties I imagine myself having in the years to come. Meals have been simple and nourishing as the extreme heat we've been experiencing deters me from using the oven.

The table is a place to rest and connect, to create and to count our blessings. This week? We discovered that our adopted mama hen has started laying, not just ordinary white or brown eggs but delicately green-tinged eggs. A jam jar of wildflowers and a handwoven table runner are as fine as linen, crystal, and china.

Noir et Blanc

Wedding festivities were held at Domaine de la Fontaine, a beautiful site on the outskirts of Orleans.

Without kids in tow, I had the freedom to wander at will and photograph whatever took my fancy. In my teens and twenties I had an old 35 mm manual (of course!) camera; I knew how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to get the results I wanted. With my digital camera, it just doesn't make the same kind of sense to me! But a quick tutorial from a kind Scotsman led me down the path of achieving the look I used to love. These will find themselves in frames when I get the chance to repaint my bathroom, a reminder of a beautiful trip and a wonderful day of celebration.