After many false starts and a cruel false promise that the snow-pack would melt slowly, Spring unleashed ferocious flooding in both Ottawa and Muskoka, my two home places. Our own properties are dry and safe, but many people endured evacuations during the past couple of weeks and now face despairing restorations of their homes and cottages.
So I begin this season – typically my favourite of the year – with mixed emotions. Sadness and helplessness stirred together with hope, as Nature starts to offer gentle, warm days and that gorgeous new green of unfurling leaves. Bitter-sweet this year.
This month’s poem has that same mix of emotion, which I thought was fitting for the kind of spring we are having in my neighbourhoods.
Is it spring yet in your neighbourhood? Here in Ottawa we’re savouring the return of the songbirds and so far, a safe, slow melt of the snow pack.
I’m changing up my indoor decor: bye-bye pine cones and evergreen boughs, hello cherry blossoms and Easter eggs!
But winter lingers as we welcome April. On two recent weekend getaways in the local area, I found plenty of photographic and poetic inspiration from winter’s final days.
Ice in Lily-pad shapes suspended over a creek, Mont Tremblant Quebec
Ice formation on rock ridge, Mont Tremblant Quebec
Spring has her own pace. Never fast enough for me, but in the meantime, I went on the hunt for hope this afternoon. Here’s what I found:
HOPE in the form of a garlic sprout, Lee Ann’s garden
May you find signs of spring in your own back yard! While you wait for her to show up, I’ll invite you to click on over to the latest photo and poem, inspired during winter’s final days. Hope you enjoy it!
Hello there! Welcome to March – which can be kind of a heartbreak month, so close to spring and yet often so far. At least in Ottawa. This year for sure: Environment Canada’s senior climatologist says we get the gold medal for winter misery.
Jock River ice, Richmond Ontario
But even here, in our misery, I’m noting some signs of spring:
There is warmth in the sun. (Never mind that the roads are now flooded because the storm drains are lost under deep snow.)
My son’s golden retriever is blowing his undercoat. (I groomed him last week and I’m still vacuuming…)
The cardinals are singing!
How about in your neighbourhood? Any signs of spring? Please share!
And also new for spring: on March 9, a fresh exhibition of artwork begins, by the Ottawa West Arts Association. I created two brand new pieces for the show, which is themed ABSTRACT. Access to the gallery at the Goulbourn Recreation Complex is always free, or you can check out my new poems with photos here. I’d love to hear what you think!
Meanwhile, please take a few moments to relax and take a look at the first of my new Travel Series, from our recent getaway to Arizona. I hope you enjoy A Mother’s Prayer.
Happy New Year! Yes, I know, somewhat belated. I hope 2019 has started well for you, and that it brings you great happiness, however you define that.
I can’t wait to share with you news of some new creative challenges I’ve taken on this year!
I am displaying some of my photos and poems in poster form in the Art Gallery at the Goulbourn Recreation Complex. Every two months, there’s a new exhibition mounted by the Ottawa West Arts Association, a group of very talented local painters, photographers, and coloured pencil artists that I have recently joined. I am excited to be the first artist to bring the combination of photography with poetry to the gallery! On now and until March 8 is “Cold Winter Days,” and I have two pieces in this exhibition. Admission to the gallery is free! Plus, all the pieces are for sale at very reasonable prices. To all my Ottawa friends: do treat yourself to this wonderful display of local artistic talent. To others who are farther away, do check the OWAA website: you can meet the artists and see their work there.
I’ll continue this year to post new photos and poems on the site. What’s new is that, after a focus on my local neighbourhoods for inspiration, I’m expanding my horizons and starting a travel series. We are planning quite a few trips this year, both near and far, so you can expect posts from new locations. First up: two new pieces sparked by Arizona that will be posted later this month. I hope you’ll continue to take a few moments of time to enjoy some beautiful scenes, and that the thoughts they inspire in me also inspire you!
Along the Lost Dog Wash Trail, Scottsdale AZ
Finally: are you looking for insight into newly-released historical fiction books? I’m writing feature articles for the Historical Novel Society! Their online magazine is a great source for new titles, and as a features writer, I get to interview authors and provide behind-the-scenes details about things like the source of their inspiration for writing, how they conducted research for their book… even how they came up with the title. My first article is up now.
And – how about you? What new directions are beckoning you in 2019? I’d love to hear about them!
I don’t think that Christmas mornings have ever been more magical than the ones created by my grandparents, Stephen and Mary Granger. They started a tradition for my mother and her brother, Bob, that few parents would ever take on. Here’s the Granger Christmas Story as my Uncle Bob told it to the Knights of Columbus General Meeting in December 2015.
“Do you have a special Christmas that you remember? Mine happened over 70 years ago, but it is one that I will never forget.
Stephen Granger, circa 1905, Buffalo New York
My father, Stephen Granger, had arrived in the USA from Hungary in 1905 at the age of eight. He spoke no English and his family was very poor. His father worked in a factory in Buffalo as a labourer, supporting a family that also included my Uncle Joseph and my Aunt Julia, a child with special needs. Keeping food on the table and paying the rent left very little to buy Christmas gifts. My father told me that as a child, in a “good” year, he would receive an orange and a nickel for Christmas. Most years there wasn’t enough money, so he would receive either an orange or a nickel… and sometimes nothing.
My parents therefore made Christmas for my sister Mary-Jane and me something very special. When we went to bed Christmas Eve, there was no tree, no gifts, and no decorations. Nothing except the stockings we’d hung on the fireplace, hoping that Santa would be good to us.
Early Christmas mornings, my sister and I would tumble out of our beds and race past our stockings, now brimming with chocolates, oranges and small gifts, towards what was then called the “sun room” – a bright room with windows across the entire long wall that fronted the house. Magical, multi-coloured lights glowed and here we would find an abundance of wrapped gifts under a beautifully decorated and real Christmas tree.
Our mother and father had stayed up all night, making another Christmas magical for us!
Lionel 2020 Engine and coal car
This particular Christmas, however, was mesmerizing! Circling the tree was a Lionel Train, pulled by Lionel’s top model 2020 Engine, puffing smoke as it went around the double-tracked layout. There was a coal tender and a box car – from which tiny boxes could be unloaded at the push of a button. A lumber car tipped small wooded logs into a bin at the side of the track, and there was a tanker car and a red caboose! Plus, a crossing guard would exit a little shack and swing a lighted red lantern, each time the train passed by and with another press of a button, the engine’s whistle would sound.
Lionel Train crossing guard
Over the years, the same routine would take place, and in addition to other gifts we received, my dad would add another train item to the collection. These included an operating cattle car from which cows would exit and enter to and from a loading platform, an automatic crossing gate that went up and down as the train approached and departed.
Lionel operating cattle car and automatic moving cow
I don’t know who had more fun running the trains, my dad or me! I remember waiting impatiently as he would go over the complete operating procedure with me, explaining how each piece worked and how it was to be properly run. I think he was making up for the Christmases he missed as a boy. My dad built and painted a beautiful 4-foot by 12-foot table in the basement, which contained a train station, painted miniature people, trucks, autos, a gas station, stop signs, telephone poles, miniature trees and three interior lighted passenger cars which were stopped in front of the station. The train set and table remains in the family today, with my son Ron.
As I grew older, I realized that these gifts and subsequent memories pale next to the real meaning of Christmas: love, joy and peace.
A blessed and merry Christmas to all!”
And to you, Uncle Bob. Thank you for this and all of your Granger stories!
As we wrap up 2018, I want to thank everyone who follows this blog! May your holiday season be joyful, and filled with love and peace.
As most of you know, I’ve been researching my family’s history for over 15 years now. This treasure hunt for ancestors has brought me many hours of joy and insight and yes, tedium and frustration too… because in this game of genealogy, you don’t always find the treasure you’ve been seeking.
This past month I did find a treasure! I finally uncovered the European origins of my Eckhardt line – a quest I’ve coined as “Finding Frederick”, who is my great-great grandfather and the first to settle in Canada. More on the specifics of that find in another post, but meanwhile, as I’ve fleshed out another branch on the family tree, I’ve been thinking about my place there, and the role of what seems like random good luck in my life.
Which leads me to this month’s poem. It, like my hunt for Frederick, has been a long time coming. I took the photo in the spring of 2017, knowing I would use it to reflect on family when the time was right. The idea for what I’ve now written actually came to me in about 2004, when I was researching my Granger line. Over the years, I’ve made several attempts to write this idea, in essay and short story form. It took the right photo, plus the right amount of time doing the research, before I had the perspective to put the idea into the right words. Sometimes that’s how it works. 🙂
As we settle into the shorter days of November, I hope you find a treasure, however you define that! Meanwhile, here’s Sunny Side.
