the dreamy wonder of discovery. childhood and it's incomparable joy and light. but how is it that human nature dictates that our few short years of wonderment feel endless and tedious. i remember that feeling. as children we crave independence and strive to be bigger and have more fun. we want what is available to those who are just a little bit older. our quest is growth and strength. and yet we sit in those moments completely. loving the singularity of what we see. of how we play. of words and colors and movement and song. until we notice what the big kids have. and then we want that. and yet, paradoxically, we can barely fathom the concept of changing into that other wiser, more mature creature. of not being who we are in that moment, in that stage.
we move so quickly through a decade now. we collect them. but that first brief decade held the sweetest days that stretched forever. that we clutch to and allow to settle into us if we have that particular fortune. and yet those are the years that disappeared the most completely.

there was great energy in the studio today. i had several lovely people drop in, browse, buy and chat. i made little cushions that i love. i had planned to get photos of them to post, but the day and light moved too quickly for me.
one of the ladies who stopped in left me with a beautiful fragmented story. just an image really, a feeling to build a story on. she simply told me that in the late 1940s, as a small child she was staying at her friends cottage. she remembers lying silently in the dark listening to the older sisters tell a wild and fantastical tale, based on the wizard of oz, but spiraling into a storied tale that left the original almost unrecognizable. they were entertaining themselves, not realizing the little ones lying in the dark were listening intently to their words and that 60+ years later it would be a cherished memory shared in a shop while buying a husbands birthday card. childhood memory is a powerful presence through our entire lives.

my bed smells of leaves and twigs and the lake. the herbs from my front garden and the heady flavor of grass. the detergent tom bought has a sharp scent that smells of the towels when i was a child visiting my grandmother. the combination of the sharp soapy scent and the hard water and the damp basement laundry under the kitchen. it is a scent that lingers and is part of an extended memory of childhood. tonight my pillow holds mostly the outdoor scents from hanging in the sun and billowing in the lake scented wind for most of the afternoon. but my crisp white cotton shirt i sleep in has the smell of my grandmother's towels still. the shirt with the tiny holes where the seams meet. like stress fractures.
stella is sitting on the roof below our bedroom window. crying to come in. it's time for us to sleep.

we drove out to my parents place this morning. the light made the greens of may sing with bright fresh notes. walking through the fields. sun weaving between the branches and the young leaves. breeze moving the grass in whispers. i found myself sitting in the grass and just breathing. i didn't want to leave. simply trees and grass as far as i could see, and it was like i'd never seen it before. and yet this is what shaped me. it's as much a part of me as the blood and bone and tissue that makes me. this view from my bedroom window that i saw every day as a child. i left this view to explore and create and travel and learn. but it stays always behind my eyes, always ready for me to return to it.

i want to get a bike and start riding around town with a basket on the front holding my camera. i want to pedal along side streets and see things in the intimate street view that cars often eradicate. i want to hear the true sounds of the street and greet the little visions that glide across the eye. i want to feel the elation of wind in hair, legs pumping, endorphins cruising. i used to ride my bike around town all the time. i rode my bike to the hospital to visit my grandmother one afternoon in august. and she died while i was there. we thought she was getting better. i left my bike at the hospital that night and my parents drove me home. i picked it up eventually, days later. maybe even after the funeral. i'm surprised it was still there. i don't think i've ridden my bike since, i gave up on the joy of it. but i'm really craving all the little nuances that i once loved. the childlike freedom and the lightness. so i hope you see me soon, languidly sailing my tw0-wheeler with it's overflowing basket through our downtown streets.

i am drowning in winter. being a grown-up is just too complicated sometimes. winter is a childhood pleasure. forts and snowballs and skating and sledding and snowmen and hot chocolate. the specialties of winter. the smell of wet wool, the scrapy sound of snowpants rubbing together, red chapped fingers & cheeks and peeling lips. and the slapping floppy sound of unfastened boots hurrying to or from school. i remember rushing to catch the bus to school, half running and sliding on the frozen puddles with an open coat and a bag of lunch, up the quarter mile tree-lined lane to the road from our house. the bus was extra creaky in the cold. and a few times it slid off the narrow gravel roads and into the ditch in heavy snow and ice. and we'd wait while one of the high school boys would walk to the nearest house to call for help before hitch-hiking home. and even when the bus was on schedule, it was usually dusk when i climbed off the bus and headed back up the lane in the late afternoon to the glowing windows of home. and i could smell the warmth of the kitchen before i reached the door. winter didn't seem difficult at all.

photo courtesy of lisa esh strohauer

i'm starting to get excited about thanksgiving. my favorite holiday. although i live in canada and feel very canadian, my american roots are strong when it comes to thanksgiving. my very earliest memories of family gatherings would be thanksgiving in philadelphia, washington d.c. or baltimore. road trips in the car. huge tables piled with food and lined with extended family. uncles watching football. and i remember acquiring my first hand-me-down barbie from a cousin at thanksgiving. so i started out swamped with the warmth and love of thanksgiving.

but there is still no holiday i embrace like i do thanksgiving. something about a mid-week holiday in november is just lovely. we always take the day off. we have dinner with my parents and watch football with a big fire in the fireplace. and i think the fact that we are celebrating in a way that few of our canadian friends and neighbors celebrate, means there is no stress. we have a small family dinner with my parents but we aren't trying to fit in all the extended family and in-laws. it's easy and simple. and i'm full of holiday bliss.

i think it was 36 years ago that i found this beautifully bleached, smooth, almost stone-like piece of bone. we had just moved to the farm and i was exploring by making forts in the century old barns and wandering through the grassy fields. we moved in late spring so i was able to forge my friendship with the property as it came alive. i was 7 and must have already had the urge to find lovely little items that could stay with me and be part of my story. i remember recognizing that this must be a vertabra and being proud of my ability to recognize a piece of skeleton. i also loved the smoothness and the clean curves. my father thought it could have been a fox or even a wolf. for the soundtrack of my childhood was the howl of wolves in the dusk as i was falling asleep. i've never tried to find out what species this piece of bone belonged to. but i've always kept it with me. and as i grew into an adult i realized that this creature was probably very close in age to me. a piece of my mortality that i can hold in my hand.