Clothed Body and Soul

I gather the velour infant sleeper , the little red fleece hoodie, the small Canucks hockey jersey, and the brown Carhart overalls that my oldest grandson, D, loved so much and insisted on wearing until the straps literally dug into his shoulders. All are outgrown now. They contain memories as palpable as the fabric between my fingers as I fold them neatly. Each recalls a time-woven tapestry of the three years when two of our grandsons lived with us.


I remember buying baby M that orange sleeper with the man-in-the-moon decal over his heart during that first harried week as we frantically readied a room for the boys. It speaks to me of those early days after they had arrived beautiful, beguiling and a little bewildered, at three and half years and six months old. I took this picture of him wearing them, sweetly sleeping in the borrowed crib Gem had scrubbed, in the bedroom where the sky-blue paint still smelled new and looked unfamiliar. How full my heart was that first night five years ago.

I remember the joy on D's face when he chose the little hockey jersey, how he clutched it to his chest, his face beaming. My fingers linger over the small red hoodie, and I joyously recall M, at age 14 months, lying on the grass at our summer cottage kicking his legs in beatific delight.


Parting with my children's outgrown clothing is a ritual which has always given me bittersweet pangs. Over the years, some I have given away, some I have donated to a women’s transition house where sometimes mothers and little ones show up in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Yet others, I can’t let go; the first tiny pink dress purchased by her Daddy for our daughter Sarah-Beth when she was born, The cub scout shirt with its rows of badges so proudly earned by my eldest son, Nicholas. The penguin sweatshirt belonging to my younger son, Joshua, which he loved into faded shabiness. He wore it until the opening would no longer stretch over his head and the sleeves were only a little past his elbows. I remember his words when he solemnly accepted the fact that he just couldn't wear it again, "He was a good penguin, wasn't he, Mummy?"

All these items are imbued with the souls of my children. I place them back into my memory box, adding to them the few items now outgrown by my grandsons. The freshness, sweetness and fragility of their history reach down to the very marrow of my bones. They are strewn with the songs of yesterday; tunes of dawning faith and promise and unblemished hope. They still possess the power to both nourish and elate.

October Gratitude

Here, in this deeply wooded land, I have a ringside seat to all this season holds. Each day the colours intensify. Less green, more gold and lemon, rust, orange and deep red.

Sometimes I stand rapturously with my mouth open in wonder. I wander around in a dream-like state, thinking of superlative adjective after adjective, a successive seasonal litany. The children I encounter on my daily little walks romp in a glorious shuffling of boots and fleece jackets. They gather pine cones and clutch reddening leaves in their hands.

I took my five year old grandson, M, for a walk in the park on a crisp October afternoon. Following an old ritual I recently read about, I told him to gather the five most perfect autumn leaves he could find, and that each would represent the giving of a perfect day to someone he loves. The collecting done, we stood holding our bounty on the pier overlooking the river. One by one he tossed them into the rippling water, calling out the names ... "Daddy, I wish for you a perfect day! Nana, I wish for you a perfect day!" The delight of the afternoon is as sweet, as spicy, as fragrant as a Macintosh apple.


October is a time of the fullness of ripening. Seed pods hang swollen from the memory of their petals. The orchards and fields lie bloated in their excess. Pumpkins and squash rise among their slow leaves and show their thick skins to the paling sun. Cool mornings ride on the hot air balloon of Indian summer afternoons. My arms take turns in wool and skin.

This, too, is the season of fragility. I think maybe wholeness is possible only when we embrace our fragility. It is a paradox, perhaps, that the only way to really be fully alive is to open your heart to all your life contains ... the sad and poignant and hurting, too. My heart often feels wrung, as if all the grief and joys of my life are stirring together in one large lump in my throat.

I always take pleasure in finding an apple on which birds have fed. We all make our mark on the things we touch, and the curves and arabesques of the birds’ beak is a signature to its hunger. Writing is like that for me. It is the food I carve my name upon. I feel much gratitude this October day to once again possess the strength to write.

Northern Reflections

The Northern Lights, interpreted by the Tlingit of Alaska as the dancing of human spirits, came alive for me in a glorious concert Gem and I attended last evening. We accompanied lovely new friends to a concert given by the Thompson Valley Community Orchestra. Themed 'Northern Reflections', it featured gorgeous music from Norway, Finland and Russia; Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg, Gustav Holst, Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov, Peter Tchaikovsky, Alexander Scriabin. The guest pianist was a brilliant, passionate twenty-one year old young man named Clinton Denoni, who last year won the Canadian composer's class at the B.C. Festival of the Performing Arts.

The music, under the direction of the wonderfully talented Norris Berg, came alive in banners of unfurling green light, each note possessing its own geometry of grace. I felt nourished as I listened, my soul fed. I could feel the distinctly Northern reflections of each piece; music seeking the kaleidoscopic transformation of the ever-shifting beauty of mountains, of snow, of liquidity and ice, of dark and light.


It occurred to me as we drove home, that the whole evening was a form of prayer; an intimate dialogue, gathered and given. For just as a dancers pray by dancing, and musicians pray by playing music, we human beings have a continuous, ongoing need for prayer through the rituals of communing.

(Clinton Denoni, wonderful young pianist.)

Dance of February

Today is all glitter and sunlight and blue shadows. Swells of the sheerest intimation of winter transition quivers in my bones; a tune that teases memory but can’t quite find the words.

After waving goodbye to my parents, who have been visiting for the past week, I hasten to go for a walk. There are melting pools of snow everywhere as the temperature soars to 8 degrees above zero. For the first time in months my body feels an inkling of spring. It registers in my legs, my brain, my heart.

The snow has separated into bone-shaped islands. Blonde grasses peek out everywhere. I stop and eat my apple on a small bridge while looking out at the thawing skin of the river. I knew I was weary of the winter crust on my world, but I hadn't realized quite how much until I feel the glad leap in my heart.

On my way home, I run into my neighbour out walking with her two little ones. B, aged three, scampers ahead, stamping his little boots, mittened hands pawing the thinning snow for treasure. Not having seen her close-up since the autumn, I am astonished at how big baby L has grown. Fat, dimpled, pink-cheeked, she grins at me, revealing two perfect pearly teeth. I issue an impromptu invitation for lunch, and am accepted.

We unwind scarves, remove snowsuits, undo boots. I pass the baby to her mother, a soft, plump burden of love, and then seek out the box full of little toy cars for her brother. I bring out, too, the big Noah's Ark with all the animals. Ben finds this fascinating. Soon giraffes and lions, sheep and elephants, jostle for position in the ark alongside myriad little cars. Baby L gums and drools on a sculpted plastic camel.

I chat with their mother as I add a mixture of sauteed scallions, dried apricots, roughly chopped almonds, and a diced Granny Smith apple to rice cooked in chicken broth. B would prefer a grilled cheese sandwich, and this I prepare as I sear scallops in garlic butter to serve with the rice.

My neighbour comments on a garden plaque resting on the Welsh dresser. It reads 'My Secret Garden'. This I bought the other day because it called to me, partly because The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books as a child, and partly, because I think each of us possesses a secret garden of self which just needs the right conditions to unfurl. We all need light and warmth and watering tears and tender hands. Once the snow disappears completely, I will place the plaque outside.

As we eat and laugh and sip tea and savour the antics of the children, a wave of feeling rushes over me. The dance of February; slowly releasing the soil, stretching the spiralling buds ... thwarting the breath of winter, not just in nature, but in we human beings, too.

Magpie Tales: The Piano Teacher's House

The Piano Teacher’s House

Floors of hardwood, high ceilings,
white curtains, candlesticks on the
brick hearth, clock ticking in dark
wood. Glass bowl of seashells.
No shouting here. No stale beer smell.

She waits for her turn making
up stories for the pictures
lining the room. Babies in white
dresses, men in uniforms,
women in plumes and velvet.

The green house with the piano
converts black insects into
music. She plays them into
gilt-edged pages of incense
breathing secret beauty.

Too soon, in the car, sitting
next to her father, not talking,
eyes closed, trying to keep
the piano teacher’s house
humming inside her.


(Go here for more Magpie Tales.)

The Pink Cape

(Jo, aged ten years old, 1967.)

Spring in my family meant new spring clothes; a dress or two, new shoes, and a spring coat. Usually the clothing was sewn by my mother, and although I’d see the pattern, and glory in tracing my fingers along the fabric, my sisters and I would only have glimpses of the garments until they were almost finished. Sometimes I’d gaze in wonder and growing anticipation at the little heap of shapes on my mother’s sewing table.

She had a small sewing room right off the kitchen at our house. My bedroom was directly above it, and often I could hear the whirring of the sewing machine at night when I drifted off to sleep. It was a lullaby that always made me feel loved.

My mother was happy when she sewed. "You’re going to love it", she would say, smiling, "As soon as I saw that material, I knew it was exactly the right shade to bring out the green in your eyes." Or, "Princess Anne has a dress just like the one I‘m making you. I saw it in my magazine." In a trifling, I’d imagine myself in my new dress, feeling beautiful as the material floated around me.

The year I was ten years old, my mother sewed me a cape for my new spring coat. It was of pink Melton cloth with a darker pink silk lining and magenta buttons. I hated it! I had expected a coat. The picture on the front of the pattern had showed three figures. My eyes had fixated on the two in coats, barely noting the one girl wearing a cape. No one in my class wore a cape. Nor did anyone else I knew.

My mother, as she measured the hem line on me, knew immediately that I didn’t like it. I also knew I would have to wear it anyway. That didn’t stop me protesting, though. My disappointment came flooding out in a litany of grievances:

"Nobody wears a cape. Nobody!"

"Everyone is going to laugh at me."

"Couldn’t I just wear my old coat?"

My face burned with dislike, and also with shame at having offended my mother.

I wore my cape to school for the first time, filled with mute despair. I tried to carry my satchel strategically front of me, and place my arms in such a way that it hid the fact that it was a cape. To no avail, of course, and my fears of being teased were realized. Being called, "Stinky Pinky Bat Girl!" really doesn’t sound all that dreadful now, but I was a very sensitive little girl, and at the time it stung to the quick.

A few weeks after the cape made its debut, my father had business in London and he took me with him for the day. This was a rare treat, and I was thrilled, despite having to wear my pink nemesis.

As I waited in a rather grand reception room as my father attended his meeting, my eyes were increasingly drawn to a beautiful young woman sitting at the big polished desk. I don’t remember what she was wearing, just that I was very impressed with her beauty and poise.

As my father and I went to leave, I was startled when this elegant being spoke to me, "Your cape is just lovely. It’s the very height of fashion. You look so chic in it!" I left the building feeling almost like I had just had a bath; clean, transformed.

My father and I went out for lunch, and then to feed the pigeons at Trafalgar Square. He snapped my picture as I stood there in my pink cape. The delight of that spring day glows in my face.

In time I grew to love that cape. In fact, I wish I still had it.

(This is a Saturday Sepia post.)

Magpie Tales: Icons of Dust

Icons of Dust

When I am alone

The world shoves poetry

Into my brain.

It germinates in earth

And sky and trees

And snow glistening

In morning light.

Brick walls and birds

Cello music and

Gnarled hands.

I name it

Give it story

Fill my language with gold.

And the presence inside

All things muses on beauty

As brick becomes an

Icon of red dust

Coating my eyelids

And choking my voice

With song.

(Go here for more Magpie Tales. It's worth the flight!)

Magpie Tales: Snow Dreams in Red

Snow Dreams in Red

A dreaming ashen stillness falls upon
The frozen breathless path, the sapless woods,
The winter of my brother’s death. An etude
Full of young men’s voices calling, his wan,
A hush above the rest. Fleshy heart gone.
The snow so bright, I weep. Weary to rest
My own scarlet vesture beneath my breast.
Strewn with arrows memory hastens on
To pierce far beyond the hard icy rim.
His bright Robin hair shines into the grey
Of sombre wind-rent flakes, that gather grim
Around the dying portals of the day.
The snow so red, I bleed. His tawny lore
Dressed in white, his voice sings evermore.

(This sonnet is dedicated to the memory of my beloved red-headed brother, Jason, 1975 - 2003.)

Permitting Play Time

My youngest sister, H, and her little son.

 During the three years I parented my two little grandsons, I gradually came to the conclusion that young parents are under enormous pressure. It seems greater than I remember from the time when my own children were small.

There is an intense push to have your child enrolled in multiple activities, to provide a constant barrage of educational experiences and classes of every description. I also think there is a bigger pressure now to be seen as the perfect nurturer, and to produce a child who is viewed somehow as "more special" than the rest.

In my months standing outside the school waiting for kindergarten dismissal each day, I listened to a litany of parents discussing their child-rearing methods and children’s achievements. There appeared to be an almost desperate need to display superior philosophies.

"We have her in dance three times a week now. The teacher says she’s very gifted."

"We already often eat dinner in the car. I don’t know what I’ll do once the baby is old enough to start activities!"

"He has developed a strong sense of personal space. He is a spirited boy.", said one mother, smiling as her son shoved several children out of his way as he pushed to the head of the line.

I don't like the guilt-mongering and pressure. We parents and grandparents need to be kinder and more gentle with each other. No matter what my preferences and prejudices, the goal should be happy, healthy children ... all children ... not just mine because they're somehow more deserving or "special" than yours. As though all other children are lacking, cheated, less worthy.

An excellent surgeon I once worked with, a very nice, empathic man, shared something with a group of us one day. He was taken aback when his eight year old daughter, after being informed that one of her extra-curricular classes had been cancelled, exclaimed joyfully, "Daddy, do I really have a whole afternoon off?!" If I remember correctly, this little girl was involved in a dizzying array of activities which included piano lessons, dance, gymnastics and Japanese Kumon.

During the holidays, I watched my youngest grandson, aged four, completely absorbed in arranging a series of small sticks in the snow, rocks dotted here and there alongside small cars in an elaborate design of his own making. His mind was cradled in its own rocking.

I passionately believe that children need, as we all do, spaces where passions and visions dance without specific shape. Being over-programmed with scheduled activity takes a toll not just on the child’s soul and body, but on those of its parents as well.

Maybe the only remedy is to permit ourselves and our children to play. To become absorbed in the apparent nothing which is everything.

My grandson, D (in the orange shirt), playing with some of his kindergarten friends.

A Good Woman

As this January morning whitened, I took a taxi. The news was on and a story about a violent act committed by a youth was broadcast. The driver, hands clenched tightly on the wheel, expressed to me that, "The problem with the world today is that women think about their careers instead of thinking about their duty as wives and mothers."

His words are expressed politely, but there is an edge to them. "Life can be complex," I murmur. "No," he says. "My daughter will be a good woman."

From his mirror dangles a laminated photo of two children. The little girl looks out with huge, limpid brown eyes. I wonder about her. She’s wearing an orange butterfly clip in her thick, dark hair. I stare at it. A butterfly meant to be probing the heart of tiger lilies, meant to be ascending the sky in papery bursts, improbably strong. Will she find herself stretching, constrained, bound by glass walls she can’t escape?

The silence between me and the driver grows. I want to tell him that our children bear all our hopes, and fears, and expectations. That, these we wrap around us in the guise of love and care. I say nothing more, except, "Thank you" and "Have a good day", as I leave the taxi.

As I trudge through the snow, something in me yearns towards the little girl in the picture. A nice man, and one I’m sure cares deeply for his family, the taxi driver perhaps cannot see the butterfly he pleasantly hopes to confine within a jar. Should I have tried to say more, I ponder? I felt incapable of articulating any words which might have bridged the chasm between us. Am I being too judgmental, too righteous, too fanciful?

Later, I think of the paradoxes inherent in the form and physics of snow. It can be soft and hard. Light and heavy. Thick and delicate. It freezes and insulates. It compacts and fluffs. It is both secretive in what it hides and open-faced in what it presents. It can be so implacably glaring, and yet so softly, amorphously beautiful.

Like a good woman.