Canada Day Celebrations

Full bellies and daylong feasting, sipping iced lemonade, a study in red and white, the boundless, permanent summer of Canadian multiculturalism. Today we celebrated our first Canada Day here in our new home. Gem and I meandered through Riverside Park ... thronged with hundreds of people absorbing the food and colour and music which erupted in a kaleidoscope of scents and sights and sounds.

I indulged in a henna hand tattoo.


Gem bought an original watercolour from the Art Fair.


Living here in Canada, I am thankful for so much ....

Thankful for the ebb and flow of so many cultural traditions which cover this country like a blessed wave.


For the elegant women wearing jewelled saris.


I am thankful for the giggling, exuberant First nations children dancing to the plangent sound of the drums.

For the Asian men and women I saw gracefully engaged in Tai Chi by the river’s edge.

Thankful for the voices and laughter I heard today in English and French and Cantonese and Ukrainian and Italian and Afrikaans and Greek and Hindu.

Thankful for the connections that let me know the kindred in human beings who are different from me.


Later, candlelight anointed the table as Gem and I ate our barbecued salmon dinner and the homemade pavlova I made for dessert.


I am thankful, too, for the sense of belonging given in the ritual of celebration.