• Empty Nest

    Time For Play

      “Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults — and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.”  – Dr. Stuart Brown, physician, clinical researcher and founder of the National Institute for Play.                              If you’re like me, you might have let Play slip out the back door as your career and kids came in the front. Over the years, she hovered around. I’m sure I caught glimpses of her from time to time, seldom intentional however, welcome. Sometimes, she even arrived for a fleeting unplanned visit – short but sweet. There’s…

  • Family Legacy

    Honouring Loss

    I had an empty nest piece all set to post today but I’ve changed my plan. On Sunday, a life changed abruptly. Today, my heart is with one of my best friends whose partner passed away suddenly on the weekend. Out of respect for her and for the life of her partner, I’d like to honour her loss. My dear friend is dealing with too many unknowns to mention. I don’t know how life will look for her going forward. I just know that, for me, when someone passes the world stops for a while. I reflect on how I spend my time and where I place my energy. And…

  • Empty Nest

    Blissful and Blessed

    I haven’t quit smiling since I left Calgary for Slave Lake yesterday. After a week of connecting with family and friends, I am feeling truly blessed.   I can’t express these feelings any better than Janelle Ross has in her post, All My Blessing Breathe. Thank you, Janelle, for allowing me to share it with my readers here today.   All My Blessing Breathe They drive off, the three of them, in the oldest’s truck, and I walk back into an empty house. Not empty-sad, mind, just empty. And I think, there go my blessings. (to READ more click this link – Source: all my blessings breathe | My Men and…

  • Empty Nest

    My Two New Loves

    Dear Buddy and Princess, Sorry kids, I have two new loves. When you started moving into your “big people” lives, there was plenty of room for a mom to fill and I’ve been determined to fill it with good stuff. I had to dig way back in time to reconnect with that person I was long before I had children and pull out my desire for a right-brain life. It’s in my nature that I’d fill some of that space you left behind with creative pursuits. Writing is an obvious choice for me and I don’t think the time I’ve spent with my journal or laptop has surprised anyone. But,…

  • Family Legacy

    Finding Peace in Places

    “I need peace in my life.” This is the silent prayer that has looped through my head for years. Ever since I was in my teens, I’ve sought out perfect spots to find the silence needed to think. The first I can remember was just a few short blocks from home, in a city park, on a little hill, in a community called North Haven. Whenever I felt like I needed peace, I’d go there, hop on a swing and let my feet pump me higher and higher until, on legs outstretched, they blocked Calgary’s city view on the horizon. Or, I’d sit on the swing with one toe pointed…

  • Family Legacy,  Temporary Life/Travel

    Don’t Worry, There’s Plenty of Love in Crete

    (Sequel to Can We Go Back to Where We Fell in Love and Fall Again?) Before I travelled to Greece for the first time, I met a Greek-Canadian named Gideon who said something like, “Once you’ve been to Greece, it will haunt you.” He was right. Greece has been calling me back ever since I set foot on the island of Crete in 1978. Finally, this April, I returned to Crete with The Consultant, in anticipation of all we remembered from back then – spontaneous Greek dancing, shop owners beckoning from their doorways, older gents sitting outside a kafenío with their Greek coffee and kombolói beads, rhythmically dispelling their worries.…

  • Family Legacy

    Mother to a Son

    Growing up, I didn’t know boys. My family was made up of girls – my Mom and three sisters. The lone male of the household, Dad, moved out when I was 14. As a young girl, I thought boys were immature and rude. They laughed at things that weren’t funny, like farts and boogers. Boys wrecked stuff. I hated when mothers brought their sons over to our house to play. They pulled off my dolls’ legs and poked pins in their plastic belly buttons. They were violent, running amok, using their fingers as guns, “pow-pow, pow-pow-pow.” They’d keel over dead for a few moments only to jump back to life…

  • Empty Nest

    Can We Go Back to Where We Fell in Love and Fall Again?

    Travel back to 1978 with me, and you’ll see us on the isle of Crete looking like a couple of characters from the flashbacks in Mamma Mia. The Consultant and I had been dating for eighteen months and we’d already extended our agreement. The agreement was to go our separate ways if we reached the one-year mark. We thought it was sensible since we were so young and neither of us had been looking for a partner when we met. It was reasonable to think, at 17 and 19; we needed to keep our worlds open to other personalities and experiences. But when the anniversary arrived, we were enjoying life. We…

  • Family Legacy

    Spring Fever

    In Calgary, we can pretty much guarantee we’ll have winter – cold, snowy or otherwise challenging. But spring? Now that’s another story. Buddy’s birthday is mid-April. Some of his birthday parties were spent stuck indoors due to snowstorms and at others, the kids played basketball out in our backyard, wearing shorts. Due to it’s unpredictability, many Calgarians feel the season bypasses us entirely. Each year as the seasons cycle around to spring, I feel antsy. I am dissatisfied with winter’s comfortable cocoon. Life is suddenly “ruttish.” An intense spring fever overshadows everything. I have a consistent pattern at this time of year. I crave change and the hunger is always…

  • Family Legacy

    Do My Kids Need a Better Life Than Mine?

    One evening a while back, I was sitting around with friends after a Calgary Stampeder football game when one of them said, “All we want for our kids is that they have a better life than us, right?” Actually, when I think about my life, I have to wonder whether it is possible for my kids to have a better one. Mine’s been pretty darn good. I’ve always had a roof over my head and never gone hungry. Most importantly, I’ve always felt loved.   My sisters and I were fortunate to be born in this time and place. Canadian women experience more equality than most women in the world.…