Category Archives: Act your age

Today you are You

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Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.  Dr. Seuss,

These are the heart-tug days, when your only grand-daughter is half a world away, eight  time zones ahead. I could either be sad not to be there, which I am, or I can do what I can from here. Long distance grand-parenting is a new-norm challenge. My North African granddaughter on the edge of the Sahara, chose an Arctic Adventure theme for her birthday, I chose to decorate the snowball her and I made on her recent Canadian trip.

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 In the spirit of Dr Seuss, I sent her poetic birthday wishes and a snowball picture.

Dear Maisha,

It is your ninth birthday, and there is no one you-er than you,

nor would I wish there to be, and that is truer than true.

How you love to imagine, you love many others

Including your mom and your dad, even your brothers.

How I wish I was with you, with you and the others.

You could paint me up and we could eat all the cake,

We would make up some poems, we could jump in the lake.

Or in the ocean, and swim like a dolphin, maybe a starfish,

Could be an Arctic creature … Oh I wish and I wish …

We’d have a girls’ night out, that would be fun you see

Cuz now you are thrice as old as when you were three.

You are nine times smarter than when you were one

There’s still so much fun to be had, funner than fun.

Oh Maisha, you are you-er than you

And that’s why I LOVE YOU, I love you I do!

If I could hop a plane, or board a train, or catch a fish

I’d be there in a flash, on my fish wish dish.

I’d give you a big hug in person. That would be de-lish.

But you—are you-er than you, and I am just me,

But because I’m your granny, I’m smarter you see.

Until you turn ten, and then the gig is up

by then you will know three languages, or maybe four.

You might start to think that Grandma’s a bore.

But for now listen up girl, to me and your mother.

She’ll show you the way, she’ll love you like no other.

How can I know that? Can that be true?

Cuz I’m your mother’s mother, and I’m older than new.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY dear girl, you are niner than nine.

You are finer than fine. Have lots of fun.

And CALL YOUR GRANDMA SOMETIME!

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Missed the amazing cake, but thanks to technology, I read the poem to her, apparently she was smiling the whole time! Makes my heart glad.

Today you are you! Do what you do!

It’s The Climb

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It’s about The Climb

Sunday afternoon with the promise of poutine to follow, I invited two international University of Calgary students to join me for a little walk. They come from Africa and want to experience as much of Canada as possible, on their meagre student budget. I can show them sections of the nearby Rocky Mountains. This particular hike, I did almost two years ago, and thought it to be fairly easy. Early on, the 27 year old from Malawi slightly short of breath states, we need to pace ourselves, and take time to enjoy the scenery. We come to a fork in the road.IMG_3298

They suggest the easy option, but I had read the reviews: the more difficult is the more scenic route. Since I am buying the poutine, they agree to go left. They have each had an intense year of studies, are here for the long haul, unable to return home, but thankful for technology which connects them to loved ones in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Our in-depth conversations have been labelled as DRDs—Deep Reality Discourses … we talk about life, the expectations of women in their countries, to be bearing children at this stage of life and the singleness issue. We talk about cultural differences, the loss of fathers for each of them, we always venture into spirituality. I love these DRDs.

And then we spot them … the wild orchids.IMG_3352

I take many photos, another hiker passes us, and I point them out to her. She and I marvel at their intricacy. My students admire them, but do not appreciate the rarity of the sighting. The hiker informs us of an owl nesting in a rocky opening at the top of the hike. She continues her way down and we continue our climb. We dip our hands in the mountain stream, drink of its water, the younger woman expresses her desire to spend a day with her journal next to the sound of a mountain waterfall. We marvel at the aqua green colour of the lake, and search for the great grey owl that appeared to have been waiting for us.IMG_4011

After the promised poutine rated as the best west of Montreal, (La Belle Patate) we return back to our normal lives,  feeling a slight connection to Miley Cyrus in knowing that there’s always gonna be another mountain and it ain’t how fast we get there, it’s The Climb. At the end of the day, students returned, I marvel at the beauty of the day, the gift of the orchids, the owls and that I could keep pace with these two young women.  I hope to return soon.

IMG_3995“I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.”

–Dawna Markova
― Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion

The Climb, sung by Miley Cyrus, written byJessi Alexander, Jon Mabe.

Lessons from the Lanes

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SwimindexI am a swimmer, and many life lessons have come via the pool. Like: fat and water don’t mix … fat floats … therefore, all sizes can enjoy the water.

If you want to feed your insecurities, stand naked in the pool shower. But if you want to feel okay about yourself, also stand naked in the pool shower. There are many body shapes and sizes … get over yourself. You can also shower with your bathing suit on.

One morning a group of grade one students arrived after my aqua-size class was done. Most of the ladies in the class are in their sixties with real grandma bodies, soft and comfortable for hugs, with a little extra pudding. It is freeing to be among these women who are comfortable with their bodies, and peculiar vein-marked appendages. The six year old girls chattered non-stop while they got their swim suits on … the chatter continued as they marched towards the pool, you have to walk past the showers to get to the pool … as they rounded the corner they went dead silent, their mouths stopped mid-word, they could not take their eyes off the nakeds in the showers. Somehow I think this was not the picture of grandma they envisioned. Each wave of girls repeated the sequence of chatter, silence, eyes wide-open fixated on the marshmallow ladies. The grannies had their own chuckles after the education session.

Some mornings the lanes are labelled … Slow, Medium, FAST.         critical-images                                   With only four lanes, I tend to choose medium or slow. But, after the triathletes have vacated their fast lane, I choose it, and discreetly nudge the fast sign to the edge of adjoining lane. This morning as I joined in, my lane partner said “I’m not that strong a swimmer, I do some swimming and some jogging back and forth.”

“Whatever works,” I said. She jogged on and I front crawled past her.  I wondered why she told me that. After half a lane, I realized, she was apologizing for herself. She was in the lane swim, but not doing the standard strokes.

How many times hadn’t I felt out of place when I started at the pool? People would lap me again and again. When I swam alone, I didn’t care, but when there were two or three other swimmers in the lane, I felt the need to apologize each time my arm or leg bumped into another swimmer. So sorry to have been in your space. I stopped at the end of the lane, lifted my goggles from my eyes. I was not in this for their sakes, I was here for myself. We all had a right to be there, and as I stopped comparing myself to others the more buoyant I became.old ladyimages

One stroke of pool luck … I have found a solution for my increasing facial wrinkle count. This morning as I struggled to get a swim cap on – yes, I wear a swim cap to keep my ear plugs in, and the water out of my ears, as I pulled this girdle like cap on my head, I could feel my scalp sucking upwards … then I smiled as I noticed my skin pulled tight, a face lift without surgery.  Hmmm, I wonder if my navy swim cap goes with my little black dress? 

Time to act my Age

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On the cusp of Sixty

I’ve been told that sixty is the new fifty. People also tried to convince me that brown was the new black. It is what it is, as the next decade approaches with warp speed. The rounded numbers remind me that
time, even heart-breaking time passes. I have come through what I expect will be the most difficult decade of my life. (The aftermath of a tragedy that took three young lives.) Though heart-scarred, the calling on my life to a greater beauty, gives me an optimistic caution to proceed with a keep-on-walking hope, and a smile.

“ It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
― Rose Kennedy

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My grand-daughter (age 8) sent a lovely poem by snail mail that arrived on time, the first verse gives her summation of her view. Simply stated:

Here comes your birthday, you’re getting old,                                                                                            You’re also getting very bold                                                                                                                What a great gramma you’ve become                                                                                                                  How I wish I could stick up my thumb!

I take that last line as a thumbs up. She states my desire to face the future with a boldness, with an expectancy that there is still much beauty in this world, and I want to participate, not spectate.

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.”
― Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

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“We all have an inner voice, our personal whisper from the universe. All we have to do is listen—feel and sense it with an open heart. Sometimes it whispers of intuition or precognition. Other times, it whispers an awareness, a remembrance from another plane. Dare to listen. Dare to hear with your heart.”
― C.J. Heck, Bits and Pieces: Short Stories from a Writer’s Soul

My journey has brought me to this day, this age and I share with the sentiment found in first Samuel (7:12) to say “Thus far has the Lord helped us/me.”