Category: Family & Friends
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The Art & Science of Being a House Guest
There’s a fine line between persistent anxiety and enjoying time with people in their space. You will know how well you’ve tread that line when you’ve loaded up and pulled away. Read more
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The Place We Put Our People
It is the remarkable uniformity – the sameness – that slaps me in the face. Pleasant. Clean. Spacious. Orderly. Middle class. Nice. A place you walk into and believe that your dad, mom or grandpa will be safe and taken care of, that everything will be okay, that you’re doing The Right Thing. These buildings, like clusters… Read more
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The Road Less Travelled in Lanark County: Part 1
It was that time of the day – post-sugar bush, pre-ice cream – when every mother recognizes the limitations of adding any more stops on a roadtrip. The kids, at that point, could go either way. Read more
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The Drawers of Lola Rosa
I can’t help but stare. The young waiter with curly dark hair and a pencil thin moustache is a dead ringer for my cousin, Paul, a mirror of his youthful days in the ’70’s. It’s uncanny. Turns out he’s from B.C. (we’re getting closer), but not from Kamloops, home of Paul and my extended family.… Read more
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Frozen
Still, it’s our first time on an ice bridge and our natural instinct says it’s unnatural to walk across a body of water, even if it is frozen. Read more
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Sleeping With Our Friends
Family connexions were always worth preserving, good company always worth seeking. ~ Jane Austen, Persuasion, 1818 For years I’ve coveted the custom, lifted from Jane Austen novels, of extended stays in the homes of friends and acquaintances. Up rolled the carriages and out flowed the people for a week or more of dinners, recitals, game-playing,… Read more
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Would You Let This Man in Your House?
And what I’ve been reminded of is this: Strangers give something, take something and create something utterly unique for each of us. They are our Scheherezades and our Solomons. They are not stones that we trip over, but the treasure we search for. Read more
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The Lost Villages of the St. Lawrence
The vintage homes and buildings look picturesque and inviting under the winter sky. They’re clustered together, in traditional village style, interlaced with Christmas-like trees frosted with snow. But what I see is not a real village. The clapboard church, barbershop, school and other buildings grouped by the side of County Rd. 2, near Long Sault,… Read more
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Winter Dreaming of a Summer Island
The air was warm with an exotic charm, Not Canada at all And a small northern lake; A land of soft desire. A depth of turquoise fire, A height of foreign stars Only the water glittered In a cool northern way Sparkling against the rocks. – Excerpt from The Island (Experiment in Magic), Katherine Hale Read more
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A Reasonable Expectation of Undisturbed Rest
[pullquote]I am awake, but ’tis not time to rise, neither have I slept enough…I am awake, yet not in paine, anguish or feare, as thousands are. ~ 17th Century religious meditation for the dead of night[/pullquote] With winter darkness falling at 5:00pm, I’m lucky to remain vertically upright until nine. After a hard day’s labour,… Read more