Snow Day

Some days it's just better to turn around with your 8 year old, go home, look out your flannel, make some oatmeal and hot chocolate and let him experience the wonder of snow...

Reciprocity

Has someone ever trusted you with their heart? their heart and soul - every ounce of their love and being?

If so - you are truly blessed.  When was the last time you told them, even better, showed them, that you knew what an incredible blessing it was to have them in your life.  I hope today.  And I hope they returned the favour. I have friends who live this way and I adore the way they treat each other, even after decades of marriage, rush to meet each other at the door, gaze adoringly at their partner when engaged in conversation.  And I wonder what it is that makes their relationship tick along so beautifully, despite whatever challenges they face now and in the past.

To have someone give you their heart - to live their life and their days at work, or school, be a mother, father, academic, poet, all the things they are, is amazing.  To be all those things they are and to have given you their heart - their desire to share the beautiful and the ugly of their days, to hold at night, to dream and share and plan, to grow as themselves but walk down the same road as you...  to have given their heart to you is an honour.  Never take it for granted.  Make time everyday just for the two of your hearts to connect, say hello, hold hands, hold each other.  If you say you're going to call in an hour, call.  If you can't, at least text and make a firm time that you can with love and wishes.  Never be so wrapped up in your own world that you forget to ask about theirs.  Offer tea and foot rubs, make dinner or do the dishes, draw warm baths or a walk in the garden.

If someone has trusted you with their heart - realize what a gift you have been given.  Don't neglect it.  Never forget how privileged you are.  If you nurture and appreciate and love, the reciprocal love will wrap you up in such amazing joy and light.  Nothing will be impossible to overcome and your life... well, I bet your life will be happier and longer..

Our New Addition

Well, I did it....

on a rainy day with a fever broaching 101, I finally did it.

The boys and I went and bought our piano....  not sure where we'll put it yet or how we'll pay for lessons but with a little help from PatDad at Christmas and all those crazy work trip aeroplan miles turned into gift cards at Long and McQuaid...  I finally own my own piano and in my heart can say goodbye to the one left behind when I moved out. 

It's not fancy, doesn't have all those crazy digital sounds the comparable Yamaha does but it's a full keyboard with a lovely sound and weighted keys, one pedal and reverb and headset jacks to boot.  Perfect for us.  And I can't wait to get started learning!

Welcome Korg SP 170...  I'm so glad you're here....  just wait until you meet my Grandma's piano bench!

Seven steps to Zen-like creativity - The Globe and Mail

I like this... a lot

Seven steps to Zen-like creativity - The Globe and Mail

good in the world

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

Defining who we are

It's been a crazy week.  

The excitement of one of the top belly dancers Mira Betz in our stratosphere coming for two days of workshops and a gala show - being home in my own bed for a whole week...  so happy - content with my world.  

Then a near miss in the car with a jolting swerve to miss the truck turning left into us before he heard our horn....  the doctor telling me to take muscle relaxants and not dance after a trip to check out the increasing pain in my neck and shoulder...  but it could have been so much worse.  I am alive.  My children are safe.  The person in the truck is safe.  I can still dance, sing, watch my children grow into the men I see them becoming....  I can still hold them in my arms.

Not so for a missing 18 year old girl up Island found today dead in her own local woods... Not so for the dearly loved mother of my friend at work who struggles with her own feelings, with the daily facade of work all the while knowing her father grieves dangerously alone on the other side of the country.  While my cousin in England grieves and struggles to change the manslaughter law in England after the man who murdered her love is sentenced to a pathetic amount of time.  While people continue to die in political protests or bombings or floods or any myriad of things around the globe....

What is it that defines a person? our ability to dance? to sing? to teach? would I be less of a person - less of my essence exist if I ceased to dance or perform?  less of a person if I ceased to exhibit my photography or write?  

Or is what defines our essence as people in how we interact with ourselves and others in the things we do? how we are kind to others as we work, shop, dance, sing, write? how we reach out to those in need? our capacity to show compassion?  our capacity to love? 

every day - every moment we have with those we love is a gift. yet how many of those precious moments slip away arguing about silly things - clothes, homework, what to eat for dinner, who does the dishes tonight.   Remember that ever moment is a gift.  hold your children, your lover, your friends close. cherish them. tell them how you feel. don't suffocate, nourish them and let them grow, watch and celebrate - and just cherish how incredibly lucky we are to have each moment...

 

stars in your eyes

happiness is time with your best friend...
happiness is looking up and seeing things a new way...
happiness is stars in your eyes....