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Showing posts from May, 2013

Grace

Wow, I just noticed it's been 16 years to the day since Jeff Buckley died.  Interesting, as I was thinking today about my visit to the Mississippi river back in August, my own way of paying tribute to my most cherished musician. I've written about my experience before, of almost dying in quicksand after I foolishly took steps toward the muddy river's edge, wanting to dip my feet in the same body of water he died in.  I escaped by pulling my legs out of the knee-deep mud and crawling to safety.  As fate would have it there was a man with a hose on a ferry nearby who cleaned me off before I returned to my car feeling lucky.  I still wonder if I'd had to yell if the man with the hose would have heard me. I hold Jeff Buckley largely accountable for helping me survive the rollercoaster of emotions I rode in high school.  I discovered him by accident, probably a few months after he died because MusiquePlus was airing a concert he'd played a short while before in Chica

These Boots are made for Walking

There's something so empowering about strutting the streets in the right pair of boots.  In my case, a pair of tan cowboy boots purchased in Nevada circa 1991.  After spending the day wearing overstretched flats that make me flex my feet as I walk, hammering out a good heel as I took my pup for a walk felt really. damn. good. Nancy Sinatra's These Boots are made for Walking playing naturally in my head, I let off steam from my extremely demanding day typing up every little detail of my job and work responsibilities in an salary relativity evaluation.  8 hours of brainwork.  I am finished. Leaving the school board, I checked my phone in the hopes of discovering a missed phonecall or another silly invitation from Facebook to attend an event I surely won't, but instead I see a text from the type of guy that Nancy sings about. You know, with all my years of experience, with all the worldly knowledge I have acquired, you would think I would have done things differently.  I

You gotta have faith

I lost my favorite earring yesterday.  It was from a pair a turquoise roses I bought in Winnipeg a few years ago.  Boo. There was a moment as I put it on that I noticed the butterfly was loose but I ignored it and assumed it would be fine.  As I looked for it I regretted my negligence and decided life was teaching me a lesson.  I retraced my steps and slowly understood that it was gone forever, lost on the streets of Montreal. It must be nice to be an Atheist.  Liberating in fact.  My brother assures me it is and tells me that life is so much more beautiful when you can appreciate the science behind it.  I believe in science as much as I believe in God, if that can make sense. Growing up I was always uncomfortable when the topic of religion came up.  My father came from a Protestant family and my mother a Catholic, and so we were never baptized or christened or whatever.  My best friend as a kid was Pentecostal and I remember sitting with her in Sunday school and cringing at my a

Refresher

A little boy handed me a petal from the cherry tree out in the schoolyard today.  All the kids were picking them, the small bush had bloomed and you could literally tell it was picked by shorties... no flowers missing past their reach. The petal was so soft and delicate, a beautiful piece of nature, handed over to me to share in the awe of it. I've been in awe of the little ones lately.  It's a crazy time of year because it's so nice out and sunny, kids are happy but getting more and more rambunctious as the summer vacation approaches.  But the sweetness of their tiny faces, their little worlds bursting with color, everything must be so exaggerated to them.  It is, in fact.  And that's how it's supposed to be.  Colorful and fun. We forget, don't we, about the little things?  Those little gifts that the world gives us, that are so fresh and new for young ones, we've grown accustomed and blind to much of nature's beauty.  I'd rather scoot the ant