The Tin Foil Fairy

I was six the Christmas that the tin foil fairy appeared in my life. Other people will tell you that she wasn’t real, they’ll insist that it was all an elaborate hoax, and that they regret it.

People who were actually there that night, people who should know better, will deny that she ever existed, but I can tell you that she WAS there under the kitchen spotlight in the snow of our enormous, wooded backyard. And that she was real, in every sense of the word.

It began simply enough.

I was sitting in my bedroom colouring in a Peter Pan book (I remember this so well), when my older brother came into my room and slipped out again. Had I been an older child (although I can’t say exactly how much older), or even a tiny bit more suspicious of my brother, I might have guessed something was up. But I wasn’t older, or suspicious. I was a totally innocent six-year-old.

Then my much older cousin came into the room, looked around, smiled brightly, and also left without saying anything. But had I been more observant, or wily, I might have noticed someone was missing from my doll collection.

I went back to my colouring book, oblivious.

How was I to know that my life was about to change forever?

While I coloured in my bedroom and events were set in place that would permanently change my life, I knew that my mother was wearing an apron, as was my aunt, and that they were both in the kitchen preparing Christmas dinner. I remember the aprons, matching red-and-green wreaths.

It was snowing gently outside, and our deeply wooded backyard ended where the green, silent, glowering acres of Carolinian oak forest began. The woods at the back of our property were old and dark and very silent. The trees housed eagle and deer and pheasant when we moved into that house in the late '60s. It was a beautiful, wild and slightly magical place.

Who knew what other creatures lived in its depths?

As I coloured in my bedroom, and turkey was basted and gravy was carefully stirred, a roll of tin foil vanished from the kitchen drawer where it lived, then was quietly returned. No one would notice a small piece was gone, as tin foil is much used on Christmas Day, coverer of turkeys and warmer of dishes of root vegetables. Tin foil holds its shape around a pot, over the breast of a big bird, or clutched in a tiny hand in the snow.

Then she came.

There was an urgent call from my brother at the back door, not too loud, not so loud as to alert the adults.

“Pip! Pip! Come quick!”

My brother is six years older than I, twice my age on that day. Our worlds rarely collided, so the urgency in his voice drew me to him immediately. I dropped my crayon. I raced down the stairs and into the back hall where my brother was waiting, pointing into the backyard…

“It’s a fairy, Pip! A Christmas fairy!”

There WAS a fairy in my backyard!

The spotlight by the back door shone on the falling snow and glinted off the fairy standing at the very edge of the soft light. I could just make out her wings and in her hand … a perfect wand. She was caught in the deep snow, struggling and shaking the falling flakes from her hair. She turned her head, and smiled at me…

…then the spotlight went out. 

I RACED into the group of surprised adults: fairy! fairy in the backyard! I shouted, dragging my mother in her Christmas wreath apron to the back door. My brother (and cousin who had mysteriously reappeared) turned on the spotlight again, but she was gone.

Was I disappointed that the fairy had vanished? Yes. Did I notice my mother later talking quietly to my brother and cousin about teasing me? Maybe. Did I care? No.

A fairy was stuck in the snow of my backyard on Christmas day. I didn’t care what anyone said about a toy doll and tin foil and elaborate plots. The fairy shook snow from her hair then turned and smiled at me before the spotlight went out. I believed it with every inch of my six-year-old soul.

All these years later when I remember that Christmas day I know this too: your heart’s desire is a magical thing. It was without a doubt the best gift anyone ever gave me.

Dance, Girl

I had the best big brother. Here's a poem I wrote for him a few years ago, about the day I ruined his birthday party. Enjoy a little dance with us ...

Author and her brother,
before she ruins his party

Dance, Girl

My brother had a party,
when he was twelve.

I was locked in my bedroom,
too wild,
not to be trusted at
the party, age six.

But I escaped.

I ran into the basement,
wild-eyed, slippery, a flame,
and danced,
startling the shy boys and girls there,
twice my age.

I danced with long-haired,
twisting, child-hearted rage.
None could stop me,
None could get close enough.
My quiet brother dismayed 
at me dancing the twist with
everything I had,
begged my parents to DO SOMETHING.

They cleared the dance floor,
stuck to the safety of the walls.
What is this girl?
I heard one boy say.

What is this, girl?

I got claps, cheers, whistles,
I whipped my long hair from side to side,
clapped madly like the tambourine man
(that might have been the song),
and was not to be denied.

I danced at the party
the biggest,
the wildest,
the loudest,
a freak.
Sweaty and staggering,
drunk on fiery stars,
until the music stopped
and someone threw a blanket over me
like a feral cat,
and carried me to bed.

I danced a lifetime,
seldom raged such, since.

But once in a while,
in a tune, a light, a falling leaf,
the long-haired girl comes again
for a moment,
lifting her freak, happy,
wild child’s arms to shine.

Dance, girl, dance
until you are still,
mine.

PD/ First published on this blog November 15, 2020

The Ghost of Lego Past: an Ode

From whence did you come,

you warrior’s badge of youth?

From which ubiquitous movie tie-in
were you lost?

Star Wars, or Indiana Jones, or Harry Potter
or no… the list will only sadden us.

Let us roll your sharp corners
in our wearied hands,

and remember your usefulness,
and your former glory.

The hours in former times, in which
your simple symmetry kept children,

engaged, quiet, entertained, head-down
and building for hours.

The many, many, many (oh Lego masters,

hear our prayer) hours,

in which we followed your careful instructions:
numbers 1-17, numbers 18-32,

numbers 33-77, numbers 78-130,
sizes and shapes and colours,

to test our failing vision and dexterity,

in your simple creation

(except that 1,000 piece Star Wars cruiser,

which nearly tore us all apart).

Your parts bible which we followed so religiously,

well past the time to turn the turkey,

or mash the potatoes, or set the table,
or make eye contact with other adults,

forgoing that, instead we built with you,
oh Christmas morning parental rite-of-passage.

On our aging knees, after a thorough cleaning,
behind the couch in the basement,

I find you, red rectangular reminder of boyhood
birthdays and sleepovers,

and loud,  endless Lego parties,

from which this pointed, six-holed

piece was thrown, or kicked, or left
somehow, idle in the dark,

separated and not even a second thought
would bring you to mind,

for you were once so common as to be laughable.

How many times did I just vacuum you up?

I admit! The rattle of your brothers and sisters
up the hose was a release, a small act of defiance!

Why would I stoop to collect something

as small and insignificant as you!

Your kind was a curse! A scourge! To be
carefully avoided when barefoot in the dark!

And yet now, after the great Lego purge
of many years gone,

I feel an immediate kinship.

I honour your place in my past,

I feel your heft and your perfection,
remember your snap and trusty grip,

and return you to your dark corner,

beneath the basement couch.

One day I will find you again, decades hence,
and remember the joy there was in your making:

for now, as long as you lie in wait,

my boy is not completely grown.

PD/Nov. 26/2011

The Whales of August, in September

This month, my father would have turned 99. I recently completed a manuscript about his war experiences, more to come on that. 

So today, the last day of September 2024, I repost a poem from September 2011. That year, I looked through the books his wife sent me after he died. I came across a 1987 play he was in: The Whales of August, by David Berry.

The pages smelled faintly of dad's pipe smoke, all these years later. His stage notes were scrawled all over the copy in his large, uppercase hand. I knew he loved this play, he loved playing the part of Maranov the Russian, but I never asked him if he played it with a Russian accent. I wish I knew. 

The Whales of August, in September

I find this book among your things

which your wife sent and

I thought I didn’t want.

A play, which I’ve never read:

The Whales of August

Then all is not lost, dear lady...

It is one of your favourites,

which I never saw you perform.

Imagine.

Yes, imagine...to dine and be flooded by moonlight...

Your pipe tobacco hits me before I even open

the cover,

then your uppercase, manly handwriting hits me,

when I do

And you held this book,

you broke this spine, smoked your pipe as you read

and marked these lines, your lines, with green pen

You loved this play. I remember now.

But then, a thing of beauty is never fully at rest...

I begin, and you are Maranov the faded Russian noble,

right from the start:

Maranov appears on porch boardwalk. Unbowed by his years, he moves with grace and dignity. He wears woolen knickers, a rather worn, dark tweed, stout boots and heavy socks, a blue shirt, and a roomy, old navy blue cardigan, all rather comfortably gone to seed. He sports a Panama hat and carries a bamboo fishing pole along with his burlap-bagged catch of sea perch. The women don’t notice him as he approaches the screen door...

It’s unspeakably sweet, this stage image of you,

aged, gentle, gracious,

a vagabond with great manners and a mysterious past

coming up from the beach with dinner, discreet and worldly

We have the promise of moonrise, and whales...

We spent years on the beach:

you flew kites,

you buried me in sand,

we ate “crisps” and drank wine,

we canoed,

in your later years you wore a crazy-man muumuu and

a tea cozy hat that really set you apart,

along with the zinc oxide nose cream

but not once did I see you fish

Art lies to us, once again.

Let us not speak of sad things...

And yet art tells us the truth, too, since I know

you would have loved delivering your last line...

Do you see how the moon casts silver coins along the shore?

There is a treasure, my dear, that can never be spent...

PD, Sept 14/2011
With thanks to David Berry!

Goodbye Summer 2017 ...

Sitting at Scadding Cabin at the CNE, August 2017

Once again, summer leaves us. 

This summer, I've been to cottages, sung in abandoned mining caves, kayaked in a storm, tried paddle-boarding (and fell off), finished two books (which was a bit of a death struggle and is possibly one book too many), sailed as much as I could despite the weather, wrote some lovely, achingly-sad music, and mourned my sister-in-law, who left us much, much too soon.

Must ... finish ... manuscript!

I sent my eldest child off to Paris for the fall, and packed my youngest off to BC to plant trees, then just this morning, sent him off to second year university. I rode on the back of a jet ski (which I hate), but laughed like a 20-year-old when the driver opened the throttle (230 horsepower really makes your hair fly!). I sat at the CNE for two Mondays in August, and read to kids about Fort Rouille.

I also turned another year older, and am now convincingly into middle-age, which also means that I recently realized that some of my most meaningful friendships are now 35 years old. My children are also the exact ages of their father and I when we met in university so long ago (23 and 19, so, so young). Yet here we still are, and on and on we go.

So, a few photos to remind us that summer is sweet, and sweeter every year, my friends:

1. Cave singing,
photo courtesy Rob Schauer

1. Playing guitar and cave-singing in Bancroft, Ontario.

Had an audience, and sang in this abandoned mine on a friend's cottage property, in the dark. Feldspar and quartz were mined by hand in the last century (@1880-1910), and drawn from the cave in the winter, by horses pulling sleighs. You can still see the miner's pick-ax marks.

The acoustics were something else.

2. Sailing. It was a rainy summer, but we managed to sail every week. Here we are, 10 km off Toronto.

3. Playing guitar in Bala. Standing on the dock, playing my friend's backpack guitar, a tiny instrument with a surprisingly big voice.

3. Playing in Bala

4. Said goodbye to my daughter, for 4 months, while she lives in Paris with her boyfriend until December (ahhh, to be 23 again).

5. Also said goodbye to my son for another year of university.

5.

AND ... I leave you with this picture of me, my favourite of the summer, with a very good friend, waiting to go for a sail together on a perfect day in early August, when nothing like school, or Paris, or work, or getting older, really mattered one little bit at all:

Here's a little music, composed by yours truly and my editor, Allister Thompson, that fits: Summer

Enjoy!

As Stuart Little so wisely said, "Rememer your summertimes sweethearts." Until summer 2018, then ...

Another Blog Post from Last Summer 2016

Free Classroom Activity Guide for Everton Miles is Stranger than Me

Pick a friend for the End of the World...

Draw like a 15th Century Creative Visionary (or just draw something)...

Villains have all the fun, who is yours? ...

Just some of the intriguing questions for kids in grades 6-9 from the new Classroom Activity Guide for my latest YA title, Everton Miles is Stranger than Me. This new book is the sequel to The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, which was shortlisted for the OLA Red Maple Award in 2015. The series is called The Night Flyer's Handbook.

The Classroom Activity Guide is free on the publisher's site, thanks to Dundurn Press for putting it together and making it available.

Take a look at the guide now:  Everton Miles is Stranger than Me, Classroom Activity Guide.

Themes: loneliness, bullying, loss, family, friendship, community, volunteerism, teenage years, high school, parents, death, wisdom, bravery, self-esteem.

Reviews of Everton Miles is Stranger than Me:

Kirkus Reviews
Canlit For Little Canadians
Fab Book Reviews
Resource Links, (E for Excellent)
Goodreads

The Costumer is Always Right

I've been to a few funerals lately. It's the time of life, I guess (middle-age kind of sucks). This month my family said goodbye to the costume designer in our lives. My sister-in-law, special Aunt to my kids, she was full of life, hilarious, generous, creative, successful. Every year at one regular family event we went go-carting, and she was always a notorious speed demon. She didn't care whose life she endangered, child or adult, or how fast she took the corners. An apt metaphor for her life.

And like the Bad Auntie in the poem below, she always won. Rather than remember her with a lament, I share the sweet children's poem she inspired me to write a few years ago, a tribute to our favourite Bad Aunties, everywhere...

My Bad Auntie

My favourite aunt is very bad!

"The Costumer is Always Right"
A sign that has hung for years in my
sister-in-law's costume shop in Toronto

We creep downstairs so Mom and Dad,

Won’t see us sneak cookies and cake,

Or march the dog around on skates.

We dance the hoola in our socks,

We spin tall glasses and change the clocks.

My auntie likes to startle crows,

And make a mess wherever she goes.

She plays the drums in a rock’n’roll band,

And chases donkeys along the sand,

She’s a go-cart fiend and always wins,

She plays in leaves, and spins (and spins).

My auntie blows bubbles in shapes like cats,

And bowling balls and baseball bats.

When she’s a magician I never know,

How she does it, or where she goes.

My auntie plays the flute sometimes,

And writes me poems (they always rhyme).

She climbs the trees, hangs upside down,

And chases dogs ‘round and ‘round.

We go to plays and symphonies,

And both try hard not to sneeze.

At the county fair she swan dives,

From the tippy-top of the scariest ride!

At the swimming pool, she’s a shark,

And a dinosaur at the park.

When we walk by she always stops,

For rainbow fudge at the ice cream shop.

When she’s tired she cuddles with Ted,

And falls asleep in my bed.

If I asked right then I think she could,

Change for me, from bad … to good!

Here's another POEM about loss on this Blog: PATIENCE

All Poetry on this Blog

Update 2022: my sister-in-law has also inspired a book. Read about FIREFLY on this blog.

Double barrelled graduation year at my house

Congratulations to the Class of 2016!

In a very rare moment of personal revelation, I'm using this space which is usually reserved for bookish-stuff, to post these two graduation pictures of my kids (hey, it's my blog, my party!).

That's because I'm incredibly proud of both of them.

Top photo, my son graduates with Honors from high school this spring, and heads to university.

Bottom photo, my daughter, the newly minted university graduate, commences this fall.

What strikes me most about these photos, is how quickly we got here. The year 2016 always seemed so far away, it was one of those future dates in our lives, in which both of my children would be finishing an important part of their academic lives, at the same time.

The thought of them actually ever reaching 18 and 21, seemed so, so very distant. Yet somehow, all those warm summer nights in the park, pushing a stroller and coralling a pre-schooler, have turned into now: 2016.

So here, to celebrate and commemorate, my favourite poem about being their mum, from so long ago:

Musings from the Back Porch: Found by Dog

And this one's pretty good too:

That Clothes Thing, in the Basement

And finally, this:

That Crazy Dress Your Mother Wore

Congratulations, my loves, my dearies!

Sibs, 2003

Release the Jets of September

CF18, RCAF

I live in a big city, beside a big lake. At the end of every summer there is a large summer fair which goes on for two weeks, and ends with a three-day airshow.

The airshow started about 10 minutes ago.

I know this because my house rocked and shook like a ragdoll as a mighty engine roared past, the Doppler effect making the roar sound exactly, and hilariously, like a movie. I ducked. I covered my ears. I thought of Top Gun. Apocalypse Now. Every WWII movie I've ever seen. You think a few things at once when a plane like that roars overhead. Your rational mind says, "Oh, the airshow." Your animal mind says, "RUN". Your rational mind kicks in again saying, "My, but that IS loud." Your animal mind says, "WHY AREN'T YOU RUNNING?" and so on.

Your body quakes, and you once again thank your luck that you've never been in a war zone, and that you live in a relatively peaceful and secure country.

It was likely a CF-18, the Canadian Air Forces plane of choice. A powerful noisemaker for a nation of peacekeepers. Wow. Definitely not a noise that says, "Be calm. We mean you no harm," regardless of your good intentions.

One September day a few years ago, the airshow planes started up. I was walking along a main street, most others around me also doing the "Oh, the airshow" thought bubble as the massive engines roared overhead. A few of us even stopped to look up, but we all knew what it was. Well, not everyone. One family I walked past was quaking and cowering in terror. I stopped to try to help. They looked at me for answers which I couldn't deliver in their own tongue. There was a grandfather, a father and mother and three little kids, all clinging together in the busy downtown street in the middle of the sidewalk. The children were crying, the adults clearly traumatized and not understanding what was going on. They looked at me with real pain and fear on their faces.

I felt so awful for them. I stopped and tried to help, saying, "It's really okay. It's just the airshow. Everything is alright. It's supposed to be fun." I think my tone helped a little, but we didn't understand each other so I couldn't be sure. I said a few times, "It's okay. You're safe," but I'm not sure they believed me.

Sir Hugh Dowding

My family comes from a long line of military types. If you are a WWII buff, you might recognize my last name. It is the same as Sir Hugh Dowding, who was Winston Churchill's Commander of the RAF from 1939-1942. A crusty wartime hero and also a relative of mine, he was my grandfather's cousin (or second-cousin). My father built RAF gun turrets from 1941-1945, and survived a bombing at work at age 15. All of my mother's brothers were also in the RAF during WWII; one a Lancaster bomber upper mid gunner, one a plane engineer in Egypt, and one a decorated Spitfire pilot.

That last uncle also died in a Battle of Britain airshow in England in 1952.

I recognize the tremendous bravery it takes to fight on after exhaustion sets in and all odds are against you. I appreciate the sacrifice my father made as a teenager, and how clever and talented my uncle must have been to fly a Spitfire with the RAF and not die until after the war.

I also know that airshows terrify some people, and only someone who has never been terrorized by war could call it fun.

A favourite time and place

The author at Wasaga beach

Beach trail

Summer sunset on Georgian Bay

It's been a short summer. It always is. Three weeks until school. So here, in no particular order, are some photos that say we'll live the last three weeks of our short Canadian summer like kings. Or, as Stuart Little said, "Never forget your summertimes, my dears."

'72 Corvette at the cottage

That Clothes Thing in the Basement ...

Here's a poem for my 13-year old son.

Machine

It is midnight, and there is a word for

the machine you are trying to describe:

that clothes thing in the basement...

for cleaning stuff...

It is a laundry machine my son,

a tool too long in the making

since it only helped to lessen

the domestic drudgery for women,

not men

had men been in charge of clean clothes,

the laundry machine would have been

invented centuries earlier

the best we came up with was a stone, a board, and a line

not bad, though, for found tools within reach

of the babies and the bean rows

women would get the wind and the sun

to help, it only makes sense

when we’re doing everything else, too

delegation is key

Martha Ballard attended the birthing of 835 babies

(834 live)

sometimes travelling all night on horseback,

between neighbouring farms when
two deliveries were imminent,

falling into icy rivers drying her wet

skirts and wool stockings by the fire,

riding home by daybreak

to plant the peas and rhubarb

the only day of the week that laid her low

was the day she died, which also happened to be a laundry day

You and your adolescent friends

seem awed by this machine,

cranky and well-used, you

intone “Maytag” as though it is a superhero

Yet you all wait patiently
as I explain about permanent press

and whites and spin cycles,

I’m a little awed myself

that you even care

that you need your clothes cleaned

so badly, at this hour, on a Saturday night

I tell you “laundry machine”

then give you the tools to clean your clothes

I leave you to the ancient mysteries of the wash

and you do it, yourselves, as men

The January of funerals and flamenco

What an intense month. Two very close friends lost their mothers this week, and another close friend lost her mother on Christmas Day. All three were strong, interesting, and intelligent women.

In the past two weeks I've been to funerals, and mourned with my lifelong friends. I've also spent a night watching the top flamenco troup from Spain (Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca), dance, sing and clap their hearts out in a great affirmation.  The hypnotic, ecstatic dances expressed love, loss, joy, death, the song of life.

Funerals and flamenco, about as far apart on the human emotional diversity scale as you can possibly get, and yet equally intense. Needless to say, I'm a bit drained.

January is a difficult time of year here in Canada, at the best of times. I read somewhere once that the third Monday in January  is considered the worst day of the year in the western world, because it is the exact middle of the winter, and it's the day credit card statements arrive in the mail with all those excesses from the holidays. I've also read that the happiest people aren't necessarily the richest, but instead are those who have fulfilling work, a close network of friends and family, and who have a creative outlet to express themselves.

My creative life has definitely been a great source of happiness. There has never been a time when I didn't want to write, even when there might have been brief moments that I didn't enjoy my family life or my other career as a copywriter.

So, in keeping with the memory of three lovely women and the ecstasy of flamenco, I say affirm yourself! Throw paint at the wall! Let words drip through your fingers! Dance, stretch, play, sing, cook a favourite recipe, read a great book or write one. Clap and stomp your way through life, swirl your skirt, clasp your lapels, pull up a chair and dance with friends.

This January has made me think it's time for a change. Flamenco lessons, anyone?

First year university, then and now ...

I completed my undergraduate degree in English in the mid-1980s. I did an MA a few years later.

When I started university, my parents handed me an old, second-hand typewriter that had been left at our house by a long-ago visitor. It was made in the mid-60s, of indestructible cast iron. This ancient piece of equipment was sturdy, enormous, and must have weighed over 60 pounds. I kept it under my work desk by my feet, and rolled up my sleeves whenever I needed to hoist it desk-side to use it.

It was electric, barely. When I plugged it in, it warmed to life and shook the table. It needed time to calm down to a gentle, roaring, reliable chug.

It was fantastic. It had a wonderful typeface and never broke. The ribbon was endless. I don't recall ever replacing it, and I used it through four undergraduate years of interminable English essays. It was always the standby for panicked room-mates at 2:00 a.m. when other, lesser typewriters broke down.

Who has a typewriter I can use? Philippa does.

When I started graduate school, a newer typewriter was purchased for me. It had a reversible, back-space correction ribbon (good-bye half dried-out bottles of correction fluid), plus a 25-word memory buffer. It was the newest thing, but I never really liked it as much as my first typewriter. It needed repairs constantly, and zipped through ribbons like candy. I bought them in bulk.

Fast forward to 2012. My own child is now in first year university. We sent her off to school in September with a very reliable PC she'd had for a year. But it might as well have been an ancient typewriter. It was too big to take to class. It didn't fit on the tiny flip-up tables at her seat. It wasn't the same equipment as the teacher was using.

For the first six weeks of her university career, my child used, gasp, a pencil and paper in class to take her notes, just like I did. Positively stone age. She aced all her mid-terms and her course work, no problem. 

This weekend, we acquiesced and she now has a new little sleek machine which she will tote to class and follow along with her teacher's powerpoint notes. I wonder, I really do, how this will affect her retention. There is nothing like pencil and paper and our own handwriting for learning new concepts.

I digress. The real issue here is the impermanence of technology. I wonder how long her sleek little machine will last (despite the three year warranty)? Will it make it through her four undergraduate years? I doubt it, that seems like several lifetimes for a laptop.

I have lost track of my first typewriter, it was sold I think, in a garage sale years ago. But I have no doubt that someone could use it still, reliable and indestructible beast that it was. 

And my daughter's laptop? Landfill-bound, I have no doubt, in three years.

Musings from the back porch: a poem

Found by dog

Blonde ragdoll (just the head)

Plastic beaded bracelet (muddied)

Red plastic beach shovel (no handle)

Pink swim shoe (size 2)

Heinken can (ten years out)

Manky scrub-brush (his favourite thing of all)

Bubble blower (yellow)

Star Wars Death Star model (still in remarkable shape, considering)

Six inch plastic Yoda (spotless, but then, its Yoda)

Beautiful green glass Buddha (strangely the same size and spotlessness as Yoda, wonder if they’ve been communing in universal radiance down there)

Mouldy yard gloves (in the garbage, this instant)

Yellow rubber gloves filled with potato bugs (ditto)

What appears to be the sole of a shoe (ditto ditto)

The blue plastic bottom of an elephant sprinkler (totally forgot how fun that was)

An eyeball bouncey ball (always gave me the creeps, weird to see it again)

A porpoise water gun (from the “no-guns-allowed-in-our-house” phase)

A can so old and soft with time that it must have been there when the house was built in 1912.  (More proof that every home is an evolution)

Delighted by detritus, a junk-pile curator,

these are the layered treasures my young dog has brought me, 

faithfully, each day in his wanderings through the dark, 

hidden places under the back porch.

Resurrected, lined up across the railing, an impressive archaeologist this little dog,
a magician in fact…

…bringing me my daughter in her pink swim shoes, pudgy arms raised to catch bubbles, running through the elephant sprinkler, 

her brother patiently waiting to be born

and me there too, somewhere, 

almost forgetting to remember.

Samwise Gamgee stars on TVOKIDS

Kailan, Milou, TVOKIDS host Drew, and Samwise!

Okay, it's not Sean Astin and Lord of the Rings. It's my puppy, Samwise Gamgee, a 4-month-old bichon frise/poodle cross. He and his best puppy friend Milou were the stars of International Puppy Day yesterday on TVOKIDS.
The puppies were awesome, playing in between live 2-minute segments, then being very well-behaved when the camera was on them. Kailan, Milou's owner, was great too. She got Milou to do tricks!
Thanks Drew, Lisa and everyone at TVOKIDS , we had a great time.
Stardom must be exhausting though. Sam came home and slept for four hours.

Truth and beauty: what a mother knows ...

Derivative

I walk behind,

they ahead,

laughing and insouciant,

too loud on lithe, lovely legs

The girl striking, green eyes

and thick wavy hair,

who also happens to be a genius

with low self-esteem

(and strange fingers due to fever,

once you hold them and stroke them,

you realize how short they are,

and crooked

and unfortunately sweaty)

but they work so well with

type, and charm birds with a clarinet

The blue-eyed boy a swaggerer

or maybe it’s just the age—13—

and broad, so very broad,

those shoulders

(so broad that they were stuck

at birth, and one collarbone

was snapped, like a twig,

to remove him)

but great for batting practice

or hauling wood

or establishing dominance

among the other bull calves

These are mine I want to say,

as they cut a swath through the mall.

But they are not mine.

They belong to each other,

and to whomever is beguiled

by their crooked fingers and green eyes,

broken bones at birth, and blue eyes,

warped, mended, derivative

flawed, and so beautiful


PD/Nov 2/2011

Magenta gets that floating feeling

My 17-year-old daughter, let’s call her Kay, came home from her first day of grade twelve with the best news: she got a major part in this year’s high school drama production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show!!

Big news indeed.

Considering that this girl has a fine, clear, sweet voice. Considering that this girl rocked the six main voices in “Goodbye, Blue Sky” in grade nine for the school production of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Considering that she had a headpiece and mic in the grade ten production of Thirteen (a dreadful musical that no high school student should ever have to endure).

And also considering that she had a terrible, terrible year in grade ten, because of an awful boy. A boyfriend gone sour, gone awful, gone bad, bad, bad as a boy can get.

And because of this terrible boyfriend, her marks dropped. Her friends vanished (except for the true blue few). Her teachers all gave up on her.

And she got a rotten non-singing part in her grade eleven production of Cabaret, because none of the teachers thought she would turn up for rehearsal, or learn her part, or pay attention (all true the year before because of the Very Bad Boyfriend, who from now on shall be referred to as the VBBF).

Imagine. A non-singing part in C-A-B-A-R-E-T!!

So this year she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and started all over. She learned a fantastic song and a hilarious, pouty monologue, which she nailed in her rehearsal last spring. She was willing to face whatever came, another crap part, even if it was her last year in high school, her last year doing the musical, her last year waiting for a lead role…

…and today she found out that she got one!

Her teachers (bless them) see what I see, a great girl who had a rough year in grade ten with the VBBF, and who deserves another chance at a bigger role. She came into the house tonight bursting with her news:

I GOT MAGENTA! I GOT MAGENTA! I GOT MAGENTA!

(It’s a main part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for those of you whose viewing of said movie is so long ago, it is now a misty memory, or perhaps for those of you who somehow made it through high school and years of Halloween without seeing it!)

And we danced around together! We linked arms and danced around the living room, me just loving the joy on her face, and the excited race of her voice. It was just like she was six again.

She stopped dancing, and she said all out-of-breath, “Wow, what is this I’m feeling, mom?”

“It’s called happiness, Kay. Remember that? You don’t get to feel pure joy too often in life, just go with it. Float on it as long as you want.”

Then we danced some more. And I have to say, her joy was infectious: it was pretty easy to float right along with her.

It was just like she took her first step, or rode her bike for the first time, or lost a tooth, or got an “A”. I realized something important tonight: the milestones get fewer and further between when they reach their teens, but they get bigger, too.

And they still need you to dance along with them, and you never forget how.

For more on Magenta: Magenta rocks the stage