Songs of the Month

I've been trying to write this post for two days, but the words just wouldn't come. This was supposed to be a soundtrack, like those lists people create on Spotify, but there were no songs. At least, not in the way I first imagined.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized July did have a soundtrack. It just wasn't made of music. It was made of birds singing outside my window, cicadas serenading us on the hottest days, conversations that didn't really matter but somehow did, pages turning in my journal, footsteps on my walk to Aquafit, and more than one night when my brain absolutely refused to shut up.

Maybe those are the songs we carry with us anyway.

 
Looking back on a month always makes it seem much neater than it felt while I was living it. July wasn't neat at all. It kept changing direction. Just when I thought I knew what I was doing, something else would catch my attention and carry me somewhere I hadn't expected to go.

Sometimes it was creativity, or what I usually call getting side-tracked. I could lose hours moving things around on a journal page or trying one more idea for the blog simply because I wanted to see if it would work. Other days it was memories. Buckhorn, my hometown, kept calling me back this month and, once I started opening those doors, I found myself remembering things I hadn't thought about in years.

I needed those memories because for a long time I've thought of my childhood as one long sad story. This month reminded me it never was. The difficult memories are still there and always will be, but they no longer stand alone. Somewhere between remembering the bad stuff were blueberry fields, corn roasts, horses on lead reins, finding treasures at the dump, and watching bears from the safety of the car. I'd forgotten there was joy living beside the sorrow.

It was also a month that challenged me both physically and mentally. I spent time in the emergency room with a urinary tract infection, worried more than once about the way fatigue seemed to settle into my bones, and found myself wondering whether depression was quietly trying to make its way back into my life. None of those things were part of the plan, but then again, life rarely asks permission before rewriting the schedule.

Looking back now, those aren't the moments that stayed with me the most.

I remember writing Good Neighbours after witnessing a stranger being treated with cruelty. I remember finally settling into a new look for the blog after trying more templates than I care to admit. I remember giving myself Permission to Play and discovering that curiosity still has a way of leading me somewhere worthwhile.

Without meaning to, July kept circling around the same ideas. Curiosity. Kindness. Memory. Permission. I never set out to write about those things, but they kept appearing until I stopped fighting them and started paying attention.

Maybe that's all any of us are really doing—learning to notice the things that quietly make up a life. The birds outside the window become part of the morning, the walk to the Y becomes time to think, conversations stay with us longer than we expect, and old memories return when they're finally ready to be heard. Even the difficult days have something to say if we're willing to listen.

Now July is coming to an end, and August is waiting just around the corner.

I've already given August its own theme: Rest & Reset. It feels like exactly what I need because my year doesn't begin in January. It begins in October, around my birthday, and that makes August and September something different. They're not really the end of one year or the beginning of another. They're the quiet space in between, where I can catch my breath before I start dreaming about what comes next.

The planner in me knows September will be filled with ideas for the year ahead, and the creative part of me is already peeking around the corner to see what's waiting. But August doesn't have to carry any of that. It can simply be what it needs to be: a chance to rest, to notice, to restore, and to begin again a little more gently than before.

Before I can start planning another year, I need to rest and review. I want to think about what is working and what isn't, what I need instead of what I simply want, and allow things to settle into whatever new shape they are meant to take. Most of all, I want to look honestly at who I was last October and who I have become along the way.

Not every season of life needs to be filled with big moments. Sometimes the quieter seasons are the ones that help us hear ourselves again.

I think that's reason enough to slow down for a while.

Good Neighbours

There are moments in our lives that don't seem especially important at the time. They happen, we move on, and years later we suddenly realize they helped shape the adults we became.

One of those moments happened to me when I was sixteen.

It began with something my dad said. At the time I didn't understand what he meant, but his words sank deep into my unconscious and quietly became part of the person I am today.

My mother had recently become confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Overnight everything changed for our family. There were extra expenses, uncertainty, and no clear idea of what the future would look like. Our little village decided to hold a benefit dance to help Mom and Dad get through those first difficult months while they figured things out.

I don't remember much about the dance itself. I couldn't tell you what music was playing or even who was there. What I do remember is something my dad said. He looked around the hall and quietly said, "These are good neighbours."

At the time I didn't understand what he meant. I knew people had come to help us, but I didn't really see anything beyond that. They were just people from our village.

I've thought about those words off and on over the years, and it took me a long time to understand what Dad was trying to tell me.

I think he meant that being a good neighbour has very little to do with living next door to someone. It's about seeing that someone needs help and doing what you can. You don't stop to ask what's in it for you. You don't keep score. You don't expect to be paid back. You simply do what you can because someone needs a hand.

The only thing you hope is that if life ever turns against you, someone else will help you the same way. Not because they owe you anything, but because that's what good neighbours do.

Looking back now, I think that's why those words became tied to the Golden Rule in my mind: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Not because you expect them to do it, but because if you ever find yourself in need, you hope someone else has learned the same lesson.

That simple idea has stayed with me all my life. The two thoughts became almost inseparable in my mind, and together they became one of the guiding principles of my life.

I haven't always been able to help in big ways. Sometimes my health gets in the way. Sometimes all I can offer is a listening ear, a kind word, or something as simple as a drink of water on a hot day. I don't think the size of the kindness matters nearly as much as the willingness to give it without expecting anything in return.

Maybe the world has changed since then, or maybe I've simply noticed it more as I've gotten older, but sometimes it feels like we've forgotten what it means to be neighbours. We seem quicker to judge than to help, quicker to argue than to understand, and quicker to persecute than to offer a helping hand. I hope I'm wrong.

I hope there are still far more good neighbours than we hear about. After all, kindness has never been very good at making headlines. It usually happens quietly, when no one is watching. That's the point of kindness, isn't it? You do what's right because it's the right thing to do, not because anyone is watching or because you expect something in return.

Looking back now, I realize Dad wasn't just talking about the people who came to that dance. Without knowing it, he was showing me the kind of person he hoped I would become, and I've carried that lesson with me ever since.

I still believe being a good neighbour is one of the best things a person can be.

A good neighbour helps because someone needs help. If that kindness comes back one day, that's a blessing. If it doesn't, it was still the right thing to do. 

 

The Principle I Learned

A good neighbour helps because someone needs help.

• Be kind.

• Be honest.

• Listen before judging.

• Help when you can.

• Expect nothing in return.

• Appreciate the people around you.

• Forgive whenever possible.

• Respect our differences.

• Share what you have.

• Leave the world a little better than you found it.

 

Through The Senses - One More Thing

I originally intended to write about summer through the senses. June has been full of birdsong, green leaves, warm breezes, and the smell of rain on hot pavement. There has been plenty to notice. Yet when I sat down to think about this week, another theme kept pushing its way to the front.

My plan

One more thing.

It seemed to follow me through the entire second half of June.

The week began with a phone call from E, who had received a message from GD#2 about GD#3. The details were vague but alarming. She had been found in a room with three boys and was incoherent. Her mother wasn't taking her to the hospital.

My mind immediately went back to my daughter and the night I found her in a similar condition. Getting her to the hospital had been the first thing I did, so hearing that GD#3 wasn't being taken immediately upset me. I also assumed she had been roofied and taken advantage of, even though nothing E told me actually suggested that. As a survivor of sexual abuse, that is where my mind went.

With so little information, I sent BM#2 a message accusing her of being a bad mother because she wasn't doing what I believed she should. The truth was that most of what I was reacting to came from my own experiences, not the situation in front of me.

The real story was different. A combination of edibles and alcohol had simply been too much for a fourteen-year-old body to handle. She lost her senses and became incoherent. Once I learned what had actually happened, I immediately sent an apology.

After the immediate crisis had passed, I found myself sorting through my own reactions and realizing how easily past experiences can shape our view of the present. There was an apology to send, feelings to untangle, and the uncomfortable recognition that sometimes we see old wounds before we see current reality. Even while dealing with that, I found myself filling my collection envelope with bits and pieces from previous weeks after being convinced I had nothing worth saving.

Then came the fall.

What should have been an ordinary day involving Aquafit and a stop at the hot tub turned into a much bigger ordeal. At first I dismissed it. It was a fall, nothing more—or so I thought. I'd had several over the last few years, but this was the first time my daughter had witnessed one.

I tripped over a changing-room bench, struck my neck on something, and landed hard on my backside. The YMCA staff were notified and their first aid attendant insisted I go to the hospital. They offered to call an ambulance, but I refused. Ness and Dean were there and could drive me themselves.

My daughter then suggested I use a wheelchair. I vetoed that idea too.

I was hurt, but I didn't think I was hurt that badly.

Several hours of waiting, x-rays, and a new prescription proved that perhaps I wasn't the best judge of that.

I earned this treat

Afterward we stopped at the pharmacy. While waiting for the prescription to be filled, I mailed the Disability Tax Credit paperwork that had been sitting on my desk. As a thank-you for all their help, I treated the family to Crumbl cookies and somehow still found enough energy to work on July graphics.

It felt like an entire week's worth of activity compressed into a single day.

Yet that was only one day.

The next morning began with another loud argument outside my window. The same outsiders who seem determined to provide the soundtrack for my summer were at it again. Between bursts of shouting, I watched the black squirrel making his daily rounds. I could hear pigeons cooing, chickadees calling, and starlings chattering. Rain came down in sheets.

I, meanwhile, woke sore and stiff from the fall.

Blog work still needed doing. Pinterest pins still needed creating. There were lessons to learn in GIMP and projects that turned out to be far more complicated than they first appeared. What looked like a simple editing exercise became a reminder that the smallest details often require the most effort.

That was Tuesday.

By midweek I found myself confronting a different kind of exhaustion. Everyday Threads was beginning to feel like more than a Pinterest board. It was becoming a way of organizing memories, interests, stories, and experiences. I could feel the project growing beyond its original purpose.

For perhaps the first time, I recognized I had reached my limit and chose to stop rather than push through. A younger version of me might not have made the same choice.

my home @ the golden hour

 Then came what I privately think of as One More Thing Day.

The motivation I had been relying on simply vanished. My neck was swollen enough to require ice. My backside was still tender. I went to do laundry and the key to the front door snapped off in the lock. Thankfully my son was able to remove it, but I was suddenly locked out of both the building and the laundry room.

Then the ATM refused a cash deposit from Myles. When I tried again myself, it refused me too, forcing a trip to the teller. After that, I discovered my online payee list had completely vanished.

I'd already had to replace my bank card twice in one week because a questionable website had attempted to withdraw money from my account without permission. Somehow, replacing the card had wiped out the payee list I needed.

One trip to the bank became two.

During the second visit, the teller discovered a second card number attached to my account. It was inactive but still sitting there. After she restored my payee list, I asked her to remove it.

Laundry still waited.

GS#1's graduation was approaching.

Aquafit was on the schedule.

Every time I dealt with one problem, another appeared. Even my creative projects seemed determined to resist me.

None of the individual issues were particularly serious. Together, however, they became exhausting. Every problem required a little more attention, a little more energy, and a little more patience. By the end of the week I felt as though I had spent more time responding to life than actually living it.

What struck me most was how physical the experience felt. I could hear the constant noise behind the building that has become such a source of frustration. I could feel the soreness in my neck, hips, and back. Fatigue settled into my body and stayed there. Even my thoughts seemed to move more slowly than usual.

This was not simply a busy week.

It was a week I experienced through every part of myself.

And yet, life continued to offer reminders of why persistence matters.

Watching GS#1 reach high school graduation with autism led me to think about perseverance and the quiet determination it takes to keep moving forward. Not everyone reaches their goals in a straight line. Not everyone does it gracefully. Most of us stumble, become discouraged, get distracted, encounter obstacles, and have days when we would rather quit.

Then we get up and continue anyway.

As I looked back over the week through ChatGPT and my journal, I realized that the story was never really about the fall, the paperwork, the broken key, the bank problems, the noise, or any of the other interruptions.

The story was that progress was still happening underneath all of it.

Summer Threads continued to take shape. Everyday Threads continued to grow. Goals were reviewed. Projects moved forward. Important conversations happened. Family milestones were celebrated.

Still flowing, still going.

 
The week felt messy while I was living it. Looking back now, I can see a different picture.

Life kept adding one more thing.

And somehow, despite the fatigue, frustration, and unexpected detours, I kept adding one more step.

Collected Moments

When we talk about our summer, we talk about big things. The first beach day. The family barbecue. The vacation everyone remembers years later. But that is not summer at all.

Summer is built from moments. Trying on a new bathing suit, discovering a new café, or returning to an old haunt. We remember fireflies and the sounds of a summer night with crickets and June bugs and, if you live in the right place, the bullfrogs' nightly song. That is what the last two weeks reminded me of: moments from my childhood remembered today.

The walk to the local beach, swimming, always swimming. I loved the water. The first ice cream cone from the local ice cream shop. As I grew older, it began to include the taste of new strawberries fresh from the plant and the vanilla iced coffee that became a fixture in my summer life. The first road trip to anywhere was also a treat. I've relived those moments every year, this year included.

Those moments may not seem important when they happen, but they are often the things we remember long after the larger events have faded. This has been my focus this week: Seeing, with a capital S, all the little things that make up summer.

Some of those moments have come through my camera lens. A rain-covered oak leaf caught my attention after a morning shower. The water droplets transformed something ordinary into something worth stopping for. It was only a leaf, but for a few minutes it became the entire focus of my attention. The many shades of green crowd around, asking to be noticed. The world is bursting with life if you take a moment to look beyond yourself and into the natural world around you.

Don't get me wrong, bad things happen too: careless fires, spoiled food, and sometimes something that sours the mood. But if you look up and out, you can always find something that brings you joy.

Other moments arrived through routine.

Aquafit has become one of the rhythms of my week. The class itself matters, but so do the pieces around it. The walk to the YMCA. The familiar faces. The relief of moving in water rather than fighting gravity on land. The few quiet minutes in the hot tub afterward.

 None of these moments would make a headline. Together, however, they tell the story of a summer that is unfolding one ordinary day at a time.

This week also included errands, appointments, and unexpected frustrations. A damaged birth certificate meant another round of paperwork. Appointments brought waiting rooms and uncertainty. There were moments when I felt tired, discouraged, or simply overwhelmed by the number of things demanding attention. Yet even within those days, there were small things worth keeping.

A successful photograph. I managed quite a collection of those, from the oak leaf to a dress I found at a yard sale to all the green of the world as it exists in summer. The purples and yellows of late spring flowers followed, or mingled with, the pinks and reds of summer blooms. The blue sky and drifting clouds are there too. They are all things I've collected with my camera.

Summer lives in our senses.

The sounds and songs of summer are there too. A shared laugh with my daughter. Crickets and June bugs. Children at play. Music blasting in the air. They are all sounds that surround me day and night. The rain on the windowpane is in there too, and everywhere the laughter of people simply enjoying the sun.

The taste of strawberries I savour. The iced coffee that is my everyday order from Tims and the ones I make myself. That is summer. Ice cream, all kinds of ice cream, and recently a place called Crumbl with the most delicious cookies I've ever tasted. Salads of all sorts blend flavours beyond compare. They too are part of summer.

The smell of newly cut grass and lilacs perfumes the air. Other flowers too; their scents mingle and linger, transformed and strengthened by the summer sun. Suntan oil and OFF are in there as well, but I prefer the perfumes from the flowers.

The velvety feel of peony petals. The tickle as I allow my hands to float through the leaves as I walk. The softness of grass beneath my feet is a favourite, but so too is the slight burning sensation of walking on hot pavement. Soft dresses comfort me, and the elasticity of my swimsuit always makes me smile because it means that soon I'll be in the water. Nothing compares to that feeling except maybe a cool shower after a long walk.

The older I get, the more I realize that collecting moments is a practice of attention. The moments are always there. The challenge is noticing them.

When I began this month's Summer Threads theme, I imagined gathering small signs of the season. What I am discovering instead is that I am gathering evidence of a life being lived, of days that are full of sensation and pleasure, and of moments spent with family too long ignored.

A life filled with appointments and errands, family worries and household chores, cups of coffee and photographs, pool visits and quiet evenings. A life that is made meaningful not by its grand achievements but by its accumulation of ordinary days.

 It is not a perfect life. It is not always an exciting life. There are difficult moments, like filling out forms that require me to put my mental pain on display, or days when worry and uncertainty take up more space than I would like. Yet it is also a life rich with small pleasures, familiar comforts, and the people I love. My gratitude knows no bounds for the bounty Mother Nature shares at this time of year and for the reminder that even ordinary days can hold moments worth collecting.

That is what my journal pages have been reflecting this month. Envelopes filled with scraps, photographs tucked between pages, notes written quickly before they are forgotten. None of it seems particularly significant on its own.

Together, however, they become a record. Proof that these days happened. Proof that I was here. Proof that even the quietest seasons leave traces behind, and proof that I am alive and living my best life within this season.

As summer continues, I hope to keep collecting these moments. Not because they are extraordinary, but because they are not. The small things matter. The ordinary things matter. Perhaps that is what a season really becomes in the end—not a collection of major events, but a gathering of moments we cared enough to notice.

First Signs of Summer

I am pondering the first signs of summer today.

June, for me, is all about the senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Summer never arrives all at once. It arrives in pieces and threads, in bright colours and beautiful scents, in small moments that quietly announce a change of season.

The sights are the things that tend to catch my attention first.

One of the earliest signs of summer is the appearance of dandelions. After them come the lilacs, and then the strawberries. Sadly, there will be no strawberries in the garden this year. They were choked out by a vine last season, and no one has reseeded them. Even so, there is no shortage of colour.

The tulips and daffodils of spring have faded, replaced by apple blossoms, peonies, catmint, and the soft purple of lilacs. Everywhere I look, something seems to be blooming. The greens are deepening too. There are shades of green I don't notice at any other time of year.

The sounds of summer arriving are just as familiar.

I hear children playing outside. I hear the soft buzz of neighbours' voices as they gather on back porches to enjoy the evening warmth. I hear the rush of the river at its fullest and the gentle patter of rain against the window.

Some sounds have not arrived yet. I haven't heard the crickets or the June bugs, but I know they are coming.

The scents of early summer are everywhere.

Lilacs are the first thing I notice, followed by the smell of wet earth and fresh growth after rain. Sometimes there is the scent of someone barbecuing supper nearby. Even the air seems greener somehow, carrying the smell of leaves, grass, and gardens waking up.

Touch is perhaps the easiest sense to overlook, yet it is woven through many of my favourite moments.

There is the warmth of the sun on my skin and the cool softness of leaves as I run my hand through them while walking past. There is the comfort of a hug from family while spending time together outdoors.

And then there are the tastes that belong to summer.

The first vanilla iced coffee of the season is always a treat. So are strawberries and apples fresh from the orchard. Some foods seem tied to a particular season, and they never taste quite the same at any other time of year.

All of these things tell me that summer has arrived as much as the heat or the longer days. There are a dozen shades of green outside my window and so many pinks and purples in bloom that sometimes it feels dreamlike when I am out wandering. 

Summer never arrives all at once.

It arrives in pieces—in flowers and rain, in laughter and birdsong, in the scent of lilacs and the taste of iced coffee. It arrives one small moment at a time until, before I realize it, the season is fully here.

What Stayed -What I Chose to Keep

 

The theme of May is nostalgia and memory. I chose it because Mother’s Day is this month, and while working through my poetry, my mother appeared once again, bringing with her something I had not fully realized before. A part of me that is also her.

We shared a history that women of neither generation openly acknowledged or talked about. I wish that silence had passed with time, but it hasn’t. There is a statistic I have remembered for years, one that still makes me terribly sad. One in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. It is called many things, but when it happens to a child, it is still violence. It is still a violation.

 I have five granddaughters. Statistically, two or three of them may experience or has experienced some form of that harm in their lives. That thought weighs heavily on me sometimes.

I am not entirely sure why this is where my mind went tonight. This week was supposed to be about “what stayed,” and at first all I could think about was mental pain. Maybe it is because this is Mental Health Month. Maybe it is because memory does not separate itself neatly into pleasant and unpleasant things. Our memories are often built from the moments that shaped us most deeply, and for many women those are not always happy memories.

What happened changes you. I know that now. It changed my mother. It changed me. It changed my daughter. Trauma leaves behind fear, anger, shame, and mistrust that can touch nearly every part of life if we let it.

For a long time I believed that was the only thing that stayed.

But as I kept writing, I realized something else stayed too.

Compassion stayed.

I often say that I do not know how to love properly, but people tell me I have a big heart. What I understand best is compassion — recognizing the pain in others because I know what pain feels like myself.

 I try to listen more than I speak. I try not to judge people too quickly because I know how much hidden suffering people carry. I give hugs instead of harsh words whenever I can. Sometimes my words still come out wrong, and when they do I think about it for hours afterward because I genuinely do not want to hurt anyone.

 My father used to call helping others because you can “being a good neighbour.” That stayed too.

So did determination.

People have called me stubborn all my life, but I think much of that stubbornness is really resilience. I decided long ago that I would never live only as a victim of what happened to me. Life has given me many setbacks, including cancer, but somehow I have continued moving forward through all of them.

And maybe that is part of what stayed as well — the refusal to let suffering make me cruel.

I remember when I told CAS about what had happened to my daughter. My mother was scandalized by it, but my daughter protected her own daughter fiercely from experiencing the same thing. That matters to me. The silence did not continue unchanged. Something shifted between generations, even if imperfectly.

That realization may be the most important thing I have learned.

We are not our history.

Our experiences shape us, yes. They leave marks. They influence how we move through the world. But history does not have to repeat itself forever, and pain does not have to consume every corner of our lives.

We still have choices.

 I may not always be able to prevent painful things from happening, but I can choose what I do afterward. I can seek counseling. I can learn coping strategies. I can remind myself that what happened was not my fault. I can remember that I am not alone in suffering and that I do not have to spend the rest of my life trapped inside old pain.

What stayed was not only hurt.

Compassion stayed.
Resilience stayed.
Choice stayed.

And after everything, I still want to be kind.