The screams are the first thing I hear. Looking up from the ice cream buffet, I see a crowd of young people stampeding toward us. Is there a shooter on the premises? Immediately I scan the surroundings for places we might take shelter. My husband, three daughters, and parents are standing near the cashier where they are lined up to order. I grab Vivian’s hands and consider crouching behind the counter to hide.
It is 8 pm on New Years’ Day and we are at Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami. We’ve been in this thrumming city for two days already, following the itinerary Susanna created from our kitchen table in Saskatchewan. On New Year’s Eve we caught a Div. 1 basketball game (the Miami Hurricanes against the Louisville Cardinals) and followed it with dinner at a Cuban restaurant on one of the busiest strips in the city. Then we hustled to Miami Beach to listen to a string quartet while we dug our feet into the sand and watched the moon rise above the twinkling skyscrapers. Lastly, Belén, Susanna, and I checked out a street party and saw the fireworks before heading to the hotel where the others had already turned in.
So far, everything has gone better than planned. We’ve spoken Spanish nearly the whole time, eaten rice and beans, heard salsa on the streets, and felt like we were far from home. Which is exactly why we came here in the first place. When my parents invited us to Orlando to spend time with the whole family, we decided to come to Miami beforehand for a little adventure. To remind ourselves that there are many ways to live a life. It’s worked. On New Year’s Eve I am normally in ski pants and a toque; here, women in ballgowns climb out of Lamborghinis. Roosters wander the streets in Little Havana and smoke vapour hangs over outdoor hookah lounges on Collins Avenue. At our breakfast table, earlier in the day, we noticed the small plastic pitcher in the middle of the table–the kind where you press your thumb on the handle to dispense the syrup—was filled with salsaverde. It was just the kind of surprise I wait for when I travel. The unexpected details, even the smell of urine in brick-lined alleyways, wink at me from every corner.
Between all of this noticing and doing we haven’t had time for ice cream, much to Vivian’s chagrin. “We’ll find you ice cream today, Vivi,” I had promised her while buying tickets at the Frost Science Centre, “even if it takes us until midnight!” I laughed at the hyperbole and started meandering through the aquarium. Behind the glass, a duo of mango-coloured fish moved in tandem. One darted to the left and the other replicated the turn at the same time, as if rehearsing a perfectly choreographed routine. Another shoal of larger fish nearby swam in one direction, then immediately reversed in unison. Who tells them where to go, and when, I wondered.
Hours later, Vivian is just about to order her long-promised ice cream, when pandemonium ensues. After a wave of people rush by, I look to Stan. His eyes search in all directions for clues as to the threat. A moment passes and no one seems to know what to do. The ice cream lady is still holding her scoop in the air with her eye-brows raised.
“I’d like the raspberry swirl,” Vivian requests.
I am uneasy. (Later my kids will tell me this is an understatement. They will say that I looked more like a wild animal.) Every cell in my body is directing me to flee, even though I don’t know exactly from what, or where to go.
Just as our server digs into Vivi’s dessert, the shopkeeper across the way starts waving one hand above his head while his other holds his phone. It must be a call from security. “Cierrelo! Cierrelo!” he mouths while looping his pointer finger in the air frantically.
I don’t need one minute more to think.
“Run!” I yell, then confirm our number—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven–as we hold hands and leave in the direction we came. I look back and see a stream of people—some sprinting, some shuffling—behind us while our ice cream server yanks the steel curtains around her kiosk. I picture her huddled on the floor, behind the freezers in the dark, listening to feet pounding past.
Soon we are shoulder to shoulder with strangers and it’s hard to know if we heading to safety or away from it. We haven’t heard any gun shots, just shouting, but the panic is visceral.
A group of young men wearing black balaclavas advance toward us. They are swaggering. I slow instinctively. “Don’t look afraid,” I tell myself. “Be invisible and slide past.”
We do.
Stan and my daughters are a few steps ahead. I tug on my mom’s hand who is grasping my dad. Can’t they move any faster? My dad is 81, but he is still agile. I consider telling him to run like he’s tending to an auger during harvest, but I don’t waste my time. We are just one family among thousands in this park who are looking to get out, and I don’t want to turn back more than I have to.
Bodies press against our own while we wait at the stoplight near a park entrance. Thankfully, Susanna booked our hotel downtown, and we only need to cross Biscayne Boulevard to reach it. In 200 meters we scoot into the lobby and exhale behind the elevator doors as they close. On the seventh floor, we bolt our doors, then open our curtains to watch the scene below.
With our noses against the glass for the next couple of hours, we try to decipher what we see. People continue to pour out of the park, but it appears to be in bursts and in random directions like the movements of a school of fish. Sirens sound and shouting carries through the glass. We still don’t know what has caused the chaos. Is there a sniper on the parking garage? We hear popping sounds. Over the next few hours, at least 70 Miami police cars converge on the site.
“I don’t like it here,” Vivian says, pushing away from the window. “When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow.” Stan looks up from his cell phone where he is searching for news updates and repeats, “Tomorrow morning.” This was the plan even before tonight’s events, but I’m glad for our imminent departure.
Adrenaline still courses through my body. This is how I was created: to respond to danger instinctively. It makes sense in situations like this, but panic has fooled me before. I’ve felt anxiety ripping through me in times and places where I wasn’t remotely threatened. Where the anxiety itself became the disruptor and was anything but helpful. Somehow, as humans, we have to figure out when to dismiss these cues and when to react. Today my body was telling me truth. I’m glad I listened.
I’m not the only one whose body is sending urgent messages. I am sure the officers arming themselves with weapons, the gangs funnelling into the park, and everyone else in the jostling crowds feels heightened too. The experience confirms what I already know. Fear spreads like wild fire. Almost as fast as gossip or conspiracy theories.
When we return home, one of Stan’s co-workers will say that he read about aliens landing in Miami that night. Donald Trump will fuel the drama by tweeting, “What exactly happened in Miami?” By then we will have seen news reports indicating it was a mob fight—mostly juveniles armed with clubs—and that no one was killed. I will never know for sure what happened (I don’t support the alien idea), but I won’t forget how it made me feel.
Two and half weeks after the ordeal, I write about it, and when I am nearly done, I read it aloud to Susanna and Vivian. Vivian is painting Susanna’s toe nails and I am not sure they are even listening, but later that night I hear Vivian repeat the narrative, almost word for word, to her grandma on the phone.
“How should I end the story?” I ask both of them the next day while they are getting ready for school.
Vivian is pulling on her sock and hopping down the hallway. She pronounces loudly, “And they all got home and they were all safe.”
This is true. This is the ending to this story. It is not quite happily-ever-after though; Vivian never did get ice cream in Miami, and we still tend to daily injuries like bruised hips, bruised feelings, and even little bruised hopes. But we are here. Our bodies continue to regulate our fight-or-flight response (most of the time). We breath, digest, react, excrete, swallow, metabolize and blink all without thinking, simply because we are alive. This, in itself, is a miracle. And so is this: fear and panic cannot devour, delete, or erase. May every tiny keystroke be my testimony.
A Mason jar of marbles gathers dust on my nightstand. It is full to the brim with the tiny glass spheres. My mother-in-law gave it to me around five years ago. “Use this as a visual reminder of the time you have with all your children at home,” she said. “I’ve counted the marbles and there’s one for every week Belén has before she graduates from high school. Each Sunday you can take a marble out and it will remind you of what’s left.”
She’d gotten the idea from her pastor, and it was a sweet gesture, but I hated it. When the first Sunday came to unscrew the lid, I stared at the marble jar. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pluck a piece of time and presence out of that jar. Besides the practical issue (Where was I going to put all the marbles?), I couldn’t stand the diminishment. The loss. The emptiness I felt every time I looked at the jar.
My friend Shelly suggested a different approach. “Maybe you could take all the marbles out right now and then add one back in every Sunday? You know, to remind you of all the energy you pour into your children every week?”
It was a wonderful proposal, but it turns out I’m too lazy for such symbolic action. And so, the jar of marbles sits on my nightstand. Untouched. But I keep thinking about it.
I thought about it when Belén left for her first year of university last September. Before we pulled out of the driveway to take her to the airport, Susanna sang her a song about sisterhood while her tears rained onto the piano keys. Vivian broke out into a full-out wail. Stan’s body shuddered. I felt like I was being ripped in two. It reminded me of a day 18 years earlier when I was panting on a hospital bed, entering the transition phase of labour.
Stan and I knew something big was about to happen then, something exciting that would change life for us, but neither of us knew exactly how or what it would feel like. It was the same when Belén rolled her suitcase out of our house and the future opened up to her. None of us could imagine exactly what it was going to hold but we knew that, whatever it was, it was on its way. Like a woman bearing down understands the unstoppable force, stronger than a thousand rumbling trains, that precedes birth.
A couple weeks before Belén left, I overheard Vivian playing with her Calico Critters. She was up in a tree with her tiny family of rabbits. Leaning against the bark, she spoke them into existence while her voice rose and fell with the inflections of each different character. “Violet Nightshade” seemed to play the lead role, until all of a sudden, Vivian chucked her out of the tree. “Off you go to university, Violet,” Vivian said, while the tiny rabbit plummeted to her fate below, completely out of sight. Which, as far as seven-year-old Vivian could tell, represented higher education perfectly.
Now that our second child is in her last year of high school and already preparing for her departure, we all have a better idea of what to expect. These are gestational months where she researches universities and I narrate daily activities in hopes she’ll remember my random instructions when she needs them. It’s like this, I say, with a long pour of olive oil. One part balsamic, one part oil, and some salt. Susanna turns from the computer and gives my vinaigrette a quick glance before returning to the University of PEI website. She’s dreaming of red-sand beaches and fiddle music.
“You know how small Charlottetown is, right?” I say, measuring my words carefully. I have to be wise and play my cards just right. If I come across too strong right off the bat, it will backfire. She needs to realize on her own that UPEI is not a good match. It’s obvious to me, of course, because of the sheer distance. How could anything be a good idea that separates a 17-year-old girl from her mama by a full day of flights? Add to that the fact her older sister is on the West Coast and my gut response is a hard no. But I don’t say that. I bide my time. I haven’t been a mother this long for nothing.
When I was pregnant, Stan would lay his hand on my swollen belly and wait for the kicks or flips that would connect his fingers to the human being under my skin. Sometimes he’d sing a tune, hoping our baby would recognize his voice. “Can you imagine life, with three (or four! or five!) of us?” we’d say to each other. Now it’s the other way around. There are only four of us at home, but soon it will be three. And after that, it will be just the two of us again. “Can you imagine what it will be like?” we say to each other.
If I really wanted to answer this question, I might pick up an empty-nesting book. I read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” from cover to cover when I was pregnant with my first child and I’m guessing there are what-to-expect-when-you’re-letting-go guides available, but I’m not sure I’d like to read any of them. They might repulse me as much as removing marbles from my jar.
When Susanna comes home and her eyes sparkle as she tells me who got which part in the “Sound of Music,” or what the student-body president’s t-shirt said, or whose spikes are the hardest at volleyball try-outs, I hear the marbles. Clink. Clink. Clink. Filling up the jar, like Shelly said, with every debriefing session.
These are the kinds of things I missed the most while Belén was away at school–laughing over previous conversations or reliving tiny moments that don’t always fit into a text or phone call. Now her second year has begun and she’ll be training full-time with the varsity rowing team, which means she won’t be returning for the summers. This also means no enchilada cook-offs together. No poetry at the sand dunes. No driving out of town to watch the sunset. No inside jokes about daily interactions or what happened at work. I think about this when I lay awake at night and feel the separation deep in my body. It is as real as if someone were scraping my insides, like a spoon against an empty bowl.
I am not alone in my discomfort; there are multitudes sending off their children. When we share our September stories, it seems as if we are part of some grand choreography that involves swiping credit cards, shuffling in and out of dorm rooms, and hauling bedding. We swap details and pictures like we did when we were fresh out of the maternity ward.
My friend Michelle tells me about the enormous spaghetti casseroles her son is making and his shocking investment in a day-planner. Shelly sends me pictures of her daughter at a football game with a host of friends she’d only just met during orientation. Marisa texts me a photo of her daughter in a Costco shopping cart. Her boyfriend is pushing her and she is grinning for the camera. The photo is only hours old but it gives me a nostalgic ache. I recognize the new beginning in that grocery aisle. Our children are shopping, cooking, and building their own lives, and we’re as proud and amazed as our younger-parent selves.
Belén is training hard with her team and getting stronger every day. I text pictures of her deltoids and biceps to my friends. She’s swimming in the ocean, finding taxidermist friends, foraging for chamomile with her roommates, and it’s almost as exciting as her first latch or cry.
I still feel the contractions though. The postpartum tightness that pulls everything back into place. When I wake up at night, Stan wakes up too.
“This is hard,” I say into the darkness.
“This is how it should be,” he replies.
I am made to do this. Our bodies are built for birthing. And not only babies, but ideas and community and dreams. It doesn’t mean it isn’t painful. It means that I–and Michelle, Marisa and Shelly, and all of the rest of us–can do this thing. For a while I thought I was weak because I wasn’t able to face the marble jar; I thought I fell squarely into the sentimental, snivelling mom trope. But I’m learning that it’s the opposite. With great love comes great strength. I see this in my own mother and the women around me. We know how to breath. To push. To release. And do it again. We do it because we have to. Because even if we are white-knuckled and gripping the rails, there is nothing we would ever do to stop it.
Anissa’s hands are moving as fast as the words are flying out of her mouth while we walk from their heritage home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to the beach. Her husband, Joey, and Stan were best friends in high school, and Stan later lived with them in Anchorage, Alaska. Now they are here: two hours north of Chicago, in a quaint town filled with boutiques and cafés that service tourists and the millionaires whose summer homes rim the lake. She is pointing out which of her neighbours are Democratic or Conservative. “You can tell by the kind of flags they have out,” she says, gesturing to a veranda decorated with banners and stars and stripes. “See, they’re Conservative.” It is only July 1, but Independence Day celebrations have already begun. Earlier, we ate our meal on paper-plate-flags and downed a tiered, red watermelon cake decorated with blueberries. Now, on the way to the water for a night swim, fireworks pop and crackle in the distance.
Anissa continues talking. She tells us about local postal workers who drop off packages from boats and how they have to dive off the docks to catch the mail boat if they aren’t fast enough with a delivery. Four stories later, we arrive at the beach and sling our towels over the metal brace of a lifeguard tower, which is exactly the kind you would expect to see in a summer romance flick. Lights from the cafés spill over the pier and onto the water. We aren’t the only ones who thought a ten o’clock dip was a good idea, but it is much quieter here than in the daytime. I submerge, then come up to the surface to see Anissa and Vivian making mermaid bracelets out of seaweed and talking in fake accents.
When we return to their house, Susanna is waiting for us on the front porch swing, picking her mandolin. We join her with some snacks and notice the stained-glass piece their daughter made, which hangs in the window. This is why it is good to be in the homes of the people we love, I think. All the little details, the seashells crammed into the shelves, the pottery their son made in high school, the insulated delivery bags (Joey is a third-grade teacher who shuttles food in the summer), tell the story of their life. Even the food they serve. Last time we visited we were enchanted by their stainless-steel whipped cream dispenser. This time it is butterfly tea.
“You have to make this with your cousins,” Anissa instructs as she serves the drinks, which turns out to be more of a production than I anticipated. Then she digs into her stash, like a delighted child with her Christmas stocking, and pulls out more tea bags. “Here, take these with you so you can make it with your cousins in Indiana!”
*
We spend the actual Fourth of July paddling down the Tippecanoe River with Stan’s family. His parents live next to Potawatomi Wildlife Park, where pine needles blanket pathways, herons alight on quiet ponds, and cottonwoods tower. The Tippecanoe river winds through the park, and I’ve always wanted to explore it. We start nine miles upstream, where the park manager informs us that our trip should take five hours. I look over at Stan and smile doubtfully. As soon as we are on our way, I regret feeling so cocky. Giant tulip poplars, maples and oaks have fallen across the river at nearly every turn, and navigating our way through the dead-fall is like playing a live video game. Up ahead, my mother-in-law ducks her head under a branch, then slithers off the bow seat to flatten herself. My father in-law jabs at the current and yanks on a branch to maneuver their vessel through the small opening. It is all very impressive for a seventy-seven-year-old couple who would rather be quilting or under the hood of a vehicle. The same scene occurs plenty more times to make our journey, including swim-stops (some unintended), the five-hour event we were promised. Luckily, the trees that are still standing—and there are many—are as huge as the ones that have fallen and shade us nearly the whole time. I am not used to this humidity and the shafts of light that pierce the emerald canopy make me feel as if I am in the tropics.
When I first visited Indiana, I was fascinated by the tiny farms and many homes that dotted the rural landscape. (This makes sense since you could dump all of Saskatchewan into Indiana nearly seven times to match the population of the state.) But the banks of the Tippecanoe are lush and wild, with no signs of human life. That is, until we hear something that sounds like gunshots. I lift my paddle out of the water and pause. This is America, after all. Up ahead, on the left, there is movement. Bodies run and disperse. Then, as we get closer, I see long skirts. And suspenders. They are kids! Amish kids throwing firecrackers. They were yelling and shouting earlier, but when we pass the Amish pirates they only stare silently.
That night we drive to Etna Green, a tiny town with a gazebo at the main intersection, to watch fireworks. On the way Susanna says, “Everything is so cute here.” She sighs, then continues, “Cute streets, cute shops, cute porches, cute houses. Not like at home.” Her relatives think she’s exaggerating but she’s not. I know what she means. Everything is charming compared to our northern prairie towns that appear more like dishevelled teenagers compared to these older, genteel communities.
Once we arrive to the outskirts of Etna Green, Susanna squeals. There are crowds of people! She loves crowds! This is better than she had hoped. We run with our blankets toward the masses. Music is playing. Is it a live band? We can’t see but it doesn’t matter because now the national anthem begins. Susanna stands with her hand over her heart, eyes aglow while she belts out Oh say can you see… I look over to Stan to see his reaction. He cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. He looks more perplexed than proud. Home is a tricky thing. You can live in many different homes, you can make new ones, come back to old ones, and somehow hold them all at together at the same time. But when your daughter waxes poetic about someday living in a different country than you do, home becomes more defined. It is the place where you live with your children. Right now.
Five days after we leapt out of our car and into Grandma’s, Grandpa’s, aunts’, uncle’s, and cousins’ arms, we are back on the road. By the time we get to Fargo, Stan has a bad feeling about our van and picks up a spare alternator, just in case. Just in case our engine shudders and jolts and the lights go out on the dash. Which is exactly what happens after we cross the Canadian border. We pull onto a gravel side road near St. Adolfe where Stan begins his task.
Two cars stop to see if we need help. The first is a clean-cut, older couple who look like they are on their way to a golf course. They don’t get out of the car but wish us well. Then another man stops. He is tall and lanky with a long silver pony tail and wears navy work overalls. He leans up against the side of the car and says good-naturedly, “Looks like you know what you’re doing. You a mechanic?”
Stan is elbow-deep into the front end of our vehicle, trying to jimmy the alternator out of a very tight space when he replies, “If I were, I’d be a pretty poor one by the looks of it.”
Unfortunately, our visitor is not a mechanic either, although he has spent most of his life on the road.
“I left home when I was fourteen with a travelling carnival,” he says, raising the hood of our car a little higher so Stan has more room to prod and push. “Those were exciting days, criss-crossing the country, setting up, taking down and running the rides. You’d work so late nothin’ was open for food so you’d go to bed in the truck with a can of beans.” He looks at me then taps the body of the van. “Young guys now can’t hack that. They want it cushy. We knew how to work anywhere and everywhere.”
The man stays with us the whole time. While Stan unscrews, pulls, grunts, and negotiates the old alternator out, then snugs the new one in, the man finally tells us that he has finally found somewhere to settle: Morris, Manitoba. “Winnipeg don’t feel like home anymore,” he says.
He doesn’t offer advice, but somehow, it is comforting to have him peer into the vehicle beside us and simply stick around. I’ve never had this long of a conversation with anyone in the industry before and decide I will never say the word “carnie” quite the same way again. Before he takes off, he makes sure our van starts and I give him two jars of our Reeds’ Bees honey.
*
After Stan successfully replaces our alternator on the side of the road, we head north of Winnipeg to the Interlake Region. We are on the way to Bonnie and Matt’s house. Bonnie is my best friend from childhood and they have recently constructed a new, energy efficient home on a quarter section of marsh, burr oak, saskatoons and poplar trees. Graham and Vivian soon go kayaking and we lose sight of them but still hear Vivian’s laughter from a distant clump of reeds.
Later, on a bike ride down a narrow grid road that separates acres and acres of marshland, Bonnie shows me the pair of swans they keep track of. Minutes later a bear cub crosses the road. We turn around and the setting sun turns the waving wetland into a glowing green palette against a dark blue sky. I think about the picture book All the Places to Love and how the main character’s very favourite place is the marsh. This is what he must have been talking about.
*
Stan and I part ways the next morning. He continues toward home, and Susanna, Vivi and I make a 1,400 km detour with Bonnie and her children to Thunder Bay. We’ve chosen Thunder Bay because my sister lives there and kayaking in Lake Superior is on Bonnie’s bucket list.
The first thing I do whenever I visit my sister is wander through her garden. Everything else can wait. She does the same thing when she comes to my house. We go slowly and take note of every plant. Her beds are on her front lawn. She bends to pick a few weeds from the potatoes while I taste the last of her haskap berries. “You should definitely try those at your place,” Tara says. “We love them.” I love the berry and I love being here.
I love the tall pines in her backyard and the bike paths that take them just about everywhere they need to go. I love hiking up the Sleeping Giant’s head and kayaking around the islands. I love Kakabeka falls and the potter’s house where lupines surround teapots in the outdoor gallery. Thunder Bay doesn’t have the same polished aesthetic as Lake Geneva–my sister once told me how some kids from their church went to a youth conference in the US with only their Sorel’s for footwear—but there is something freeing about a place where teenagers show up in snow boots. When Stan and I first returned to North America, I lobbied hard for relocating to Thunder Bay. Stan wasn’t convinced, so we landed up on the Prairies.
*
Now we are home. We spent two weeks visiting the people we love in the spaces they call home and when I come back to mine, all I want to do is clean it. I feel like I did when I was nine months pregnant and nesting. Maybe it’s because our house is smaller than all the houses we stayed in and clearing away the unnecessary will make it more welcoming. Or maybe I want to birth new care and tenderness for this place we belong to.
Stan often says, “If we lived here, we’d be home now,” when we travel. It’s a quirky little phrase that has been repeated in gas stations, orange groves, mountain peaks, and just about every place we’ve been. When I turn around in my own home I think of it again: I live here and I am home now. There is the mural we painted on the wall with the sky and the mechanically flawed bicycle. I live here and I am home now. See the tiny bouquet of pink snapdragons sitting on the white sill? I live here and I am home now. Listen to the train whistle beyond kitchen window. I live here and I am home now. Step outside and sit at the honey-coloured picnic table that Stan built sixteen years ago; smell the blooming cilantro and zinnias bunched together in the glass milk bottle. I live here and I am home now. Notice how wild the grape vine is getting and that the garlic needs harvesting. Appreciate the taut trampoline among the cosmos and strawberries. (I ordered a replacement tarp this spring that was much too large. Instead of returning it, Stan increased the span of the circular metal frame.) Pass the trampoline and taste the raspberries that we add to our Cheerios every morning. I live here and I am home now. Go for a bike ride, in pyjamas, to the flats because we can and because wide spaces help us dream bigger. Drive through rolling hills of canola and flax and gasp at the yellow and blue combination I have seen every summer since I was born. Load our packs and hike through the boreal forest to a lonely lake. Listen to the loons perform nearly all night. Return.
We know how to do this. Our species has been making homes for thousands of years. It is in our DNA. We interpret the politics and local legends. We explore our waterways and celebrate with neighbours. We acclimatize to the weather and humidity. We grow things. And we can even learn to do most of this on the move if we have to. Like my nomadic carnie. And like him, we can also learn to settle. To turn around, right where we are, and say, we are home now.
Island Pottery gallery on Lake Superior Anissa serving butterfly teablueberry picking in INkayaking in Lake Superiorhiking up the Sleeping GiantOn our way to hang out with the loons at Mossberry Lakehome
I forgot my laptop. It is sitting on my kitchen counter, 190 km away. This puts a wrench into my usual Monday-night agenda, which is to work as much as possible while Susanna rehearses with the South Saskatchewan Youth Orchestra. I have student analyses of the play “Someday,” by Drew Hayden Taylor, to mark; a Spanish lesson on Colombian musician Sebastian Yatra to prep; and a slideshow on Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime to create.
Now, all I have is this pen and two sheets of lined paper that I got from the librarian. Fluorescent lights flicker above me. An exuberant talk show host, blathering over accordion music in some language I can’t quite decipher, is entertaining a man on his cell phone nearby. A few metres away, a woman leans over a half-completed puzzle and jokes with someone else puzzling nearby. I recognize this woman. Her face is scarred and some of her teeth are missing. She’s wearing multiple layers and her clothes are ill-fitting. I’ve seen her before, arranging her tarp and tattered blankets outside Knox United church on frigid nights. How has she survived the winter? At the end of March it’s still nearly -30 C with the wind chill. I’m glad she is here, joining the rest of us who have chosen to shelter among the book stacks tonight.
A thousand threads pull at my pen. I follow one or two, but then they break, and I flounder until I find another one. I chase it for a paragraph then leap to another. I might have expected this. Sitting down with the blank page is both delightful and terrible. The less I do it, the stiffer my fingers feel. Lately, any time for writing has been given over to sales-pitches. I have been trying to sell my 78,000-word manuscript, which involves tailoring submission packages with cover letters, annotated table of contents, and comparison charts. The last thing I want to do right now is market myself; I don’t want to explain, summarize, or convince. All I want to do is explore and wander with my ink. To notice details, like the word “if.”
Earlier this afternoon I met the SWG’s writer-in-residence, Marie Powell, online for a consultation. She had my 40-page submission package on her monitor and her eyes darted back and forth while she talked through it with me. I had told her that I just sent it to Wolsack and Wynn, but still wanted her suggestions so I could incorporate them before mailing it to the next publisher.
“If you have to send it out again,” she said, “I would reorganize some of this. Maybe shorten some of your annotations in the TOC. And it’s important that your bio ties into the manuscript.” She paused and looked directly at the camera. “Are you the only one who could have written this book? Why are you the expert? Sell me on…”
While she talked, I scribbled down her suggestions. They made sense and I agreed with most of them as soon as she said them. She spoke matter-of-factly, pointing out both the winsome and weaker aspects of my submission package, but after the first word I was floating. My levity was fuelled by the word “if.” If you have to send it out again, she had said.
A few minutes later she circled back. She was neither gushy nor flattering when she remarked, “This seems like the right manuscript for their catalogue–I hope they pick it up. If they don’t…”
There was the word again. This time, it swayed slightly out of my favour. I didn’t care. I still heard possibility from an author who had never met me before. Who saw my writing on her computer screen and chose to use “if,” not “when,” regarding the possibility of rejection. After ten years of free-lance writing, this is a bright yellow flag of hope.
*
9:07 pm – Knox United Church
The library closes before Susanna is finished. I walk half a block, to Knox United Church, and wait in the lobby. A fresh-faced oboe player is leaving the rehearsal early and sees me from the other side of the locked, glass doors. In the split-second before she reaches to let me in, her neurons take in all sorts of information to assess me. I smile when she swings the door open, hoping to confirm her judgment of me. I wonder if the lady I recognized in the library has ever tried to come into this church at 9 o’clock at night.
Once I’m in, I hear music from all directions. The orchestra is practising downstairs and the Halcyon choir is in the sanctuary. I follow the voices and listen at the sanctuary’s open side-door where I can see the backs of a few soprano singers. The sound is other-worldly, and I imagine planets and stars while it reverberates off the balconies in this grand room. Close to me, behind the choir, is a table with left-over snacks. An empty box of wagon wheels and some Oreo packaging litters the table. It’s hard to believe that people who create this transcendent effect eat ordinary food.
I feel like I’m trespassing or that I should pay to listen, so I go downstairs to catch the last few minutes of my daughter’s rehearsal. The cellos buoy violins through each measure. When the conductor finally lowers his wand, one cellist leans over to her deskmate and asks loudly, “What’s the happy chemical we have? Serotonin?”
Her deskmate nods noncommittally.
“The serotonin this song produces is insane,” the first girl announces with a laugh. She gathers up her music while the conductor admonishes his musicians to practice.
Then the conductor says thank you twice. I think he means it. I think he’s grateful.
*
Naming, and recording, the scars, soaring voices, and words like “serotonin” makes me feel more human. Satiated, even. Somehow words do this. They nourish me, like bread wrapped up for a journey, no matter how dry and crumbly.
It’s 7:18 am in my backyard. The air feels cool on my bare shoulders. I’ve just returned from walking at Logan Green where the blackbirds sang among the cattails while I crunched gravel underfoot. The August sun was just at the right angle to backlight the tall grass and thistles with a dreamy glow, but now that I’m in my yard it is high enough to make me grateful for shade.
I am sitting in a neon green lawn chair, the cheap kind with a saggy back and net cup holder. There are four other chairs like this, all with mismatched colours nearby. The bright pink one is cock-eyed, its aluminum frame poking through a hole in the fabric in the top left corner, and I feel a surge of discontent with my life that surely could be remedied with the right furniture. In the next moment my eyes wander to the plants rimming our circular brick patio. Thyme, calendula, zinnias, basil, and lemon balm distract me from all I lack. The tiny white flowers are nearly hidden on the thyme while the zinnias splash their pink petals all over their green canvases. Despite heavy hail and almost total abandonment this summer, my garden is still trying to be a garden.
Our plum tree, too, is putting forth a valiant effort. We treasure it for the the fragrant blossoms in spring, the shade it throws at midday, and it’s sweet, rustic fruit. Unfortunately, it is infested with aphids. On the undersides of the shrivelled leaves there are thousands of newborn nymphs ready to aid their army in destruction. Wasps swarm around the tree, attracted by the aphids’ sweet honeydew secretions. This, in turn, draws swallows who hunt the wasps. Depending on which way you look at it, the whole thing is a raging battleground or a never-ending banquet.
In the middle of the patio is the fire pit. A small wisp of smoke curls up from the ashes, even though I doused the fire nine hours ago before going to bed. The fact that I can still smell smoke and the ashes are hot reminds me that it was a good fire. And a good evening. Our tomato-soup-coloured wheelbarrow is parked beside the fire pit where I was sitting last night. It’s wooden arms are still strewn with dried garlic stocks. While I visited, I had been clipping the cured bulbs from their stocks and trimming root hairs. It is one of my favourite rituals of the summer, partly because garlic is the most successful vegetable in my garden, and partly because of the names of the hardneck varieties I grow: Music and Red Russian.
What you can’t see this morning is the honey. Two weeks ago, we spun out frames from our four hives. Ever since then it has been on tap at our house, with friends streaming through our yard to fill up their jars. (I assured the new neighbours who just moved in beside us that we deal honey, not drugs.) Most days, a pail with a spout near the bottom sits on our picnic table. Every time I open it and watch the golden flow I can’t help but gush, “There’s so much pollen in it this year!” I am not sure there is more pollen in it than any other year, but when I hold full glass jars up to the light shining through the spruce it seems excessive and extravagant.
I said the same thing about pollen to Rita last night. She dropped by our house looking to fill her empty peanut butter jar and joined the circle of lawn chairs surrounding the honey pail, where Emily and Angela were already sitting with my daughters. After I weighed Rita’s full container, I made a fire and Emily helped me move the picnic table to the side so we could all sit around the flame. (I would have asked Belén, but she was wrapped in a blanket and coughed deeply from her chest every few moments. She has had trouble breathing over the last week and is not improving as much as I’d like.) Though our ages spanned 30 or 40 years we had enough to talk about, like going to university, the ocean, music, art, writing, bees and being tall.
While we visited, I shook clumps of dirt off my garlic bulbs and rubbed their papery skins. Suddenly, a spark jumped out of the crackling fire and flew into my basket of fresh garlic. Gingerly, I dumped the entire pile onto the patio. Then Rita crouched down to help me search for the glowing ember and together we returned the winter’s supply to my basket. Rita, I thought, is the kind of person who comes over to your backyard for the first time and makes you wonder why she hasn’t been there many times before.
Now, my pen travels the page as I sit and survey my yard. This early Sunday morning is the out-breath of the evening before. It feels good to marinate in it while the scent of wood smoke remains in my hair. Later, when I will type all of this out I will wonder why I wrote any of it. There is no story. No meaningful through line that I recognize. I will keep typing anyway, reminding myself that writing is a practice. Which means I can do it for no other reason than to practice noticing and reaching for words to record that noticing. Then, while the sun sinks low enough to make me squint at the laptop monitor, Stan will come out the back door holding his guitar. He will sit down in one of those tattered chairs and begin singing a country song by Anthony Kelly. “You belong here,” he’ll croon. The next one will be about Emmy Lou Harris’ “red dirt girl.” Soon after, Belén will bring out her cello and sit at the edge of the picnic table with the slivers and peeling paint. Aphids husks will litter the ground around us and I will swat at the wasps buzzing around my hair. I will not want to stop writing. I will try to keep up with my words as every moment of the battle and banquet unfolds.
“The ones you linger with are the ones you grow to love,” quoted our pastor this Sunday. I jotted the words down on a scrap of paper because, first of all, the word linger deserves to be written as much as possible, second, because it’s true, and third, because it reminded me of what happened last week.
Stan’s brother and his family flew all the way to Saskatoon, then drove the gravel roads to Missinipe to load canoes and push off with us into their first paddling trip. The nine of us had never spent so much uninterrupted time with each other. We thought of questions that no one could google the answers to and we were left to wonder together. The parents told stories of what it was like to meet our spouses for the first time, of past adventures, and what we actually do at our day jobs. We washed dishes on the rocks, made friendship bracelets, set up forest kitchens, and played Clue by the fire. We pointed out cloud pictures, listened to the wind rustle through the birch, and snacked on berries.
But that isn’t the whole story. There is another side of canoe-tripping which is quite different from lingering. A side which involves paddling for hours, squatting in the woods, setting up tents, tearing down tents, unloading dry bags, portaging boats, and navigating wind and rain. All this, while trying to keep track of what stuff is where, including the contents of our “precious bags,” holding matches, bear spray, maps, and toilet paper.
Every group has to find their own balance between lingering and pushing on back-country trips. The opportunity to relax in the wilderness does not come without work. Especially when eating and sleeping require so much preparation; from casting a line, to searching for kindling, to scoping out tent sites, to the final crispy mouthfuls and makeshift pillows. The balance we struck wasn’t perfect for everyone all the time, but even in the midst of finding our way, I was amazed that any of it was happening. That Philip and Anne had travelled so far to spend time with us on the water, to push through the wind and the rain and linger with us in a place we love.
About to launchBath time!We may have apologized silently to our father-in-law while rigging up this very wobbly kitchen… Swim-up walleye barThese two played for hours, while riding in the boat side-by-side, taking notes in their nature journal, or playing horseyBelén and Susanna resisted filtering their water… they did fine.Dish dutyTrip Route: Missinipe to Nistowiak Falls with shuttle pick up at Stanley Mission. 70 ish Km. 6.5 days. (We had one rest day in between.)
The day we met Helen we were moving into the house beside hers. The first thing I noticed about her was her family. Does she live like this all the time? I wondered. Adults, teenagers, and children were spilling out of her house onto the deck and lawn. They were visiting, eating, drinking, and laughing. Later, I learned that you were all in town for a family event (was there a wedding in early July of 2009?); I’m not sure she ever had so many people at her place after that, but it soon became clear that even if her family wasn’t physically on her property, she held all of you close.
Her family was her favourite topic of conversation. Over the years I learned a lot about Reg and each one of you: how Philip rode on her hip (or on one of his siblings’) for the first five years of his life and how smart he was because he learned everything from his big brother and sisters, how Sheila was a spit-fire and a figure skater, how Val did well in school and became a nurse, and how Gary’s accomplishments led him to his presidency at Memorial University among the hills of St. John’s. I also got to hear my fair share of stories about the in-laws, grandchildren, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles. She spoke with admiration whenever your names came up and it wasn’t because her memories were gilded with the sheen of perfection. Even when she would explain some of your differences she would chuckle, and it was apparent that she was proud of everyone. The memories she shared about you packing into her home during Christmas holidays—the sleeping bags carpeting the floor from wall to wall in the basement, or about the busy days with grandchildren bouncing on her trampoline, made me think I want my family to be just like Helen’s when I grow up.
Shortly after we moved in, I noticed the pristine lawn and garden we had inherited was changing. We never sprayed our dandelions and didn’t mow as often as we could have, so the inevitable was beginning to happen. Once, when Helen came home after one of her afternoon trips to Good Spirit Lake, I surveyed the sea of puffy dandelion heads and spread out my arms. “I’m so sorry for all of this,” I told her. “I know you hire someone who looks after your lawn so carefully. It must be a pain to have neighbours producing weed seeds all summer long.”
She turned and looked me in the eye. “Don’t you ever apologize to me about that,” she said. “You know what’s important and you’re doing it. Your kids know it too.”
Relief washed over me and I thought to myself, that’s the kind of neighbour I want to be when I grow up.
She gave me free-rein of almost everything she owned and every spring I took over her greenhouse with my seedlings. Yet, when the favours went the opposite direction, she was worried about putting us out. She would call and tell me she had a big favour to ask of us, wondering if we might have time to unscrew her garden hose from the spigot. When I would laugh and say that I was on my way over, she would immediately protest. “Oh! Not right now! I meant in the next few weeks or so. It’s not that urgent!” Then she would go on to say how glad she was to have us as neighbours, when, in truth, we were far more indebted to her.
As time passed, we got to know each other, one drive-way chat at a time. Then came the phone calls any time either of us left for a trip or returned home. I invited her to Susanna’s fourth birthday party (Susanna is turning 16 soon) and she came with a gift, declined the cake, and stayed long enough to watch the pinata break. Another time, when I had just gone back to teaching, Susanna got sick and I had no idea what to do with her. I wasn’t prepared for a substitute and had no family close by to call. In the end, Susanna went over to lay on Helen’s couch and had a wonderful day watching cooking shows with her. Her reports were so positive that I warned Susanna it was a one-time thing, and that she wouldn’t get another TV date with Helen if she ever decided she was going to be sick again.
Besides pinch-hitting for me that day, Helen was one of our girls’ biggest supporters. She bought chocolates, cookies, hot chocolate, lemonade, and anything else they were selling. When they busked on the sidewalk, performing two different songs at the very same time, Helen handed them twenty bucks and made them feel like celebrities. “Your girls are just so smart and talented,” she would tell me frequently. I’m not sure she knew much about their schooling or other activities, but she said it so often and with so much authority, that I took note. That’s the kind of encouragement I want to give to other young moms when I grow up, I thought.
Our family has watched your family take care of your matriarch over her final year. We saw you rallying together, loading furniture into the back of your half-tons, trying to get her to the care home. I watched you joking and laughing while you carried her possessions out of the house and admired how you had gathered from all over the province, and even the country, to help her transition. Then the following Monday, only 3 days after you had moved her out, Helen came back. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the moving truck pull up, and her furniture was carried right back into her house. She had confided to me earlier that she didn’t want to go and that she was going to arrange for her return as soon as possible, but I had severely underestimated her.
When I described the whole scene to my own family at dinner that Monday night, my oldest daughter was nothing but impressed. “Way to go, Helen!” she cheered. “That’s exactly how I want to be when I grow up!” she said. I raised me eyebrows and reminded her that, first, she would have to see how much she liked it when I did that to her 45 years from now. But I understood my daughter’s reaction. A little burst of joy pulsed through me when I saw Helen back at home and the light shining in her kitchen that night. Helen was the kind of woman who knew what she wanted. And she knew how to make it happen.
Helen was our neighbour for thirteen years. I didn’t know her nearly as well as you did, but I felt the kind of intimacy that grows when you share driveways and everyday life. She heard my childrens’ howls and saw our underwear on the line. I looked out for her every morning, and felt better when I saw her shuffling around her kitchen in her pink bathrobe. The last time I called her she had returned to the nursing home. While she would be gone in days, she was still her gracious self, thanking me for the call and also apologizing that she was unable to speak more. Even then, she was a woman of generosity and grace. Our family misses her and won’t forget her spirit of largesse, how she forgave us for the dandelions, and how she loved each one of you. I will continue to look across my driveway and remember how I want to be like Helen when I grow up.
If you move to the tropics you might fall in love with a man who is outdoorsy, adventurous, and good with his hands. If you marry and move back north to a place where winter settles in from November until March, there might be times when a lot of snow falls at once. Times when the air is particularly chilly. When the flakes are so light and so dry, one can’t help but notice the ideal carving conditions.
If this happens, watch out. I am warning you now. The creative man you fell in love with, the one who would never spend hours holed up in a basement playing video games, might start throwing boards together and shovelling snow. And you will join him. It will be 34 degrees Celsius below zero. You will wonder, then, about the men playing video games and the choices you have made. But not for long. Your three children will join you and everyone will sweat, push snow, and stomp it down because you know what is coming next…
building a box to hold the snowThe girls have had the job of stomping the snow down in the box for years… I pulled my buff down for the picture. It was dangerous to expose that much skin for any longer than a photo op. While the snow sits in the mold for a few days to bond, Belén and Stan work on a clay model of the designStan uses a saw, machete, and some small hand-tools that he made especially for snow-carving.It’s finished!The sculpture is in the park behind our house, close to the skating loop. Vivian and her friends, Alicia and Isabella, were skating on the path when we finished it.
This sculpture is inspired by Abe and Ruth Lefever, Stan’s maternal grandparents. They were married for over 70 years. Both of them died in 2017. The following winter, Stan thought about making a snow sculpture of the two of them dancing–despite the fact they were conservative Mennonites and didn’t dance. But the snow wasn’t right for sculpting that year and the sculpture never happened. Which is why, during a blizzard on the last days of 2021, we thought we should give Abe and Ruth a chance at ice-dancing. We sculpted them right beside the skating loop behind our house so that other skaters might catch some of their carefree joy. We hope Ruth is okay with it.
“Can’t we just invite someone over? It’s been so long since anybody came for supper!” says Susanna as we walk beside each other, on the last stretch of her paper route. The night sky is overcast and dark. Lights and blow-up decorations twinkle and wave in the wind, even though it is already January 7. This isn’t the first time Susanna has asked about having company. She’s mentioned the same sentiment at least three times in the last month or so.
“Covid,” I say. “Remember that?”
The old jogging stroller that we use to haul bundles of newspaper is almost empty now. A loose piece of plastic strapping used for packaging, flies out of the stroller and onto the sidewalk. I bend down to pick it up. When I straighten, I tell Susanna about an idea that I’ve been mulling over.
“Once we don’t have to social distance anymore I think we should start Soup Nights. Like an open-house, every Friday. We’ll tell a whole bunch of people, or maybe just announce it, and see who shows up. I’ll make a huge pot of soup each week and it will be a standing invitation.”
Yes!” Susanna says immediately, before we split ways. She goes down one side of the street, I take the other. When we meet up near the laundromat I can see her eyes shining in the lamplight. “I’ve been thinking about what you said the whole time. Oh, I can’t wait to have people again. When can we start? Next week?”
I hesitate. Covid restrictions are harder for some than others. “It might not be this winter, Susanna,” I answer.
She moans and then musters enthusiasm. “Well, as long as we get this going before I leave for college.”
As soon as we arrive home from our route, Susanna announces our plans to her older sister.
“Open to all of Yorkton? In our home?” Belén echoes. She does not look impressed. “This is not a good idea. Have you told Dad?”
Her initial reaction doesn’t surprise or deter either of us. Susanna runs for a pad of paper and starts scribbling names of every friend and acquaintance she can recall. I continue explaining the idea to Belén. “It will be simple. I’ll write out the expectations for Soup Night and post them.” Belén winces when she hears the last phrase.
I go on about how people will be free to come and go (Stay for 2o minutes or 2 hours!), we’ll offer homemade soup and water (Bring bread or beverages to share, or bring nothing at all!), I won’t be serving people–just enjoying their company (Find the pot on the stove and serve yourself!), and how it will feel organic and informal (There will be space for you at the table, on our couches or on the floor!).
“Well, now this is sounding like a homeless shelter,” says Belén. “So, what, exactly, is the point? Why do you want to do it?”
I still haven’t taken off my ski pants, and chunks of snow and ice that gathered on my cuffs during the paper route are melting in a puddles around my feet. I wipe them with my socks and look at Belén. “To make connections and get others connected.”
“Don’t most people already know each other? Yorkton is a small city,” says Susanna.
“We can make it smaller,” I say. “I’m always meeting people I think we should have over but it feels daunting to invite them for dinner, especially if we don’t really know them. This way, whenever I come across someone interesting, I can tell them to come over the following Friday night.”
“Like the guy from Spain you met at the grocery store, and his very pregnant wife?”
“Yes. And maybe even the people on our street we never talk to.”
By this time Susanna is scrolling through my Facebook feed, looking for names of potential guests.
“Henrique?” she calls out.
“Nope, Brazil,” I say.
“Ka..jer..stin?” she continues, stumbling over the pronunciation.
“Alaska.”
“Puja…?”
“Yep,” I interrupt her. “Local”
Susanna adds the name to her list which is now more than 3 pages long. “These people can bring their friends, right?” she asks.
“Exactly, that’s the whole idea,” I say.
*
Have you heard about Vivek Murthy? Former surgeon General of the United States and passionate advocate for community and connection? I listened to him in an interview recently and immediately ordered his book from the library. In Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World he tells stories and explains why loneliness interrupts our sleep, is riskier than smoking and shortens our life. And what we can do to intervene.
Murthy wasn’t always interested in the intersection of social and physical well-being. When he began his tenure he had had expected to deal with things like tobacco-related illnesses, diabetes and the opioid epidemic–serious issues well-documented in the medical field. As he travelled the country listening to nurses in San Franciso, teachers in Boston, parents in Birmingham and many doctors in between, he was surprised by another national crisis: loneliness. Not only was a palpable lack of connection felt by a huge segment of the population, it was producing measurable and devastating outcomes on their health.
*
Susanna turns around from the computer screen and shows me the contacts she’s compiled. “I added Marea even though she’s not from Yorkton. She might decide to come anyway.”
Perfect,” I say, then add, “You know, what if this becomes a thing? What if we’re not the only ones who do it, but other people in neighbourhoods all over Yorkton start opening their kitchens on Friday nights too. The city could post a map, lit up with addresses where people are meeting and gathering. In homes! With real people and real conversations!”
Now Susanna is starting to look dubious. “Maybe by the time you’re a grandma,” she says, raising her eyebrows.
Perhaps the whole idea is over-optimistic and foolish. Perhaps I shouldn’t write about something before I actually start doing it. Perhaps idealism will give way to disinterest or fatigue. Perhaps none of this will happen. But tonight, I want to believe it will. I can smell the basil and fennel in the air. I can see the steam rising from the pot and fogging my windows. I can hear laughter and spoons clinking against bowls. I can feel warmth. I can taste togetherness.
Please. Tell me this is possible. Tell me you think it could happen, too.
(Freba pottery made by the aforementioned, Marea. Katie Miller took this photo at Wonderscape. Pictures of soup are forthcoming…)
Experimenting as we grow 