What I'm thinking today: #gratitude

Showing posts with label #gratitude. Show all posts

Thursday, 29 June 2023

Thursday, or Thereabouts - June 29, 2023

The first week of summer 2023 is in the rearview mirror. Here's what she brought:

We went from near drought to monsoon, with 97mm (3.8 inches) dumped in torrential downpours interspersed with sunshine. Then the rain stopped and the wind shifted, bringing in the wildfire smoke from the north, and this time it really stank! At one point yesterday afternoon the AQI in my neck of the woods reached 223 (very unhealthy), while at the same time the city of Toronto could boast the highest AQI in the world at just over 300 (hazardous). Blech!

The view outside my front door, just before the smoke got really bad.

Meanwhile, the strawberries came in right on time and they are luscious.

I don't pick the berries myself anymore - strawberries are just too low to the ground for my knees and back. So I bought two flats (12 litres/quarts) of berries for $72 and processed them into 13 x 500ml jars and 5 x 250ml jars of luscious jam.

Batch one of 4

Of all the berries, strawberries demand the most prep work and truth be told it's a labour of love for me. I don't really like strawberry jam. I love the fresh berries but nothing made from them. No jam, no yogurt, no ice cream, not even strawberry gin (well maybe a bit of that...). But those first berries of summer are an all time favourite of the rest of the family. Just open the jar and give them a spoon!

My favourites, raspberries, blackcurrants, and wild blueberries, are coming!

So is Canada Day.

I am humbly grateful to have my home on this piece of land in Canada.

I am keenly aware of the debt I owe to the native keepers of this land.

I acknowledge the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, Huron-Wendat, and Haudenosaunee.

I also acknowledge the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation as my close neighbour.

I recognize the contributions that have been made by the Métis, Inuit, and other Indigenous Peoples in shaping and strengthening our communities.

I thank all the generations of people who have taken care of this land for thousands of years.

Miigwech.

I'm thrilled and so very proud to be a part of the colourful mosaic that is my home on native land. We're not perfect, not by a long shot; we're not without problems; we've got critical issues and controversies that need tending, but not right now. Let the problems and politics, failures and controversies take a back seat this coming weekend.

On July 1, 1960, John Diefenbaker, Canada's 13th Prime Minister, introduced the Canadian Bill of Rights in Parliament with these words:

"I am a Canadian!

Free to speak without fear,

Free to worship in my own way,

Free to stand for what I think right,

Free to oppose what I believe wrong,

Free to choose those who shall govern my country.

This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and mankind."

Amen to that!

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Summer is here. It will be what it will be. Stay safe out there.

Monday, 8 March 2021

Monday Meander - March 8, 2021

It's International Women's Day!

I was born in 1953 into a white family living in an upper middle-class neighbourhood in a suburb of Toronto. By 1959, we were a family of five. Dad was seriously outnumbered by four women!

I was never one of the cool kids with lots of friends, never truly a groupie, often watching from the sidelines. While most girls played hopscotch, jumpsie and skipping rope at recess, I could be found with a pocketful of alleys (marbles) or a few chestnuts on strings (conkers) waiting for the boys to let me play.

I knew how to handle a hammer, screwdriver, and wrench but there weren't any school subjects that used those tools until I got to middle school. Of course, "Shop" as it was called then, was not offered to girls. While the guys were making cool stuff out of wood and using power tools, I was struggling with threading a sewing machine in "Home Economics" and serving tea to the boys from shop class!

The best tool box - my Dad's.

That that was the 1960's and early '70's and opportunities broadened somewhat after that. Even fifteen years ago my daughter was able to take a carpentry course in high school. I confess to having been all but overcome with envy when she brought home a lovely side table that she had crafted out of pine. Oh, how I would have loved to put my hands to such work in school. Given the chance, I think I would have been a carpenter, or at least developed a huge carpentry habit.

1978 - my love and I started building our house

The key phrase is "given the chance." My role, my responsibility as a white woman of privilege is to use that privilege to lift up others. There are so many more opportunities for women now than were available to me when I was growing up. Yet gender bias and inequality still slam doors in our faces.
As much as life is about being given a chance, it is also about taking a chance; knocking on a closed door, pressing a toe against an unlatched door, challenging a door slammed shut, and then striding through an open one, head held high and with a grateful heart.

On this International Women's Day, I salute all my sisters everywhere.

May you be valued, consulted, and respected.

May you be safe, healthy and loved.
May you be found and remembered.

"Praise to the Women on my Journey" (Rev. Melissa Bowers)

To the women on my journey
Who showed me the ways to go and ways not to go,
Whose strength and compassion held up a torch of light
and beckoned me to follow,
Whose weakness and ignorance darkened the path and
encouraged me to turn another way.
To the women on my journey
Who showed me how to live and how not to live,
Whose grace, success, and gratitude lifted me
into the fullness of surrender to God,
Whose bitterness, envy, and wasted gifts warned me
away from the emptiness of self-will.
To the women on my journey
Who showed me what I am and what I am not,
Whose love, encouragement, and confidence held me
tenderly and nudged me gently,
Whose judgment, disappointment, and lack of faith called
me to deeper levels of commitment and resolve.
To the women on my journey who taught me love by
means of both darkness and light,
To these women I say bless you and thank you from the
depths of my heart, for I have been healed and set free
through your joy and through your sacrifice.

Monday, 12 October 2020

Monday Meander – October 12, 2020

Autumn's falling leaves waft gold and red in the air. They touch my doorstep with a gentle tap - Thanksgiving has come calling.

We made our feast on Saturday. There was turkey and there was pie. But as it has for seven months now, CoVID-19 muted the guest list, imposing a celebration that was abnormal, incomplete, and far from perfect. Yet perhaps that will be what in time will make Thanksgiving 2020 poignantly memorable and in it’s own twisted way, special.

The leftovers have been dispatched. The pies digested. The table has been cleared – roasting pans and casserole dishes scrubbed down, silverware tucked away, and linens laundered. All that remains on this holiday Monday is gratitude.

"We are grateful for
eyes that see and ponder,
for taste buds that know the sensuous pleasures of eating and drinking,
for hands that hold and touch and feel,
for ears that can delight in music and the voice of a friend,
for a nose that can smell the aroma of newly mown grass or delicious food,
and can also breathe the air that gives us life."

"We are grateful for
the treasure of loved ones
whose hearts of openness and acceptance have encouraged us to be who we are.
We are grateful for their faithfulness, for standing by us when our weaknesses stood out glaringly,
for being there when we were most in need
and for delighting with us in our good days and our joyful seasons."

"We are grateful for
the eyes of faith, for believing in the presence of God,
giving us hope in our darkest days, encouraging us to listen to our spirit’s hunger,
and reminding us to trust in the blessings of God’s presence in our most empty days."

"We are grateful for
the messengers of God - people, events, written or spoke words -
that came to us at just the right time and helped us to grow."

Thursday, 13 June 2019

Thursday, or Thereabouts - June 13, 2019

Remembering Dad

In 1914, 30% of households had a telephone and 20% had electricity; less than 20% had a cooking stove and less than 10% had a car. The crackle of radios, the hum of refrigerators, and the gurgle of clothes washers had yet to enter homes.

Jim and Ella Cudbird of Carlaw Avenue in Toronto welcomed a son into this world on December 4, 1914. They named him Beverley Swann Vassar Cudbird.

Dad with his Mum - Spring/Summer 1915

First Day of School - September 1919

His eyes were on the clouds and stars as he went on to university. Meteorology won over astronomy and so began his career as a weatherman.

1937 - Trinity College, U. of T.

He married his "American Beauty" in November 1944 then swept her off to Newfoundland, where he was posted during WWII.

After the war, they lived in Ottawa for a time where, in 1947, their first daughter was born. The 1950s saw the family settling in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. Two more daughters were born, me in 1953 and my younger sister in 1959.

1962 - Dad's girls

Dad's career progressed at great speed as computers began to appear. He was a key figure in the development of weather data processing techniques. In the 1960s that expertise took him to Nigeria to assist in that country's entry into the digitizing of weather data. For this work, the federal government awarded him the Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967 for having provided valuable service to the country.

My wedding in 1975 offered the perfect opportunity to wear the medal.

A cancer diagnosis in the late 1970s did not stop Dad from doing what he loved - forecasting the weather. He retired from Environment Canada and became the staff meteorologist for radio station CFRB. I like to think he pioneered that media role. Of course, radio has some definite advantages over TV; presenters don't have to worry about what they're wearing, and as in my Dad's case, one doesn't even have to be in the studio. Most of Dad's broadcasts came from the upstairs den in my parents' condo in Etobicoke. If you listened carefully to some of those broadcasts you could hear the chattering of the two teletype machines that spewed out the latest observations and forecasts on reams of newsprint paper.

Dad inspired my love of photography. He began with 35mm slides to which in the sixties, an 8mm movie camera was added along with a "portable" tape recorder, all of which were slung over and around his shoulders throughout the family trip to Europe in 1964.

Dad also loved Dixieland Jazz, Willie Nelson, and military brass bands, especially the Coldstream Guards. Broomstick in hand (instead of a rifle), he marched around the living room often with his daughters following in behind. Sometimes he added a deliberate and exaggerated limp to his step.

He loved the New York Mets but was happy to embrace the Toronto Blue Jays - as long as the Mets weren't in town!

I find it hard to believe that he's been gone since the Spring of 1984. Seems like just yesterday he and I took to the waves off Breezy Point.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Monday, 6 May 2019

Monday Moanings - May 6, 2019

Sunshine and warmth on the same day- TWO days in a row!
The Baltimore Orioles are back!

The snow tires are off and stored.

The BBQ has been fired up ...

and performed beautifully.

There is no possible lament on this day, at least not one from this hand. Too many days I have allowed the news of the day to rob me of joy. I have no illusions that the litany of complaints, warnings, and outrage will stop any time soon. But I celebrate the gift of warmth and sunshine both yesterday and today with great joy and blessed relief.

Splendid weather, that profound lifter of hearts and spirits, is full of grace, an unmerited yet highly desired gift - for an hour, a day or even two days.

Deo gratias!

Monday, 8 October 2018

Thanksgiving Day - October 8, 2018

Today is
"...a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."
So reads the decree enacted by Parliament in 1879. Though the date has moved around a little - at first it was November 6, then it was the 3rd Monday in October - on January 31, 1957, the government proclaimed that National Thanksgiving be celebrated on the 2nd Monday of October.

Back when I was growing up, there was never any thought of celebrating on any other day than the officially decreed Monday. It mattered not a whit that folks had to be rough and ready for work the next morning, or that kids had to be up and out to school. Thanksgiving back then was a single day, a great day of family and food complete with all the good china and silverware, and of course, we ate in the dining room.

Saturday was spent grocery shopping and silver polishing, If we did a really good job on the silver for Thanksgiving, only a few touch-ups would be needed for the Christmas feast! Sunday was for church, and maybe even a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum afterward. In the afternoon, Mom made the pies.

On Thanksgiving Monday, "the bird" - always at least a 22 pounder! - had to be stuffed and in the oven by 9am. My mother was in the kitchen shortly after 7 in the morning and didn't leave it until supper was served at 6 and then she was back in there cleaning up until late. Honestly I don't know how she did it all. No microwave ovens, no automatic dishwasher, no convection oven, and one small fridge, with a 1 cubic foot freezer section. Yet it was always a feast of plenty including leftovers for turkey sandwiches, turkey stew, or pot pie during the week. And she loved every minute of it, but perhaps not so much the clearing up, for which my Dad was conspicuous by his absence...
"Lovely meal Irene, now I'm going to bed."
Yeah, that was Dad, but to be honest I'm not sure how welcome he was in Mom's kitchen.

For both the indigenous tribes and the early newcomers to this land, this time of year was one of both deepest gratitude and fervent hope. Come wind, come weather the land had yielded her best and barns were more or less full. But would the bounty be enough to sustain life through a winter of unknowns?

I have not known such a tenuous life, none of my family have. Sure, we've had our struggles, our lean times, but we've always been able to gather together at Thanksgiving amid an embarrassment of riches. I am as humbled as I am grateful for this bounty. I've companioned others whose lives been flipped upside down by a sudden reversal of fortune and I'm now of a great enough age to be keenly aware that good living does not grant any immunity from calamity down the road. A winter of unknowns may give warning but never asks permission to visit, let alone stay a while.

In my heart and home, today is a day to kick back, relax, enjoy and reflect. Our family celebration was on Saturday. It was a feast of plenty, a cornucopia overflowing with good conversation, great laughs, and the best company.

I am so very thankful on this day for my family, my friends, our health and prosperity. I am truly grateful "for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."