Thursday, or Thereabouts - January 12, 2017

A Great Escape

Old Man Winter and Lady Spring have been locked in some kind of arm wrestling match this week. Ontario has had snowstorms, windstorms, and thunderstorms; ice pellets, freezing rain, blizzards, and pouring rain.

               Sunshine for more than just half a day would be nice.
                                  A beach would be nice.

So let's go!

No words, just images of warmth and sea and sand.
Enjoy!

Grand Cayman

The Galapagos

The Galapagos

Little Cayman

Riviera Maya, Mexico

Cuba

Abacos Islands

Cuba

Cozumel, Mexico

©2017 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - January 9, 2017

It feels a little empty, a little sad...

The tree has been disrobed and dismembered, its artificial limbs and push-together trunk systematically tucked into the Rubbermaid coffin that now lies buried in the depths of our basement. The ornaments have returned to their nests in the aging red and white cardboard box with umpteen layers of packing tape holding its sides together.

Some ornaments get special treatment - tender cocoons of paper toweling cradle these precious ones that are heavy with memory and oh so fragile. Each one got to sing its story again this Christmas, but one for the last time. Brittle with age, it fell apart in my hand, a half dozen sharp peaks of impossibly thin heirloom glass. Ah well, nothing lasts forever and the old give way to the new.

The tree lights, those tiny jewels that gave me so much peace and solace in the late evening after a long day, lie powerless yet perfectly coiled and bound into compact quarters. They will no doubt while away their time in the dark writhing themselves into a frantic tangle for me to resolve some eleven months from now.

All the other decorations of the season have also been returned to their resting places - all the knick-knacks and doodads, wreaths, garlands, and precious children's crafts, even the Christmas mugs and plates - all have been exiled to the attic or basement, away from the daily scene.

It feels a little empty, a little sad. My surroundings seem so ... blah.

And so the seeds of the January blahs begin to germinate. They were sewn in the razzle dazzle of December, the music and the memories, the stories and the smiles, the laughter, and the hospitality. Such exuberant merry-making was truly unsustainable.
Now, what?





A New Year has begun.
Mary Anne Radmacher urges me to:

“Live with intention.
 Walk to the edge.
 Listen Hard.
 Practice wellness.
 Play with abandon.
 Laugh.
 Choose with no regret.
 Appreciate your friends.
 Continue to learn.
 Do what you love.
 Live as if this is all there is.”

So let's mosey along through January, doing all we can, when we can, as gently as we can, for ourselves and others. The days are lengthening - a whole eleven minutes longer over the coming week - the light is returning.

©2017 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - January 5, 2017

Correspondence Day

Winter is back!  After a brief sojourn in rain and slush and muck, our driveway has solidified into a craggy gauntlet of frozen treachery that none, without ice cleats, may pass. It's going to be an indoor day for me.

My hero - spreading ash on the driveway of doom

I will surround myself with warmth - fleece, blankies, tea - while I attend to my inbox. Would that it were an actual box, with real letters in it, handwritten missives telling of concerns, questions, and well wishes; something like the red box of government papers sent to the Queen daily.

I want to sit at my writing desk today, pen in hand, fine paper before me and do that old-fashioned thing - write letters. I don't want to sit in front of a computer screen tapping out individual elements of the English alphabet to make words, sentences, paragraphs. I want to form flowing cursive script on cream coloured pages with torn edges.

I don't want to use emoticons, however yellow, cute, funny, clever or animated, to convey some kind of emotional state. The honest moments and movements of my heart need words, real words born of thought-FULL-ness; words that don't always come easily, that often struggle to be a handhold, a hug, a substitute for eye to eye, heart to heart communication.

If I find that writing takes too much time, there is a Plan B. Another old-fashioned instrument lies within arms reach, the one invented by Alexander Graham Bell. To speak and talk in real time, with a real person - what a concept! It is so much more satisfying and effective than a ping and flash of words across a smartphone screen. And there is far less chance of miscues and mix-ups occasioned by a plethora of abbreviations.







This is not a rant against tech. I use it - no kidding, eh? I appreciate its speed, efficiency, and encyclopedic (though not always truthful!) data. And yes, at some point, I will end up keyboarding most of my cursive communiques. The information super highway is unlikely to get buried in paper.

BUT I don't want to sacrifice the irreplaceable skill of written, hand-written, words on paper and that two way street of listening and speaking that is person to person conversation, especially in matters of the heart, in those relationships that matter most.

The kettle is boiling, my pen is ready. It's Correspondence Day.



©2017 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - January 2, 2017

Returning to Regularly Scheduled Programming...

It is indeed January and here I am back in the regular time slot, sitting in my wagon ready to push off into a new week, a new month and a new year. Well, sort of ready. Maybe just thinking about getting ready...and facing backwards.

That season we were in such a rush to get to, in such a frenetic flurry of frolic to celebrate, now seems to be the season we can't get rid of fast enough. It's a shame really. I mean not even the Wise Men have shown up yet and we're being pushed to kick the family and feast to the curb.



But in my house, the creche, the tree, the lights indoors and out, stay up and twinkling until Epiphany (January 6) and then a couple of days more in honour of orthodox Christmas (January 7).



















The only elements of our faith-full celebrations that have been tucked away are the menorah and the dreidels. Hanukkah ended at sunset yesterday.









Though slow to step up to the plate, a week from now I too will join the throngs of those batting Christmas out of the house, out of sight, undoing much of what was done in December.

From twinkling lights to festive tables;

from Christmas trees to crystal stars and crafted angels;

from creche to shepherds and a trio of late magi, who I'm sure will show up at the appointed time;
from candles and dancing rabbis,

from cookies to waistbands; all in their own way must give way to the new year.

Empty of the razzle dazzle that powered December days, a hodgepodge of resolutions

 - to do more, to do less; to be more, to be less -

rush in to fill the void in life's fuel tank. 

January is just one big correction after another.

©2017 April Hoeller

New Year's Eve 2016

The Gate of the Year

First published in 1908 with the title "God Knows" this poem gained greater prominence in 1939 when King George VI spoke the opening lines in his Christmas broadcast to a British Empire plunged into World War II.

The words of Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957) capture my heart on the threshold of this and every new year.

 And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
     “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
     “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
       That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
 What need our little life
 Our human life to know,
 If God hath comprehension?
 In all the dizzy strife
 Of things both high and low,
 God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
 Is best. The stretch of years
 Which wind ahead, so dim
 To our imperfect vision,
 Are clear to God. Our fears
 Are premature; In Him,
 All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
 God moves to lift the veil
 From our impatient eyes,
 When, as the sweeter features
 Of Life’s stern face we hail,
 Fair beyond all surmise
 God’s thought around His creatures
 Our mind shall fill.

Happy New Year

to all my readers and friends. 

I wish you health and happiness.

Monday Moanings - December 12, 2016

Good Morning Snow!

How do I know it's Monday? I woke up to this view out my front door:

Which is not so very unlike the view last Monday morning:

Back in the day when I worked in Church-land, it was frequently said, "if something happens twice it's tradition; it if happens three times it's immutable tradition."

THEREFORE it hath been decreed that on Monday mornings, 20cm of fresh snow is a tradition. 

The venerable scrutineer has attested to the occurrence.

In accordance with The Tradition, snow shovelling shall be the appropriate workout of the day.

Robed in white, the Great Puffin has pronounced his blessing.

So be it!

©2016 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - December 5, 2016

It's beginning to look a lot like...

The view outside my kitchen this morning

I awoke to a winter wonderland outside my door this morning. I love it! Nothing lifts my spirits quite so high as December snow. I couldn't wait to get out there with my camera.

Oh DEER!

No time for sitting here. Now it was all hands to the shovel and the snow blower. The big machine struggled with the heavy wet snow, lurching, spinning tires on the unfrozen ground. Then there was the shovel work. The walkways, deck and 'trim work' where the snow blower cannot go, require the old fashioned brute force approach. That was some workout, let me tell you. I even logged it in my fitness tracker as "weight training."

So many memories are unlocked by the first good snowfall.
   - the tingle when catching a snowflake on my tongue.
    - flopping down on my back to sweep out my arms and legs to make a snow angel and then struggling to get back up again without messing up the creation.
     - trudging through snow way over my boots, while singing Good King Wenceslas.
     - making snow forts, snowballs, and snowmen complete with a carrot nose and stone eyes, and outfitted with a ragged scarf and an old hat. Yes, they were always 'snowmen' but issues of gender never occurred to me.





How about snow sundaes? Now there was a treat, except in my childhood home, it was Aunt Jemima's syrup that was poured on the snow. We couldn't afford real maple syrup.

Quebec City, March 2008

I recall my mother loved a winter wonderland but only when viewed from inside a cosy house. I never saw a snow shovel in her hands. No sledding for her either. That was Dad's department.

One year I recall he and I even built ski hill in the back yard. We piled snow upon snow, stripping much of the back yard of its white cover (mother was not amused!), until there was a hill - well really more of mound - about a metre high and just as wide. The slope stretched out for something like 4 metres. The first problem was getting on the top without destroying the slope. Dad put his old wooden skis on the 'summit' then hoisted me up.

Yup, that's me all right - uh huh, in my dreams...

I got on the skis then planted the poles and pushed off. The skis inched forward, once. I tried again. Same result. Then Dad got behind the hill and gave the back of the skis a push. Down the hill I went - lurching, squeaking, scrunching the whole way down, inches at a time. No speed records. No wind in my ten year old face. I tried a couple of more 'runs' before abandoning the slope for a cup hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows on top.

Dad may not have known how to build a good ski hill, but he sure knew how to build a great memory!

Winter in Canada - there's no life like it!

©2016 April Hoeller