Happy 150th Birthday Canada!
Well, June 2017 goes down as the first whole missed month of my blogging career since I started blogging fifteen years ago. But I just didn’t have the energy for it. I have been writing, and I’ve been taking on assignments, including my Kitchener Post columns, editing work, non-fiction science books, and Transit Toronto, but I just didn’t have the energy to speak personally. It has been a chore to write in a diarist’s mindset for most of this year, and I needed to take a break.
The personal life continues to be a bit of a slog, recovering from and learning to accept my mother’s passing. I have fallen into a routine of seeing to things, which is a good thing, because things need seeing to. But joy still feels unnatural; possibly even illicit and stolen.
But I’m speaking for myself. My children shouldn’t have to feel as I do, and they’ve been smiling, which is good to see. We helped Nora redecorate her room, and install a bunk bed of her very own — a solid one from the Danish Ikea-clone, JYSK; used, thank goodness, and so a bargain — and that might be another reason why I’m feeling so tired at the moment.
I have been back to Toronto a few times, to ride public transit and take photographs for Transit Toronto. I call it “going on long walks, with motorized assistance”. I visited the place where I first heard of my mother’s diagnosis: Harbourfront, across from York Quay. That memory will always be tied up with that area, now. And strangely enough, it makes me want to come back.
So, we have summer, and we have the girls at home. And we’ll be looking at ways to give them good memories about our time together these coming months. We hope to try and see the total eclipse of the sun in Nashville this August. We don’t have a lot of funds for anything else, but we don’t need them, when we have friends and family around us and good hearts. We shall see what can be done.
So, onward to tomorrow.
