September Lilies

It is the beginning of September, the end of summer, but to walk outside it would seem that summer has just arrived. For the past week, we have had the warmest, driest days in a year, and it is strange to be thinking of going back to school when the weather is telling us to go the beach or the lake or anywhere but back to school. For a week I have been walking past these lilies blooming in front of my old school They are stunning September lilies, more than a dozen white blossoms the size of dinner plates, their scent completely intoxicating. Even the lilies are saying SUMMER, not FALL. But, the sun is rising later each day, setting earlier. These days, when I return from my evening walk, it is dark and dusky, nearly night.

LABOUR DAY WEEKEND

- Myra Cohn Livingston

Packing

up her picnic

pouring cold lemonade

in the park grass, Summer says

good-bye.

Growing Wings and Other Things

Growing Wings by Hana

Getting ready to go back to school . . . I have been sorting through hundreds and hundreds of pieces of writing done by kids I have taught over the last thirty years. I am converting them from over-head transparencies into digital images, into power-point presentations, which means my house is a mess, literally littered with words, but also bursting with stories. Every single piece has a life and story behind it and a child right at the center of it. Whenever I doubt why I teach the way I do, all I need to do is look through these collections - so filled with truth and beauty. I feel incredibly sad for teachers who spend their careers having kids do worksheets, filling in blanks, marking spelling tests, etc. Hana, who was 7 at the time, a real little bird herself, drew this picture at home and brought it to school one day. I want wings just like that! I think there is a poem to go with it somewhere in those stacks of overheads on my dining room table. I am still looking for it.

Favourite Song by Lindsay

Almost twenty years ago I was teaching little children in the inner-city. Many of them were just beginning to learn the alphabet, just learning what words on paper looked like. Often their writing looked like chains of random letters. Some, like Lindsay, already knew how to leave spaces between words. One day, when I knelt beside her and asked her what she was writing, she said, "It's my mom's favourite song." And then she sang it SO sweetly: "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a ranch like me. . . " Unforgettable, really. But even more so, because it is there on the page, in writing.

Ladybug by Binh

Binh had just moved to Canada from Viet Nam the year before he began first grade. He was the little boy who once asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. He drew this picture early in the school year. He was still 5 years old, just beginning to learn English, just beginning to connect letters and sounds. It must have been one of the first snowy days in the fall - look carefully on the ground and you will see a tiny ladybug walking beside him. He wrote: "A ladybug is cold in the snow." For more than twenty years, each time I have found a ladybug in my house in the winter, Binh's words are the first that come to mind. Where is he now?

New Found Land

Welcome to Newfoundland

I spent the last week in Newfoundland, with my mother, visiting my aunt who has a house on Bona Vista Bay. Our first morning there, the phone rang, early. It was her neighbour, Paul, a Dutch whale-watcher/photographer, who spends his summer months with the whales in Newfoundland. He was telling us to get down to the dock, the baby beluga was there, within arm's reach. We pulled on clothes and went right down. Such a playful welcome to Newfoundland. There he was, a baby beluga, tugging on ropes, bumping up against Paul's boat, trying to pull him away from the dock, doing all he could do be noticed. So sweet! But also a little sad, he is stranded in the bay, drawn to human companionship. But there is still hope that he will find his way out before the fall arrives.

Sea, Sky, Rocks, and More
This was my first time on The Rock. An amazing place to visit - more European than Canadian. A blend of Ireland, Scotland, and England. The people are as welcoming as the whales. Just as funny, too. And marvelous story-tellers!

The Pageant at Trinity

Looking Out the Kitchen Window

There were hundreds of dolphins out in the bay, feeding. Also, finn whales spouting and breeching. Each day I was enchanted by the quality of the light. A different kind of brilliance! I suppose, created by so much sea and sky. Newfoundland was once a land of fishermen, but the ocean was over-fished, the fisheries were shut down, and thousands of Newfoundlanders now make their living in the tar sands of Alberta. They do not live in Alberta, they commute. Who wouldn't?

Hanging Out/Hanging On

Wire Guy Just Hanging On

It's August and the last week has been a little crazy - sick cats without appetites, visits to the vet (too many!), cats still not eating much, but moving about, rubbing noses against the edges of the computer, sitting on my lap, watching words appear on the screen. I spent the last two days in the country hanging out with my niece and nephew, instead of hanging out with worrisome cats. We went for bike rides to every local store and scanned the billboards looking for FREE PUPPIES! (SHE WANTS A PUPPY!) There were none. We went to the "swimming pool" or, as it is now called "The Aquatic Center". It barely resembles the pool I swam in when I was their age. Swirling slides, straight slides, water cannons (they are actually allowed to aim at each other), beach chairs and umbrellas, families with over-sized coolers on wheels filled with over-sized treats! Hard to believe that pool began almost fifty years ago as one blue rectangle in the middle of the prairie - a place that was controlled by rules: NO RUNNING! NO SPLASHING! NO DUNKING! NO FOOD! I loved it anyway. The world just keeps changing.

We went home and sat in the sunshine, twisting colourful wires together, making wire guys . . . and DOGS. Here is Nicholas' wire guy hanging out around the yard. There was no end to possibilities. Wire Guy also did some work on his tractor, flew without wings, walked his dog, climbed the wall, slept in the lilies, and talked to some frogs. Sometimes the best field trips of all happen in your own backyard . . . Now I am back in the city with the cats who show no interest at all in Wire Guy, and not much more interest in their food.

Wire Guy Walks the High Wire

Wire Guy at the Beach

Flying Away With the Bluebird

Paint, Paper, Scissors

Rain, again, today! Rain. Sun. Rain. Sun. At the moment . . . rain! It seems that this has been the way all summer long. All spring as well. I am trying to love this day - clouds, sun, wind, clattering cutlery, nervous cats, pieces of colourful paper sticking to my fingertips, the soles of my feet, the edges of the kitchen sink. Really, when I think of winter (which I try not to do), THIS is very, very good. I am reading Terry Tempest Williams - Finding Beauty in a Broken World - a deeply compelling call for resurrection, for healing, for assembling, reassembling, putting together the pieces of a broken world, and making beauty. I am not sure how this book found me this summer, but we met. It is a FABULOUS book. She is a wonder! Our lives are filled with fractured pieces of so many kinds. Each time I read T.T.W. I feel more whole.

Stretching



For the past few weeks I have spent my days and evenings collaging with pieces of colourful paper left behind by children with whom I have worked, or the remains of past projects of my own, or fragments of art work done by friends and sent to me. Scissors and paper, pieces of other people - these are my tools right now. Some gel pens, too. The pages of my sketch/writing book are splashes of colour waiting for words. These days I never arrive at an empty page - there is always colour waiting for me and each page has a history. Each page evolves on its own - beginning very randomly and growing towards order. I have decided that I would live inside these summer pages, if I could. . .

We Have a Butterfly!

Still in Her Chrysalis



Thursday Morning - Just heading out the door to walk, I glance at the container on the fridge and see how thin and transparent the chrysalis has become. Beneath the shadowy skin, I see wings, black wings trimmed with white polka-dots. I decide to stay home instead. I polish the kitchen windows, one eye on the glass, the other on the chrysalis. And then . . . it begins - so quietly, you would never know it was happening. The skin splits apart and a butterfly, crumpled like a a wad of wet kleenex, emerges. Ta-Da!

Just Emerging

All day, she hangs upside-down, at first pumping her wings full of fluid, then just letting them drying.

Such Beautiful Wings


Towards evening she crawls onto my finger and then onto a pink lily. She is nearly ready to take to the sky, but it is too cloudy and cool for her wings to work. I decide to keep her safe one more night. . .

Meeting Alex Eye to Eye

The next morning, my nephew, Alex, (a.k.a. Bug Boy) calls. He was at my house the day she hatched from egg to caterpillar - as tiny and thin as an eyelash. He saw it happen. He has been at his cottage at the lake since the beginning of July but today, he has come into the city to have his vision checked- "20-20!" he declares. I already knew that. If it was possible to have better than perfect vision, he would have it. He sees wonder in the tiniest, creepiest crawly things. He celebrates it all the time. I pack up the butterfly and head for Alex's house. He wants to show me the milkweed he found in his backyard- "A bird must have pooped out the seed, because we didn't plant it, " he says, breathlessly happy. At the end of June, all he wanted was milkweed growing in his garden. Miracle of miracles, now he has it! We open the butterfly box and the butterfly crawls onto Alex's fingers. He carries her from flower to flower, introducing her to his lilies and his geraniums and the tiny purple flowers he and his mother have planted in the front yard. We try to convince her to leave, but she hangs around, not yet ready to say good-bye. Later, I take her home for one more night, give her milkweed flowers for supper, and watch her sleep. Tomorrow I will set her free . . .

Clean Windows

The days this week have been perfect and sunny, the evenings a bit rainy and thundery which has made the world many shades of green - the best colour to be.  When it is summer in Winnipeg, it is hard to remember ever wanting to be anywhere else. There is sky and river and days that last long into evening - seemingly no need to sleep.  Today I cleaned my sunroom windows, an arduous task - taking them apart, spraying, polishing, spraying, polishing, one side, then the other side, another side and another side - layers and layers of glass. So much work. But when I was done all I wanted to do was sit and feel the clean light in my eyes.  All of winter's grit gone. Tonight, in my house, even the darkness will shine.  No better way to spend a day.  Here are three more portraits by the remarkable "art girls".     

Abby Chirping Prism 

Skylar Fading Bamboo
Chloe Walking Avocado