Ten 2013 Moments to be Remembered

... waiting for the maple syrup candy to cool ...

1. I cherished seeing Mary’s children and Catherine’s children early in the year. I wouldn’t have missed the trip to both home in Quebec. I got to see butterflies in the winter and I had a chance to eat maple syrup candy cooled in the snow. How about the fun at the skating rink at Mount Royal! That should be a moment to remember all on its own.

2. This is the year everything quit: my old car, my stove, my washing machine, my dryer ... and I gave up on my dream to continue walking outside in the winter. With regret, I acknowledged I am too old to be slipping on the ice and I bought a treadmill. That last purchase ended my discretionary funds for 2013 and beyond.

... Wyona, watching the sail out ...

3. I never had the dream of going from Hong Kong to Shanghai; from Shanghai to Seward, Alaska; and from Seward, Alaska to Vancouver.

Wyona and Greg created the opportunity.

... pedestrian walk in Kobe, Japan ...

I still shake my head in wonder that I would see so many places on the Pacific Rim.

4. 2013 was my year of film and music. I watched film series and Great Performance Concerts on T.V. I took advantage of the HD Live presentations, attended the Roots and Blue Festival, and I hooked in to the Shuswap Film Festival.

Regretfully, I had no time to take courses at the university. That was the downside of enjoying all that other entertainment.

... blue eyed Alice Margaret at 5 months ...

5. New baby Alice was a 2013 highlight.

When a child begins her life in the same city as her grandmother and then lives next door? I count that as an event to be treasured.

6. I enjoyed the fall and some winter in B.C. I thought I would spend time in Janet’s and Moiya’s hot tubs, but by the time night came, I was always too tired to walk down to either house. I love having more to do every day than I can manage in B.C. Still, I would have liked at least one hot tub event. But to be fair, I have tried hot tubing it in the morning. And that is so relaxing that I can’t get any other kind of work done all day.

7. I gathered some of Moiya’s tomatoes in the late summer when she had to leave the lake. The ones I took home were so delicious that just to talk about them makes me stop typing, rest my hands on the keyboard, close my eyes and see if I can bring that intense flavour of vine ripened tomatoes back to mind. Yes. I can do it. Delicious.

8. I have done more singing this year than in past years. David Camps and Michael Johnson have been my targets. They don’t know how much thinking and preparing I have to do before I break out into what seems like spontaneous song. If they knew, they might resist my melodies less. Those old lyrics aren’t in my head anymore and I have to do some serious memorizing to get the words back and make them seem like they have been mine forever.

 ... Mati, in Victoria, photographing a sculpture in the back of a truck ...

9. Makmiller and Matiram said good-bye to us this year.

 I have not been grieving their leaving.

I have focused, instead, on the treasure of having known them.

10. Good health for the year! – more the treasure when it seems threatened. I remember again the joy of waking every morning to a new day of promise. Every day, 365 of them,  still a wonder.

Arta