I was in the bathtub soaking up the warmth while listening to my special playlist. It’s comprised of songs that I like to sing along with, that for whatever reason make me happy. Some of the songs are not good and I don’t know why they carry such emotional resonance. Some of the songs used to carry a negative connotation, but don’t anymore. For example, when symptoms are unpleasant and my body is freaking out, one of the best...
When I was a kid we did a couple of road trips to western Ontario to visit my stepfather’s maternal relations. His family were evangelical, and that’s how I was raised. I went to Sunday school, weekly Bible club, and a hardcore Christian camp down in New York State a couple of times.
This is a chipmunk hole. There are several here, dotting the top and sides of the smallest garden bed nearest to the house. It makes sense since the ground is high and the soil is dry and well draining, while the rest of the property is too boggy and wet for burrows.
Earlier this evening, while slow drying a batch of our own homegrown tomatoes in the oven, Davin made a joke about the drying process to the tune of Rush’s “Closer to the Heart.” I’ve tried to replace it with “Subdivisions” (a superior song), but it refuses to come unstuck.
With Day of the Dead just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about cemeteries, death, the way we deal with remains, and how those practices vary around the world. Wherever I go, I always try to check out the cemeteries.
In a piece called “all about my mother,” author Jeanette Winterson tells the story of how a loveless upbringing led her to become a writer. She describes her mother as distrustful of books, a condition that lead to a stark void of reading materials in their home. There were six books in all, one of which included the Bible and two others that were commentaries on it.
It took a year, but we’ve finally cleared all of the boxes from a small, trapezoid-shaped room that we’d hoped would serve as a guest quarters where we can also read, listen to music, and play music (we have instruments but can’t really “play” any of them).
