Erin's Journals

Just a thought… You can take away a man’s show; you can’t take away a man’s voice. [David Letterman]

Welcome to a new week, and a holiday if you’re lucky enough to have it off today. An event to come in a few days has had me reflecting a lot on my own life, and wondering if perhaps you can relate, not only to me, but to an internationally known TV personality.

As you are aware, this Thursday is the final new episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. After nearly 11 years, the talk show host will say his good-byes on CBS. Who will be his guest on the finale is still a secret, but my best guess is that during a week off a while ago, he not only travelled to Chicago to sit down with President Barack Obama, but went to Rome to do the same with Pope Leo. As a devout Roman Catholic who wears his heart on that well-tailored sleeve, it is not just ironic but insulting that the far right lunatics decry a moral man for calling them out on their bullsh*t. But I digress…and again, Pope Leo is just a guess.

It’s a done deal. CBS has bowed to their Golden Piggy and removed Colbert from the network. And it’s not a desperately failing network’s boneheaded move that has me thinking. No, it’s what’s next for a man I admire but have never met.

When I left CHFI of my own volition in December ten years ago, it was for deeply personal reasons. Rob and I had to start a new life and, for us, that meant pulling up stakes and moving as far west as we could go in this glorious country of ours. It was not an easy decision and we knew we were leaving family, friends, a career and a life behind. But we had set our GPS for the future, and that’s where it led us.

Now settled into our third home since packing too much stuff into vans that would make their way across most of five provinces and a part of an ocean, life is making more sense every day.

But it has taken me almost an entire decade to finally let go of the work dream: that I’d return to radio or continue to be doing what I loved. That desire and need have morphed into a gentle satisfaction in doing two podcasts: my sleep stories Drift with Erin Davis (now closing in on 500,000 listens) and the weekly joy Lisa Brandt and I call Gracefully and Frankly”(which is nearly at 240,000). These, along with this journal, will have to be the way I share myself and my stories. And the emails and messages I get keep me connected. Thank you!

From what I’ve gleaned, taking on retirement is a job in and of itself. Not just in filling the hours – far from it: there are always volunteer positions and freelance that people can seek.

But, psychologically, it comes with a process that is a lot like the grief cycle. Normally (whatever that is) the yearning continues for 3-12 months, and even up to two years.

It’s the loss of your professional identity. The social connection. The structure and routine.

Experts recommend seeking counsel, or just allowing yourself to grieve. Rebuilding your identity with different hobbies, pastimes and activities, and creating a new structure and routine. Goodness knows (as I found out first-hand) having no structure can mean it feels like a Saturday night and get-out-the-Grey-Goose every danged evening. And that’s not good for anyone.

For Mr. Colbert, the future is bright: he’ll land wherever he wants and is already diving into co-writing a new Lord of the Rings film. But it’ll take time (and plenty of that in a shrink’s office, no doubt) to deal with the pain of what has happened to him as America takes on an increasingly fascist air, particularly where comedians and truth-tellers are concerned.

I wish him only the best in whatever this newly-turned 62-year-old plans. Yes, there are plenty of people who’ve been turfed from their jobs, but this is a different case and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t want to recognize it. The Colberts won’t need a GoFundMe to keep going, or to start downloading coupons for groceries, like so many who have been fired must do. Perhaps because 23 years ago I experienced myself what it feels like to lose a public position, his firing resonates loudly with me. But more likely because he could be the biggest canary in the coal mine where media control is concerned. For that matter, CBS has already signed its own death warrant. I care more about the fate of the historic Ed Sullivan Theater than I do about what’s left of the network.

May he follow in the footsteps of David Letterman, and do only what he wants and when he wants to do it from here on in. I wish him even a fraction of the joy he’s given us, and none of the consternation he caused among the worst of them.

As Letterman himself said the other night (quoted above), “You can take away a man’s show; you can’t take away a man’s voice.” Hear, hear. And that goes for women, too.

Hello!

Last week if you read my journal here, you may remember my message to myself was “enough.”

So, with that in my mind and heart today, I will pass on writing a blog and invite you back here next week. (Of course, Lisa Brandt and I will have a new episode of our Gracefully and Frankly podcast Thursday and I look forward to talking to you then.)

In case you’re not on Facebook or other social media, I did put together a gentle video that I think you’ll like that had a true Mother’s Day and Mother Nature theme.

Enjoy this, know that we’re having a peaceful day together, Rob and I, and thank you for coming by.

Erin

Just a thought… The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. [Rabindranath Tagore]

I’m spending these days in the cocoon of our island cabin in the woods as we head into the heart-heaviest week of my year – Mother’s Day this Sunday and then the 11^th anniversary of Lauren’s passing the next day. I’m always torn about what to post on Facebook that day: in many ways I’d like to forget about that morning in Jamaica when we got the call from her mother-in-law that she’d died suddenly in her sleep. In other ways I feel it’s disrespectful of her and her memory to just let the day pass.

What also crosses my mind is, Are people tired of hearing about this? because honestly I’m sure some are. That’s how grief and the world go: everything keeps turning and moving on, but you are still reminded constantly of your person, that day, the events surrounding their passing, and all of the things that still swirl in your heart and your head.

Regrets. Longings. Joy. Questions. Even anger. All of the feelings that so many people figure you should be “over” by now.

That’s not how it works. I can only tell you my experience (and this is in no way how you or anyone else should grieve; each of our experiences is as unique as our DNA). The sadness hits so much less frequently than it used to do that sometimes I feel disloyal to her. She walks with me, she listens while I talk to her, she rolls her eyes when Rob and I recall the hilarious things she said and did as a child, adolescent and adult. My heart overflows with pride for the woman and mother she became, and the people she touched on her way to her next destination.

Just as it was in those darkest days of eleven years ago, gratitude is the only way Rob and I have found to keep moving forward. Sometimes my modus operandi is to run and to stay as busy as I can in an effort to escape the inevitable question of why? and the vast unfairness of losing one’s only child. But coming to recognize that for what it is – escaping – is helping me to try to break a pattern. And that is by trying to remember one simple word: enough.

We had enough.

We have enough.

We and this life we have built are enough.

For all the love we had to give her, it was enough – enough to let her know she could move on to whatever is next in her soul’s journey.

“Enough” is a funny word that looks even stranger the more you write and read it. But it’s a word that is also an admonishment, a comfort and a reminder.

Because sometimes enough is all we get, and it’s more than we could have hoped for. And holding on to that thought, that immense gratitude, just has to be enough. Making peace with that as best I can makes all the difference.

My wish for you is that you may you have enough.

Just a thought… To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. [David Viscott]

I struggled with what to write for you today because my heart and soul are so wrapped up in this little cabin on a tiny Gulf Island off the coast of Vancouver Island. The last thing I want to do is bore you, or stop you from visiting here!

So today I’ll focus on some impending puppy news.

The last time Dottie was in a family way and I posted her brand new pups (that was around Christmas of 2023) I had just one person who was notably angry – probably on X, where anger goes to grow – that I was promoting a breeder instead of adopting strays. Let me say this first of all: if adopting is a possibility, people should definitely have the choice to do that.

My dear pal and Gracefully and Frankly partner Lisa Brandt is the first person to do so: she’s homed and loved many dogs as well as senior cats, to whom she has given the best years of their lives. Her current pet Cuddles is a prime example of that and I have the utmost respect and adoration for her for this reason: she knows she won’t have a whole decade or two with her beloved fur friend, and that there will be medical bills and worries. Yet she puts her big heart out there and she and husband Derek enjoy their family for just as long as they have him, her or them. So, yes, adoption is the way to go. (I have a joke about this at the end, by the way. I could NOT stop laughing!)

But with our Havanese dogs Dottie and Livi, they came to us in a different kind of way. We fell in love with the breed after seeing one in the Westminster Dog Show and knew of one in our Toronto condo building. They were the breed we wanted, having had negative experiences with a few others, and just as many with mixed breeds. We’re not species-ist, I swear!

Anyway, Dottie happens to share a birthday with our Lauren, and we found her the day after. It seemed “meant to be.” But she came with a caveat: Dottie was the personal pet of a highly-respected breeder in Cobble Hill, about 45 minutes up island from us, and she would have to continue to be part of owner Bev’s foster breeding program. Apparently this isn’t such an unusual situation, but it was (and is) for us.

This sounded great in our excitement about bringing this beautiful girl into our lives, but we have been at the mercy of timing and Mother Nature ever since. After Dottie’s first litter of six lovely pups, she’s been due to hook up with a boy for another one. Our vacations plus the breeder’s availability have gotten in the way and there has been no litter #2. Here she is with her new pups back in 2023.

When Livi went into heat six weeks ago, we figured Dot would follow in her diaper pads shortly thereafter. But nope. Livi has been successfully mated and as of this writing is halfway through her pregnancy…we THINK. The weird thing about doggie gestation is you often don’t know until they go off their food if they’re expecting. Livi is showing no signs of that, but the fact that she and her boyfriend mated (or “tied”) three times puts the odds in her favour.

Then there’s Dottie. She was due to be bred as well, which should have had both dogs in the “maternity ward” (where they met, and which first gave Bev the idea that we should take Livi home with us to stay, since her former owner was now unable to keep her) for June and July. This period without the pups would have allowed us to plan to go to Ottawa for a longer visit with the grandkids and their folks.

But it now looks like, if we go, Dottie will accompany us since now her timing is not meshing with the breeder’s plans. I’ll be SO glad when this time in their and our lives is done; we want the dogs to be 100% ours to enjoy for the rest of their (and likely our) lives. But who can plan when Mother Nature calls the shots, right?

As for their new part-time home on Pender Island, they absolutely love it. Not just the longer walks (not so much for Livi, who is a little bit of a slug at the best of times, and doesn’t keep up with the black and white blur that we call her “sister”) but having a big area to run in, to sniff and explore and in which to munch whatever grass the deer aren’t interested in.

Oh, the deer. Both dogs bark when they see one go by, but last week as a new mom and her fawn passed our window, I had Rob scoop up the dogs and hold them both where they couldn’t see our magical visitors. And I got this picture.

All in all, life here is so good that it’s taking all the self-control I have not to gush here every week. But I thought that sharing some puppy news might be a change of pace. And who can’t use some good news on a Monday after the bizarre weekend we just lived through (again)? Oh, and paying the joke tax, now that you’ve read the blog…

Just a thought… Happiness is not out there, it’s in you. [attributed variously to Don Miguel Ruiz, and others]

Ah, the famous 4-20. A day to spark up for those who even note it anymore; with pot dispensaries as ubiquitous as coffee shops in Canada, it’s hardly a thing, I would guess. But what do I know? I never enjoyed the stuff. Part of it is the harshness on my throat (which still has not fully recovered from a now month-long cold), but the other is that I just don’t like how it makes me feel: thirsty, lethargic, paranoid and like I have a big lump in my throat.

I think I’m that rare person who can’t use CBD to help sleep, too. At our age, and especially with menopause messing with people’s REMs and rest, many are turning to gummies to help in that area – goodness knows I have a lot of friends who do just that. But I must be some kind of weird unicorn: it makes me think too much and I can’t shut down enough to sleep. Me overthinking? Imagine that!

Here in our new little island home, the sweet cabin in the woods where deer wander by the windows and a fifteen-minute walk affords possible views of whales, sleep comes easily. No sounds of traffic or trucks backing up nearby, only the odd far-off owl or morning woodpecker. Sounds heavenly, right?

So why did I try so hard to mess it up last week?

During our visit to new neighbours, I soaked in their panorama of ocean views: ferries meandering by, the promise of eagles and possible sea lions, and a sense of wonder. Not long after we had that lovely time, my addict brain started poking at me, whispering more, more, more!

So what did I do? My wandering heart let my fingers do the pecking and, while Rob slept innocently beside me, I looked at real estate listings here on the island. My hope was to find a house that replicated the views we’d seen that afternoon, so that we, too, could take in the wonders of the ocean (never mind that this is our condo view in Sidney).

I found a house that was within what I thought was our possible price range, and reached out to the realtor who’d connected us with our Wedgie, asking her if they’d come down in price, what was wrong with it, and so on. (The answers: somewhat, and nothing.)

But the next day when I “jokingly” told Rob about my search, he was quiet. At first he said he’d look at the listing and then just changed his mind, reminding me that he’d worked so hard during my winter away to: a) move us in here, and b) make it feel like a home in which I could finally feel happy. At peace.

And he did. I do! But again, that addict’s brain. Two days later, I shut down the idea, and apologized to him. I likened it to me coming home from Mexico and, after all he’d done, telling him that I’d found a new man, or novio if you will. I realized the depth of my inconsideration and apologized wholeheartedly.

Yesterday we took a long walk – much farther than Rob would usually accompany me on – and found ourselves at a marina about 15 minutes from Wedgie. We explored the area and, of course, looked for those elusive whales. One day, one day….

On the way home, Rob picked up a used weed whacker that someone was giving away. It will be put to good use at our cabin, especially since when we left our big house last year, we gave away any outdoor equipment we had because we were condo bound.

The walk was good for our souls and just further solidified the knowledge that as much as a cliffside house would be a bigger adventure with wider vistas than what we now have, I need to get comfortable and find peace in where I am. It may be genetic, having grown up in a family of serial movers (and some of us still are), and part of it is searching for true happiness when a lot of our hearts simply disappeared with Lauren’s death.

My analogous infidelity was a reminder to stop and be present. To be grateful for the immense kindness and love of my long-suffering partner. And to ask myself today, and every day: What was I smoking?

Happy 4-20. Or whatever day this is for you. For me, it’s another day in a perfect life – except for, as we always say, that one thing.