Erin's Journals

I came up with this a few years ago as a Secret Santa type of game to play with friends and/or family around the dining table.

Just make sure there are more than two people and that everyone starts with a small present in hand, one that could go to anyone and still be appropriate. When you hear the word ‘right’ (whether it’s spelled R-I-G-H-T or sounds like it) you pass to the right, and same with the word ‘left.’ Only one spelling of that one. Here we go.

THE STORY OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ CHRISTMAS

BY ERIN DAVIS

(and if you’re playing correctly, you just passed that gift to the person on your right, because I said the brothers’ name. Got it? Good. Let’s go.)

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE TWO BROTHERS. ORVILLE WRIGHT AND WILBUR WRIGHT. THEY LIVED IN KITTY HAWK, NORTH CAROLINA, RIGHT NEAR RALEIGH. ORVILLE AND WILBUR NEVER LEFT HOME – THEY STAYED IN KITTY HAWK AND WANTED TO FLY.

HOW COULD THAT BE RIGHT? PREVIOUS TRIES LEFT THOSE FLYING MACHINES IN PIECES ON THE GROUND.

BUT THE BOYS HAD THE RIGHT STUFF. SO, PEOPLE LEFT IT TO THEM. AFTER ALL, WHAT RIGHT DID ANYONE HAVE TO SAY THAT THEY COULDN’T FLY – RIGHT?

THE WRIGHT BROTHERS BUILT AN AIRPLANE WITH PARTS LEFT OVER FROM THEIR TRACTOR – AND EVEN USED A SURF BOARD FOR THE RIGHT WING. WHAT?

ON A CHILLY DECEMBER 24TH, RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ORVILLE AND WILBUR GOT INTO THEIR PLANE. A PRIEST, WHO WAS WORRIED, CAME AND GAVE THEM LAST RITES. BUT THEY SAID, “OH GOODNESS, FATHER, WE’LL BE ALL RIGHT! BESIDES, WE HAVEN’T EVEN LEFT YET!”

THEY STARTED THEIR PLANE AND DESPITE THE COLD, IT BEGAN RIGHT AWAY. THEY FLEW A LITTLE TO THE LEFT, AND THEN A LITTLE TO THE LEFT AGAIN…AND THEN UP AND DOWN AND THEN…TO THE LEFT. “UH-OH,” SAID WILBUR, “THIS AIN’T RIGHT.” SO THEN THEY TRIED TO STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT, BUT INSTEAD, THE PLANE JUST KEPT GOING UP – UP – UP!

AS THE WRIGHT BROTHERS STARTED TO PANIC, THEIR PLANE CONTINUED ITS ASCENT. UP OVER ROOFTOPS, UP THROUGH THE CLOUDS.

‘TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN, OVER THE WHIRRRR OF THE LITTLE PLANE’S STRUGGLING PROPELLERS, THE WRIGHT BROTHERS COULD HEAR A SOUND. WAIT, THOUGHT WILBUR, THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!

“DO YOU HEAR BELLS?” ASKED ORVILLE.

THEY DID! THEY LOOKED ABOVE THEM, THEY LOOKED TO THE RIGHT…THEY LOOKED BELOW AND THEN THEY LOOKED TO THE LEFT…AND WHAT SHOULD THEY SEE, RIGHT THERE BESIDE THEM?

NONE OTHER THAN THE BIG MAN HIMSELF: SANTA CLAUS, AND A MAGICAL SLEIGH BEING PULLED BY EIGHT REINDEER!

“HEY!” SHOUTED SANTA, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

IT’S MY TURN TO FLY – YOU HAVEN’T THE GEAR!

YOU LAND THAT PLANE RIGHT NOW, BEFORE YOU CRASH BADLY….”

“OKAY,” SAID THE WRIGHT BROTHERS, NODDING QUITE SADLY.

“WE DON’T KNOW THE WAY – I GUESS WE DID GOOF….”

AND SANTA SAID, “FOLLOW! I’LL LAND ON YOUR ROOF!”

SO THAT’S WHAT THEY DID, AND THEY PURSUED THE SLEIGH, LED BY RUDOLPH’S GLOWING RED NOSE. DOWN, DOWN, THEY WENT. TURNING LEFT AND LEFT AGAIN…UNTIL RIGHT BELOW THEM WAS THEIR HOUSE.

SANTA AND HIS REINDEER LANDED AND QUICKLY LEFT THEIR PRESENTS, THEN FLEW OFF INTO THE NIGHT SKY. ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT PUT THAT LITTLE PLANE DOWN GENTLY ON A SNOW-COVERED FARM FIELD RIGHT NEXT TO THEIR HOUSE.

“ALL RIGHT!” THEY EXCLAIMED AS THEY CLIMBED FROM THE PLANE AND LEFT IT BEHIND TO RUN INSIDE AND SEE WHAT SANTA HAD LEFT.

FOR ORVILLE, A PAIR OF FLYING GOGGLES AND A STICK OF RIGHT GUARD DEODORANT…FOR WILBUR A BASEBALL GLOVE SO HE COULD PLAY LEFT FIELD COME SPRING.

AND RIGHT UNDER THE TREE, THE BEST GIFT OF ALL?

SANTA LEFT THEM A MAP AND A NOTE: “PLEASE DON’T FALL!”

AND AS THE BOYS HUGGED, FOR THEY REALLY WERE TIGHT, THEY CRIED, “MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD RIGHT!“

A LOVELY HOLIDAY SEASON TO YOU AND YOURS FROM ROB AND ME, AND FROM OUR WHOLE FAMILY.

THE STORY IS OVER – SO HOLD ON TO YOUR LOT,

NO PASSING, NO SASSING…. OPEN UP WHAT YOU GOT!

Just a thought… You can rise up from anything. You can completely recreate yourself. Nothing is permanent. You’re not stuck. You have choices. You can think new thoughts. You can learn something new. You can create new habits. All that matters is that you decide today and never look back. [@BuddhismPageFB]

Home alone this Christmas Eve? I’ll be on Facebook this Wednesday night if you want to join me. I wish I could do a Facebook Live event, but my tech knowledge is limited and more importantly, I’m afraid it would be dreadfully dull for you. So it’s best we just share some comments and thoughts and even pictures, if that’s what you want. And, yes, baseball memories are welcome! Shall we say 8 pm ET?

This is the season for gratitude and you are at the top of my list. For coming along for the ride every week, for joining me on Threads @erindawndavis (where the community continues to grow – take THAT, Twitter/X) and, of course, for listening.

Drift with Erin Davis sleep stories have blossomed to 400,000 downloads and Gracefully and Frankly, the labour of love that fellow Queenager Lisa Brandt and I do together, continues to grow with over 210,000 downloads. You’ve given me purpose in this reWirement, and most importantly, we’ve maintained connection, you and I. And really, isn’t that the most important thing?

I posted this picture on Facebook last week.

I captioned it saying that, for many of us, this was the feeling. But then I asked visitors to share any good things that happened to them in the past 12 months. What a joyful collection of answers came in! From new grandbabies to negative cancer results, the responses just warmed and filled my heart.

Most importantly, they were a reminder to find the positive. Now, you know me. Gratitude (along with a fairly extensive streak of rage at injustice and stupidity) has fuelled me for the past several years. Sometimes it’s hard to find the light, but on this first full day of winter, as the daylight begins to win over the darkness, the metaphor seems apt: so goes our lives.

Even on the most depressing days – and, yes, this time of year is filled with them for many of us – there are glimmers of light. We need only look outside our homes, outside ourselves, to find them. I know, I know…easier said than done.

But it’s the quick fixes. A comforting tea or a special coffee. A meditation on YouTube (it’s not hard to do; just close your eyes and listen). A TV show that’s familiar and makes you laugh. Okay, that last one I am definitely not doing: been bingeing the dark and dirty eight seasons of Peaky Blinders on Netflix. Cillian Murphy is easy on the eyes, but the rest, while compelling, is challenging, to say the least. But to balance it out, I did discover Jane Austen movies!

Well, I’m wandering now, so I’ll bring us all back to the light.

Let me wish you a gentle week, whatever it may bring. Some of us have to take comfort in the memories that will take us through until it’s time to make new ones. Others will be surrounded by joy – quiet or boisterous – and hopefully laughter. That is what I wish for you.

Most of all, I thank you. For helping me to remember to find the gratitude. Because even though for many of us, life didn’t turn out the way we thought it would or it should, it’s up to us to make the best of what we have in this one life we get. And really, when it comes down to it, we have a lot.

With love,

Erin

Just a thought… What is Christmas? It is the tenderness of the past, courage for the present and hope for the future. [Agnes Pahro]

Hang in until Sunday, my friend. That’s when we start to turn the corner into more daylight with the arrival of the Winter Solstice, which is worth celebrating no matter what your faith!

Our traditions have been changing every year since Lauren died ten years ago and this Christmas Eve, for the second time in my life (the first was when I moved to Windsor, far from home), I’ll be alone. No tears – just memories – and Rob flies in on Christmas Day. What can I say? It was a much cheaper flight. And as we remind each other, “It’s only a day.”

I’ll probably hang out on my Facebook page and share thoughts and company with anyone else who’s alone on the 24^th. It’s a night that used to be so packed with meaning and love thanks to an annual radio show that was a highlight of my career for some 20 years. Leave me a note in the FB comments if you plan to join.

This year, more than ever, we’ve leaned away from trees and decorating, as it would be just for us; also being in a rental home it makes zero sense. I still enjoy lights that others have hung on their balconies and the displays on tiny lawns. But not for us.

Because Rob’s also flying in with just a backpack (again, cheaper) there will be no gifts this year – not a one. Of course, there’s his hard work getting the condo into shape after bringing in the rest of our house contents, and making plans and purchases for Wedgie (see journal here for details on our tiny new cottage on a smaller island which becomes ours next month). Those definitely count as the acts of love that are year-long gifts in the spirit of the holidays: showing kindness and care, and letting someone know – not with material things (although, yes, a heated toilet seat/bidet is material and I can’t wait to try it in our new place) – but with thoughts and actions.

I won’t lie. It feels strange and almost neglectful not to be getting Rob anything. I feel as if I should at least order lingerie as he says he just looks forward to cuddling (and we all know where that leads), but since it’s his Prime account and I don’t go out to shop here without a car, nothing will be a surprise. Like the old joke goes, I could drape myself in Saran Wrap and so he can enjoy “leftovers again.” God bless him, he’s just grateful by nature!

Goodness, am I actually alluding to sexy 60s (and in Rob’s case 70s)? I guess I am. While my antidepressants don’t do a thing for the libido, I’m more than willing to go along for the ride, so to speak, as Rob makes up for both of us. If this is TMI, well, this place is where I tell my stories.

Remember in our 20s, we much preferred to think of our parents as staying in their Rob and Laura Petrie twin beds, all night, every night. Of course, that wasn’t the case, but it’s almost startling to realize we are that age – and beyond – and we’re still…cuddling, so many of us.

It reminds me of a movie I watched alone the other night that starred Robert Redford and Jane Fonda (Our Souls at Night from 2017). She’s a lonely widow who invites her widower neighbour over just for the nights, since she can’t get to sleep without her late husband. It’s a lovely thought and a story that certainly has its bumps, but it got me to thinking if I would do the same. Can’t think of anyone I’d choose, and of course they’d have to go along with two little dogs that have pretty much staked out the bed. And does he fart? (I’m sure Redford didn’t, of course, LOL!) Do I snore? (Rob calls it purring…because of course he does).

So this year, Christmas will be different: he arrives around 3 pm and we’ll have a smoked turkey instead of a roasted one, then watch Sense and Sensibility on Netflix instead of laughing with family or friends. Maybe one day we’ll be invited to do that again (as we were last year in Palm Springs) but for now, it’s just the two of us. Instead of presents, it’ll be presence, and the warmth of the holidays will be condensed to one spot, two people, a pair of dogs and a lot of warm memories.

Oh, and cuddling. Lots of cuddling.

Just a thought… We all make mistakes. The key is learning from those mistakes and not repeating them. [Debbie Macomber]

As I spend another week here in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, my rental house gets quieter than it’s been since I arrived nearly four weeks ago: big sister Cindy returns home to Ajijic (near Lake Chapala and Guadalajara), and it’s just me and my two girls.

I’m not going to post sunsets and scenery; that’s for other social media (on Threads @erindawndavis or Bluesky @erindavis) where people can scroll by rather than silently seethe, or worse, tell me to get stuffed!

Years of hearing from upset CHFI listeners, who were not on the trip with winners and their hosts (us) when we did our shows from warmer climes during bitter winters, taught me that you have to share the more universal experiences without rubbing people’s noses in what you’re doing that they are not. Or encourage them to try to win a trip the next time around. I learned that lesson and hope I have put it to use here.

But there’s one story I haven’t told you, because I wasn’t allowed to at the time. Settle in and think nice warm Jamaica thoughts. Here we go.

It was January 2003. Bob Magee and I were doing morning shows and sharing a week with winners at a Beaches resort and it was late one night. I had had my share of wine and cocktails with dinner and I decided it would be nice to have a night time swim in the ocean, something I used to enjoy doing at our lake, as well. I love to swim in the dark. (Cue Jaws theme.)

But one of the myriad differences between, say, tiny Minden Lake and an ocean is what we don’t see in it. And here’s where things get painful.

I swam as far out as I dared that night, and to catch my breath, I paddled over to a long dock that jutted out into the moonlit waters. Placing my elbows on the deck, I kicked my legs and brought them up under me, inadvertently brushing against one of the pilings that held it up.

Then I felt it. A mad, painful stinging in one of my legs. I shrieked and brushed frantically at my leg, ankle and foot, only to add that same pain now to the inner arm that had swept along the injured places. Regaining what was left of my sanity, I turned and swam back to the beach where Rob and Bob were waiting for me, wondering what the heck had happened.

When I stumbled out of the water in shock and pain, both men could see blood streaming down my leg and my arm. They carefully led me to the lobby of the hotel where there was better light, and sure enough, there were black puncture holes and needle-like spikes sticking out of my foot, my arm and parts of my leg.

I was crying, ridiculously saying, “I didn’t do anything!” but indeed, dear reader, I had: I’d brushed up against one or more sea urchins and they had their way with me. (And no, peeing on them does not help at all, no matter what the sitcoms may have told us!)

There wasn’t much could be done to help me that night; I limped to the resort doctor’s little hut the next day and was treated, but I don’t remember how or with what (I mean, it was over two decades ago and I was traumatized and probably hung over). There were injections and, at that point, I felt like a pin cushion anyway.

Why couldn’t I talk about it on the air? Because it was an experience that would make our resort look less than perfect, even though it was a story that would have been quite interesting to listeners. But I got it; we didn’t want to make it seem as if the waters at the resort were anything but welcoming. I brought that injury upon myself by breaking all kinds of common sense rules and I’m sure you can list them without me having to.

To wrap up: when I got home I went to a tropical disease centre at one of the Toronto hospitals (yes, we have them!) and was told it would be more painful to remove what spikes were left than to let them dissolve, which they did. I don’t even have any black spots left as reminders, a constellation of carelessness on my skin.

I learned a couple of good lessons there. This is probably the first time I’ve told the story of the Great Sea Urchin Encounter, and a much lovelier memory of that trip is of Jann Arden singing live on the show as I cried watching a cruise ship cross the horizon. It was a perfect moment and the one that I choose to take from that trip. Unlike the super-short hair cut here that I kinda hated.

But I got a small dose of revenge: next time we went for sushi, I made sure to order the sea urchin. I didn’t enjoy it all that much, but it had to be done.

Have a lovely week and thanks for coming on this trip (or the memories thereof) with me. Talk to you this Thursday with Lisa and Episode 156 of Gracefully and Frankly, where you hear stories like this ALL the time, for better, for worse, for laughs and for real.

Just a thought… Watch out for blessing blockers: fear, anger, doubt, worry, regret, jealousy, negative people. [Karen Salmansohn]

It’s dawned on you by now that this is the first day of the last month of 2025. If you’re like me, you have no idea where the other 11 months have flown, but you’re taking time to look back on the year that was. There’s plenty of room for retrospection in the 30 days ahead – from words and people of the year to remembering those we lost, and so on; I’d like to focus today on embracing change.

My sister Cindy is here for a few weeks and brought with her a couple of tarot and oracle card decks. From the readings and spreads I have had the last few days, there’s plenty of change in my year ahead. Loss – or letting go – is a big theme, as is the Garden and the Gate: key around her neck, a girl sits where it’s safe and comfortable, but beyond the gate are riches and the possibility of better things. Contract card came up a few times in different readings. But the big one was that girl.

A Google search yielded this, a summary of analyses from a variety of sources:

The “Garden and the Gate” oracle card suggests that while you may be in a place of comfort, like a beautiful garden, a locked gate might represent a fear of the unknown that is preventing you from exploring new opportunities and your true path. The card’s message is to enjoy your current blessings while having the awareness to use the “key” (your will and awareness) to open the gate and embrace a wider world. 

That is me. This month marks nine years since we pulled up stakes and headed west to beautiful Vancouver Island, leaving one home we thought was forever for another for which we had those same plans. Well, as we said good-bye to our first BC moorings, we became ready to embrace the land beyond the gate: community, friendship, activity and the feeling of belonging that we instantly felt in tiny Sidney-by-the-Sea. A place where if, to paraphrase the Cheerstheme song, not everyone knows your name, they sure want to know what your dogs are called – and that is, to me, even better!

It may surprise you to learn that next month, even as I am still here in Mexico, Rob and I will close a deal on a tiny house on a nearby island. I was introduced to Pender a year ago when my Gracefully and Frankly pod partner and friend Lisa Brandt set up a meeting there with a friend of hers, the singer/rocker Sarah Smith. I fell in love with the island and its hospitality immediately, a feeling that was echoed even without our friend’s accompaniment. It simply felt like we belonged.

During Rob’s and my road trip to Alberta in September we stayed in a few cabins and said to each other how nice it would be to have a tiny place to call our own. Not another house; just a one- or two-bedroom with a fireplace and privacy where we could escape and cocoon. And we started to peruse listings on nearby BC islands.

The one that found us is a nearly new place with one loft bedroom, a wood burning stove and heated floors and everything we could possibly need. Nestled in the woods (we drove past the driveway looking for it, and that was with an agent!) there were four deer just outside the living room window and two more lying down on a ridge above. Nature laid out the welcome mat, and we, my friend, have stepped across it to make the tiny 790 square foot place our own.

The smaller Gulf Islands are a ferry ride from Vancouver Island and this one is but a 45 minute sail. Add to that the ten minute drive from our condo to the terminal and the lineup to wait for boarding, and you still have less commute time to even our closest Ontario cottage.

Rob asks, only half joking, “But why would you want to come home?” once I’m there with the dogs, my coffee maker, WiFi, fire and the MINI.

But the answers will come in their own time. It’s a place of quiet, of tranquil independence and a connection not only with self but with nature. The ocean’s shore is a bit farther away than it is from our condo, but that’s not why we chose this place, which already has a name, and into which Rob will move our things while I lie around here in the Nuevo Vallarta sun.

Our Ontario forever home, the one we built with love in Jackson’s Point, where Lauren’s wedding party had their makeup done and where we all shared in our last family Christmas together in 2014, had a nickname: Hedgie. Sitting on Hedge Road as it did, and sharing the moniker of our dog’s favourite toy, a hedgehog, it was perfect.

This place is a teeny version of that home. It’s a tight fit in many ways, like the underwear up the bum that shares its name, which echoes our heart home on Lake Simcoe.

It shall be Wedgie. And it shall be on the other side of that metaphorical gate. (Not a real one; no way am I keeping the deer out.)

Thanks for coming by and sharing our journey just a bit. And have a gentle entry into this busiest of months.