Erin's Journals

Just a thought… It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. [Henry David Thoreau]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Well, we could call this “the best-laid plans” – hoping to shoot something outside during our brief stay in Sooke, BC for you to watch today. I mean, I could have, but all you would have heard was the thunder of winds on my microphone and seen rain all over the lens. And so the video you see behind me in today’s video journal was shot through a window. There are some stills and I’ll use them for quotes and memes in the future. I can always use a good backdrop.

But, oh, did we have rain! Torrential storms and even thunder and lightning one night. It pelted so hard that the drops falling on the skylights sounded like popcorn kernels hitting the plastic dome in a popper. And the winds screeched through doors and windows, and whooshed outside, and all the while, drove sheets of water into the windows as though we were driving through a car wash.

I had taken ear plugs with me (for no really good reason except they’re on my packing list) and, boy, was I glad I had them on Monday night! It was airport-level loud with screeching winds that moved outdoor furniture, toppled a shore-view bench and sent the lid of a hot tub into a garden, stopped, thankfully, by some small shrubs or we might be asking surfers to stop riding on it.

All that said, it was heavenly. Fresh baking and a meal brought by our overnight visitors (our best friends here) then word games and a fantastic viewing of Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul about a music festival in Harlem which took place at the same time as Woodstock. Just terrific viewing and I defy you not to dance!

Alone for the next two days, Rob and I did a bit of work, a lot of corresponding and reading and just relaxing. Just the two of us, as the old Grover Washington Jr. song went. Birthday calls, cards and texts, and lots of lovely connection.

We didn’t see whales (my tracking app showed them much closer to our home in North Saanich than down in Sooke) but there were a few eagles, sea lions in the surf and, yes, as I mentioned, surfers. All in all, it added up to a gentle few days and I’ll tell you that if you’re planning a visit to Vancouver Island, as some folks on Facebook told me they are, you have got to get booking now, as places all over our glorious island home are completely reserved. Seems so many people discovered this area during the first few waves of Covid and staycations that they’re coming back again and again.

As I will continue to do. My happy place, not so far away, where we are reminded of being so very small, at the whims of the weather – and bigger picture, the climate – and yet blessedly, perhaps obscenely content in these tumultuous times. I think I’m going into birthday cake withdrawal – we had it Friday for our son-in-law, again on the weekend, and last night with Phil, Brooke and the grandkids. How lucky we are!

May your weekend be replenishing and I’ll be back here with you on Monday.

Just a thought.. Never confuse thoughtlessness with malice. [Rob Whitehead]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

So, my Rob (yes, that one in the quote, whose wisdom steers me through all kinds of weather) and I are away from home for a few days right now at a place that I always seem to go to when my mind wanders. It’s called Sooke, on the south coast of Vancouver Island west of Victoria.

This is the place of striking scenery, wildlife and wilderness, an area not so far from the provincial capital, and where people can hike, whale watch and take in nature at her best without the drama and power of her fury like people up in Tofino and Ucluelet see on the regular.

From waterfalls and forests to what they call the “pot holes” (which are, as a pleasant change from life in Toronto, actually in the water instead of on the roads), it’s a place that feels like heaven to me. In fact, we very nearly bought a house in East Sooke when we were leaving Ontario and, while I’m glad we didn’t, given how far it is from Victoria (about a 40 minute drive in good traffic), it’s a wonderful place to visit; it gives me peace and space, two things we all need these days.

This Thursday I hope to treat you to a journal shot outdoors in Sooke; the weather forecast as I write this is iffy and we’ll be quite content to sit inside and read, to be together, to reconnect and to spend time with a couple of friends who are going to stay the night with us.

But today there will be cake as Rob marks another birthday. My boy is still playing hockey two or three times a week, cycling and staying fit, and I could never ask for a better partner, husband, dad for our daughter or Grandude for Colin and Jane. He’s stepped up for every single role he’s been called upon to fill, so today’s my day just to celebrate Rob. (Of course, I’ll still let him make my coffees these mornings; I mean, I wouldn’t want him to get out of practice….)

But as I say my thanks every night, my last words spoken aloud are always, “I love you.” I’m a lucky girl and am so glad he chose to spend this lifetime with me.

Talk to you here again on Thursday.

Just a thought… Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely. [Agatha Christie]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube. 

Once in a while, you read a piece that sticks with you for a long time. When that happens, I’m lucky enough to be able to share it with you here and then, if you want more information, link to it.

These days we are inundated with conspiracy theories. Some of them are just plain wacko and lately, most of it is of a medical, shall we say, “bent.”

I’ve been ignoring the anti-vaxx, anti-mask stuff spread far and wide, most often by suspicious sources that I personally happen to think come from Russia in its interests to divide and conquer.

See, that’s my conspiracy theory: that Russia DID tamper with the 2016 US election, owned the “useful idiot” (a Russian term, not mine) they put in office and have continued to try to upset the world order to get to where we are today. “To insanity…and beyond,” with apologies to Buzz Lightyear.

Now, where was I?

See, I know how delusional that all sounds, even if I do believe it in my soul and it was backed up by Trump asking Putin for help in a TV interview Tuesday, and further backed up by a Newsweek story about a Russian TV host who suggested Russian citizens “call on the people of the United States to change the regime in the U.S. early, and to again help our partner, Trump, to become president.”

In my mind, the key word in that sentence is “again.” But I don’t stand up and scream my theory because I don’t want people sending me foil for a new Easter bonnet. But let’s talk about conspiracy theories.

David Hundsness holds a BA in Psychology from University of California and he’s posted some thoughts and video on why people get sucked into conspiracy theories – particularly about elections, Covid, the vaccine and so on.

Hundsness boils it down to 4 things that make believers of inane stories: lack of information, anxiety, following an in-group, and ego.

First, lack of information which to me can be explained in two parts: the first of which means to me lower levels of education, which not only informs us of facts (history, science and so forth) but which can also contribute to critical thinking skills. Asking good questions, listening to the answers from people who actually know them and being able to tell the difference between fact and opinion.

Next, anxiety is something we’ve all felt in the past two years and so we seek answers and darn it, Siri/ Google, we want them now! Again, you have people who are more than happy to fill that blank space, thus offering a sense of direction, even it’s to Conspiracy Town. But when those opinions are accepted by some as fact, we see where that gets us. Arguing with your uncle who just knows better. Just asking questions is all….

Three, wanting to follow your in-group, which may explain haters spreading the word on social media that our PM’s dad is actually Fidel Castro, Michelle Obama is a man, Hillary Clinton ran a child trafficking ring out of a pizza place and other such utter trash. There’s the in-group of breeding too, I’ll add: people born into a place, a family or a religion where one political party was always the one that got their votes, no matter what the other, sometimes better, options were. I was born into one of those families. Maybe you were, too.

Finally, fourth – and David Hundsness emphasizes this as the biggest reason for believing conspiracy theories – ego. When people finally begin to realize that the cause they dedicated time (or worse, money) to, which brought irrevocable harm to them and their loved ones; when it all becomes clear that their beliefs were wrong, how much courage does it take to walk back those beliefs? I mean, we’ve heard stories of dying patients still saying Covid is a hoax. Man, that is one strong ego. But I can’t be wrong! My friends on Fox said so!

Ego also steps in when people who feel inferior about their education think they know something the rest of us don’t, then they are actually smarter, right? The fringe doctors who want to make a name for themselves defend crackpot theories. And most often it takes literally 30 seconds to research that the doctor isn’t quite who he or she is touted to be.

So when people finally do see the light, provided it’s not walking towards the white one, how are we to help them? Patience. Gentle repetition. And never an “I told you so.”

As the sixth wave of the Covid variant we’ve been watching in Europe makes itself felt now in Canada, I’m quite comfortable trusting people who have earned it, not with votes or telling us what we want to hear, but with experience. With science. With caution and – most importantly of all – with facts.

Have a good first weekend of April – Rob and I are going away for a few days, but if weather and internet allow, I’ll shoot one outside near the ocean and see you here on Monday!

Just a thought… There’s a lot of things we all wish we could have done differently. But if you spend too much time of your life trying to change the past, your biggest regret will be that you spent your life wishing to change a ‘done’ past when you could have been changing an unwritten present and future. [baggagereclaim.com]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Thank you for coming in and we’ll start with a wish for peace for Ukraine. For strength, for triumph and for healing. For Canada and the US and the rest of the world to come together within their own borders and support Zelenskyy and his courageous forces, and beat back the murderous thug Putin. May the bright joy of sunflowers power your day and your week.

Mine is fueled by a sense of well-being in our own embarrassingly abundant and joyful lives: baking three days in a row, twice with our grandson, who scooped out the cookie dough and helped with a cake mix. An angel food cake with money tucked into waxed paper packets inside for Lauren’s birthday; I don’t know why I didn’t think of “angel food” before. But now, every time we serve a cake for dessert, little Jane insists on candles and blowing them out after singing Happy Birthday…to her. Jane, we’re gonna need more candles.

Our hearts were also boosted by a small gathering of six friends yesterday to catch up and share some laughter. My glass was filled with alcohol-free wine, as it has been now in some form or another (actually more often than not now tonic water) for 1002 days. Saturday marked 1000 days since I finished that last half-bottle of wine I had carefully meted out as I chose to quit, just a few weeks before entering seven weeks in rehab.

I haven’t told you much about those weeks and I’m sure there are some people with questions. I’m not exactly sure why I went, except that I needed help, not with the drinking, but the whys of it. In the two, almost three years that have passed since coming out in the month of August, I have turned my attention to the spiritual side of my life: the life that we chose, the ones that await, and stuff I alluded to in Thursday’s journal.

Don’t worry – I’m not going to go into that every time or even any time at all in the future. But it’s just how I’ve shifted my focus. Sobriety has allowed that.

Sobriety has let me read and read and read at night. I’ve got no fewer than three books on the go right now, two about spirituality and a third a murder mystery. I set out on Facebook last week to collect people’s recommendations and there are a whole lot of great ones just waiting to be downloaded onto my Kindle.

Sobriety has let me write more – and a new story: The Big Bad Wolf visits Piggies’ Cove – drops tomorrow on Drift – for free. We’re almost at our month’s end of all listens contributing to redcross.ca through our sponsor enVy pillow, by the way. So give it a listen. Do good while enjoying great sleep stories, won’t you?

Sobriety has let me wake up without the remorse and terror of what I might have said, done or put on social media when my filters were soggy and my basket all out of damns to give.

But best of all, it’s put me even more in a place of service where when people write and say they think they might have a problem and want to stop, ask what I did. Ask how they can do it. They want what I have and that’s the best side effect – the best hangover, if you will – of sobriety there is.

And I will always tell them that they will never ever find a safer and more welcoming place than an online or in-person AA meeting. Ever.

And so on we go…cautiously and masked. Protecting not just ourselves, but those who have compromised immune systems or need our protection. It’s such a small thing to do, and as some people saw in the weather this weekend, and the rest of us witness the increasing cases of the BA.2 virus, the winter of Covid is not over because we will it so or because those in power want it to be over.

If we could simply wish things away, the fields in Ukraine would be dotted with germinating sunflowers instead of tanks and shells. If we could wish things away, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and the family of his friend and drummer Taylor Hawkins would not be in such pain today at the death of Hawkins at just 50. If we could wish things away, seeing our flag would bring pride and not anger at those abusing it for their own causes. If we could wish things away, our country would come together stronger than before in appreciation of the freedoms most of the world would and have killed for.

Once again, Jane, we’re going to need more candles.

I’ll be back with you here on Thursday.

Just a thought…

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Welcome in to a special day in our lives: the day 31 years ago that Rob and I became parents to a wonderful little girl. 6 lbs 12 oz and three weeks early, we named her Lauren Dawn – the Dawn after my middle name and my dad’s first name (with a spelling variation), the Lauren because we had recently met a hauntingly sad little girl by that name. I thought it stood for strength and beauty, as in Lauren Bacall. Otherwise, she might have been a Carly, a Jessie or a Maddy.

Today we’ll go about our usual Thursday food deliveries, spend some time with our dear Mira and then come back and have birthday cake, as per Colin’s request. He’s asked for balloons, too, but we’ll see about that.

I’m talking about our girl today because I don’t mention her on the day she left us anymore; I’m not the only bereaved mom in the world and I don’t feel we deserve any more attention than anyone else. How my heart is heavy for the mothers and fathers who are losing their children every day – especially in the uselessness of war. So much waste, so much loss, so much sorrow.

But on this day, we are meant to celebrate. When everyone’s lives are filled with worry and sadness, illness and angst, isn’t it a choice to share a cake and light a candle for someone who brought us so much joy?

I could share pictures with you for hours, but none of them can even begin to tell you of the life in this girl. The “pure joy” that she expressed, literally, about becoming a mom, before what we believe to be the use of the drug Domperidone stopped that heart the night after her first mother’s day. She was taking it to breast feed and I will urge you to ask anyone in your life to get their heart tested before they take it. And yes, it’s still banned in the US. Here’s a link if you’d like to know more. 

Let me share a picture you probably have not seen before.

I was looking through travel pictures the other day for my St. Patrick’s Day blog and didn’t find one to use, but came across this one taken on the same trip of our Loo on a lake in Scotland. I hadn’t seen it since it was taken 18 years ago; she was 13 here.

We travelled a lot and take heart knowing we did all we could for our child to have a good life, just as any parent would. We gave her a good upbringing and, despite my faults, she ended up being level-headed, bright and, best of all, kind and empathetic. She was wise beyond her years, everyone who worked with her said, and I couldn’t agree more.

So here we are, another birthday without Lauren, and we are living the “at leasts” that we caution people not to use when talking to the bereaved. As I say in Mourning Has Broken, we are allowed to use those two potent words: at least we have our grandson. Lauren left us a beautiful baby boy who has grown into a strapping, handsome, smart and kind seven-year-old, thanks to his loving Dad and Brooke, the woman who took on the role of Mom so early in his life. We have a beautiful granddaughter that came to us by opening our hearts to that new family addition. And, miraculously, we have them living close to us. At least, at least, at least.

I rarely cry; if I do, it’s a few quiet tears when my mind takes a rest and my heart takes over. But I don’t mourn. We have wishes and regrets, but none of them about how she lived her life, or how we lived as a family. We are grateful forever and know that this is an agreement our souls made before she came. You may not believe in that, but everyone believes something different, don’t they? In my heart, I know it to be true and that our souls will dance again one day. And then we’ll travel together on to the next life, hopefully wiser for whatever it is we were to learn this go-round.

For Rob and for me, it’s all about being grateful and open to change and opportunity and ideas that maybe aren’t in the mainstream; being compassionate and holding on to the memories that warm our hearts instead of breaking them.

Like the day she arrived at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, today, 31 years ago. And even today, Life is Good because we chose to make it so, just as she would want it.