Erin's Journals

Just a thought… It’s all about finding calm in the chaos. [Donna Karan]

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

Well, here we are on the precipice of the last long weekend of the year in Canada (except Christmas, sort of) and that is, of course, Thanksgiving.

I want to start by thanking you for being here. The past year has seen a lot of changes in the way that I bring you this journal: from written form to shooting in a little basement setting, to moving up to a guest bedroom in front of a painting that we love, to a few on the road, to the wonders of green screen and everything we can put up on it behind me.

Our green screen game isn’t quite 100% there yet, but we’re continuing to try and to tweak. Anyway, thank you so much for coming along for the ride, for sharing this journal and for subscribing on YouTube so that you don’t even have to go to Facebook anymore if you don’t want.

Ah, Facebook. And Instagram. And WhatsApp. All down on Monday. I joked on Twitter that this could be the most extreme trick that Mercury in Retrograde has ever played on us. Yeah, it’s a thing – and Rob and I happen to believe in it. We back up our computers just before the space cycle begins (we’re in the last one of the year) and play it careful. Can’t hurt, right?

Mercury in Retrograde can also mean other kinds of difficulty in communicating. Like what to say to Aunt Arleen or any family member you’d like to have at your Thanksgiving dinner table this weekend who has decided they know better than to get the vaccine? I think I may just have the solution for you, my friend, thanks to @NYinLA2021 on Twitter.

That, my friend, just about says it all. I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, remembering the giving part, just as long as it’s not the blessed Covid virus.

And I’ll be back next Thursday with a new journal; our guest room is in use with Colin’s Grandpa staying here for Thanksgiving and Colin’s 7^th birthday Monday, so the green screen comes down. But I’ll talk to you next week. And thank you again.

Just a thought… I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love. [Leo Buscaglia]

I hope that you had a gentle weekend and I thank you for coming by today. Although you’re here because you prefer the written form of this journal, I will ask you to click either this YouTube link (to which you can subscribe so you don’t miss a video journal Mondays and Thursdays) or via Facebook to watch a video that our daughter-in-law Brooke did with me back in mid-September.

We were staying together, our little family, at a house in Nanoose Bay, near Parksville and Nanaimo here on Vancouver Island. In Part 1 of our chat we had fun as she quizzed me on modern terminology on the internet (I failed miserably and mirthfully) but then I thought, let’s keep talking. So we did – about her stepping into the role of Colin’s mom and taking on, not just a place in their home and lives, but a spirit who made herself known in the house as well.

I think you’ll enjoy this video, as we also had some pretty charming visitors (thanks, Mother Nature!) while we were shooting. So have fun with this and I’ll be back with you here on Thursday.

Just a thought… True reconciliation does not exist in merely forgetting the past. [Nelson Mandela]

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

Today marks a special day on our Canadian calendar: a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Orange Shirt Day. This video from Global News is excellent, in case you wish to learn more about what this day means to us and to the Indigenous Peoples.

Today Colin is off school and doesn’t yet understand, as a second-grader, what these orange shirts or this particular day really mean. He will. I felt when we moved to British Columbia that this province seems much more vocal about and respectful of the people whose land this is than we had ever experienced before. Is it enough? Of course not.

But as such, I will acknowledge that this journal is done on the lands of the W̱SÁNEĆ People, one of three distinct tribal regions here on Vancouver Island. And I am grateful. W̱SÁNEĆ means “the emerging people.” In fact, the neighbourhood where we are so blessed to live is on a mountain known as the “place of refuge.” I did not know that when we moved to this spot on the Saanich (W̱SÁNEĆ) Peninsula, but it could not have proved more true in the case of our healing family. We too are emerging through a place of refuge.

Today at 2:15 pm PDT (or 5:15 EDT in Ontario) we remember those who were separated from their place of refuge, at a time chosen to reflect the number of residential school students’ remains found in Kamloops earlier this year. Tragically, many more have and will be found.

But this is also a day for happy remembrance in our own lives, as we celebrate the 2^nd birthday of this sweet girl, our granddaughter Jane.

When she was born, we couldn’t have imagined how much joy and love she would bring to our lives, and eventually from just a few miles down the road from us.

The celebration of Jane’s arrival and the life she has injected into our own also dovetails with the remembrance of children who were not at home with their families where they could celebrate milestones and learn their own histories and traditions, surrounded by those who loved them most.

And so it is with a sense of added gratitude that we wear orange today, and carry the familiar dual emotions of sadness and joy, as Rob and I so often do, but for a much different reason. Jane will always be a source of great appreciation, love, and wonder. And with her September 30^thbirthday falling on Canada’s proclaimed Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we are doubly aware of the closeness of our family, both in proximity, and in our hearts. This day reminds us that it has not been like this for countless other families – many very near to where we live.

And we are grateful that our Jane is here, safe and loved by hers, by us, in her home, where, ideally, every child belongs and Every Child Matters. “Hay’sxw’qa” – Thank you.

Just a thought… Be prepared for unexpected possibilities. Have the faith and humility to open yourself up to a variety of paths towards solutions. [Michael Newton, Journey of Souls]

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

Can we talk about the afterlife for a moment? Not my thoughts on what happens after life; I’ve made those clear in my book Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy. I believe with all my heart that we make a pact with our group of souls, and we travel with them from life to life. We’ll see Lauren again. If you’re at all interested, you can read the book that changed our lives if you like: it’s called Journey of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton.

But the kind of “after life” I want to talk about today is what happens when we leave. My dad is pretty much on this topic all the time. He’s 88 and he’s healthy, but his pride and joy right now – besides his four daughters, as he often tells us – is that he has all of his funeral plans, cremation, gravesite and everything taken care of.

As I’ve mentioned here before, he has his and mom’s headstone in his closet, and the year following his birth year 1933 and the dash is all that’s left to complete. Dark? Yes. Literally (in his closet) and figuratively. I called him on it last week and said, “Dad, can we stop talking about your departure, please?”

He responded that, at the time he goes, it’ll be emotional and we’ll all be so wrought with grief, and that’s when I stopped him and said, “Stop flattering yourself!” and we had a huge laugh. That’s how our relationship works. He chirps about the PM, I call him on his death talk, he makes the same joke about his walking and how, because of his cane, he’s “Cane and Able” and we laugh a lot.

But I am SO grateful to him for what he’s done. It’s not unexpected: as a pilot he was always at the airport way earlier than anyone else.

But seriously, I know of some people who’ve died without wills: our own Lauren, for one, who had life insurance (at 24!) but no will. If you don’t have one, do one. That’s it. It’s the most thoughtful thing you can do for those people who will have to deal with your after life.

It’s not morbid or bad luck; it’s thoughtful, loving and unselfish. DO IT, please. Google how to do a holographic will until you can get one put together, but don’t leave anything undone or unanswered. Please. Worry less about making people sad now that you’re doing it, and more about what they’ll go through if you don’t.

Maybe I’m fixated on wills because Friday my close friend Allan Bell said good-bye to his dear mother Betty at a beautiful service we were blessed to attend, if only online. If you knew and loved Betty too, and missed the memorial, here’s a link. She was a force of nature and my heart’s been with Allan through this immeasurable loss.

Maybe I’m thinking wills because I marked another birthday yesterday. But I’m reminded that the last thing I want is for Phil and Brooke to have to figure out what to do with our estate when we’re gone, so we’re mapping it all out. We’ve talked at length with them about it, about their children and how we should all manage their inheritance…this is, if we don’t blow it all before we go. (Plus there’s the added benefit that they have to be nice to us. LOL)

I’m asking – begging you – to use this season of change, this particularly appropriate season of autumn, to look ahead and take care of business. We all hope to live long and stay healthy. But no one gets out alive. And this is from me – the person who loves to ignore expiry dates!

Now get out there and live your best life.

Just a thought… You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. [Jim Rohn]

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

Welcome in – so it’s the first FULL day of fall and I asked yesterday on Facebook and Instagram for people’s one word favourite thing about this season. There were a lot of answers but most came down to C’s: colours, change, crispness and cozy (as in hoodies, sweaters and such).

We’re all for the cozy here on the island – Vancouver Island, but not Vancouver, if you’re new here – where fall and winter mean rain, although we have gone halfers with a neighbour on a machine so we can blow out those big wet snows (and our other 90-year-old neighbours’ driveway) when the white stuff comes. Hey – maybe it’s an insurance policy: if we buy the snowblower, we won’t get any accumulation…? We will park the convertible, use the fireplace and be grateful.

Speaking of cozy, I have a confession to make here: we did not change out our flannel sheets all year. Of course we washed them; we’re not in college for heaven’s sake (okay, that’s a confession too) but we never did give up the light flannel sheets we bought from Land’s End when we were in the States. Yes, even when my busy laptop is running furiously like a heating pad, my weighted blanket and robe are all on top of me, the flannel sheets stay. And yes, half of the hot flashes – or power surges as I prefer to call them – are self-induced. I get that.

So I mentioned Facebook. In the past few weeks I’ve had a few people say they just won’t go there to watch my journals because they despise the platform. I get that. It’s been a horrible source of misinformation and downright lies, and I’ve actually muted some folks whose political posts make my temperature rise more than any flannel sheets ever could.

But here’s the thing: for most of us, it’s the best way of staying in contact, as in the case of this journal. If you choose not to use Facebook, you’ve got other options, as you know from clicking the YouTube link above to watch the video journal, if that’s what you like. I’m trying to find people – you – where you are.

In the meantime, now that this election is over – one, as political journalist Chantal Hebert put it, “that nobody wanted, and nobody got what they wanted” – I hope we can move on to a gentler discourse again and get back to fighting Covid as one. Getting vaccinated. Believing the science. Protesting abuse of the vulnerable, and inaction on climate change, instead of nurses and doctors trying to save people’s lives, for heaven’s sake.

Things are messy right now, but we have to see a season of change as a time to make things better. Me? I’ll keep my head down, continue to mute where necessary and just write away, giving people stories to go to sleep with at night on Drift – flannel sheets or not.

Have a gentle weekend and I’ll be back with you Monday, my friend.