Twice-Loved

There are six bicycles at the Pink House. All are twice-loved.

Two belonged to Little Bear. He has outgrown them and they are difficult to give away, much less sell. Perhaps I can find another use for them.

Little Bear regularly inherits his older brothers’ bicycles. Pop salvaged pieces from two cast-offs to create one good solid bicycle for our boy. He flies like the wind – downhill – and grumbles big time about pushing it back up! He has grown mightily in confidence since school closed. Perhaps next summer he will be ready to dispense with the training wheels!

Samuel’s bike was a curbside find. Pop stripped it down and painted it purple – the boy’s favourite colour. Sam sails down the road … and up! He is one with the bike and a bit of a daredevil at times.

The oldest had a new-to-you bike this year, purchased second-hand in the city. He still clings to his old one, finding the size and hand brakes of the new bike a little intimidating.

I agree! Yesterday I rode around Cove.  First time on a bike in fifty years for sure and my preference then was for the coaster bike!

No scuffed knees; however, and what a great feeling – coasting along with the wind whistling past your ears – not that I was going that fast. In fact, in places, I was like Little Bear and had to push the bike up the hill.

I may even have grumbled a little!

Bicycles … twice-loved …  good as new!

Me … not quite!

Twillingate is a small rural community found at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. This little town hops in the summer and tourists come here from all over the globe to see our icebergs and whales, to taste our fresh fish, the cod, and to breathe deeply of air so sweet and pure and pungent with blackberries and salt water, it can only be experienced and never described.

There’s plenty to do and if you believe you are one with the universe or at the very least, believe you should be, Twillingate is where you need to be to recharge and rediscover what is real and important.

The locals invest heavily in creating a welcoming environment for our visitors. One new venture in town is a kayaking tour agency called Rock Adventures, owned by  Bobby and Marie.

This summer we did the tour. “Active meditation”, Bobby calls it. He is not wrong. Within a week, we had purchased three kayaks. I am not disappointed. My only regret is that I had never tried this before.

I’m no stranger to the water, but I’m a fair weather sailor and never completely comfortable no matter how skilled the skipper.

Paddling your own kayak, however, puts it all in your own hands. Independence.

I’ll be looking to purchase another in the spring but will watch for a ‘twice-loved’ for the second expenditure.

Once upon a time, I lived in a garden owned by a beautiful man and his equally lovely wife. The garden was their pride and joy though it had taken many many years of hard work to bring about such beauty. They walked the garden, sometimes together, sometimes separately, stopping to examine each shrub, each tree, each flower – to name it, to remember when it was planted, to remember where it had come from and to marvel at its progress. One day the man left the garden – there were things he needed to take care of in another time and another place – but he left the garden in the care of the lady, his wife. And care for it she did, until she could no longer.

And that, I guess, is where I came in. I had walked the garden, enjoyed the garden, with both. And now, from the woman, I learned the garden. I labelled the trees and shrubs and flowers, drew diagrams to help me remember and with her direction, I did what I could.

But it is not enough to love the trees and shrubs and flowers and to marvel at their beauty. A garden, while satisfying, is hard work – time consuming work – and we both acknowledged, the lady and I – that in consideration of other responsibilities, I could not maintain what they had worked so hard to create and we let certain areas of the garden return to nature.

The local plants and grasses quickly tangled themselves about the flowers they had so carefully cultivated and in no time, nature reclaimed its own with only the occasional surprise bloom to remind us of what had once been.

One day, too soon after,  the lady too left the garden, though before she said good-bye, she marvelled at its beauty one last time.

… and it became mine,

A garden cannot be left alone for long before Mother Nature lays claim to it all and in very short order, the work of many years was erased.

This season I lay claim to the garden once again. It is painstakingly slow work, labour intensive, but incredibly satisfying.

It is easy to lose track of time and space in the garden, but in losing that time, I believe you find bits and pieces of yourself .

It helps.

Can a burger be beautiful?

I believe it can.

Two ice cold beer at the Split Rock followed by an “I so don’t want to cook supper” on the way home landed me at Georgie’s, a local restaurant known to put out a good plate – a very good plate.

While they have a menu that offers dishes that tempt every palate, today I was ‘just hungry’. Friendly servers – kids with great big smiles – quickly took my order and continuously checked on me throughout.

Juicy, juicy burger served up with fries, crisp and salty.

No health food promises here, but tasty? You bet!

As good as it looks!

Beautiful!

And twice-loved? I can guarantee it will be.

Another visit definitely on the horizon …

I’m not exactly sure what this is, but it was part of the garbage we’ve been moving out of the garden at The Blueberry Muffin.  At least I thought it was garbage. I had dragged it to the side of the road for pick up.

“No, no,” says #1 Son. This will make a great sniper pit for Little Bear. And so he drags it home. And sure enough, when I drop by after work today, Little Bear is in his pit, nerf gun at the ready, defending his terrain from imagined enemies, battle lines drawn in the grass with sticks and chunks of wood and random pieces of garbage.

But a child’s imagination is fluid and has no boundaries. Half an hour later, I hear squeals of delight and amuse myself watching from the back deck as they push this giant hamster wheel around the garden and through the neighbour’s empty lot. Then, of course, Dad has to get in on the action and they try to roll him about. Not so easy. A fun afternoon.

Anyway… not sure what this thing is. No brand name toy for sure. No Toys r Us special. Not even a Walmart version but definitely …

twice loved.

I love yard sales … and flea markets …

At one time a real yard sake junkie, I’ve toned it down quite a bit in recent years.

Definitely guilty of having too much ‘stuff’ and an unreasonable dislike of parting with anything – yes, it actually HURTS to throw stuff out – I really don’t need to bring home someone else’s throwaways.

But sometimes, the stuff is just so pretty, it begs to be rescued!

My current excuse right now is that I will use it to ‘stage’ The Blueberry Muffin this fall.

Our Lego is definitely twice-loved. Over and over and over we’ve mixed and matched sets, built and smashed. I remember my brothers owning those little soft plastic building blocks but Lego only came into my life when my son was a toddler thirty plus years ago. Since then there have been three grandsons, and all love their Lego. As do I. So we have quite a few bricks!

Storage is always a challenge. The boys had a fabulous Lego room at their Mom’s but at Dad’s and Gram’s, they’re not quite so fortunate. #1 Son came across these great commercial acrylic candy containers we use for bricks, and a recent drag-home shelf has been painted and holds the bricks beautifully. Truth is, though, we could use a whole lot more!

Twice loved! Reuse, restore, recycle.

This Willow Tree has been broken for several months now and today, Mother’s Day, I glued it together. Whole again. Beautifully broken, imperfectly perfect, like our relationship.

We are forever tied, no question, and our commonalities are huge. So are the differences. Yet we’ve weathered all the rough spots that have seen us pull against each other and I know that as surely as I need to breathe to live, that no matter the challenges, we will forever find that common place where unconditional love is a given.

Happy Mother’s Day to me.

Little Bear won the quilt and we are both pretty pleased about that. In addition to being pleased, I am also pretty amused.

I made a ‘stadium’ quilt for a fundraiser – an auction – using a couple of old jerseys from the local hockey team. Little Bear ‘helped’ with the final quilting. He sat on the table and operated the foot pedal in his two little hands which were surprisingly strong when it came to making that needle race around the track. He informed me it was just like driving a car and why wouldn’t he know all about that at the wise old age of five, almost six! I had to ask him to slow down frequently. There were quite a few ‘tucks” in the back of the quilt – speed bumps, I’ll call them. But it was fun, and we both had a few laughs.

“Gram,” he asked, “will you make me a quilt just like this?” And I assured him I would. (Not quite sure when that was going to happen)

At the auction, he asked me to lift him up so he could deposit two fifty-cent tickets in the bag by our quilt. He was going  to win this quilt because he and Gram had made it, he informed his little ginger-haired friend. Funny thing is, it’s a hockey quilt, and there’s not a hockey fan in the entire family. But no matter, he had made it; it was as good as his.

I was on the other side of the room when they called out his name. I saw his hand shoot up and his little face, far from looking surprised or excited, wore the look of someone who already knew he was taking home that quilt.

No big deal.

Wabi sabi. Twice loved.

Love you Little Bear!

I grew up in a home where tea was more than a beverage. Tea was an event. It was a “Well done! Good job! Time to take a break, dear!” Tea was a social. It was a conversation. Tea was a bedtime snack and a kiss goodnight. Tea was a moment shared; tea was a comfort.

I had my first cup of tea six months ago. I’m not sure why I resisted quite so long. I was a coffee gal. Coffee says hello world, I’m all fired up, no time to waste, gotta get things done, get outta my way. Coffee is pushy.

But tea – holding a cup of tea is like holding a hug!

Tonight I’m sipping tea from an old Silver Birch china mug. There’s a tiny chip in the saucer.

Wabi-sabi.

Twice-loved!