In the morning, I spend time in the garden. I pull lettuce that has bolted; pop one, two, then three Tiny Tim tomatoes in my mouth; water, pick the last sour cherries from the tree; pull a few weeds, and generally tidy things up. It’s pleasant to be out there now that the heat has passed. A sudden and brief burst of rain sends Molly and me indoors.
After Gerry and I enjoy lunch and a chess game, I’m sitting at my desk in the woman cave, tending to things, when my attention is diverted by the sight of kids running down the still-wet sidewalk.
It reminds me of one summer afternoon, right here in Moose Jaw, over fifty years ago when I was playing outside with a group of neighbourhood friends and a sudden downpour sent us all running for home. When the rain stopped a short time later, the sun came out, and we all gathered again to continue with whatever we had been doing earlier.
I don’t know why this particular day sticks in my mind to this day, but it does, and I think of it often. I remember, like it was yesterday, the careless wonder I felt at the blue sky after the rain, the sunshine on wet sidewalks now covered with fat earthworms, and the kid radar that kicked in to draw us all back outside when the rain stopped.
I love the neighbourhood where we live now. Kids run up and down sidewalks, turn cartwheels on lawns, ride bikes and scooters, and make up imaginative games to play. The other day, I saw them trying to catch butterflies with net in the field across the way. A week ago, I watched a mom shooting hoops with her kids at one of the basketball nets on the street
Spend any amount of time peering at the world through the filter of current events or (anti) social media and one can start to feel jaded, forgetting that it’s a beautiful world where joy sparkers abound and kids still play outside. I’ve been trying to remember what it was like before screens stole our attention and we became so intolerant of one another, and those kids bring it home for me.
Another thing I saw recently that had a similar effect: A grandfather standing proudly in front of the sign at the Anglican Church we attend after the service, his grandson taking a photo of him. They are new to Canada and I wondered if the photo was meant to send to family and friends they left behind to let them know they had settled in with a body of believers.
It’s not uncommon for Gerry and I drive down dusty gravel range and township roads, our cameras onboard, looking for things that capture our attention. Sometimes we see something at the same time, stop, and pull out our cameras. Other times, something catches my eye or strikes a pleasant chord in my heart and I cry “stop!”. I hop out of the car where, more often than not, the warm prairie wind whips my hair while I shoot image after image of something that tells me a story.
These simple things—kids playing, a grandson taking a photograph of his grandfather, and taking pictures on the prairie, and countless others I encounter every day—serve as touchstones to the kind of world I want to live in. It’s not out there somewhere, or someday in the future, or anywhere in the mess and muddle of the current news cycle. It’s right here and right now and, to a certain extent, I choose whether or not to inhabit it.