Making the Most

I come from a long line of women on my maternal side who are experts at Making the Most of any situation. 

My Irish Grandmother found herself in the colonies (Cape Town) with 4 children and a husband who worked 24/7 in their printing business.  While I am sure she, at times, was frazzled, money was tight, the kids annoying...she might have wished Grandpa was at home on Sundays to give her a hand.  What we do know is that she Made the Most of the situation and packed up a picnic and those 4 kiddos and headed to the printing house.  In what little time and resources they had they made the most of a Sunday together as a family.

When we first came to Canada and jobs and funds were tight and taking vacations seemed a long ways off and Sundays were long without our friends....My Mom (half irish if you're following the lineage) would round us up on a Sunday afternoon and take us all on a "cruise".... we'd walk onto a BC Ferry and sail through the islands to Swartz Bay - stay on the ferry when everyone else disembarked - and then eat dinner as the sun set as we sailed back.  It was a vacation and adventure and it certainly Made the Most of a quiet Sunday.

Today we were feeling the post vacation blues.  The first week back kicked our butts as we expected but there were some curve balls we didn't anticipate.  And though it was truly wonderful to see our boy yesterday it was a long day for us just-barely-over-jet-lag folks.  And this morning it was grey and rainy and there is a distinct Fall chill in the air. 

As I wandered around Save-On doing the groceries, giving myself a talking to about gratitude and expectations and sucking-it-up...I had an idea to Make the Most of today.  When I came home we spent a couple hour cooking, meal prepping and baking and then I set the table for lunch. 

It's pretty clear we're not in Paris-in-the-Summer anymore but we can Make the Most of what we do have - which today was bread, cheese, meat and a bottle of French red wine - throw in a jaunty tablecloth and some candles and voila! Parisienne lunch is Steveston.

We can't live in Paris-in-the-Summer all the time or else when we had Paris-in-the-summer it would not be as special as it was... but we can Make the Most of the moments we do have. 

Thanks to Granny Nora and my Mama for inspiring me and helping me remember .........

What to say?

I feel I should say something.  

Something about our trip, about the summer, about how we are...

But I have been stalling

Because I don't know what to say

Because I don't know what you want to hear 

Because "How was your trip?" is an unanswerable question

Which day, which moment, which meal, which interaction, which heartbreak, which joy, which crazy moment?

I am still processing it all.

The Facebook version is visible for anyone to see - it was SO amazing to see so many beautiful people and places and things...

To breathe different air, smell different smells, hear crazy bird calls and incessantly barking dogs, to eat so many different or new or forgotten foods, to gaze on landscapes that were totally familiar and quite foreign, to hear language with accents, to walk old paths and new ones...

To see Allan's Dad so diminished by dementia.  Shocking.  Deeply sad.  Confusing to recalibrate our relationship to this new version of him.  To see the impact on both his parents.  To feel so impotent to be so far away and not be able to help - to do something - or just be there longer.  

To meet old friends who lived important years with us and hold parts of our history we seldom even acknowledge in these present years - so fun and grounding and connecting and somehow a little bit unsettling too.

Our beloved country so much itself and yet so utterly changed at the very same time.  Beautiful but broken.  So inspiring to know people who are working for a new and better day, family and friends living life and managing in trying and hard circumstances.  But it is hard to see a bright new day on the horizon.  it seems a future dulled by corruption and poverty and broken promises and yet a spirit of bloody minded optimism. 

I am so grateful to all those who helped us see and understand a little better.  

We loved our travels as a family, we laughed and we walked and we ate and we ate and we took insta-worthy photos and we listened to stories and we drank coffee and wine and beer, and we shopped and hiked and we loved being together.   Our kids are amazing, flexible, fun travellers! 

We loved being with our Byres family - having adventures together and creating new memories (Kid Sandwich I'm looking at you!) - eating and cooking and laughing together.  Telling stories of our past and remembering together (and the old family photo albums - yikes)

And then Allan and I had Paris.  A time to walk (50kms!!!!) and marvel and regroup and process and talk and eat and drink and walk some more.   We needed it more than we knew.  And we miss it more than we can say.

And so here we are - the night before the start of a new year.  The kids are already in their new places - Lindsay - a new house with friends and in her 4th year.  David an RA at UBCO and into his 2nd year.  A new job for Allan and a new reality for Spanner and me...well...same job but maybe some new directions. 

Summer 2018 was incredible - so many highlights - so much to be utterly grateful for and so much I need to still process. 

Tonight I feel completely grateful for where I have been and for where I am sitting right now. 

xoxo

PS - if you do have any specific questions shoot me an email and I will try and answer.