Our First Real Hatch

My friend, Shannon, across the river, wants some Barred Rock hens. Only one of the six eggs I gave her hatched in the incubator, so when Phyllis became broody, I said I'd put some eggs under her and we'd see what happened. Let me tell you, those eggs are quite hot underneath those feathers. 

Thankfully, I put a "P" on the three eggs so whenever an extra egg showed up -- how? I don't know, likely a certain pushy brown hen who I'd have to remove from that nest box -- I didn't lose track of the ones Phyllis was working on. 

We knew if something was going to hatch, it would be this week. Eggs incubate for roughly 21 days. 

Yesterday morning, when I went out to the coop, I could hear cheeping from underneath Phyllis. One egg had a pip in it! 

When I went back into the house to tell Dwayne, he looked up from his seat at the dining room table and told me that someone I know through church had died suddenly. 

By mid-day, this little chick had made its appearance. Exhausted but alive and well! 

Over the past 12 years of keeping chickens, we ordered day-old chicks and hatched out eggs in an incubator. This was my first time seeing a baby born naturally, with its mama right there. I was surprised by how moving the experience was - after all these years of having chickens. 

It was a needed moment of joy, and distraction, on a day when the human world was full of anger and sorrow and worry and fear. When the Covid-19 restrictions on gathering for funerals finally hit close to home for me. When email updates don't come and those that do are full of words like "progressing" and "comfortable". When the news is full of chaos and cruelty, bullying and brutality. 

Here's our little chick at the end of its first day of outside-the-egg life, snuggling up to mama Phyllis for the night. Funny little cheeper! 

I even went out at 3 o'clock in the morning to check on them. I was a little worried Cheeper would fall out of the nest box but everyone was asleep in their box and on their roosts, and didn't really appreciate me wandering around in the dark with my (muted) flashlight. 

Phyllis continues to sit on two other eggs; there's weight in them but no signs of life. The first chick peeping usually encourages the others to pip out so I'll give those eggs until tomorrow morning. 

One baby is more than enough joy for this moment, this day, this first-time experience. 

Finding Balance

A friend recently told me I need more balance in my life, and she finally gave voice to the word I didn't know I was searching for. 

It's been obvious for the last couple of years that I'm spending too much time sitting at my desk and far too much time saying, "I'm so busy!" Not wearing my busyness like a badge of armour, martyring myself for some internal image of my life; I just was/ am really busy, juggling three jobs. Not balancing -- feeling like I was trying to keep three balls in the air and really wanting not to cut back on the balls but to stop juggling completely.  I still had my walks, I still got out into nature, I still spent time away from my phone, but it was clear I needed to manage my time and my tasks better because there are things I want to be doing -- drawing, painting, and gardening -- that just weren't getting picked up.

Listen, I even bought a sketchbook in January with the plan to teach myself the drawings for a children's book I'm working on. The plan was simple: Draw the same picture once every day. 

Haven't even opened the sketchbook yet. 

Cue the pandemic. Suddenly, time slowed, the days melded into each other, and I went from three jobs to one. 

Our spring has been very dry, compared to the spring of 2019 which was a long, wet, cold season so there was little motivation to be in the gardens. In April, I started going outside to rake the yard every evening after supper because I really felt the need to be outside. First the virus and resulting state of emergency, then the season of Lent (which challenges us to take a long, hard look at our lives), then the mass killings... I had to get away from my desk, I had to shut my brain down. 

And as I raked, I remembered how therapeutic physical labour can be. I remembered the satisfaction of seeing immediate results: tidy garden beds and piles of leaves and sticks. I remembered what I'd been missing -- the work and the gardens, but more importantly, that word: Balance. 

Balance is not something that simply exists, something that just happens. Balance needs to be created. We lose balance, it's up to us to find balance again. 

My walks through the field and woods are about my brain; gardening is about my body. Getting out of my brain and into my body. Working out the kinks of sitting all day by creating new kinks. Another point about turning 50: My hamstrings aren't making the transition from sitting to wheelbarrowing quite as easily as they did ten years ago. 

I still haven't started drawing or painting, but the strawberry plants are in their hanging baskets, the marigolds are planted under the orange blossom bushes (in attempt to win the war against the aphids), and I'm digging a new herb garden. 

Busier than ever! Like Albert Einstein said, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." 

But this is the right kind of busy: the balance between words and worms, digging into stories and digging in the dirt, planting ideas and planting seeds. 

Finding balance means being more efficient with my time, and I find being busier makes me use my time better. In fact, the more I want/need to accomplish in a day, the more efficiently I use my hours, and at the end of the day, THAT makes me feel really good. To get it right. 

And once the gardens are growing, I'll learn to balance weeding and watering with sketching. Perhaps the trick is to take the sketchbook into the garden... 

PANDEMIC STORIES: In Conversation With... Dorian Dorn

Photo courtesy of Pridham's Studio

“Hard to believe it’s already the middle of May,” says Dorian Dorn when I reach him at home in Wallace, on the north shore of Nova Scotia. “I just don’t know where the time has gone. Every day seems to be the same because we don’t go anywhere but in that, it’s all new, too. It’s a very weird place to be.”

Dorian is a teaching administrator, which means he’s the principal of Wallace Consolidated Elementary School (WCES) and he spends part of the morning teaching the P-3 class. The school in Wallace is small – three full-time staff members teaching Primary to Grade Six – but this is what makes the school so special to Dorian. 

“Being a small school, we’re big on relationships, and connecting to the kiddos. The staff and the students, you become like a family because you get to know them so well. We’ve essentially been out of school for two months; it’s almost like summer has gone by,” he says. “So we’re missing the relationships and the connections we had with the kids as a family.”

According to Dorian, the pandemic and resulting state of emergency turned education completely on its head. Perhaps the biggest change/adjustment/challenge has been the unavoidable shift from five-hours of instruction time in a six-hour day at school, to one hour of online learning each day. 

When the school year ends on June 5th, staff and students in Nova Scotia will have had nine weeks of online learning and learning at home. 

“Teachers have continued their planning,” Dorian says, “but it’s pared down to find out what is the best use of their time and what can they provide for students that families can support them with, and what we can support them with when we’re not face-to-face.”

That paring down perhaps reminded everyone in education what really matters most: in-person interaction. Dorian says people get into teaching because they love kids, and he believes this time apart, in isolation, adapting to new ways of communicating, is actually “reinvigorating”. 

While the sudden move to total technology put some teachers out of their comfort zone, “they’ve been really creative in exploring and doing their own professional development, and looking at different ways they can do things,” says Dorian, praising those teachers who had to ‘hit the ground running’ and learn online platforms quickly. 

Dorian expects the increased use of technology will benefit his small school. 

“It’s going to be great for collaboration between teachers. At bigger schools, if you have four Grade Three teachers, you can all get together [in person] and plan and collaborate. For us, as a small school, we have two full-time teachers plus myself then everyone else comes in to do music, French, and gym, then leaves. So digital collaboration will allow teachers to meet virtually and discuss planning, student achievement and professional development.”

He also believes it will keep pushing teachers out of their comfort zone. 

“I’m as guilty as anybody for finding what works and sticking with it. Finding new ways to engage the kiddos is really important.”

I asked him how, on a scale of one to ten (ten being normal school life), he thinks he and his colleagues are doing?

“Seven to eight,” he says after a moment of consideration. “There are the challenges of internet connectivity but there’s also problem-solving and being creative. Staff everywhere are meeting all those challenges and dealing with them head-on.”

When he thinks about the positive stories he’s heard, along with the frustrations and confusion, Dorian concludes that those happen on a daily basis during a normal school day, and a lot of what happens is beyond anyone’s control (like how the weather affects internet connectivity on the north shore). 

“As teachers and administrators, we got to slow down and really focus on well-being and taking all that tertiary stuff out. Not that it’s not important but in these times, it’s more important to make sure everyone is well and safe and happy before we worry about all the other stuff.”

This resonates especially with Dorian, an educator for ten years, because this is the school and community in which he grew up so he feels particularly protective of and connected to both.

“This was my elementary school, and now I’m living at home and working at the same school I attended,” he says. “It’s a different perspective [being a teacher/principal] but it’s my elementary school and I feel very invested in it. I loved going there, and I love going there every day; I always feel like I’m home. I think that fosters the family feeling with the kiddos. They know me and I know them. On a good day, we all get along very well, and the staff works really hard all year to build that.”

He admits what he misses most is chatting with the students, parents, and staff before and after school.

“We’re so fortunate to be in a community that supports the school and we support the community.” He laughs. “I love being here and hopefully I’ll stay here for years to come.”

~ by Sara Jewell

A Month Ago

Photo taken in May 2014

The other day, my mother said, "It's hard to believe it's not even a month since the killings took place. Life goes on and no one thinks about it anymore."

I told her I think about that Sunday morning in April every day.

Every morning, when I step up to the access door in the garage to take out the bird feeders, before I unlock the door, I look out the window. 

I look around. 

Just to see what, and who, I can see. If there's anything, or anyone, to see. 

I've never done that before. It never occurred to me before mid-April 2020 that I had to look around first before I unlocked and opened a door here in rural Nova Scotia. 

Sure, life goes on. I still walk every morning. But to say no one thinks about those killings -- 22 people killed by one man on a rage-and-alcohol-fuelled rampage -- isn't accurate. Many of us are thinking about it, especially those even closer to the devastated communities than I am. And it wasn't just that it happened close to home; my personal connection is simply being a morning walker like one of the victims. 

I don't look out the window every morning and think, "That could be me" or even "That could've been me" but still, my actions are affected. I pause and look around before stepping outside my home. 

When you think of how minuscule the impact of that rampage is on my life, it makes you realize how even the smallest trauma can affect us and change our lives. So imagine how great trauma -- like a shooting or a rape or fighting in a war -- impacts people for the rest of their lives. We worry about jobs and the economy but what we really should be worrying about is health and safety. 

We need to take better care of each other on a community level. More listening, more accepting, more acknowledgement, more resources. Less "pooh poohing", less "there's nothing we can do", less "sweeping under the rug". 

If there's one thing this pandemic has shown us, as humans, we need to take care of each other. That's our job as humans, as citizens, as neighbours. The common good as a guiding principle. 

If there's one thing the killing rampage has shown us, as a country and as a community, we need to take the long-term effects of trauma more seriously, whether we're talking the PTSD of a member of the military or the PTSD of an assault victim. If we take care of each other, we can heal together. 

That's our real job: taking care of each other. 

PANDEMIC STORIES: In Conversation With...Crystal Murray

About a month ago, I received an email from the editor of At Home On the North Shore magazine (where my Field Notes column has appeared for the past two and a half years), letting me know that,  despite the bottom dropping out of print media because of the pandemic-related shutdown, she was not shouting “Stop the presses!” There would be a summer issue. 

But it won’t happen without some juggling.

“A lot of the stories we already had in the works because we shoot a year in advance for our cover stories,” Crystal said over the phone from her home in Pictou County. “We’re mindful of the stories we have in production for all of our magazines because a lot of them are no longer relevant. We’ve pulled content because they were stories about all the wonderful things to do in Atlantic Canada during the summer.” 

Despite the recent opening of trails and the expansion of gatherings to ten people, Crystal said the summer issue couldn’t tell people to go to the beach, make reservations at a B&B or attend a music festival. 

“Many of the things we celebrate in our communities and are the fodder for our editorial content, we can’t promote right now,” she said. 

Not only that, some of the people interviewed and photographed a year ago for cover stories decided they’re no longer comfortable with the subject matter in light of the current situation, and also as a result of the tragedy in April.  

“We are putting stories out that we collected pre-pandemic,” Crystal said. “We’re prefacing some of them and letting people know when the story was curated. And now the stories in the front of the magazine are about turning your shelter into a sanctuary, homes into havens.”

Along with being the editor of At Home, Crystal is also the President of Advocate Media, one of Atlantic Canada’s oldest and largest media companies. It publishes six community newspapers and 26 magazines, including East Coast Living and Saltscapes (for which I also write). 

She said the pandemic has had a significant impact on the company since newspapers and magazines are revenue-based, and advertising dropped away almost immediately. 

“One of the first things we knew we were going to have to do was downsize our organization. That was a really tough thing for us to do because even though six newspapers and 26 magazines sounds like a big organization, from a human capital perspective, it’s really not,” she said. “We’re a very tight-knit media family. It hurt to have to lay off staff we consider family.”

But Advocate Media decided to keep publishing, particularly the community newspapers (which cover Tatamagouche, Truro, Pictou, the South Shore, a wide area around Port Hawkesbury including Antigonish, and Saint John, NB) even with reduced staff. 

“Some other media organizations decided to stop most of their print publications and shift to digital-only properties but because we feel so connected to our communities, we wanted to do everything possible to maintain our print products in as many markets as we are able.”

Crystal said in times of crisis, community journalism is needed even more to tell the stories of those communities. 

“It’s one thing to be able to turn on a national broadcast and get statistics and understand what the Prime Minister is saying about the current situation, but how it’s affecting your neighbour, how it’s affecting your local businesses? Those are the stories we’re focused on in our communities.”

She admitted the decision to keep publishing means the company is struggling.

“When we made the decision to continue with our print products, we really made ourselves more vulnerable from a sustainability perspective because the advertising just isn’t there.”

There is an advertising-to-editorial ratio for publishing (for example, every page needs an ad on it to pay for the page) so with ads almost non-existent, there are fewer pages being printed. 

“But where our newspapers are weekly community newspapers, and because of our digital platforms, we can still be daily, if not hourly,” Crystal explained. “Technology has given us more to work with but we still felt our historic presence in these communities is our print products. It’s getting tougher every day to do this but we want to continue to make those products available to our readers.”

She’s hoping when everything returns to “some sort of normal”, the readers and advertisers will remember that their local newspapers continued to be there for them. 

I asked Crystal how, as a journalist and editor of a magazine focusing on the north shore of Nova Scotia, she sees the impact of the pandemic on her community where she lives and works.  

She paused for a long time before she answered. 

“I think the answer you’ll get from anybody right now is that it’s tough,” she told me. “The pandemic has consumed almost every part of our daily lives.”

She went on to say, “For me, as a journalist, I’m curious about how we are going to emerge from this, how we are going to land on our feet. The stories I really love to tell are the stories about the opportunities rather than the stories about the crisis – the stories of the ways people have come together and supported each other.”

She wondered how we, as communities, as businesses and industries, and as humans, are going to find the right new balance after the pandemic passes. 

“I’m really hoping that, in our part of the world, we’re going to be mindful of the sustainability we need but still find a way to engage in business, build our communities, and have our citizens live with dignity,” she said. “I hope we emerge from this as decent human beings, as people who are mindful of the way we do business, and the way we take of each other and take care of our planet.”

~ By Sara Jewell 

Countdown to 50: The Big Day

Well, I made it. I'm fifty years old and at the very start of a whole new decade.

Which started out kind of dicey, which isn't good because I'm superstitious about birthdays: 

Start as you mean to go on, right? 

I woke up late, feeling ill. Because it was late, I didn't get to do any yoga 

nor have any quiet time because my mother and husband were up early, too. 

I made the wrong coffee; I use the good stuff on the weekends, 

but instead I used the Monday to Friday coffee. 

And then, worst of all: I actually forgot to feed the cats and dog! 

So things started out very discombobulated, which -- superstitious as I am about birthdays -- made me nervous. 

But after coffee, and scrambled eggs, made by Dwayne, I remembered there were gifts and cards to open. 

I decided to get dressed -- it was my 50th birthday after all -- and that made me feel better.

But then: the cake! That beautiful, handmade cake (from a young mother in Wentworth).

And Prosecco to go with it - cheers! 

All of a sudden, it was a proper birthday, despite no party to look forward to. 

Around one o'clock, Mother and I were sitting on the couch as I shared some social media stuff with her 

when I heard honking outside. I jumped up to see our friends' car slowing down out front and turning in.

I smiled.

Then I heard more honking and recognized the car behind them then saw a whole line of cars!

My church family was doing a birthday parade for me!

It was wonderful. 

Thank goodness I'd changed out of my pajamas at noon! 

My friend Audrey arranged it by phone and it counts as my surprise party. 

When I interviewed the minister for last week's In Conversation With... he talked about participating in a funeral procession -- 

driving by the widow and her daughters after a member of his congregation died.

He told me he's seen it on TV and thought it was silly -- until he actually participated in it.

He realized it was quite meaningful.

And that's how I felt about my birthday drive by. Who would have thought a line of honking cars,

people waving and calling out Happy Birthday, 

Joanna getting so tangled up in her floppy sign that she almost drove into the ditch,

would be so much fun and be just as meaningful?
It's a gesture I'll never forget. 

And it was so good to see everyone. 

Later in the afternoon, I had a Zoom conference call with five of my besties. 

We were supposed to have an entire weekend at a resort in Ontario at the start of May,

but this was just as nice, getting to see them and talk and laugh with them. 

"Anyone peed themselves?" I asked.

No one had so that bodes well for our fifties.

I didn't say it out loud but I'm grateful my lifelong friends are all still around. 

How lucky is that? 

One of my gifts came in this box, and Leonard had a good long nap in it.

A good time was had by all.

Turns out, having a birthday during a pandemic quarantine wasn't so bad.

Since my motto is "Start as you mean to go on," there's absolutely nothing for me to be suspicious about. 

My fifties started just the way I'd want them to: with love and laughter, joy and good food. 

Countdown to 50: Day 4

How friend Shelagh addressed my birthday package! 

My forties began in Scotland -- the trip a gift from my mother -- and from there they were a ten-year adventure. And as with all adventures, not everything was smooth sailing; there were rocky paths as well as easy valleys. I won't flog those metaphors; you get my drift. It's the same for you: Ten years is a long mix of joy and sorrow, happiness and grief, successes and failures, epiphanies that are both liberating and exhausting. 

It was a good decade for me, in part because I finally published a book, but it was a terrible decade for Dwayne. Over the past ten years, he was plagued by health problems, like a debilitating shoulder injury and a stroke, but also by sometimes-ugly family issues. His was a decade of loss and letting go, of adapting and accepting, none of which he did well. I will say, however, he remained my steadfast, devoted and generous husband so we weathered the adventure, with its ups and downs, its challenging terrain and lovely rests together. 

Most of what happens to us is a learning experience, and there were many in the past decade. I want to share one of them: What I learned from living with the unluckiest person I've ever known is that my creative energy is drained by other people's bullshit. Not so much by Dwayne's health crises, those I can take in stride -- partly because he is so stoic, it's hard to get caught up in something you're shut out of -- but by other people being selfish and dramatic. 

I'm sorry I allowed any of it to affect me so significantly, but from it, I learned to guard my creative energy. I learned to say "STOP" to myself, to my brain, whenever the wrong thoughts were taking over a walk or a yoga practice or the middle of the night. 

Of course we get sidetracked by the drama. We take to heart the personal attack, the nasty comment, the lies and manipulation, but then we need to take breath, go for a walk, talk to a friend, and say, "It's not me. It's her/him. This is more about that person than it is about me." I learned to acknowledge the feelings and to put the situation back on the other person. Because to dwell on the hurts, on the disappointments, on the frustrations just distracts from what is really important. And for me, it's writing. 

I think this is why I prefer to write intensively: To throw myself into a project every day, all day for three or four months. Being wrapped up in a project, being consumed by a story creates a barrier. This hit home when I was writing my novel because someone tried to create a crisis out of nothing one afternoon and after ranting about it for a while, I just went back to work and forgot all about it. My creative energy and the unquenchable flow of it is more essential and more life-sustaining than anyone else's drama. 

As I head into my fifties tomorrow, into a new decade, I feel more like a writer than I ever have. I feel more in control of my writing life and my creativity (despite the long-term uncertainty caused by the pandemic) and as a result, more protective of it, more capable of protecting it. Twice today, talking with two friends on the phone, I said I wasn't ready to leave my forties because I feel like I'm still learning, that if I move into my fifties, I have to start applying everything I've learned but I'm half-joking. 

I'm ready. I'm old enough (sigh) to pull on my big girl panties and be a woman in the prime of her life.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Never. It'll always be more enthusiasm than skill, more laughter than tears, more sweet than sour. I'll be 29 forever! 

There is something to be said, however, about the psychological effect of a new decade, of new possibilities, of the potential that comes from being wiser, calmer (but no less energetic!), and too old for anything but courage and confidence. 

 

Countdown to 50: Day 3

My younger sister & I during my "private detective" stage.

It's been a busy week; had to keep reminding myself that today is Thursday. And despite the fact I'm turning 50 in a few days, I find I'm not spending much time in reflection, even on my morning walk. I'm thinking of other things, like finding suitable people to interview for In Conversation With and whether or not Phyllis the hen is going to stay on the three eggs we want her to hatch out. Big thoughts, friend, big thoughts. No room for something minor like looking back on my life.  

I can, however, share a story, which is infinitely better: 

In 1973, after seven years of marriage, and a lifetime of living in Toronto, my mother moved out of the city with her husband and two small daughters. Dad had bought his own funeral home in Cobourg and we all moved into the apartment above the business. Every so often, my mother would sit down at her typewriter, set up on a desk in the dining room, and type an "Epistle to the Relations" -- to her cousins and aunts and sister in Toronto and other places. There aren't many, or rather, not enough, letters but the ones she did type and are charming and funny and full of typos. 

From these Epistles, I get glimpses of myself as a child, and from them, I could try and glean glimpses of myself now. For one thing, I get my creative writing from my mother. Also, the propensity for typos. 

From an epic two-page Epistle, dated April 4, 1975, my mother wrote this about her children: 

"Our children are fine. Their normal, active selves. Sara's artwork is becoming voluminous and, I think, quite good. Dolly [my sister Araminta's nickname] likes to draw too. She is at the circle stage. I guess that is normal for her age [2 1/2]. She also knows most of the alphabet and some of her numbers. To what purpose she can use most of this information, I do not know. 

The other morning, my husband called me at ten to nine, and told me to get out of bed because the children were on their way up the street. I did as he requested. (He was shaving.) I donned my fur coat with my lovely white legs showing beneath and went to retrieve them. They were almost up to the Guy's house (Auntie Guy and Uncle Stewart, that is). They were both dressed in their proper winter clothing, hand in hand, with Sara carrying a six-quart basket over her other arm. I discovered that they were on their 'picture' route, handing out pictures that were contained in the basket. They had drawn these masterpieces in the time between six and 8:30 that same morning. Regretfully, they returned with many explanations and wailings. By the way, they can unlock the doors and escape. 

Sara said she would not do it again (that is, until the next time.) Dolly had whined to go so Sara said she could. It's like putting King Kong in charge of an orphanage."

(Notes: When Dad said "street", he meant Buck Street, the one-way side street, not the main street that was the address for the funeral home; we were never in danger, and we knew all the neighbours. Also, I don't know why we called Marg Guy "Auntie Guy"; just one of those things.)

I have lived with that line -- "It's like putting King Kong in charge of an orphanage" -- all my life. It really does go with my natural approach to everything: More enthusiasm than skill. It also might explain why I love kids, but didn't want any of my own!  

This is one of the losses of our modern world wherein we email and text and take digital photos with our phones: In the future, there will be no letters. No file folder full of typo-riddled letters from a mother to her family. No memories recorded on paper, in ink. With a typewriter! No stories to go along with photos in photo albums. There won't be any of those either. All our photos, all our letters, all our memories, all our stories won't be preserved in a way that is tangible, that is real, that is accessible. They will be floating around in a cyber cloud, locked away or lost, or deleted or scrambled. 

I feel lucky to have these letters, these famous Epistles. I've been reading them over for years. They are my history, my childhood. They are who I am, who I came from, why I exist. Like me, they came from my mother's body, from her love, from her creative spirit. As I turn 50, I get to read these words over again and realize that I'm still that same creative, curious, uncontainable girl from 1975:  

"Sara, or Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty, or Snow White, whoever we are at any given moment, is fine. She told some kids up at Zeller's the other day that she was from the Jewell Funeral Home. We should put a sandwich board on her and send her up and down the street." 

PANDEMIC STORIES: In Conversation With...Don Miller

Rev. Don "Donnie" Miller, First Baptist Church, Amherst, NS

When the Nova Scotia state of emergency limited gatherings to no more than 5 people, the places where we go to keep our minds and bodies healthy had to close. Places like theatres, gyms, concert halls, arenas, and libraries.

And churches. 

What happened to spiritual care when those communities of faith locked their doors? 

Rev. Don Miller, the Minister of Christian Education at First Baptist Church in downtown Amherst, says at first, he and his colleagues worried about what was going to happen to the church but now he believes, in some ways, the church is healthier. 

“When we closed our doors, there was a sense of ‘What are we going to do?’,” he says of the shutdown declared on March 22. “Then we realized quickly that the church is not a building; the church is the people. So we’re still working, we’re still interacting with our people.”

He spends much of each day talking on the phone and he’s encouraged by how that has deepened his relationships with members of the church. He says within two minutes, they’re into more of a conversation than they’d have on Sunday morning, when there’s the pressure of a line up of people waiting to shake hands and get out the door.  

“In many ways, you’re having a deeper conversation with people on the phone than on Sunday morning when they go by and you say something witty or kind.”

Working with young people is his main job so Rev. Miller (the kids call him Donnie) connected online with them long before the quarantine.  

“They already talk to me on Facebook anyway so their choice of conversation is on the internet. I always say they’re socially awkward so it’s easier for them express themselves that way.”

He sees them trying to deal with fear and boredom, and missing their friends while in isolation. 

“I think there’s going to be some mental illness issues and some depression issues. That’s my sense of what we’re dealing with now.”

He says his Grade 12s are dealing with hard losses: their final year of high school, prom, and graduation.

The quarantine also cancelled the youth group’s annual weekend retreat, during which he would sit down for a one-on-one conversation with each of his kids. 

“We just have a good conversation about what they’re life is like, what things they enjoy, what their problems are,” he says. 

Sadly, the mass killing that took place in this province in the middle of April are now an indelible part of our pandemic experience. What affected Rev. Miller most from the pastoral care he provided is how difficult the tragedy seems for those Nova Scotians who live away. 

“For them, Nova Scotia is home and it’s safe. So all of a sudden, they were thrown for a loop. People who haven’t been here for fifteen years were shaken.”

He had former youth group kids phoning him and saying, ‘I’m in Alberta but I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m so upset.’

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he says. “I always thought when you moved away, you’re not as connected to home anymore but all of a sudden, they were very much connected.”

Whether we’re talking about an unthinkable tragedy or a viral pandemic, keeping connected, finding new ways of connecting, and discovering that we’re all connected – deeply and spiritually – is part of this world we’re living in these days. 

Perhaps the unexpected upside for ministers is the opportunity to attend church services around the world. With their church closed, Sunday mornings in Don's household means choosing where in the world they’re going to worship. 

“We sit down and I say, ‘Where are we going to church today?’ It makes the world smaller, when you’re listening to a service over in Ireland or in Florida. We jump around to see what people are like and what they’re going through. It’s interesting to hear their take on their corner of the world.”

This has made a profound impression on him. 

“For most people, we think of what building we are going to but now we realize we’re not in a building and we’re not just the people we feed; there’s millions of people who are part of the church,” Rev. Miller says. “When you connect with them, even in a small way, it makes you realize you are part of a bigger place.”

~ By Sara Jewell 

The Countdown to 50: Day 2

My book mark is a magazine interview with Tara Henley. 

This book by Tara Henley -- subtitled "A Meditation On the Madness of Modern Life" -- is messing with my mind. It's well-written and captivating; I can hardly put it down. It's also tapping into something that's been inside me for awhile; I could use the seed analogy again: a little seed that's been buried in me is getting sunlight and fertilizer from the ideas and conversations in this book. Crazy to have chosen this book to read the week before my 50th birthday, when I'm facing that milestone and wondering what the coming decade will bring -- and what I'm going to be doing in that decade. 

What's the book about? A line from the back blurb, "Part memoir, part travelogue and part investigation", describes it perfectly (I'm two-thirds of the way through). Listen, I'm dog-earing pages and underlining sentences and asterixing paragraphs like crazy. I know -- I'm one of those monsters who marks up a book, but there is so much in this that is speaking to me. 

Perhaps the names of the chapters will provide a hint as to why: 

The Modern City

The Woods

The Plate

The Pocketbook

The Internet

The Void

The Tribe

The Home

The Commons

The Adventure

Right now, I'm in Chapter Seven: The Tribe, and reading things like, "...People are so incredibly overwhelmed, either by their stressful, busy lives or their personal pain and suffering, that they cannot commit to coffee, let alone community". After I'd underlined that sentence, I wrote 'me' in the margin. Because this is what I do: there are writers around here I'd like to sit and chat with but I won't make the time. I'm too busy working, I say. I'm hampered a bit by travel time; it take 15 to 45 minutes to get to a coffee date. But still, I'm missing a writing community but struggling to make time for it.

This book (like this pandemic) has reminded me, too, of why I feel fortunate to live in a rural area. In Chapter Two, about the woods, Henley writes extensively about finding peace and solace and rejuvenation through being in nature. She writes, "The only way I could think to return to the green of growth -- hope -- was to seek it out on a literal level. To nudge myself out the door, and head off into the woods" (page 62). Exactly what I get to do every day, right from my door. 

And later, Henley writes about having dinner with "a bunch of high-flying professional women" and telling them she was going to interview a woman who'd moved to a farm and "just those few brief words alone were enough to capture the attention of everyone at the table, all of whom immediately confessed that this was in fact, their dream." 

That's when it hit me, in the middle of chapter Two, that I live the way many people would like to. I remember an Ontario woman, who is my age, commenting that my book, Field Notes, showed her it was okay to not be "in the rat race", as she put it. She said my simple country life inspired her to give up her high-pressure sales job for a job that paid less but helped people more, and had less of a commute. I think she ended up in a job that suited her and satisfied her far more. 

Yet: I've squandered so many opportunities to do more with my land; too much writing, too little gardening. I'm so busy. I mean, when my rhubarb patch, a staple of all rural properties, is still a work in progress, I'm not managing my time better. 

That's one of the main points of this book: Happiness and good health aren't found in having more stuff but in having more time. We need to slow down and walk more, cook more, read more, listen more. We need to put our phones away (this is a big thread running through this book: how smart phones, the internet and social media dominate, even control, our lives). We need to grow our own food. We need to spend more time in nature, and with other people. 

Everything I take for granted in my life here on 72 acres in rural Nova Scotia is what so many people crave. Not everyone, but a lot of people. Perhaps it's more the idea of it, and like me, they tend to cringe away from the amount of work, the learning curve, and the fear they don't know how to do it and will screw up -- or worse, kill something (my fear if I get goats). But as I come up fast on the age of 50 and wonder how I can optimize my life in the coming decade, this book has opened up all the ideas I've been poking at. I've dog-eared too many pages and underlined too many sentences, I've gasped at too many paragraphs and dropped too many asterixes in the margins to finish this book and forget about it. 

As I suggested in my Day 1 post, the words for the coming decade are authenticity, courage and confidence. This book inspires me, empowers me and even scares me -- living in a way that is authentic to me, to my instincts, to my heart is possible but comes with learning and a major change of habits and attitude. Example: I've talked about simplifying and growing my own; now it's time to turn those words into actions. So I've started: there are 24 little pots of tomato seeds sitting in front of a window in my office. I've talked about growing my own seedlings for years... I anticipate 50 tomatoes for salsa by September! (If I don't kill the seeds or seedlings first...) 

Lean Out: A Meditation On the Madness of Modern Life (Penguin Random House, 2020). 

The Countdown To 50: Day 1

Annual Thanksgiving field walk - I was three years old.

My 50th birthday is coming up this weekend. 

But honestly -- if a woman doesn't get a party, does she really turn 50? I think I get to stay 49 until we get to celebrate. After all, I've been looking forward to my 50th birthday party since Dwayne threw me a surprise party for my 40th! 

But times are very different now. No one gets a proper birthday party, let alone a surprise one with thirty friends. We will celebrate in our isolation, with takeaway Chinese food and cherry cheesecake, and I will mark this milestone birthday in my own way, with photos and little essays of who I was and who I am now. 

In lieu of getting to do that in a book of essays -- the one I'd love to sell entitled "The Girl In the Red Wool Dress". Yes, she who stands in that stump waving wildflowers. 

In a collection of essays, that photo represents the happy, fearless little girl who insisted on wearing that dress for a year because it's what she wanted to do. On this blog, today, that photo tells me that I've always been a country girl, always been at home in the field, in the woods, with the tall grass and the even taller trees. 

The field in that photo is located in Coboconk, Ontario, where my mother's family had their cottages. These days, I walk around a field in northern Nova Scotia. And lately, while I've been tromping my muddy field, I've been thinking about the coming decade. Fifty to sixty. (Seriously, it shocks me to look at those numbers. They seem like they should still be years away.) I asked myself, "Sara, what do you really want to do in the next decade?" As in, what have you always wanted to do that you need to do now? 

And the answer came back, clearly and gently: "Publish more books."

I even dug around a little more. "Really? That's it?"

Yep. That's it. I have enough books half-written, half-edited, ready to go that I could be busy for the whole next decade. I'm a little disappointed, to be honest, or perhaps just surprised that publishing books still comes up as the one-and-only dream. I thought maybe my subconscious, when given total freedom, would say something like, "Get a degree in psychology! Get a Master degree!" But it didn't, and even writing that doesn't result in any kind of ping of interest or twinge of regret. 

I'm perfectly happy roaming my field, picking flowers, wearing the same clothes every day and writing stories. 

Here's the thing: I have no idea if I CAN publish more books. Who knows what the future will be like for any of us, let alone writers and publishers? But right now, I'm not worried about it. That's been the unexpected side effect of this pandemic quarantine: All my anxiety about the future is gone. Poof! Blown away like dandelion seeds. Because there's nothing I can do right now, and no clue as to how publishing will shake out in the future, I've calmed right down. I feel no need to strive, to struggle, to plan, to agonize, or even wonder 'What if?' 

I've been a freelance writer and wannabe author for 25 years, so to be suddenly free of the angst and agony, and the feeling of failure, is a strange state of mind to possess. This freedom is great but I know it won't last. 

And here's the other thing: I trust that quiet voice that says, "Publish more books. Keep writing." I trust whatever it tells me because it's true and real and doesn't lead me down the wrong path. It's never been wrong, even in the days when I didn't recognize it or listen to it. That essay I published here (and on Facebook) on Saturday? I hadn't planned, EVER, to jump into the debate about gun control but as I sat at the table drinking my morning coffee, that essay came to me fully formed and demanding to be written. It swelled up in me like a separate entity I needed to birth, to put into the world to be read by others. I knew better than to resist, even though publishing that scared the crap out of me -- you know what the anti-gun control fanatics are like. But I trust that voice, and hey, I'm about to turn 50 and now I'm really too old to be doing anything other than what it tells me. 

Older, okay, but also, thankfully, wiser. 

The Common Good & Gun Control

A shocking picture, and the only time I've ever held a gun. 

In the past week, the same idea has crossed my path twice.

The first time, you write the idea down on a piece of paper and forget about it. The second time, you pay attention. When an idea keeps coming around, it wants your attention.

It wants OUR attention.

It’s the idea of “the common good”. It means we’re all in this world together and we take care of each other. Even if it means some of us have to give up something to make life better for others, we do it because it is morally right.

The idea of “the common good” has never been popular with human society, and its certainly not popular with some of our politicians and many of those running corporations. Jobs & the economy and payouts to shareholders seem to take precedent over social programs that support of our most vulnerable.

Just look at how our nursing homes are ravaged by the Covid-19 virus.

We pay huge amounts of money to professional athletes and CEOs but don’t pay our health care workers or grocery store workers enough – and who contributes more to the common good?

The common good refers to what is beneficial to as many people as possible in a community. It’s about what we, collectively, can achieve as one human society. It’s the idea that we all share certain interests in common and thus we have an obligation to make sure everyone gest a fair share. Health care is a good example.

Life is another.

Nothing has brought this to the forefront more than the pandemic and our isolation. Nothing has given us a greater sense of the common good than watching most of our leaders work together to take care of the residents of each province and the citizens of this country. We’ve actually been proud of most of our leaders throughout the past two months as they set aside political differences for the common good.

Into this new enlightenment dropped the mass killings in Nova Scotia. And after years and years of watching these kinds of shootings in the United States, and no one doing anything about preventing them, Canada is doing something. For the common good.

The common good is what this new, and long-overdue, ban on assault weapons is all about. And it’s about bloody time. They are killing machines, glamourized by movies and video games, but they serve no purpose in our communities. They do not serve the common good. They are not for the greater good of our community, our society and our world. They are for the egos of the few, not the well-being of the whole.

I’m married to a law-abiding, firearm-owning Nova Scotian and no one is more supportive of this ban than he is. Because he knows what most of us accept: There is no place for assault weapons in our society; in our communities; in anyone’s gun collection. No one needs these guns. He also knows no one is coming for his guns, including the .22 he gave me for Valentine’s Day ten years ago.

I’m prouder than ever to be a Nova Scotian and to be Canadian. We are putting the needs of everyone – our common interests of safety, health, and dignity – before specials interests when we “stay the blazes home” and ban assault weapons.

Let’s hope we inspire others with our truth, strength and freedom.

****

Notes exclusive to the blog:

Dwayne gave me that gun nine years ago because he felt, if I was living in a rural area, I needed to know how to use it. He expected me to take it with me on my walks in case I ran into coyotes. I could never shoot an animal, and I never held that gun after that day. To this day, it remains unfired. I'm not a gun person, never will be. This photograph makes me uncomfortable even though it is a legal and legitimate firearm.

And for those who say "Banning these weapons right now is too soon after the shooting rampage in Nova Scotia": What better time? Do we wait, like they always do in the US, then never get around to it? I actually believed these assault weapons were already banned in Canada, so it's already an overdue ban.

And for those who say "What about the illegal guns getting into Canada? Shouldn't we deal with that problem?" Yes, of course. Let's do both. NO ONE (outside of the military and police service) NEEDS AN ASSAULT WEAPON anywhere, in any country. I'm proud of our prime minister, who, like the prime minister of New Zealand, reacted and acted immediately to ban assault weapons after a shooting massacre. There is no better time. 

The Osprey Chronicles

See the dark splotchiness on its chest? That means it's a female. 

I could have started The Osprey Chronicles last week, but I was preoccupied with writing prayers and reflections in the aftermath of the mass killings in my little part of the world. And I wasn't quite sure what was going to transpire with the lone osprey showed up periodically for two weeks so at first, it was only going to be one post. 

When I woke up at six o'clock last Tuesday, the 21st, I heard chirping. Osprey chirping. I sat up in bed and looked out the sliding glass door to see an osprey sitting in the nest. So I hopped out of bed and took some photos of it.
It flew off, and later in the morning, it returned long enough for Dwayne to see it.
"He's come to say hello," my husband said. It did seem as if the osprey wanted to acknowledge the nest but wasn't prepared to take it on.  (I can't tell from my photos if it was a male or female.)
Do osprey communicate this kind of information: Hey, guys, there's this nest in Nova Scotia, along the River Philip, yeah, by the big red house. The people who live there are big fans. I hear it's vacant... 

Assuming its the same female; the wing is blocking its chest. 

On Sunday, this lone osprey showed up -- and stayed. It has been on the nest (what's left of it, I should say) or on the perch on and off throughout the week.

Then at lunch time today, I looked out to see the osprey bringing in a stick -- and looked up to see another one flying in as well.

So -- sigh -- my poor heart -- it looks like a mated pair has taken over the nest, and is rebuilding it. I wonder if they have time to lay and incubate eggs and raise babies to fly away in early September?

It's not without its drama, however. See that stuff trailing off the side of the nest? Could be monofilament (fishing line -- argh). I'm worried the birds will get tangled in it as they fly in and out of the nest so I've emailed a photo to the Department of Lands and Forest. It would be nice if we could prevent a crisis rather than have to respond to one.

I think the second bird to fly off was the male. 

Oh, my heart. But I tell you, my heart loves to hear the ospreys chirping and see them flying above our property. We just need to figure out how to protect them and get those babies into the air in August.
Time to order trout for our pond.