Yesterday morning I woke up wishing I had been born a Buddhist. I practiced yoga (release!) and went for a run in the woods, trying to let go of a desire that was occupying way too much space in my mind. A week or so earlier, I’d been packing up at work, when my cellphone rang. The students wanted to answer it.
“It’s just the dentist,” I said. (Who else calls during the day?)
“Let us say hi,” they chirped.
Hmmm. That would be kind of funny, but no, I was there so they would get an education! No phones in the classroom! I checked the message later that afternoon, only to start shaking.
“Hello, Lena. This is the Toronto Star calling. You’ve placed in the top three finalists for the Short Story Contest.”
Read MoreTHE HOUSE was Mom’s idea.
My childhood Sunday afternoons were spent driving the back roads of apple country, looking for land to buy amongst the seven thousand acres of orchard that filled a valley on the shores of Georgian Bay. Dad worked as a foreman in a local apple packing plant, a job with too much responsibility and too little money, and Mom looked after the four of us kids and, at harvest time, helped my grandfather pick apples. Dad yearned for an orchard of his own, and finally one day, Mom found it.
With a sagging roof and dark windows, the white farmhouse looked abandoned. The front porch hadn’t seen a coat of paint in decades and the yard was covered in brambles. Though there was no “For Sale” sign, she knocked on the door. An elderly bachelor greeted her with apprehension, and later, appraised of her desire, sent her away.
Undeterred, she returned a few days later, this time with some baking and her youngest son in tow. The man’s fear of my mother diminished at the sight of my brother’s cherubic face. He accepted her boterkoek peace offering and let them in.
Read MoreIt was five o’clock in the afternoon and he’d been awake for fourteen hours, moving non-stop to get the orders out. It was our second year in business and we’d long ago run out of start-up money, investor’s money and any other kind of money we could scrounge together for the dream of running our own business. He took off his sweaty tuque (it was cold in the warehouse), rubbed his head in exhaustion, and walked over to the playpen where our five month-old daughter had been seconded for hours in a pale pink snowsuit. Gently picking her up, he snuggled her close and accepted a bowl of his mother’s homemade cheesy-bean soup. We’d done it! Valentine’s Day 2008 was soon to be a wrap and we could sit back and celebrate. Until the phone rang.
Read MoreI’ve spent the past month in my hometown and the memories have flooded back as I’ve cross-crossed the side roads of the Beaver Valley. If you’re a Globe reader, perhaps you read my nostalgic piece last week?
Here’s another “Valley Story.” It’s about a wedding, a family farm, a young bride and her penniless friends.
I was twenty-one the year we got married, some might say my husband robbed the cradle, but as the years go by the gap in our age has shrunk. (I still find him quite immature!) The August we married, my parents, fiancé, three brothers and various cousins all lived together on the family farm, an apple orchard. The house, which had for years held six of us together, now heaved and groaned under the pressure of twelve. The well ran dry and we took to bathing in the bay each day after the work on the farm was done.
Read More