July 3, 2025

June

June was a whirlwind, a blur, an ice cream cone from a truck with rainbow sprinkles, a veritable bouquet of peony pouffs at various stages of open. It technically began in late May with my gorgeous eldest child’s sixteenth birthday, a coming of age of sorts, a celebration of the wonders of her, which only get more wondrous. Leading right into her younger sister’s karaoke birthday party, the best kid birthday party I’ve even thrown, by which I mean that I had the best time and was not even exhausted when it was over. Her actual birthday (twelve!) was five days later, and we had just as much fun celebrating her goodness, and still weren’t remotely tired of ice cream cake (good thing too). I’d had an elaborate bouquet of peonies delivered the weekend before, the greatest indulgence, and watching how the flowers changed marked the passing of the days. And there were the final book launches of a very busy literary season, welcoming wonderful works into the world. On a day in which some people assembled to watch a sad military parade in another country, I gathered under shady trees with my singing group and our families, a beautiful afternoon of singing (and pot luck) in High Park, singing songs of peace and love and freedom. We spent Father’s Day riding bikes on Toronto Island and partaking in our first swim of the year in lovely Lake Ontario—a perfect day. A few days after that, my husband and I celebrated twenty years of marriage, an incredible milestone, time gone by in a flash (save for the millions of different people we’ve been and lost through the years). As nauseating as it sounds, I love him more every single day (7300 and counting) and we go out of our ways to be kind to each other, to make life a little easier for each other, and I feel unfathomably lucky. The day after that, our youngest graduated from elementary school, and helping to organize the event was my final volunteer commitment at that school (which I only committed to because my husband joined me too), which meant we had to chaperone, which was bonkers, but also the event went so well and we were so proud of her. And by this point, my sister and her children had arrived for a visit, so we went straight from grad to their hotel downtown and swam in the rooftop pool in a furious wind. The next night, we all went to a baseball game together, the first time my kids had been, and it was Pride Night, and so much fun—my husband and kids had their makeup done, and the jumbo-tron was all same-sex couples kissing, and it was truly joyous and beautiful and I am glad we went, even if the Blue Jays were terrible. (I also realized that if, as I do, you frequent farmers’ markets, the prices on snacks at the Sky Dome seem really quite reasonable.) On Saturday, we rode our bikes to the see the Joyce Wieland Heart On exhibit at the AGO. By Monday, the heat wave was ON, but the city pools were open, so we had our first swim of the year at Christie Pits. The next day was my birthday, on which I lavished myself with all the pleasures—I spent the morning doing hot and cold plunges at Body Blitz while reading a waterproof book (!), and then I took myself out for a delicious lunch (while reading the new Laura Lippman), and then went to swim in my ordinary pool, and then that night we went back to Christie Pits, which meant I had THREE (3!) bathing suits hanging to dry by the end of the day, plus more ice cream cake. By the next day, the heat had broken, and I spent the afternoon on a patio with friends. The next day was a get-together with school families to celebrate our daughters’ graduation and the years they’ve been friends at school together. The next day was the last last day of school ever, which was really moving and a little bit hard, and then the day after that, we ran away to camp for three days in the wilderness, and the weather was perfect. And the day after that, June was over.

Something I succeeded at in June, and vow to take into my summer, is experiencing the goodness in the moment, being present. In years past, it has felt like posting/sharing my moments was as important as living them, which is an icky way to feel, not even just because I require other people to witness my milestones for them to seem valid and real, but also because it seemed like trying to hold onto something that was ephemeral, and maybe just letting the moments (days) go by is fine, because they’re going to anyway. I don’t have to hold them. And the other remarkable thing I was feeling was a real sense of calm and relaxation. I realize that so many of the times I’ve savoured over the last five years have felt like a reprieve from crisis (because so often they were), which is not the same as feeling GOOD (although it’s certainly BETTER!). And the crises in which we were operating left me with a real sense of scarcity—like that lake HAD to be swam in, because after that, who knew when I would swim again, which was definitely the case in 2020, and sometimes 2021, and I never quite lost that sense… But maybe I have? For now, at least.

There’s a less manic quality to my experience of summer. I do not need to be photographed leaping into pools. I can just leap into pools. And I do.

May 28, 2021

Pfingsten

I’ve been reading Barbara Pym all spring, as I’ve mentioned several hundred times, and the Anglican rituals, for me, have always been the most curious aspect of these books—the vicars, and the curates, and the cassocks. What’s a cassock? I don’t even know. And especially: what is Whitsun? Whitsun, which is never a major plot point, but simply part of the course of the year (and occasion for a bank holiday). I had to google it—Whitsun is the Pentecost (and then I had to google that, and I still don’t really get it), celebrated the seventh Sunday after Easter. And frankly, not a lot—Barbara Pym aside—has been going on this spring, as Ontario moves into its eleventeenth month of lockdown, so I decided this was the year I was going to make Whitsun a thing. What that would entail exactly, I wasn’t sure. Definitely not church. But we needed something to look forward to, a goal to shoot for, and so Whitsun it is. (And indeed, this is cultural appropriation. Church of England Cultural Appropriation. It’s not the same thing.)

I decided this during a terrible weekend in mid-April where our provincial government’s incompetence took a swan dive off a cliff. Finally, after the government waiting to see whether modelling numbers predicting ICUs being overwhelmed with patients would play out in reality (SPOILER: they did! Who would have guessed?) the province moved into a locked-downier lockdown from the lockdown we’ve been locked down in since November 23. Six weeks on from then would be Whitsun. Surely by Whitsun, I told myself, we would find ourselves in a better place? Keep looking in the direction of the place you want to get to has been my motto all along…

And here we are, with falling infection rates, with vaccine rates that are really high. We were still in lockdown for Whitsun and the lockdown carries on, but it was so good to mark a milestone on a weekend with such beautiful summer weather. I’d also ordered peonies, because I’d received an enticing ad from a local florist, and the great thing about made-up holidays (all holidays are made-up holidays, even Whitsun, though I’ll acknowledge that my version of Whitsun was particularly improvised) was that you get to make them whatever you want. Whitsun peonies, I decided. And we’d make a Victoria sponge cake. I booked a car so we could go somewhere. We were going to make this the best Whitsun ever!

And it was! It was already a holiday weekend in Ontario and we’d gone for an epic bike ride the day before (Whitsun Eve). On Whitsun itself, we had Sunday waffles as usual but they just tasted better for it being Whitsun. I finished the book I was reading (Day for Night, by Jean McNeil, which I’ll be writing about here soon…). We went to Ontario Place, and had a second weekend in a row with two lake days in a row. We got ice cream. We came home (no traffic) and had an amazing barbecue supper, and then just as I was assembling the Victoria sponge cake (which was beautiful and delicious and did not look like it had been assembled by a blindfolded toddler—a first for me!) a friend sent me a text and asked if our family would like to join theirs for fireworks in the park that evening.

I can’t believe they were lighting fireworks for Whitsun!

Our children have never seen fireworks before and it turned out to be the most magical display, the first real life communal experience we’ve had while not sitting in a vehicle since March 2020 (albeit at safe distance for other people and also explosives). It occurred to me that if everybody just carried around lit sparklers all the time, we’d have no trouble staying six feet apart at all.

Even more cool things: on Sunday I was scrolling through the #Whitsun hashtag on Instagram, and what do I find. Peonies! Whitsun peonies EVERYWHERE. It turns out that the Pentecost is a national holiday in Germany and peonies (pfingstrose, translation Whitsun Rose) are the official symbol. Sometimes when you’re making it up you get it exactly right.

Not all days are glorious. Our bike ride on the Saturday before Whitsun was hot and full of whining. When we finally got to our destination, the beach was full of thick green algae and bugs were swarming us. A very loud church service was being amplified unavoidably, and it was weird and obnoxious. I was allergic to something and broke out in a rash, and on the long ride home we got caught in a rainstorm. “That was awesome,” we said at the end of the journey (20km) but also absolutely awful.

Whitsun though. Whitsun was perfect. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get to make it up and everything goes right.