Dinner with Family

Family
Close cousins
Distant by blood
But closeness forged
Long ago

My mother and family
And her mother
Came over on the boat together
Immigrants to a new life




The stepping stones of generations
Off kilter age-wise
Maintain that close bond
Both up and down the family lines

Continuing through our children

Who knew when those boat travellers
Stepped out in Canada
Their intertwined lives
Would keep us tied together

And now
We dine together
Family based on friendship
No better kind

Detours

Go around
Find a new route
Pylons dot the city
Springing up in new places
On a daily basis
Growing faster
Than spring flowers

Life, too
Has its detours
Leading over rocky roads
Past unexpected events
No road map to prepare
For the sudden changes

Detours can lead
to unvisited side roads
Unanticipated explorations
Off the beaten path
New ideas grow
New adventures

I've had my share of detours
Times of growth
Learning strength
Then setting a new course
Travelling through life
Until the next detour
Never knowing where it will lead

First Signs

It's Starting

In sheltered spots

Heat radiates

Shoots poke from the ground

It's coming

Snow still covers

Most of the ground

But mud is emerging

The smell of spring

It's coming

My eyes search  out each tiny sign

No robin yet

But the cardinals have begun

their springtime songs

It's coming

A winter's worth of dirt

Still lingers in the snowbanks

Some see only crud

I see signs of spring

It's coming

Looking Back

I'm looking back at history
Preserved by others
Sunday we went to celebrate
One hundred years of a life
A relative of my spouse
Looking back

My mother would have turned that number
Last year
I explore her history through artifacts
This picture comes from a book of postcards
Dating from the 1920s
Around the time she left Eastern Europe
And came to Canada
Looking back



Grodno the city of her birth
Once Russia, Poland now Belarus
What else has changed?
So many stories never shared
So much not recorded.
Lives before Facebook and selfies
Looking back



Life pictured through idyllic images
Idealized,
Who knows the truth behind the scenes
Much to reconstruct
To decipher
Looking back

______________________________

My personal challenge - to write a poem every day (or post one that I love) for April - poetry month

More Quebec City

Clearing the Roof, a photo by susanvg on Flickr.

Winter is long and snow is a constant. Roofs have to be cleared frequently to avoid snow falling on passersby. Steep roofs are designed to let the snow slide off to avoid too heavy a load on the roof. Many roofs have little snow fences to keep the snow from falling on unsuspecting heads.



Many of the buildings in  Vieux-Québec  are stone, with tall windows. Note the snow fences.



Walking in the old part of Quebec means many hills and many stairs. Basse-Ville (lower town) is where the port is. This photo is part way down. Looking up you can see the Chateau Frontenac, a landmark hotel.



Here you can see part of lower town. Now there are many shops, many aimed at tourists.



The defences for the city were in the upper part of the city, with canons facing the river. Many are placed there along Les Ramparts.



The original city was entered through one of the stone gates. This one is lit up as the Crashed Ice championship was being held int he city. The course went right through the gate. For anyone who doesn't know what crashed ice is (and I only learned about it because this was across the street from our hotel), the course goes down the hill with sections going up. People (crazy people I should say) skate down this course. I have no clue how it is judged. I don't think it is just time as there were judges placed in several spots down the course.



I am sure they never saw this view as they hurtle down. I enjoyed it.



Here is one of the crazy skaters.



We walked a lot over the 3 days. This sculpture sits on the grounds of the National Assembly, Quebec's parliament buildings. It represents the progress of women. The three together are suffragettes: Thérèse  Forget-Casgrain, Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie and Idola  Saint-Jean. Women in Quebec did not get the vote until 1940.  Marie-Claire Kirkland was the first woman elected to parliament in 1960. Even then she could not sign a lease for an apartment in the city without her husband's signature. Learn more here.

Quebec is beautiful in any weather.

Bury Your Dead

Morrin Centre, a photo by susanvg on Flickr.

My spouse and I read Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny together. I enjoy her mysteries and this one was particularly fun as it takes place in Quebec City. We spent a few days there this past week so I thought it would be fun to highlight some of the places mentioned in the book.  Above is the Morrin Centre, once a prison, later a college that was affiliated with McGill University and for some time now, the home of the Literary and Historical Society, an anglophone institution in Quebec. It features prominently in the book.

This is the library in the Morrin Centre - the only English library in Quebec City. The book, aside from being a fun read, is a great way to learn more about the history of the Literary and Historical Society (the Lit and Hist) as well as the history of Quebec City.



We had breakfast here - a favourite of my spouse, who spent about six months living just up the street from this café. The characters in the book frequent this café at 8 1/2 rue Ste-Ursule.

The cafe is across the street from 9 3/4 Ste-Ursule which also features prominently. Each building has a number. If there is more than one door to the building it gets differentiated by being 1/2 or 3/4...

Vieux-Québec (Old Quebec) is full of stone buildings with metal roofs and windows surrounded by wood. Many buildings date from the 1700s and 1800s. There are a few buildings still standing fromt he late 1600s. Could this be the stone home of Émile on St-Stanislas?



Quebec is known for great food. Paillard is a bakery, with lots of tables for people to sit and linger over coffee and whatever tempts you.

Le Café Buade is in a building that dates from the 1800s. There has been a restaurant here since 1919. We, like the characters in the book ate here. Cafés are a great place to linger - to chat, to read (or to discuss a criminal case as in the book).



This church, around the corner from the Lit and Hist features in the book. It is an English church - most in Quebec are French Catholic.



And yet another cafe - a great place to stop for a meal. We stayed a while and worked on a crossword. We had done a fair amount of walking up and down the hills of Vieux-Québec.

More Quebec pictures to come. And do think of reading the book!

Picture in Picture

Picture in Picture, a photo by susanvg on Flickr.

Had a lovely day on Sunday (except for the bitter cold). I walked from my place to a lovely cafe, Nocochi where I had lunch with a special friend. Then we went on to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the Peter Doig exhibit. While neither of us were blown away by the exhibit, we both liked some of the canvases. And both of us were struck by the quote at the entrance to the exhibit "There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign." Robert Louis Stevenson.

So important to remember that as a traveller. While the world is flattening and it is possible to find much that is familiar wherever we go, we should search out the unfamiliar and get to know the new places.

Peter Doig has immersed himself in many places, from Scotland, where he was born to Canada, the UK, Germany, Trinidad (where he now lives). Interesting to see his work, but, despite the astronomical prices it now fetches, it didn't really speak to me.