I recently came across this picture I took in 2011 from the millennium bridge in London looking towards St. Paul’s Cathedral. It immediately brought me back to that morning and that miserable week. It was August 20th, the day after my Dad had died thousands of miles away, in Vancouver, Canada. My Dad got sick the previous spring with some strange symptoms, but it took until June to verify that he had ALS. I remember when he called to tell me —I was horrified, and in my denial I said, “but, you’re too old to have ALS, Dad!” He...
Confessions of a lazy gardener
October 2, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
This started out as a gardening blog many years ago, back when Apple had a platform for creating blogs. It was super simple and I loved it, but eventually they stopped supporting it altogether so I had to find another way to continue my blog, so I got a WordPress account and after much trial and error, managed to relaunch my blog. For quite a few years it remained primarily a gardening blog, but as time went on, my interest in gardening wained and I turned to other topics. Now, I enjoy letting my taste and imagination roam free and...
Snapshots
September 24, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
On my daily walks I find it comforting to move through the world as part of that demimonde of people who are free for some reason at 10 a.m. on a Thursday. These people are walking dogs, drinking coffee outside coffee shops, chatting on park benches with friends, power-walking (while no doubt listening to NPR podcasts on their headphones), playing with their children in playgrounds, or just sitting. I only recently started taking walks after Buster’s frisbee time at the park, which happens after breakfast. He’s usually a good walker once he’s had his yah-yahs out and I love walking...
Waking up, A la Proust
September 4, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m finding Proust fascinating, but I can only read about 10-20 pages at a time before my brain gets tired. I’m really enjoying the little ritual I started of reading Swann’s Way in the mornings with my coffee. I have my phone’s dictionary open plus a notebook at my side to jot down notes, and quotes that I love. I have to read many sentences more than once, but that’s okay, it feels good to take my time, knowing I don’t have a deadline. I love reading a long paragraph without really comprehending much, then going back and methodically...
Penguono—Complete!
August 19, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’m almost at the finish line of my Penguono sweater by Stephen West. It’s been quite an adventure and I’m happy with it. I don’t think this pattern would suit everyone, with its crazy colours, but it was a very enjoyable project. I was happy I was making a dent (albeit a small one) in my stash, and hardly bought any extra yarn. In the end, I bought a couple of skeins for it but I used them up almost entirely, so I felt they were a good purchase. The majority of the yarn was from my stash and I...
Marcel’s Way
August 7, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
“…our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people.” Discuss. I’ve been delving into Swann’s Way, the first book of In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust and I read that phrase on page 23. It made me pause, partly because I’ve definitely heard it quoted before, but also because it made me ask myself…”Is it, really?” However, Proust doesn’t leave you hanging after that phrase. He goes on to describe in more detail what he means by it. How people in different social situations, with various groups of people, can be perceived quite differently. If...
Getting back to reading
July 30, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’ve been thinking a lot about getting back into reading, for real. See, here’s the thing. I adored reading as a child and adolescent; it was a wonderful escape, worlds to explore without leaving my couch, and it was the best therapy. However, now that there’s the easy internet, I tend to spend my “waste” time scrolling social media. It’s a completely lazy form of reading (watching, wtv) and I miss the feeling of being completely enthralled in a book. There’s nothing to compare with that feeling, and yet, I’ve neglected it for the past um…. bunch of years. Luckily,...
Mourning Roe v Wade
July 17, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
It’s one of those hot summer days that discourages a person from doing outside activities. It’s not blistering on the scale of the heat wave currently going on in Europe, but it’s still a bit hot and I don’t tolerate heat well. Still, I went for a walk and did some gardening. I then spent most of the day knitting and when not knitting, scrolling social media or playing with Buster. By the supper hour I was feeling like it was a wasted day, but I thought I could rescue it from being a total loss by writing a blog...
Knitting down the Stash
July 7, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’ve been worried, on a subtle level, about working down my stash of yarn lately. Partly this is the result of aging and thinking, will I have enough time to use all this in my lifetime? The only way to reassure myself that it hasn’t gotten WAY out of control, is to choose projects that will use up the bits and pieces, single skeins, and project leftovers that I can never bring myself to throw out. Not even the smallest ball of yarn. I keep it all, because you never know when it’ll come in handy. Words to live by. ...
Too much time to ponder
June 25, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Since retiring last August, I’ve had a lot more time to think, and what I end up thinking a lot about is death. If this hits too close to home, or you’re not in the mood to hear about this subject, please feel free to move on. I will try not to make this an overly morbid post, but I want to talk about this subject, because I don’t think we talk about it enough. After all, death is a fact of life, not only because of our own inevitable ends, but because of all the deaths we will grieve...