This is the second week of our UK holiday and we’re in the lovely Cornish town of Penryn. Why Penryn, you ask? I thought it would be brilliant, in local parlance, to see a bit of the countryside, after a week spent roving London. As we planned the trip, I had mentioned Cornwall as a possibility to our daughter, Erica, who we came to visit, and she and her husband (Neil) agreed enthusiastically because there’s a brewery here with a fish restaurant attached that they had been wanting to check out. It’s their favourite brewery, Verdant, so it was decided....
Spring Musings
May 15, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Sitting outside on a chilly morning feels very different in May than in October. The promise of spring makes it seem warmer, happier. The nip in the air is softer, and pretty soon you can peel off the scarf around your neck. The trees are popping their baby green leaves and buds. The willow tree is a magnificent bouquet of lime green elegantly draping down to the ground. The woodpeckers are hard at work, and the sparrows are singing their mating songs. I sit outside in the sun until I feel as though my skin is starting to burn. ...
LIFE with Buster, Continued
April 20, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Having a young dog, it turns out, is way different from owning an older one. I guess I had forgotten, it’d been so long. As you may know from reading previous posts, we bought a Boston Terrier puppy a year ago, and have been waiting for him to calm down ever since. He’s now 15 months old, and still needs plenty of play time and attention. Sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed by how much, in fact. My research indicated that BTs are “medium energy” dogs, which fact Dave likes to throw in my face once in awhile. (“Well, good thing...
Sound the Flute!
April 12, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Spring is about possibilities. I was walking Buster around the neighbourhood on this truly magnificent spring day, spying the crocuses blooming, the tulip leaves just showing their tips, even the beginning blooms of the forsythia bushes and I almost wanted to break out into a run. Almost. I hate running so I restrained myself, but nevertheless the feeling was there. The phrase “spring in my step” sprang to mind, not to overuse the pun or anything. I saw somebody washing their car and wanted to rush back home and do the same. I imagined the sparkle of the clean paint...
The current crisis
March 12, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’ve been very touched by all the comments and messages concerning my previous post about Imposter Syndrome. Thank you to everyone who wrote and shared their own experiences. It’s hard to write about these things, but it helps to know I’m not alone and I see that many of you share the same feelings. It’s been intense lately with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I’ve been thinking a great deal about the hardships so many innocent people are facing while Putin gets his jollies by sending his troops in, many of whom probably have very little idea of why...
Mental Health, Part 3: Imposter Syndrome
February 26, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’ve been procrastinating on writing the 3rd in my short series about mental health. Not because I don’t want to write it, but because I’m in the middle of several other projects and I have other ideas of posts I want to write. Also, these days, with the news about Russia invading Ukraine, everything else seems trivial. However, I promised to write about Imposter Syndrome and I’m going to follow through. I decided to approach it by telling an abbreviated version of the story of my career in music. From a very young age I loved music. We had a piano...
Grappling with mental health, part 2
February 15, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Before I start in on part 2 of my mental health series, I want to mention how grateful I am for all the responses to my last post. I was touched that it struck a chord for many people. However, I think some readers may have been misled by it. I got many very sympathetic comments from people who seemed to think I had a really rough childhood. Actually, I don’t think it was harder than the average. My point with the last post was to highlight that our mental health is not necessarily consistent throughout a person’s lifetime. For...
Grappling with mental health, Part 1
January 20, 2022June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
Trigger warning: I’ll be discussing bulimia in today’s post. I’ve been thinking of different topics I could cover this year and one idea that keeps returning is to do a little series on mental health. During most of my life, mental health was almost a taboo subject, along with sex and money. Even now it’s rarely a subject of conversation between friends, so let’s drag it of the closet and examine it, as though it were a cold or the flu. Sharing this stuff isn’t easy and I’ve been sitting on this post for a week, trying to decide whether it’s “over-sharing”....
Life, simplified
December 30, 2021June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
I’ve been noticing lately that all the advertisements and articles that are directed at people who are overly busy, stressed out, working too hard, and never have enough time to relax, etc, more than ever don’t apply to me. In my early years with the orchestra I had two small children who kept me very busy, and my husband, Dave, was away a lot. I was teaching at McGill for a few years during that very busy time, plus serving on committees at the orchestra. I had this feeling that if I was asked to do something, I should accept. ...
Grandma Love
December 9, 2021June 5, 2023By Vivian Lee
A good friend asked me a disconcerting question the other day. She had heard from other friends that when they became grandmothers they felt a “love they couldn’t explain” for their grandchild. A love that surpassed any other that they’d ever felt. She wondered whether that was the case for me. I considered the question for a few seconds and realized I couldn’t say that it was. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandson, Iggy. He’s adorable and sweet and impossible not to love. However, I don’t get to see him very often and he’s still so young (4...