The Pits and Pieces

  Hope is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all – Emily Dickinson The poem by Dickinson depicts hope as enduring, never giving up, never asking for anything. Hope is a fragile but courageous bird. I love that verse, even though the full depth of the poem eludes me. And I ask myself, am I still hopeful and about what?  If I think of the state of the world, the bombing, starvation, brutal killing of children, the political situations where malicious, immoral, power-hungry men care only about themselves and not their countries or humanity, my hope is at an extremely low point. But then I think about the young people of the world who truly care about the environment, about justice, equality and kindness. And I feel a trickle of optimism, my belief in the innate goodness of humans restored. Then, my thoughts turn inward. What are my own hopes? What dreams have I not relinquished. I think back t...

On Monday this week, I listened to BOOKSPO, KerryClare’s podcast , where the author being interviewed spoke of Alice Munro as the inspiration for her book. And then, Alice Munro died. Quite serendipitous, in a strange way, I would say.  To honour Munro, I pulled out one of her books and read a short story, in fact one of the ones, Dimensions,  mentioned in the podcast. Munro writes about ordinary women with extraordinary complexity. In one interview, Alice Munro said she didn’t think anyone was, in fact, ordinary. The older generation is often encouraged to write down their stories, pass them along. And that may have been true of the silent generation, who lived through wars and hardship, rationing and scarcity. But is anyone now, apart from family and a few friends, interested in the stories of the ordinary lives of my generation, the Boomers? My life was (and is) ordinary. Perhaps even Alice Munro would not have been interested. Who would care that I grew up in a two-bed...

  April can be a cruel month, weatherwise, with hopes of spring dashed by the occasional snowfall or ice storm. But it can be cruel in other ways too. In a previous post I mentioned the osteoporosis diagnosis. I want to reiterate here for those of you women reading this (I doubt if there are any men) that a scan for bone health is delayed (often too late) unless you are considered at risk, or specifically ask for one. It’s important to be ahead of it, to know your bone health BEFORE it begins to deteriorate. There’s more to this health story, and I don’t want to make it into a woe-is-me sob story, but women’s health issues are often under the radar, the symptoms (or lack of) different from men. So, we must advocate for ourselves. I’ve had a bunch of routine tests lately, and while blood work has been good, an ECG revealed – I might have had a prior heart attack? To say I was gob-smacked would be putting it lightly. I sat, stunned, in my doctor’s office. What? Me? A heart attack? ...