The Pits and Pieces

Well, here I am, back from two weeks spent travelling with my daughter in Portugal. I rarely, if ever, return to places I’ve visited before, unless it’s a day or two in a city that I need to fly into or out from. But this time I visited two cities that I’ve been to before: Porto and Lisbon. I was last in Porto in 2015, alone, for a couple of days before starting my Portuguese Camino, and then again at the end of it, before flying home. I was last in Lisbon in 2006 for five nights, exploring the city with my then-boyfriend. Two cities re-visited, one nine years later, one over eighteen years later! What happens when you return to a place, having accumulated more life experience? Are you different? (The answer is yes). Is the place different? My daughter and I have taken three trips together in recent years (since 2019), and we’re similar in that we like to explore together but also like our space. For that reason, we book a place with two bedrooms (the apartment in Lisbon even had...

  Okay, I must get my anger and disappointment out on the page. Who are the people who re-elected Trump? Do they not care that he is a serial rapist, a racist, a misogynist, a felon, a man completely devoid of integrity? None of those things are deal breakers? I do not understand. I do not understand. Will I, ever? Should I try to? Yesterday, I went into Toronto for a medical appointment (nothing major). On the train in, I found myself looking at everyone with suspicion: Are you a Trump supporter? Are you? Are you happy about the US elections outcome? Do you align yourself with him? I have lost my faith in my fellow human beings. After the appointment, I headed over to the Art Gallery of Ontario. There are some days you have to take yourself to look at art. I forgot I was hungry. I looked at art. The classics, the landscapes, the portraits, the still-lifes. And then . . . a marvelous collection of wild colour and beauty – the huge quilted canvases by Pacita Abad, a Philippine-b...

In one of the recent online sessions with Ageless Possibilities , we were asked to ponder the question: “ Who is the person staring back at us from the mirror as the decades roll by?” – Grace Paley . Pondering is my middle name. I live to ponder! I wrote a bit more than what is below, but you get the drift – the mirror lies (unless we choose to look deeper), aging is a bitch, but also – “Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life—it has given me me” – Anne Lamott. Whether we like to admit it or not, aging is a trade-off. I look in the mirror and who do I see? That woman is me. But she couldn’t possibly be the same woman she was at 35, 45, 55. Because so much life has happened since then, and life inevitably changes you, as it should.  The realization there are so many less years ahead of me than behind hits like a punch to the gut. But who wants to think about diminishings and endings, when blossomings and beginnings hold so much more allure? Yet, aging giveth...