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| Van Gogh The Immersive Experience in Regina 2023 |
Maps are drawings,
sketches that show the way
around the corner,
out of the city,
over the prairies
to the mountains and
into the surprise of tomorrow
as each step and minute
passes under our feet.
“I learned what every dreaming child needs to know,
that no horizon is so far you cannot get above it or beyond it.”
~ Beryl Markham, author
(1902 ~ 1986)
In spring, give me a church
made entirely of tender green leaves and blossoms
of pink and white;
grey-white blankets of
cloud let the land drink deep
while winds threaten to strip the trees of their beauty
geese raucously announce their homecoming,
settling on lakes and rivers to grow their flocks.
Yet it is a gentle, growing season ~ I stay outside
on my veranda to watch and listen
as spring wakens us all.
“Is the spring coming?” He said. “What is it like?”
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Give me a church made entirely of ….. from the poem Sea Church by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
*Author’s note: and after winter comes spring…….
Give me a church made entirely of prairie grasses with
wheat fields of green,
flax fields of purple blue,
mustard fields of yellow.
In that church under
the broad blue sky
I can see forever.
Should a storm come upon me, I can see billowing, bubbling thunder clouds rise up over the horizon.
Should lightening fork
to the ground or
spread a sheet over
slate grey clouds
I can run in to the shelter of
my childhood verandah.
Then I can still be part of that
church that is the world of the prairies.
“She liked the enormous sky and the winds, and the land that you
couldn’t see to the end of. Everything was so free and big and splendid.”
~ Laura Ingalls Wilder,
From Little House on the Prairie
“Give me a church made entirely of ….."
~ from the poem Sea Church by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
I could have taken a taxi
I could have canceled
my appointment
My blue umbrella was more important, with the green rain jacket I bought on the ferry;
a walk in the rain felt just right.
Not completely unlike
a Victoria rain with rain drops
a bit fuller, my umbrella that sheltered me on walks along Dallas Road
shelters me on the prairies
Such rainy days gently remind me of the home and life that I built in Victoria.
“Where we love is home ~ home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
The prairies are known for wheat fields and industry ~ no foolish flowers
or graceful stands of trees
especially for my grandparents and pioneers arriving on a flat, open plain,
only wanting land, but somehow
trees, flowers, and vegetables
sprouted and grew
with the patience of farming families and
the longing for green growing things and bright colourful flowers
While the fields were quilted
in green wheat, blue flax and yellow canola
it was not like the abundant gardens of home
so gardens with potatoes, onions and carrots were planted
even if precious water had to be sacrificed to keep them alive
there was only waving grasslands and sky burning bright blue
or gray with clouds if luck brought rain with a crack of thunder
the only relief, the night fall that erased the vast emptiness of the prairie
Now the descendants of my grandparents and pioneers
keep planting - not just fields of waving grains - but
graceful trees, foolish flowers and vegetables of many kinds.
“After the sunset on the prairie, there are only the stars.”
~ Carl Sandburg
Madelaine finished folding and putting away clean sheets with their synthetic fresh scent. Dryers were certainly more efficient, especially in winter, but all the scents on the market couldn’t replace the aroma of outdoors.
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”
~ T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems
Miss Florence Southam of S.Norwood, England, 23 years old, has dared to approach her beau, Mr. Corby, about his intentions. His response is less than favourable leaving Florence quite mystified about what their relationship had actually been. She felt her father did not even notice her; her mother and sister blamed her for the defection of Mr. Corby. Shortly following, she receives an invitation to her cousin Mary’s wedding in Canada. The location? Cannington Manor in the district of Assiniboia on the Canadian Prairies. Feeling quite lost, Florence accepts the invitation and, accompanied by the widow of Cannington Manor’s founder, she boards a ship to this new and strange land. Her ship docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she then travels by train and wagon to Moosomin, in the District of
Assiniboia, where she is met by her cousin Mary and her driver. She is lifted from the wagon by the driver, unknown to her, with what seemed a familiarity not entirely unpleasant.
Allison Kydd has masterfully given us a history of the pioneer prairies, the hard work and dangers. Many had big dreams, some successful, some still works in progress. Pioneers who tried to transplant class distinctions and the finer things of England to the rough and ready land that was Canada in the late 1800’s. Florence Southam was witness and participant on her trip. A trip that was intended to be mere weeks for a June wedding, and was extended almost to winter. Having a small inheritance from an aunt, she was able to do so easily. This author walks Florence through the woods on her own before she is aware of what dangers there may be; has her scrubbing floors on her hands and knees because there is only one maid; listen to and judge town gossip; attend church and community events. And still she is left feeling lonely. The longer she is there, she becomes more attached to this new way of life and to a certain Scottish man with a fine tenor voice. Aware that he is ‘below her station’, as she is reminded by her aunt, she decides it is time to return to England. A letter arrives from her mother, suggesting that she stay for the winter. Mr. Corby, her once beau, is now seeing her sister. Her mother doesn’t wish Florence to disturb that budding relationship. On another lonely walk in the countryside, she gets lost and is rescued…..and that’s all I’ll say about that.
This was a fascinating read about the culture shock men and women must have experienced on these grand transitions. Especially most women, as regardless their ‘station’ they had to roll up their sleeves without much assistance. Most of her characters were people that lived; Florence Southam and several others are fictitious and become our eye, ear and heart into the past. At the back of the book in A Note on Sources, she details the extensive research into the location of Cannington Manor; all complements of Saskatchewan sources.
“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”
~ Jane Austen, Emma
**Allison Kydd is a self-professed Jane Austen fan.
Title: Few and Far
Author: Allison Kydd
Copyright: 2017
Publisher: Stonehouse Publishing Inc.
Type: Historical Novel
Format: Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-1-988754-01-7
We drove to the tiny town of Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan for high tea ~ a short 45 minute drive
from Regina on a wide highway ~
three women met with another friend
who had organized our outing,
In a nondescript restaurant on Qu’Appelle’s main street,
a delicious prairie high tea was set out for us ~
a variety of tea, deli meat sandwiches,
wonderful biscuits, chocolate covered strawberries,
lemon tarts with meringue, tuna bunwiches, …….
we laughed, ate, drank tea and whiled away the afternoon in easy camaraderie.
“Teatime is a chance to slow down, pull back,
and appreciate our surroundings.”
~ Letitia Baldridge
Pen’s Family Restaurant
Canadian-Asian Fusion
40 Qu’Appelle St., Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan
http://pensfamilyrestaurant.scvr.co
See Pen’s Family Restaurant on Facebook
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| Beacon Hill Park October 30, 2012 |
A gray day
cool and pleasant
on the prairies
in October
but still
warrants a trip
to Vancouver Island
in October.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
~ L.M.Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Eyeing the possibilities around me this last two years has challenged me. Returning to Regina after living away for over thirty years has taxed my heart, brain and body. The prairies of Saskatchewan, my home for longer than I was away, never left my soul. When I left, I drove my own car, had a nursing career and several goals. Encountering life’s unexpected twists and turns along the way, I was away far longer than my original idea. And that’s all it was ~ an idea ~ without much of a plan at all.
Returning to the prairies without a car and retired, my goal was to be closer to family. Rebuilding those relationships stretched by time and distance is an ongoing and very precious challenge. This brings me to possibility. There have been bleak days - kind of like the winter we just passed through! But there have been more days with tiny hints of possibility. Like two brand new great granddaughters! Like learning to snowshoe at 74! Bus passes and taxis. Learning independence in this broad, spread out city. Enjoying life as it arrives each morning when I awaken.
All the while, I have wanted and needed more, but didn’t know what or how to get it ~ whatever ‘it’ has been. Possibilities as scattered as clouds across the broad blue prairie sky. Asking the question ‘What if?’, wondering if it made good sense, taking a lot of deep breaths and many steps forward, I have eyed each possibility and chosen one………to be continued……
“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves.”
~ Thomas A. Edison
I am from an old barn and wooden granaries long gone,
dust motes sliding down sunbeams through tired roof and walls,
from an ancient saddle, desiccated and worn
atop a old fence - a feisty mustang riding a far away range
I am from quilts of golden grain, purple flax and yellow mustard, long train whistles, grumbling tractors and dusty dirt roads,
glittering sunshine and abundant gardens gathered into the kitchen,
from corn husks, canners full of peas or beans,
I am from a plentiful pantry and freezer filled for wintertime meals
and feasting from all those things that grew our large, noisy family.
“It’s always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it.
To remember where you come from is part of where you’re going.”
~ Anthony Burgess
From dusty roads and grasshoppers
From sunshine and thunderstorms
From stardust and a velvet sky
For this tonight under a velvet sky, the day has passed quietly, gently wrapping me in clear space, stardust and calmness.
“Remember tonight…for it is the beginning of always.”
~ Dante Alighieri
