Red mud and pink blossoms

Growing up on PEI, spring was definitely not my favorite season. It was always nice to bid another Canadian winter adieu, but with spring came warmer temperatures – and mud - lots and lots of bright red mud. PEI’s famous red soil is vibrant but not when it covers your boots, your car, and much to my mother’s dismay got tracked into the house daily. Having a long dirt lane to walk so as to catch the school bus was a challenge. Keeping your shoes or boots clean was impossible. This is why I dreaded spring. I also think of my Uncle Frank who used to make his bi-annual trip home to the Island every May. He said he could always guarantee to have a puddle of bright red mud stream down his driveway from his car and tires after the first good rain upon returning to Montreal. The red mud was simply inescapable.

It wasn’t until I lived in Japan that I discovered a love for the arrival of spring. This “arrival” happened every year on the first day of March. To have winter turned off on the last day of February was unknown to me. In 1995, the year before I moved to Japan, there was a heavy snow fall in eastern Canada the first weekend in May. I remember this because I had a number of friends graduating from university that weekend at my alma mater, Acadia University. I recall one of them telling me how crazy it was to see the girls all dressed up the graduation formal in dresses with floral spring prints climbing through snow banks to get to the dance. So to have spring arrive the first of March and no red mud to deal with, well, yes, I was down with that.

With my first spring in Japan came an introduction to the “sakura” – the cherry blossoms. I heard my fellow teachers talk in excited anticipation about the arrival of sakura but of course, I did not get what all the fuss was about. What on earth could be so exciting about pink blossoms? I wouldn’t admit that I even liked the color pink and to be honest, found it very unmanly when all the male teachers around me talked and fussed as much about the arrival of the sakura as the female teachers. I thought they were all loony. Then again, I spent the majority of my first year in Japan thinking a lot of things I saw and heard were loony. Then the sakura arrived – and I got it. They weren’t loony after all. Or perhaps I was just an easy convert.

It is hard to describe how these delicate pink blossoms in varying shades of pink affected everyday life in Japan. The trees are incredibly beautiful and once they bloomed, they seemed to be everywhere. My daily walk to school followed a small canal most of the way, which is pretty uneventful when you’ve grown up on an Island at the cusp of an Ocean. Add cherry blossoms to the mixture, however, and even this small canal surrounded by concrete rivaled the Atlantic. The blossoms were beautiful, delicate, and were every shade of pink you could imagine. And I could not stop taking pictures of them.

This annual occurrence in Japan is an event. There is “Cherry Blossom Forecast” that appears nightly on the NHK news (as well as online). This forecast predicts the best hanami (cherry blossom viewing) periods for geographical areas. For example, right now if we all rushed to Matsumoto in Nagano, we’d had a grand view awaiting us. Seeing as that is probably not going to happen, this will have to suffice:



At the moment I am reading a book by Will Ferguson called Hitching Rides with Buddha. In this book Ferguson re-counts a journey he undertook to follow the cherry blossom viewing from the southern to the most northerly tip of Japan. It’s a book I simply don’t want to finish because in reading it, I feel like I am in Japan again. So many of the funny experiences Ferguson encountered along the way were very similar to many day to day experiences I had while living in Japan.

Although they are polar opposites in many ways, the only equivalent that I have to compare to the sakura are mayflowers. They are not nearly as plentiful or as large as the sakura. As a matter of fact, they can be down right difficult to find. What is similar is the delicate beauty of the bloom. Every spring my Great-Uncle Harold would go into the forest behind our farm and bring a large bouquet of mayflowers home to his sister, Auntie. In retrospect, for an old bachelor, this gesture was as delicate as the flowers he brought.

So wherever I am, there are two places I think of with the arrival of spring. I think of Tottori, the life I had there and my daily walks to school under the veil of cherry blossoms every spring. I also think of home, the mayflowers that bloom secretly in the forest behind the farm. And I envision Harold picking his annual bouquet for Auntie. With every change of seasons and with every change in my life, I think of home.

I am also happy to report that my parent’s have long since added gravel to the long lane and yard for the farm. The arrival of a PEI spring is no longer to be dreaded. And on that note, I will leave you with some mayflowers.

Great-Uncle William and the month of March

How is it possibly April? Auntie once told me that elderly people believed that if they lived through the month of March they would live for another year. Her Uncle William Lewis (my great-great Uncle) lived out his remaining days with them on the Lewis family's Cable Head farm and lived to be 103 years of age. In his 101st year, he apparently went to bed the first of March and stayed there until the month was over – only to get up and proclaim that he would live another year.

Another March has passed and I too feel like I will survive another year. We met a massive deadline at work this past Wednesday - thus no blog posts in March on Neater’s part. A lot of late evenings at work left little for the imagination in the free evening hours. Weekends were spent playing catch up with everything else. Meeting deadlines, however, is always rewarding. It’s also a bonus if at the end of the grind, you are proud of the work you’ve done and how you did it. I am happy to report that I am.

Four years ago, I was at this time preparing for a summer Internship in South Africa. Needless to say, it was both exciting and stressful with all the preparation work. Somehow I also managed to write a book – Contemporary Canada – in the week between school ending and my departure for Africa. Not quite sure how I pulled that one off. Four years later, I am working full time and have recently survived another series of moves. It has been eight months since I moved to the north end of the city to accommodate a move by my place of work. This move had lessened my daily commute in half, but it also has resulted in me rarely going south of the dew line. When I do go downtown I find myself filled with nostalgia: whether it is walking in my old familiar haunts around U of T, window shopping along Bloor or strolling in the vicinity of Bay/College. It is always a treat. Even if it is raining.

A few weeks ago, I returned to my alma mata, the Faculty of Information [Studies] at the University of Toronto to interview students applying for that same Internship I participated in a few years ago. The latest candidate has been chosen and will she will soon be on her way to South Africa. I am excited for her knowing what awaits and am happy to still have a small part of play in the entire process. For the past two years, I have enjoyed reading the student's applications and talking with them because they inspire me.

Making the most of my trip south, upon completion of the interviews, I was also excited to return to my beloved east end for a Greek meal with friends on the Danforth. Enroute to the Danforth, I quickly realized I had also forgotten how congested the Bloor/Danforth subway line can be. Getting on at Spadina, I stood because of a lack of seats. Standing beside an old man, I was immediately uncomfortable to discover the old dog blatantly staring at my chest – so I moved.

Finding a seat after the car emptied out at St. George, I then found myself preoccupied with another old man who stood near me. This fella looked a little like pictures of old Scottish stock with his long unkempt white hair and beard, not at all unlike photos of Great-Uncle William. The one difference between this man and Great-Uncle William was that he was wearing pristine white square toed shoes, which oddly did not have a mark on them.

This man had a huge raindrop sitting on the end of his nose. As it had been pouring all day, it wasn’t startling to see a raindrop of gigantic proportions – what was unusual was the length of time it sat there. Relief set in when it finally evaporated in that yes, it had in fact been a raindrop and not something else. So as to not stare I looked away, and my eyes fell upon a woman nearby who was holding a shopping bag on her lap. Sticking out of the bag was one of those black velvet coloring packages to be colored with markers (those of you who grew up in the 1970s might remember) that had “BUTTER” spelled out in large letters. I am not sure why, but it made me laugh. The laughter quickly faded when a young punk kid came and stood beside, who had his iPod so loud it was instantly annoying. I quickly re-joined my fellow commuters in adopting the blank “I take public transit because I have to” stare.

It is April.

There are beautiful orange tulips in a new vase on my kitchen table.

A new fiscal year has started at work.

It is unseasonably warm outside.

I always thought of myself as a person who enjoys winter – but am beginning to realize I may need to re-think that.

Happy Easter everyone.