The Sound of Silence

 I fell into a restless sleep last night, as the wind continued to howl outside, the way it had for the last 48 hours. Suddenly I woke and sat up in bed. What had woken me? And then I realized. 

It was silent, completely silent. I had been woken by the sound of silence. 

As the irony of that idea took hold, I knew I needed to explore the thought and decided to make it the topic of today's blog. 

As I thought about setting up the blog, I realized I would need a picture to go with it and I wondered, what does silence look like? I scrolled through my camera roll and found a few pictures of nature in serenity, but I realized that silence looks different depending on what it means.

Sometimes silence is just that, a form of repose that brings peace to heart, mind and soul. That kind of silence is a rest or a reprieve from the relentless demands of daily living. Or from the constant buffetings of the wind. At Windy Rafters, when there is absolutely no movement in the tree in our front yard, when not a leaf, seedpod or twig of that maple tree moves, there is a welcoming silence.

Sometimes silence is empty, a void that seeps deep into the loneliest recesses of the psyche, as if one was the last person on earth. I wonder if those who have travelled in space and ventured outside the spacecraft into space itself, or looked back on the earth and realized they were separated from all humanity have felt that kind of silence. I would like to know. 

Silence can also be ominous. I'm thinking of the "lull before the storm" or being in the "eye of a storm". I remember travelling to Edmonton a number of years ago and as we got closer to the city there was an ominous silence as strange cloud formations drifted silently across a greenish purple sky. When we arrived we discovered a tornado had just touched down, taking the roof off of the aquatic center where we were supposed to meet family. Many people died in that tornado. 

Silence can also be full. I love this print of a painting of an elderly man in prayer. To me this silence is full. It is warm, full of gratitude. It is like an unvoiced conversation between the man and is Father, an old friend.

In relationships, silence can mean so many things. It can seethe with tension or be full of anticipation. We speak of a pregnant pause or that silence is taken as agreement. 

Years ago I had an English professor who told us we should look for the spaces, look for what is not being said or who is not speaking, as well as the spoken word. I am certainly going to look at how I use silence in my writing. How do you write silence? Just something to think about....

Winter on the Prairies

 

As I drove out of my heated garage in my heated vehicle on Monday and headed for town, the thought came to me, "What was it like to live in southern Alberta in the winter long ago?"

The one constant is that the prairie winters have always been dark and cold. Our strategies to cope with that have changed over time. 

Even as a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies, I have memories of life in winter being different than it is today. I remember quilts and coats being heavier, but not as warm. I remember mittens knitted from wool getting soaked right through after snow  ball fights and making snowmen. It seemed that the winters were more severe and lasted longer then. The snow was deeper and my dad made a trail from the house to the barn. I remember walking through it with snow piled high on either side. I remember taking out our little wooden sled and being able to get some pretty good runs in the drifts just in our own farmyard. I always liked it when the snow was crusty and you could walk on top of it and didn't sink down. 

School mornings began in the dark with a bowl of oatmeal or cracked wheat porridge and getting dressed was a rushed affair as furnaces and insulation were not as effective back then. I was just grateful that girls were allowed to wear pants by the time I attended school, unlike my older sister, who had to face wearing a dress everyday in the cold. Those were also the days before leotards and pantihose and keeping your legs warm required wearing long stockings, held up by garters. Uggh!

My mother grew up during the Great Depression and I remember her telling about riding into town in a buggy with quilts covering their laps and heated rocks to keep their feet warm. There was no central heating and she remembers waking up in her attic room and finding frost on her bedding. Homework was done around the kitchen table by the meager light shed from a kerosene lamp. Evenings were cut short as times were hard and the kerosene needed to last as long as possible. Bedtimes were early and the nights were very long and very dark. 

What would it have been like to be a First Nations person in the early times and spend winter in a tipi out on the prairie? What strategies did they have to keep their children warm through blizzards and temperatures below zero, much below zero?

I realized that all of my Windy Rafters Roughnecks books take place in the summer, when the Ferris cousins gather to run the resort for the tourist season. Perhaps it would be interesting to set one book in the winter and explore those dynamics, especially historically.

As I drove along I had another more sobering thought. What about those, even today, who don't have adequate food and shelter during the winter? What about those living on the streets whose circumstances of unemployment, mental illness or addiction have left them vulnerable. Is this year, given the pandemic, going to leave even more people than usual in desperate circumstances? Something to think about looking out on a cold winter morning from inside my warm house.

Researching the Missing Chapter

 

My preparation for Windy Rafters Roughnecks Book 3 takes me into the era of the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII. What do we know about this time in Alberta's history, particularly among the Blackfoot people?

Over the last few weeks, my research coincided with Orange Shirt Day commemorating the years of  residential schools in Canada. I have been slowly uncovering what is sometimes called the missing chapter in Canadian history. It isn't easy to open this chapter and turn these pages. I am astounded and saddened by what I find. 

My sources include an online presentation given by Dr. Tiffany Prete from the University of Alberta. She is from the Blood or Kainai people and has recently completed a research project about the different types of schools on the Blood Reserve and their history. I have also watched the Orange Shirt Day presentation for Alberta students Grades 5-12 developed by the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation to be shared as part of Orange Shirt Day throughout the province.

From there, I spent time reviewing everything on the website for the NCTR, as well as looking into the calls to action put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I thought I would share some of my findings.

First of all, I was amazed at how long residential schools existed in Canada. The first schools were opened in 1831 and the last was closed in 1997. Over 150,000 indigenous students experienced some form of residential school education. This is called the missing chapter in Canadian history for important reasons. Survivors of these schools, who experienced the trauma of being separated from their families, taken from their culture and way of life, and often neglected and abused, do not easily share their experiences of these dark times. Some did not survive to tell their stories at all. For example, I read a very sad newspaper report of three young native boys, under the age of ten, who ran away from the residential school they attended after being harshly disciplined, and froze to death, trying to make their way home. 

The only records from those times and places were kept by the schools, presenting only one perspective on what took place. These have not been open to the public until recently and many of these documents have been tied up in the largest class action lawsuit of Canadian history. There are questions about the accuracy of some of the information kept, particularly about the whereabouts of missing children. Many of the statistics show hundreds, if not thousands, of children registered in schools who simply disappeared. We know some were buried in unmarked graves on school grounds. 

School officials, many who were also priests, nuns or other ministers, sometimes  "bought" the children from their parents for food or money to get them to come to schools. Those running the schools often had no training as teachers, doctors or nurses and yet they provided both education and medical care for the children. Many children died of hunger, malnutrition and sickness. There are even instances cited where nutritional research was carried out using indigenous children. It is hard to believe that this is the Canada we know and love, yet the records speak for themselves.

As researchers like Dr. Prete work, they discover the history is very fragmented. It involves thousands of hours of examining documents and trying to put the pieces together. It is also hard going because of the emotional distress that arises from reading and processing these painful stories and statistics.

Schools for indigenous children were not all the same. On the Blood Reserve alone there were many different types of schools. Mission schools, opened by churches before the Indian Act, have no records.  After the Indian Act, government records show that the purpose of these schools moved from the assimilation of indigenous children through segregation from their families and cultures to assimilation of indigenous children through integration into western culture. Both of these were highly traumatic to the children. In reading what was written by government officials at the time, it is clear that the purpose of these schools was to eradicate First Nations, Metis and Inuit culture by taking the children and erasing their language, culture and family ties. This was desired because the First Nations culture was deemed to be heathen and inferior to western culture. The only hope of redemption was to be found in destroying it and adopting children into European ways of life.

I am only scratching the surface of this research so far. I am impressed by the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which issued 94 calls to action based on their findings, one of which was the development of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation which has taken over this work and is housed at the University of Manitoba.

I was encouraged by the Orange Shirt Day presentation prepared by the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. While there is sadness in the acknowledgement of the TRUTH, there is clearly hope for the future through RECONCILIATION. That hope lies in those who were once exploited, the children. 

The question weighs heavily on me, how will I incorporate this piece of history with truth and sensitivity into my next book?  

Gratitude is Healthy

 

I made a commitment a long time ago to take time to feel and express gratitude every day. I haven't been 100% successful, but it has been a really good choice with a profound impact on how I see my life and the world. Nurturing gratitude helps turn our perspective to the positive around us, rather than the negative. When the cup was already half full, suddenly it's more than half full, often it's brimming over. 

Expressing gratitude through the arts gives our creativity wings. The more we look to be grateful for, the more we see what is really wonderful around us, despite our daily challenges. Through our offerings of song, poetry and pictures we help others to see it, too.

Expressing gratitude to others improves and strengthens our relationships. Grateful people are happy people and fun to be around. When we are grateful and when we express our appreciation, it draws other people to us. 

Here is my 2020 Gratitude acrostic to share with you.

G - grandchildren in the garden, playing, picking produce and discovering the joys of harvest

R - responsibilities that keep me focused, learning and moving forward through retirement

A - animals in the yard and in the field bringing beauty and companionship in the great outdoors

T - time to work on the myriad of projects that were on my "someday" list

I - imagination that fuels the need to create something of beauty every day

T - technology, with all its complexity and frustrations, keeping us connected in challenging times

U- understanding from my husband, who patiently endures all my creative flights of fantasy

D- daughters and son-in-laws who are my pillars in times of trouble

E - education, provided through my parents' sacrifices, which has given me a much expanded vision of the world

What are you appreciating this Thanksgiving?