the woodpecker posts

Okay, okay, I'm still blogging, just not as often. Suits me, hope it's okay with you. A former student now friend, treating me for my birthday to a sublime meal at Sassafraz, said my blog inspires her because I often write about gratefulness. Despite myriad difficulties, she is trying to be grateful.

Good to hear. Because I am always grateful for the breath in my lungs and need to say so. But then, I have lots to be grateful for, I've been lucky so far in life. It would be much harder were things different; were I not, right now, sitting in my kitchen with the back door open to the flowers and birds and insects, all of us busy on August 13 2015. I was just at the back of the garden with my notebook, thinking of topics, when I saw a small woodpecker - white with magnificent black stripes on the wings and black bands across the head - in a nearby tree, hammering decisively at a branch. And I thought - I'm doing that too. Writers are woodpeckers, drilling for material, for sustenance.

I'm grateful to be a writing woodpecker, with an actual woodpecker exploring her garden.

By the end of yesterday, I was beyond exhaustion. The little family stayed again Tuesday night, with the usual explosion of energy that entails. Wednesday morning, up at 7 - Anna and Ben were off to Sick Kids for Ben's weekly cast change appointment, and Eli and I had the morning to ourselves. Much watering of the already wet garden, much much watering. I even turned on the TV at one point to give myself a break, to discover that it did not work. Despair. The energy of the boy is phenomenal.

Took him to the Y and got him his very own membership, so now we can go together. We messed around and then he had a great time exhausting the people in the babysitting room while I did a bit of a class. Across town a great surprise - his grandfather, my ex, was visiting. He was a very good friend of Robin Phillips, the legendary Stratford director who died a few weeks ago, had gone to the funeral and came to town for an afternoon with us. We played and had dinner and then Grandpa left for the airport and Glamma to collapse at home. And Eli to play with his dad who was arriving. What a day that boy had.

Ben is thriving, now weighs over 8 pounds and his leg is doing better than expected. All systems go.

Back to my own life. Pecking.