Preparing...

I am learning by doing more about my camera.
I finally caught a hint more of the
brilliance of the white
vase.

I am thinking about my time in undergrad.
It's funny.
My friend who came to me this summer in June...
she lives out East now
but when I think of BC I still think of her
place with my sister-friend who is long gone from there,
married, three kids
yet somehow I remember so vividly that
apartment,
the painted walls, the bookshelves,
spying Kathleen Norris and realizing
that I needed to meet my sister-friend's roommate;
the very friend who years later
would stay with me in my hotel suite
the last days before I got married in Ottawa.
*
It's funny but somehow
even when I left
and I took a month to leave
I still have this sense of shock
as if somehow I can't imagine my friend's apartment being
lived in by others and my friend not being there.
But it is so.
I've visited her out in Halifax.
She's come to Ottawa and to NYC.
*
Somehow I guess I feel that
mystery of time.
That somehow everything that was good
is still there and I don't mean just in
a sentimental Hallmark way
the 'they live on in our hearts' that seem to be
written on a thousand cards for the grieving
but that
all that is good, all the colours, the love
the moments
are all here with us.
Somehow God has them all in front of Him
and nothing is lost.

And here I am in this slice of time
and I have Mr. Husband's icons to love
we are still newly married,
in love, working on nurturing our relationship,
building a life....

I am slowly processing my move from Ottawa.
Moving from a country and place I loved for seven
years and never wanted to leave;
it will take me a good year...
*
Two of my best friends from there
who are Romanian
are leaving Ottawa for good August 1st,
I leave for BC July 31 for 8 days.
*
I know.
This is posted late due to not wanting to say when I am gone
but meanwhile, when writing this,
my trip is still a few days away...
*
I am saying goodbye,
about to say hello.
I can't wait to be in Canada.
It's still my home country of my heart.
I can't even explain all of what I found there;
a lot of it is the people;
a culture I love,
a history linked to England;
a country that at the same time I miss
as the West,
if you had not noticed,
is incessantly insisting on throwing away it's culture...

I don't know who all I will get to see
or what it will be like to be back.

 

I wish I could see more of the people from my first church
but at the same time feel I just must come and see
who is there the Wednesday I am hoping to come...
Come and see the icons of my first church,
come and see St. Herman who always looked so
concerned for me
as I would look at the Iconostasis where he is.
*
I remember loving the door into church there;
my spiritual father in Ottawa,
years later,
told me how he once saw a pious young adult
kiss the door of church as she entered...
I still remember how much I loved my first church
and it's wooden doors...
*
I hope to take some pictures....