one of those years ...

A writer friend shared a blogpost where she adapted questions from the New York Times to sum up the past year. I found her post inspirational and have borrowed her questions for my own reflective exercise.  Here goes. 

Question 1. What I have learned in the past year? 

That I have the power within me, and just need the courage to use it. 

Question 2. When did I feel the most carefree? 

Riding my bike, not being in a hurry, and picking saskatoon berries along the way.  

Question 3. What gave me energy and inspiration? 

The garden. Nurturing it and letting it nurture me back. 

Question 4. What habit had a positive effect? 

My reading habit feeds my curiousity and keeps me inspired to write my own stories.

Question 5. What did I do this year that I thought was almost impossible? 

I've supported a couple of family members through some difficult issues which has deepened my own faith and reminded me that if we don’t look after ourselves, we can’t support anyone else.

2025 was a challenging year and I’m hoping for an easier go in 2026. No matter, 2025 has empowered me to keep my chin up, ride my bike slow, read and be kind. We're all in this time together!                                                                     

Solace in Solstice

The shortest day and the longest night. The beginning of winter means a return to light.

It’s been bone-chilling cold with blizzard-like conditions. I’m dealing with a misery-making cold or flu. My holiday season to-do list remains mostly undone and my messy snow shovelling could use an edit. They moved my husband to a hospital much farther away and the roads are terribly icy.  Meanwhile, the second batch of ginger cookies I made ended up spreading as bad as the first. 

But today the sun is shining. Fresh snow looks brilliant and our Christmas tree looks resplendent. Plus, the no-bake batch of chocolate macaroons turned out! I’m hoping this darn cold makes me cold-proof for the rest of the season. Pass the tissue box! 

Wishing you solace in solstice. Plus, good health, good friends, safe driving and the magic of story.

Hedgehogs

Decorating our sentimental Christmas tree every year is like time travel. My current favourite ornament is this wooden hedgehog. I was thrilled when I spotted a real one during my 2019 cycling trip through former East Prussia, in the Kaliningrad region. 

Love how little, unexpected things can become the best souvenirs … treasures of the heart. 

Sadly, I learned from a recent news report that certain camouflaged Ukrainian tanks are now being nicknamed 'hedgehogs'.   War's impact is everywhere.  Read the story and view images here:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-hedgehog-armor-fpv-drone-evolution-war/33614379.html

Perseverence

                Even when the trail seems long and monotonous . 

            ... keep moving.   

                    It's not the destination that's important anyway, 

                           .... it's the step after step after step. 

Savouring Saskatoons When It's Cold Out

 

I had no idea when I picked up a displayed copy of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, that I’d be reading about saskatoon berries. Because I’ve picked saskatoon berries almost every June for decades now, I’m instantly in love with the message of this book. Saskatoon berries are prolific here on the prairies. 

Slow down! More berries!

This past year had a particularly abundant harvest. My aging canine companion could only walk slowly and I benefited by having more time to pick. It simply amazed me that no one else was out here picking. I managed to bake saskatoon muffins for neighbours on Canada Day and was able to re-establish contact with them. We had saskatoon pie for thanksgiving and look forward to more for Christmas. 

Our serviceberries have served us well and I’m grateful that the berry bushes have been preserved in the ever-shrinking patches of wilderness in this suburban maze of development. After reading Kimmerer’s book, my appreciation of wild berries has not grown, because it was already huge … but my appreciation has been validated.

Local serviceberries, aka saskatoons

Connecting foraging to my ongoing novel research is easy. Hunger created foragers in eastern Europe during the twenties, thirties and forties. My mom and her sisters were expert mushroom, berry pickers and linden blossom gatherers. Even lowly weeds like thistle and dandelion offered sustenance. We’re surrounded by abundance.  

Never mind the political message. Walking in nature, picking berries and sharing them with friends feels good!

Local chokecherries make great syrups

Quotes from Kimmerer's book:  

"Imagine a fruit that tastes like a Blueberry crossed with the satisfying heft of an Apple, a touch of rosewater, and a minuscule crunch of almond-flavored seeds." (p. 6)

",,,status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away." (p.32)

"Take only what you need." (p. 84/5)

Holodomor in 2025

Yesterday was Holodomor Remembrance Day and I remembered by visiting the art sculpture set up on the Manitoba legislative grounds. Flowers, sheaths of wheat, loaves of bread and sunflower seeds were scattered at its base. 

   

Without collectivization, and the 'liquidation' of the kulaks,  there would have been no famine. My kulak mom, born 1919, was 13 when rural Ukrainians were robbed of the means to feed themselves. Stalin sent his men to steal every last seed of grain from the farmers.  He was determined to prove that communism worked and that the USSR could be a world super power. 

It’s often believed that Stalin said, “The death of one (man) is a tragedy. The death of millions, a statistic.” (This has not been proven.)  It’s a powerful insight, no matter who said it. 

My mom and her siblings, considered enemy kulaks, had managed to leave only a few months before the government-ordered theft began. My grandfather’s exit visa, however, was not ‘in order.’  As he fumbled in bureaucratic hell, the famine broke out. I can only imagine what it would have been like for him … a fugitive, always on the run, risking the lives of others who would let him hide on their farms … his wife buried in Siberia, his children cared for by unwilling family in East Prussia. He avoided being a statistic of the famine, but not of the 1937 terror.

Now it’s 2025. Ukrainian people are again targeted. As writers and as readers, we can utilize the power of story to help the world see these deaths as tragedies and not statistics. 

I recommend the following books for anyone interested in learning more about the Holodomor.

Winterkill by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder

The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest

The Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Litteken

The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh. 

 

Hitched a Ride Once

Funny how the mind works. I woke up this morning with a two-decade old memory stuck in my head. So I had to go through some old photos until I found tangible evidence that I wasn’t just dreaming. 

Back in 2004, I hitched a ride with a Ukrainian farmer and his shepherd dog across some furrowed farmland outside of Zhytomyr, close to where my mom was born before collectivization, near fields that my grandfather ploughed.

Poor Ukraine. Always struggling to survive. Borderland of trouble. It’s a wonder anything grows

on such a blood-soaked land.

I’m a city person, born and raised where streets are paved, dogs are leashed and streetlights keep the night away. But some of that kulak farm blood still runs through my veins.

Peace to you, dear farmer. Thanks for the ride. Thanks for sharing your rich land with a stranger. I still feel the connection. 

Red stone in a field
once the foundation of
my grandfather's windmill