Going Off-leash

It’s countdown to my big trip. I’ve saved, I’ve planned, I’ve trained, but mostly, I’ve imagined, this 2019 Baltic Bike Tour and North Sea Meander for a long time. 

Last time I went overseas for family research was in 2004.  That’s when I found my grandfather . . . well, he was dead, but I found out where he was shot, the ditch where his body was dumped, and when. No one in my family knew that story. 

original SVG file created by
Matthead (based on East_Prussia_1939.kpg
from English Wikipedia)

This time around, I’m not looking for windmills or perusing former KGB files. This time, I’m looking for amber and traces of love amongst the Nazi ruins of old East Prussia. Who knows what I’ll find? That’s part of the thrill of the hunt—and yes, I truly do feel like an explorer out to discover ghosts of the past. 

Of course, there will be some voyeuristic tourism along the way. Riga, Klaipeda, Kaliningrad, Gdansk—these are cities that will be complete unknowns to me. But I’m more interested in the little places in between. And, I’m a fool for trees, stones and wrinkled old faces. That’s why a bike trip is the perfect way for me to explore this part of Europe. 

The second half of my five week trip will take me to Schleswig-Holstein, with a three-day stopover in Berlin. Another unknown city that I feel will shock me because I’ve mostly seen only the war images of it.  

Ahttp://www.maps-for-free.com

Then it’s on to Hamburg and the North Sea where I’ll be staying in a beach town, population 5k. That’ll be my headquarters for checking out my dad’s side of the family. I have a bit of trepidation. What family skeletons are still hiding here? 

After some back and forth, I’ve decided to go without my laptop. I’ll travel with pen, paper and my smartphone camera. When I come back in October, I just might be bursting with photos and thoughts about my adventure. 

  

Biking

Preparing for this overseas bike trip has a big checklist and I’m adding to it regularly. However, the important things are done. First off, I booked the tour through a very friendly Lithuanian tour company called Baltic Bike Travel. 

That’s when I had to make my first decision.  What kind of bike did I want to rent? Yikes. I’m just riding my son’s cast-off around here and don’t know a lot about bikes. I settled on a 24 speed trekking hybrid. I just hope it has a comfortable seat.

Because this is a guided tour, I won’t have to worry about fixing flats or gears. . . both have been issues during my summer here while biking the Harte Trail. Luckily bike repairs are a lot cheaper than car repairs. I'll be needing all my spare change for this trip. 33 more sleeps!

Reading in the Park

Yesterday I headed out to Assiniboine Park with three students from the EAL class I volunteered with during the winter. First we wandered around in the Leo Mol sculpture garden where we had fun mimicking some of the postures of the various naked women statues. The colourful English Garden came next. There, we visited the ‘woman reading’ sculpture near the entranceway and someone offered to take our photo. We thought it appropriate since learning how to read is what has brought us all together in the first place.

These women refugees come from Burundi, Ethiopia and Eritrea and their English skills are still at the Foundation Level. But they enjoy the challenge of recognizing letters and sounds and we had fun trying to read the captions on the various bronze sculptures. 

All that expended mental energy required a recharging and so we found a shady, green spot for our picnic. The students preferred sitting on the ground, “African” style, they called it, to sitting at a picnic table and I quite agree that a blanket on the ground works as a perfect tablecloth. 

After eating, we tried reading some picture books. These women work hard at reading . . . a skill they never had the chance to acquire, even in their home countries. Later, we played some badminton and threw a Frisbee. We had a hilarious time. . . laughing at ourselves and with each other as we chased birdies and flying discs. . .  contorting our bodies into various poses. Leo Mol would be inspired. Life imitating art. 

We ended the afternoon with a walk across the footbridge for some coffee and ice cream and finally re-joined the confusion of Winnipeg’s summer construction traffic. Summer had felt less muggy in the park, just like our language barriers were less of an issue when we were admiring sculptures and flowers or chasing a badminton birdie. 

These women might have a safer life in Canada after living in war zones, but often it’s also lonelier. Language barriers can be quite intimidating—as any traveler knows. I’ll be reminded of that soon enough, when I go on my Baltic trip next month. 

Reading Local

I'm celebrating Canada this year with a monthly review of a Canadian book. It's part of Canadian Bookworm's 13th Annual Book Challenge. 

June, 2019 was the perfect time to read Harriet Zaidman’s new middle grade novel set here in Winnipeg. City on Strike takes place in May and June of 1919. Of course, it’s always a good time to read historical fiction . . . my favourite type of fiction.

What I most appreciated about this particular book was the setting and I know I’ll never walk some of Winnipeg’s downtown streets without being haunted by the characters of Zaidman’s novel. While many of the buildings might be gone, the street names remain. Main, Higgins, Andrews, Flora in the North End . . . and even the still elegant and ritzy Wellington Crescent belonging to the South End. This is Winnipeg, divided by railyards. 

I think Zaidman does a decent job of re-imagining the lives of 13-year-old Jack and his sister, 11-year-old Nellie. At times, I got frustrated with the history lesson that kept getting in the way of the characters, but there’s a lot of history to be learned and I came away with a deeper appreciation of this important time of labour unrest in our city. 

I love having history told in story form like this and I’m sure this book will appeal to educators and anyone interested in Canadian social and cultural studies. It’s sad to think that these very issues continue to haunt our capitalistic society. This novel can be used as a catalyst to important conversations about 2019 values and I can see it becoming a prairie classic.

Summer is here!

There's nothing like a few days at the lake to really know that it's summer here on the prairies. Too early for the swarms of fish flies, but not for the invasive zebra mussels. The west shore of Lake Winnipeg in the Gimli area is littered with them.

I spent some glorious time watching clouds above the water. Who needs mountains when you have this ever-changing cloudscape?

And then there's the ice cream. I can't do summer without this guilty pleasure. BYOB? Bananas don't travel well . . . so much for that deal!

Poppies for Father's Day

My dad painted this still life of poppies back in 1954, the year after arriving in Canada . . . the year I was born. I’m hoping to someday recreate this painting with a real-life photograph. I’ve got a couple of poppy plants growing in the garden . . . but haven’t been graced with seven beautiful blossoms—not yet. 

Every six years I get to share my birthday with Father’s Day and it’s a great way to remember my dad. He’d turn 101 this year if he was still around, but he died twenty-six years ago. I can easily remember how long he’s been gone, because my youngest was still a babe in arms. He was a great grandpa . . . but for too short a time. 

Instead, Dad was many other things. Short, humble, funny, tough. He could fix anything. Being my dad was only one of his many roles. Now as I get older I’m beginning to appreciate the complexities of the man I called Papi. 

He was eighteen when he joined the Luftwaffe. Twenty when he married his first wife. Two children soon followed, but neither the marriage or the two boys survived the war.  

There was a plane crash. There were five years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp outside of Moscow. There was the home-coming to a home that no longer existed.  There was the divorce. 

Then there was my mom . . . a new wife. Soon after that, a ship to a new country. New children. New job. He was a busy man. And yet . . . he had time to paint poppies, to read fat books (which I’m trying to read). He had time to grow tomatoes, to go fishing and boating. He had time to not just buy a cottage, but to build a cottage, and even, to decorate the mocha tortes he was famous for.  

This was my father. Happy Father’s Day. For you, I grow the poppies. 

Catching up to Spring

I’ve spent the last six weeks focused on edits for my upcoming new release, Finding Amber. There weren’t a lot of edits, but you know about the butterfly effect? Let me quote Wikipedia:  “. . . in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.” So I needed to be sure that a slight character adjustment stayed consistent with everything else in the novel. It was a deep dive back into Katya’s 1937 world. 

And now I’m back here, in June, 2019, and the hostas have leafed out, the forget-me-nots blaze with dainty profusion, the peony’s actually got buds (first year!) and the lilacs are magnificient. It’s great to have a perennial garden that insists on emerging, whether I’m paying attention or not. Then there’s my collection of stones and driftwood pieces, that don’t need any of my attention at all. I love it. 

Now I’m ready to dig in the garden, to weed, to bike, hike and to otherwise indulge in this amazing weather . . . until I reach the next step in this publishing journey. But first, I need to get out my box of summer clothes . . . it’s time to put away the mitts and the togues. Seriously, that’s how far behind I am.