I credit my Grade 1 public speaking victory to the choice of good material: Laura Elizabeth Richards’ Eletelephony.* As I learned to write my own stuff and present it with the energy and enthusiasm that nonsense poems require, I won a few more speaking contests in elementary school. That’s as far as my success went,** until the last decade or so.

He puts his arm around his ex-wife and says ‘buzi, buzi’ just before his lips meet hers in a kiss. His kids, grandkids, and sister surround him, welcoming him home. He smiles at me from across the room like an old friend, not the woman whose ear lay on his heart to hear its last beat.

“Hey, is this lady a senior?” His words bounced off the magazine rack, down the chip aisle, past the toothbrushes, and over the vitamins to its intended recipient across the store. It was as ear-splitting and unwelcome as gunfire and with the same potential to kill. Not literally of course - we all know “sticks and stones” - but it bored a hole through my confidence and annihilated my sense of youth.

Now there’s a word - unfiltered - that seems like it could be a good thing. It conjures up being unshackled or uncensored, freedoms we value in some contexts. However, as we all operate in our own echo chambers of social media and curated streaming services, we are lulled into a false sense of security that everyone is going to unfilter their messages in a way that makes sense to us. At least I did. But, as I recently discovered, being unfiltered isn’t always desirable.

I pull my backpack from the compartment above the very last row of the Boeing 777. Standing now is pointless since I’ll be stalled here for some time with my fellow steerage passengers but I’m anxious to begin the bleary-eyed shuffle to the exit 40 rows ahead. The flight from Seoul was only two hours, but it’s the third in a journey that started a long time ago: yesterday? the day before? tomorrow? to be honest, I have no idea but I do know I’m exhausted and I feel like hell. My colleagues, Jeb and Agnès, crane their heads back to exchange an eye-roll with me. I chose to sit apart because we’ll have plenty of togetherness in meetings over the next six days. Waiting to deplane from a multi-leg economy class trip is old hat to them, given their work with cities on environmental initiatives. It will be two decades before Greta Thunberg will point out the irony of flying around to save the world from greenhouse gas emissions. But we don’t yet have the tech to make remote meeting easy. And let’s face it, despite our current discomfort, we love these trips.

If you know what “three on the tree” means, you’re no kid. And when you were one, there’s a good chance you lived on a farm.

There was never any question about whether I’d learn to drive. I’d lived my 16 years on the farm, 15 miles from town where I was bussed to school and even further from many of my closest friends. I was as desperate for the independence of a licence as my parents were to be rid of the obligation to transport me to all extracurricular activities.

Ours was a long laneway and as a 15 year old, with supervision, I’d driven the car a handful of times to the mailbox at the road. Otherwise my driving had been strictly limited to tractors. I was itching to get licensed as quickly as possible. The Ministry testing office in Wingham was open on Tuesday mornings. Only Tuesday mornings. (You urban folk have no idea the hardships.) I turned 16 on a Saturday and waited an excruciating three days before I could write the multiple choice question to get my ‘beginners,’ so I drive but only with a licensed driver.

Just a year ago, three sets of eyes followed me throughout my day - Jasmine, my feline workmate by day and bedmate by night; Bid who conveyed her boundless love through her piercing yet soulful blue eyes and who provided the last connection to the little family Jack and I had; and sweet Molly who joined us during Jack’s illness as a fully grown dog and who observed the world with an Eeyore lens, balancing out the Bidi’s Tigger-like qualities. I’ve blogged about the difficult decisions I made in April and again in September to help Jasmine and Bidi to die humanely.

Removing the roof, framing the side building for the utilities, and constructing internal ground level walls entertained me through January. Things really picked up speed in February when I could see second floor take shape, one wall emerging at a time, showcasing the enormous windows. Chandlerville will be the most sunlit place I’ve ever lived! Because the second story hasn’t the square footage of the ground level, its roofline is asymmetrical, lining up with the ground floor roof, a design feature that seemed great on paper but is even better in real life, as you’ll see in the photos.

Last year, I eagerly planned a break following my full-time law practice which ended on Dec 31. When Jan 2, 2023 dawned though, the staycation stretching out in front of me seemed like an eternity and I was scared I couldn’t fill it. I’m at the other side of it now, and can report it was the best thing I could have done.