Do you ever feel as if you’re in a dream? You’re having an experience so foreign to your everyday life you wonder how you came to be where you are? Those were my thoughts seated with M on the sunny terrace of an ancient stone farmhouse, eating an Easter Monday lunch, looking over the green hills of Basilicata, Italy, while being serenaded by the most charming group of folk singers.
I closed my eyes to absorb it all. We left that comforting lunch of vegetable lasagna, grilled meats and fresh picked oranges to drive down the ever winding roads of Southern Italy towards the sea and Apulia.
(M is getting accustomed to these Italian drivers, where they hug each others speeding bumpers until they make their daredevil passes. )
Farmhouses were on theme that day. We stayed in a romantic recovered farm property, at Masseria Montenapoleone, on part of a plain of centuries old olive groves.
The food this trip has been exquisite but made so by the atmosphere. We breakfasted on a terrace surrounded by a stunning array of geraniums, rose bushes, cacti and fruit trees and were hardly able to put down our iPhone cameras to eat our poached eggs and cream filled croissants.
Despite the beauty surrounding us we ventured out each day to hillside and seaside towns.
One day it was to visit Alberobello, famous for the funny circular peaked roofed houses (called trulli), another to climb amongst the stairways of Ostuni, stepping into the magnificent basilica. We paused at cafes to refresh ourselves with gelatos or a cool glass of vino.
Other days we traveled to the seaside towns of Monopoli and Polignano a Mare. Staring out from the stone walls at the Adriatic Sea, I felt so far from my foothills home in Calgary. It was the end part of the trip where I had a greedy need to smell more Alpine roses, enjoy more pistachio gelato, and gaze longer at the sea.
We were in the boot of Italy staying in the absolutely charming town of Bernalda, at a very special small hotel built by the Cópala family. The gardens were exquisite and though my family had told me there had been another spring snow storm at home in Calgary, I was still overwhelmed with plans to up my Canadian garden game. Whisteria hung over the garden walls, fig trees climbed around the breakfast veranda, and the geraniums had grown into bright red geranium bushes.
Still, we were tempted to drive out of Bernalda, passing families enjoying gelato on their Easter weekend strolls, to discover a true wonder of the world.
The green hills of Basilicata
After a trip through hills of the greenest farmland we gathered in an ancient building to be brought by van into a valley and then carefully led into a cave, or crypt, where it’s said a shepherd revealed that visible on the walls where he sheltered his sheep were some sort of paintings. Mama Mia! Paintings indeed! Under special lightening (no photography allowed) we were staring at stunning frescos dating from the 8th and 9th century!
This rupestrian church was discovered on May 1, 1963 by members of the Circolo La Scaletta of Matera.
In 2001, the Zètema Foundation of Matera launched an exemplary, scientifically-based full recovery project of the rock monument with the support of the Central Institute of Restoration.
Called the Crypt of Original Sin – this cave was the “cult site of a Benedictine rock monastery from the Lombard period. It is embellished with a cycle of frescoes painted by the artist known as the Painter of the Flowers of Matera and expressing the historical characteristics of Benedictine-Beneventan art.”
Sitting in the cool dim cave, listening to an audio presentation accompanied by low gorgorian chanting and imagining the monks painting a thousand years previously, left me feeling enraptured but also very small – ready to jump back out into the light and remembering to keep smelling the roses.
Quotes and photographs are from the La Cripto Del Peccato Originale website copyright 2023.
April 2025. We’re here in Rome, Italy! I’ll skip past the actual travel days, with sleepy boredom in an airport lounge and then almost missing our connecting flight having miscalculated the distance to the gate in Frankfurt’s insanely enormous airport. And I won’t go on about my vow against airplane breakfasts (icky icky eggs) or the usual circadian rhythm mess of a 30 hour day. All the same, the triumph of Rome is so alluring that its wonders were magnified by the state of our stunned jet lagged brains. Jumping ahead eights hours with only poor sleep and a bunch of niggly naps, heightened the marvel of that first mixed-up day of sleep deprived sight seeing.
With clearer heads we could have performed speedy searches on our phones to name the monuments, to pin point the cathedrals, and understand the streets direction, but that would have subtracted from our awe struck confusion.
The coliseum
From the fresh squeezed morning orange juice to the midnight cocktail on a six story rooftop, the day unraveled in a winding, blur of awe. We tread over cobblestones trying to follow that blue dot on google maps, stood stunned before ornate fountains, magnificent cathedrals, and ancient (like really, really ancient) statues of the likes of Neptune and Caesar.
And why so many leather goods shops I pondered, buying a cute little purse I didn’t need, (though who couldn’t use one more cute little purse) while trying not to be run over by scooters and motorbikes, ubers and taxis. Like sheep we followed a crowd to St Peter’s Basilica mesmerized by a single guitarist serenading us with the Beatle’s tune ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Lingered before midcity architectural digs, pizzerias, and pubs all the while listening to the sing song-y Italian spoken around us.
Time travel archeological sight
There was an afternoon nap, before our dinner of fat olives, rich gnocchi with ragú sauce and then chocolate topped basil gelato. Fantástica. But the highlight was the nighttime stroll home. Rome is amazingly lit from the ground up, cathedral windows, marble fountains, and tall cypress trees glow in the black night.
We walked slowly, well satiated, our feet tired, staring up at seagulls flying in and out of the light. It was ten pm as we lined up for pistachio gelato, then relied on Google maps blue dot to end our circular route through narrow alley ways with curious closed shops. In bed with closed eyes, I still viewed marble angels, Roman gods, and the wide rolling Tiber River. Tomorrow we’d set more exact goals of historic sights. And throw coins in that fountain.
A burst of energy happens the morning of a big trip. There I am rushing to have an extra key made for our mailbox, because I’m certain my adult kids will lose mine checking the mail in our absence. I’m slurping a cold latte while buying mini toothpastes and tiny deodorants at the drugstore, then back home pruning our apples trees – chopped branches falling into the snow. Crazy I know, but the jobs been on my pre-trip to-do list forever, and our return will be past the date that pruning is advised if I want to come home to dreamy blossoms.
Remember long August afternoons when you were maybe, say ten? I do. I can sit on the front porch with the sun on my face and recall sucking on homemade orange Tang popsicle while I plotted the rest of my day. Or sharing secrets with a friend in the park, both of us perched on big wooden swings, our feet scuffing in the groove in the earth below us. Or how about being sent off walking to swimming lessons with my siblings, with our underwear rolled in a towel and a quarter for the locker. Or the jubilation of the hottest nights when my dad said yes, to the sound of the ice cream truck.
For all of that – August could be the most languidly indulgent time of year. If we could just hang on to it and put off thoughts of autumn plans. The never ending winter is almost forgotten – not like in the crisp days of September when you can hear it whispering again, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
The afternoon sun heats the sidewalks and bee’s and cricket’s sounds make me lazy and nostalgic for days when I rode a bike in my bathing suit – helmet-less in the days before safety rules – and sometimes even barefoot. Do you remember the feel of bike pedals on bare feet? You had to slow down your ride by bumping over the curb and onto the lawn. Or how about summer vacations and roasting a hot dog over a fire that someone else was managing – your bare bug-bitten legs hot from the flame, your butt cold from the night temperatures. You couldn’t eat the hot dog fast enough cause after it came the marshmallows – gooey and likely burnt. And if you didn’t bother the grownups around you too much, you could run off after that into a sandy tent or cabin bunk and read Archie comics, or share some giggles with a friend or cousin before you were shouted at to go to bed.
And so I promise myself on this hot August vacation morning that I’m going to just float in the lake and watch the blue sky, and not chastise myself for this weeks calorie ridden snacks by doing laps from the dock to a buoy and back. I’ll skip the Archie comics and barefoot biking, but I’ll sneak away from the group to back float in the evening, immersing myself in a moment in time under the full moon. Maybe I’ll catch some of the last shooting stars of August. Ah August and beach blankets spread over a grassy slope for falling star gazing. August is very fine – let’s not think about sweater weather just yet.
Oh Canada – our true North strong and …. What’s going on in this big, cold country of ours? I think we’ve all been sadder, then we we were aware. Now a convoy of truckers beginning on the west coast and growing through each province is headed to our nations capital to peacefully protest restrictive mandates. Why has this Canadian trucker’s convoy at this time in these long, long months brought out thousands of families waving the maple leaf flag in twenty-seven below weather? What is this that folks as diverse as comedian and actor Russel Brand, entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk, and country singer Paul Brandt are all supporting the trucker’s convoy? Why in frigid snowy weather as the sun rises and sets have Canadians lined the streets to cheer, wave our flag, and offer to feed the men and women from across the nation in a truck convoy that is by some accounts 53 km (40 miles) long? Hutterites, Mennonite’s, Indigenous, Black and Sikh citizens have given their approval. Huge convoys are coming up from all over the United States and support is being heralded from around the world.
What I see now – what I wish everyone could see, but our mainstream media is still doing ‘coverage lite’ , is great throngs of citizens lining the highways, offering truckloads of meals, offering parking spaces, mechanical help, even dental services for truckers with tooth aches – and a chiropractic from Maine is trying to come up and fix trucker’s sore backs. I’ve followed several Convoy Facebook groups – one which grew to 600,000 members before it was taken down. (Why?) There are videos with energetic country tunes, big rigs, small trucks, and on overpasses and in snow banks families of every description packing boxed lunches to feed their new heroes while their kids bundled in snowsuits, hold up the signs they’ve drawn. Truckers are making videos of thanks wearing their sunglasses, as more than one has said – to hide their tears of emotion. Citizens who felt they’d been left alone with their troubles are saying they can’t stop their tears of joy. A Quebec sovereigntist reported feeling ‘Canadian’ for the first time.
Communities supplying meals to truckers who supply us.
Clearly this is not about vaxed or unvaxed. By the numbers alone we know that. There was a time in the beginning of this pandemic where folks were belittled for daring to talk about our Charter rights, liberty and freedom – we believed in flattening the curve. But with that came QR codes – and young hostesses across the land forced into the uncomfortable position of policing segregation and requests for proof of ID to allow patrons to drink a coffee indoors. Businesses small and large have suffered immeasurable losses due to forced lock downs and restrictions. Life’s celebrations – weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, graduations, retirements have been halted. Our elderly have been kept away from those they needed most. My siblings and I allowed our own dad to be isolated from us for nine weeks of his final year before we came to our senses and took action to bring him into our embrace again.
We’ve all masked, we’ve distanced. We’ve suffered horrible hurtful loss of our loved ones to COVID, and along with it our mental health has been strained beyond tolerance. Suicides and drug overdoses have increased. The authorities wanted 80 per cent vaccination rate. They got it, but continued to demonize those who for whatever reason just couldn’t use or abide this vaccine. Omicron is spreading among the vaccinated and the boosted and the vax passes if meant to keep away the potentially sick, don’t make sense and should have been revoked.
Photo from Facebook group
This outpouring of support for the trucker’s convoy might only be a response to too much over-reaching government control. People long to feel connected and united in their delight. Citizens around the world are sending messages of support for our truckers whose mandate is one of peaceful, calm protest. Yet our leaders and news sources find the few crazy’s in the thousands to try to in-still more fear in fear-weary citizens. Global news (shame on them) shows footage of the US troubles last Jan 6th and compares this to that. And yes, in groups of this magnitude there will be trouble makers and extremists to be dealt with, but truckers are reporting police forces and RCMP are helpful and for the most part supportive, directing traffic and guiding them on their way. Media has repeatedly questioned the GoFundMe (currently above six million dollars) which is intended to cover fuel of the registered truckers, with any remainder going to our veterans. Our Prime Minister, instead of offering to listen and talk, called the convoy a minority fringe of people with unacceptable views. What? As in he, the leader, will not accept them?
Hutterite women show happy encouragement in Saskatchewan and others line the highway greeting truckers.
I believe Canadians want to feel free from government control again. They want to feel trusted to take precautions but not be dictated to. To be given their livelihoods back along with their feelings about bodily autonomy, no matter their choices. To feel cared for by their communities, to be heard and feel the joy of togetherness. I know they are thanking this group who are saying end the restrictive mandates, let good people work again. And what is the symbol of this protest? It appears it is our Canadian flag.
It’s hot. I know it’s hot – at thirty-two degrees it is almost as hot as the summer days ever get in Calgary, this city in the long shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Standing barefoot on the lawn, dead heading petunias already spent from the heat, I get a whiff of the strong perfume of a peppery wild geranium in the still air. It’s quiet on our city street. A sparrow chirps and then there is just the beat of a sprinkler keeping a newly planted berry bush alive next door. And now there is the sweet drone of bees discovering my blush pink roses. The peace, the myriad of scents, the calm energy of nature alive with intention these are the soft blessings of summer. But it’s hot – oh so hot.
I rally myself in the heat to remember the long winter that drags us down. Beads of sweat are at the nap of my neck and I leap across the too hot sidewalk but, “Come on, think,” I tell myself, “of all those days relying on car heaters, and scraping angry pebbles of ice from the windshield, cursing that I’d left gloves in the house. Just remember wanting to skate but how it was too cold to skate. So I’m roasting now – big deal,” I go on to no one but myself, recalling all too plainly staring down heaps of snow on cars, and walks, and piled against front stoops and how I had trouble imagining this too brief summer – with the landscape so locked in winter’s breath.
“Buck up,” I tell myself as an ice cream truck plays it’s jingle somewhere in the neighborhood, and I resist complaining of the heat that glistens on my brow. Trying to think ‘summer’ my inspiration is to call my daughter and offer her girls a trip to a splash park, “Pitter patter, let’s get at her,” I’ll say, but first I’ll fetch a dish to pick the ripe red cherries reachable from the shade of an apple tree, and feel the wonder that is this country that after six or seven months of cold, cold temperatures – still bears remarkable fruit.
Just hanging out at the lake and rather than cleaning up last night’s BQ mess or encouraging the wasps to back off, I updated my Goodreads. I love Goodreads until I see all the books I marked ‘want to read’ and have to take a deep breath and know that it’s just wishful thinking. So there I was cooling off from the summer heat with a glass of lemonade, filling the hummingbird feeder, then cruising Goodreads when surprise – I found a review of my artistic daughter, Shea Proulx’s, ABC Monstrosity. The reviewer was exclaiming over how fun and original and different than all the other kids ABC’s it is. It’s a recto verso book, which means you turn it around (and upside down) and there is another book at the back. That one is a Counting 1-2-3 made up of a compilation of pictures of items that parent’s days are full of – one sippy cup, two rubber duckies, three soft spoons, four plug protectors … you get the picture.
The ABC side is a clever visual narrative that tells a story for kids, while it teaches them with crazy made-up words and real science. Oh, did I mention that it is an adult colouring book to boot. You can colour the fun objects as they build up on the pages and when you’ve made it all lovely give it as a gift to someone you love. She’s a smart kid, that daughter of mine, and I love the story time treat she’s created. This is her second adult coloring book – the first is Alice in the Womb a whimsical picture story of a human baby’s growth in utero, surrounded by a “creature filled dreamland”.
If you find comfort, relaxation or creativity with adult colouring I don’t mind telling you how to get hold of your own copies of ABC Monstrosity and Alice in the Womb. They are both available on Amazon.com and Etsy.com . The artist is one of the Text Me, Love Mom kids all grown-up. http://www.amazon.com/Text-Me-Love-Mom-Girls/dp/1771800712
So there comes that time when the dog days of August begin to whisper quiet hints of fall, and it’s then that I begin to question whether I got to the bottom of the ice cream cone that is summer in this country we live in. Did I lick the very last, hard to reach drop of the sweet treat of a Canadian summer. I’ve been fortunate to spend some time on a British Columbia lake – did I tread bare foot often enough down the wooded path? Did I swim at every delicious opportunity? Were enough fresh peaches consumed, and raspberries covered with cream? And even when tired from early sunrises did I push off in the kayak at sunset? Did I fill enough buckets with pebbles for my granddaughters to toss into the lapping waters? Did I snip fresh garden blooms to decorate the table – and simply put – did I stop to smell them? Ah, the fleeting season we cherish.
Up at our cottage there is a small clearing in the trees, with a view toward the lake. It is a place some of us (probably the girls) always looked at as if it was where you would slip off to with a new boyfriend when it seemed you had been inundated with aunts and uncles, and cousins or other lakeside visitors – to get away and whisper, or steal a kiss without being observed by dad.
It is a place to go when you are feeling like a moment, or being contemplative, or are in love, or out of love – a place away from the other places, a place to steal a kiss, or tell a secret.
And then our eldest had a baby who has a love of swinging, and we’d drive for twenty minutes to the park beside the local baseball diamond. At last I knew what the spot in the trees needed – a swing – a swing for a toddler, but a swing for a long-legged kid or a grown up, too.
Lucky for all of us my son-in-law, the toddler’s daddy, is a recently graduated architect with a passion for building – no pre-packaged swing set kit for us. On three of the hottest days of last summer he happily constructed the perfect, simple baby swing and a ‘big’ swing, and a place to climb and slide – with awe struck assistants from those of us eager for the finished product.
It was a hot summer with the lake temperature invitingly warm, so swimming and boating and floating we’re so much of what we did – not much swinging at all.
But it’s British Columbia, Canada and there are long crisp seasons where the lake is the backdrop for more quiet pursuits, times when there will be a fussy baby that needs to be soothed or too many folks will be crowded inside, and two others will have to slip out to that spot in the trees and take turns simply swinging.
It’s January now, the ground is icy white, the still air promises more snow and cold. But hey, it’s time to dream of spring and going “up into the air and down”….
It’s quiet on our city street. A sparrow chirps and then there is just the beat of a sprinkler keeping a newly planted berry bush alive next door. And now there is the sweet drone of bees discovering my blush pink roses. The peace, the myriad of scents, the calm energy of nature alive with intention these are the soft blessings of summer. But it’s hot – oh so hot.
Trying to think ‘summer’ my inspiration is to call my daughter and offer her girls a trip to a splash park, “Pitter patter, let’s get at her,” I’ll say, but first I’ll fetch a dish to pick the ripe red cherries reachable from the shade of an apple tree, and feel the wonder that is this country that after six or seven months of cold, cold temperatures – still bears remarkable fruit.
Text Me, Love Mom 