Buddy, Loved.

I remember every detail of the first time I saw Buddy. There was a tuft of his fuzzy brown head poking out the top of the red plaid gift bag that our close family friend, Robert D, held out to me with one hand.  “You can call him what you want, but his name’s Buddy,” He said, in his characteristic style, at once both caring, and uncomfortable with all the required mushiness that comes with caring for two little girls as much as if they were your own. I looked at the bag Robert D had given me and then back at him before opening it to pull out the furry brown body. I gave Buddy a test hug and it was love at frst squeeze.

It’s been 24 years since that day and Buddy has spent every day of those 24 years on my bed, propped between the two pillows by day, and tucked under my arm at night. I’ve rested my head on him when I needed a prop, smooshed my face into him to stifle my tears and fallen asleep smelling his weird, warm laundry and lipgloss scent. Any embarrassment I may have had at still having a Teddy Bear has faded with my adolescence and though I know I don’t need a bear to sleep with, I still tuck him under my arm even now. He’s warm and full of memories that float out every time I squeeze him, and his little worn body is molded perfectly to the contour of my arm. To me he represents everything about being  kid that I want to remember and perhaps that is why I love having him around, even now. To remind me of the things I never want to outgrow.

Someone asked me recently if Buddy would now be Noah’s and even though I want to give him everything I can, I said no. Buddy is full of my memories, not his, and a ratty old bear wouldn’t mean the same thing to him. Besides, I wasn’t done with Buddy yet.

But Buddy had a twin named Teddy, who was under the care of my little sister all these years. Although she played with and talked to Teddy all the time, she never slept with stuffed animals and so Teddy has weathered the intervening years in better shape physically than poor Buddy. This past Christmas was the first time in over ten years that the two bears were re-united. You see, my sister, knowing what Buddy meant to me, wanted Noah to start from scratch and have the chance to have a bear that would be to him what Buddy was to me. Tia nobly handed over the care of Buddy’s long lost brother Teddy into my son’s tiny hands. If anyone is trying to find a Christmas gift that will make your sister cry, this is it.

Putting Buddy and Teddy side by side shows the toll that 24 years tucked under an arm can make on a poor bear. I hope this year marks the start of Teddy’s new journey and that in another 24 years the stories he will be able to tell will be just as good as Buddy’s are.

AYS

I walked into St. Andrew’s church, by the front doors, this time. Years of finding my way to the sanctuary by the side door had led me to forget there even was a public entrance, and it was odd to see the double doors thrown wide, light spilling onto Central Ave. The plush teal-blue carpet had the same slightly musty smell, my footfalls puffing up little invisible clouds of long-stale incense and candle smoke. There were more lights then there were on my Tuesday evenings spent there – large stage lights that gave off a heady heat. I imagined the feel of them on my face as I looked over the packed pews and was a little thankful that I would be sitting down, behind the glare tonight. It was the only thing I was thankful for.

I was to be a Christmas celebration. Not a mass, a concert. Secular and sacred, modern and traditional, the few hundred gathered had come to hear them sing. Some for the first time, some for the hundredth. Some, like me, for the first time on this side of the pews.

The first of the girls entered by the back door behind the altar. I pictured the line running down from the little staircase and the girls quickly checking that the folders were on their audience side. The light flashed mutedly off the silk of their cream gowns as they walked to their places in a double synchronized line. Smile to the audience. Don’t move a muscle.

He entered first, she following, heading to the conductor’s stand to bow. She sat down as the Pianist entered and bowed. The first song must be one of his. I hadn’t taken a program. I don’t know why, but the glimpses I caught of the familiar titles as I walked past other listeners seemed to pain me. I would listen, and try to be ignorant.

I missed it. My Tuesdays were empty now, my Saturdays filled with a new crop of activities. I had to leave it behind eventually, but deciding that then was the time was a hard decision. It had been part of my life for 10 years. Trips to Europe, Winning the CBC choral competition every year we entered, singing in Carnegie hall and representing Canada in international competitions. Things that made me proud. And the girls, best friends all with funny traveling stories and concert mishaps. Pranks, skits, little sisters and the new generation. I was 11 when I passed my audition to join the choral elite, but it was a hell of a lot more than a choir to us. You can’t sing as National Champions at that level without putting your whole heart into it, and we all did. And some of us left our hearts behind when we left.

Many Alumni are still involved with the choir heavily. Not me. More than geography, it is my heart that keeps me away. You can never go back home, they say, and Amabile was home. I learned after that first concert how hard it is to sit and watch, even now, almost 9 years since I have left the choir myself. I enjoy singing with the old group for “Amabile weddings” or other group reunions, but I can’t sit in the pews and watch while trying to stop the notes from spilling out of me with every ounce of restraint I have. It will always be this way, but that’s okay. Amabile was a huge factor in who I am today, who my friends are and what I believe is important, and that’s not bad for 10 years of work on John and Brenda’s part. The choir has done what it can for me, more than I can imagine, and now I need to do the rest myself.

Non-Denominational Festival Shrub

We put the tree up this weekend, mostly because we are feeling holiday nostalgia since at this time last year we were walking into Disneyworld when it was fully decked out in holiday decor. They don’t do anything halfway and I was overwhelmed by the lights, music, trees and general holiday mayhem. What a way for someone to experience Disney for the first time, especially someone who likes Christmas as much as I do.

The holidays have been getting a bad rap for the past few years and I have to tell you, I don’t buy into it. Sure, companies make a ton of money during the holidays, but Christmas is what YOU make it. No one is going to make you buy all that crap you see in the stores, no one can force you to care more about your presents’ price than it’s intent. I think it’s fun to go to the mall and listen to the music and look at the elaborate displays, and I am not going to let the fact that those displays are intended to lure me into shopping ruin the fact that they are fun to look at. I love holidays because everyone gets into it, for their own reasons to be sure, but apathy has trouble finding a home this season. There are so many stories, so many moments during the holidays that make you smile, remember, appreciate who you are with – what can be bad about a season that does all that?

I guess it is about the way I was raised. Christmas dinner is more important to me than the gifts, even though Tia and I were blessed with generous parents and did get a bit spoiled in the gift department. I think if you want to capture the spirit of Christmas and teach your children to appreciate something other than the price tag you have to start inside your family, not outside of it by passing the buck and blaming the corporations. A Christmas full of traditions (the wackier the better) and family gatherings, of spending time with your kids by going skating, or shopping, or just playing in the snow – those are the things that will end the commercialism and bring back a wholesome Christmas. We are really good at blaming others, but for this we need to start in our own backyard.

Anyways, here are some beautiful pictures Adam took of our tree (of course, only one shot of the whole tree, and one of the glass bulb I broke). If you are wondering why it looks shorter this year we had to leave the base off or else it covered the TV and half the room. Once we win the lottery and have a gigantic mansion we can use the whole tree again in all its 8-foot-what-were-we-thinking-buying-a-tree-that-damn-big-in-the-first-place glory.

New in the Shop: Wire Tree Art Sculptures

Tree Sculpture Series

It’s like being a vegetarian fur-trader.

I have always had an affinity for trees. The form, the shade, the silent sentinel characteristic. I sit under them, climb them, photograph them. I did my thesis on Dendroanalysis, the chemical composition of tree rings, but my fascination started long before that with the trees I grew up around. The Charlie Brown maple in the front yard, the green, leafy maples that held the cardinals, the 40-foot evergreen that Terry and Robert D scaled fearlessly to string Christmas lights(well, not fearlessly, Terry was shaking the whole time, but determined to reach the top for her nieces, Tia and I), The tall line of pines that swallowed our Nerf foam boomerangs at an alarming rate. When the deer near the house were scraping the bark off the Charlie Brown tree, a cloth-paper strip was wound around the tree like a giant bandage and I remember stroking the wrapped trunk, wondering if it was going to get better and whether or not trees had doctors.

But, almost in defiance of my weakness for trees, my hands and eyes are also drawn to the products of trees, namely books and good, solid works of wood. I love having a score of books in our home library on every subject imaginable. I love running my hand across an table of aged, scraped oak. I love carpentry and woodburning and especially like shaping the wood with hand tools. I guess since I find trees so comforting it is natural that I would feel the same for its products, but I still can’t help but think of it as loving a tree carcass, though.

These two items are the first two in a new series of tree sculptures I will be working on. I often use leaves or tree images in my work, but this is the first time I have worked to reproduce a full tree, in miniature. I am very pleased with the way they turned out and can’t wait to think of the newest medium to make the next sculpture. Stay tuned for more…