Erin's Journals

Just a thought… The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. [Gandhi]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

This is National Volunteer Week here in Canada and the theme this year is “Empathy in Action.” Another theme I might offer: “Love lives when you give.”

I’ve happily volunteered for different causes throughout my life. I’m not telling you that for a pat on the back or anything, but it’s all part of giving back in thanks for a full and blessed life. Truth be told, early on I volunteered with a bit of selfish suspicion: I hoped that if I helped with causes surrounding breast cancer, children’s health, Easter Seals and so on, maybe I’d be protected from needing those same charities one day. Sounds strange and maybe even selfish, but that was always in the back of my head.

As many will tell you, that’s not how it works. You do it just to do it; not for some magic talisman. But the secret is, it really is good for you. And that message has never come home more loudly and clearly than it has in the person of a little 96-year-old woman who has such a strong grip on my heart, it has brought me to tears.

Every Thursday, Rob and I deliver prepared frozen meals from a community centre to several seniors who have signed up for the service. We are among many people who do this for clients throughout our little area; I’d say we range in age from the younger end like me, maybe up to 80. And we do it with love, time, masks and gloves. But when we signed up for this at the beginning of Covid lockdowns, we never imagined what we would get in return.

For every person to whom we just say “Hi, hope you’re doing well,” there’s someone else who’s happy to have a bit of a longer visit at the door. We’ve had two clients who’ve died in our time delivering and others who have moved on. Doors opening, doors closing.

But one little lady – and I’ve mentioned her before – had me very afraid that we were going to say good-bye three weeks ago.

It began when we got to Mira’s apartment building and there was no answer from the outside keypad. We tried a few times, and then rather frantically called her phone. Still no Mira. A passerby asked who we were looking for, and then told us she’d been taken to the hospital. (Sidney is small; have I told you that?)

Our blood ran cold. He told us to go visit a store a few doors away; Mira’s neighbour and friend volunteers there (as does Mira on Saturdays, if you can believe it) and she was able to tell us that our friend had been coughing something awful and she was taken to hospital. She was there when we spoke to her son, whose number we were glad to have.

That night, Mira came home with bronchitis, refusing to stay at the hospital. She just wanted to be at home. The next week we delivered soup to her and she could hardly talk, her colour was terrible and she was not looking good.

But one week later, she was about twice as good, although only about 80% of her usual good health. Still, just visiting with her for an hour-and-a-half, sharing stories and updates on our adventures and, of course, asking if there was anything – anything at all we could do for her – it was like a dream.

I had honestly started to brace my heart to say good-bye to her. And I hadn’t realized how fragile this heart of mine is. We’ve had losses and good-byes since Lauren died, but Mira has just got me so darned in love with her kindness, her wisdom, her tenderness and compassion and, of course, a story so filled with tragedy and yet gratitude and grace…I don’t even want to think of losing her.

Yes, she’s 96. And two-thirds. Older than Queen Elizabeth. Sharp as anything and winning bridge the weekends she is healthy enough to play. Walking the 1000 steps to get to the grocery store or drug store. Volunteering herself. Beloved by so many that, when she was ill, she was surprised at how full her phone messages and inbox were.

I told her that she is so loved and now she has gotten the gift of hearing it. Many people are praised after they’re gone; Mira has heard it over the past few weeks. And I’m suspecting she really knew it when, while sitting next to her on her lovely little couch, I put my arms around her, my head on her shoulder and tears just started to flow.

I love this woman so much. If the only good thing in our lives to come from volunteering is spending time with Mira, hearing her stories of life in a work camp as an adolescent and teen, her family stories and her day to day thoughts, it would be enough. So much more than enough, as we’ll experience again later today.

Empathy in action? I’ll say. When you volunteer, you truly do get so much more than you give. And on that note – I’ll wish you a gentle final weekend of April.

Back Monday with some garage sale stuff: my very first and so much to learn.

Just a thought… You spend your entire life in your bed or in your shoes. So they’d both better be comfortable. [Author Unknown…but hear, hear, whoever she was!]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Thanks for coming by! I hope you had a great weekend, and our thoughts, of course, were with those marking Orthodox Easter yesterday, especially those in and displaced from war-torn Ukraine. Our hearts are with them.

To MUCH less important things…. It was a gentle and fulfilling weekend here and I’ll tell you more about it on Thursday – gotta pace myself – but it occurs to me that there was a bit of a cliff hanger (were you dangling by a shoelace?) after last Thursday’s journal. Right after gentle facials at the hotel spa, I limped to Winners and grabbed a $40 pair of Nauticas. They’re so bright that the added bonus was if the ferry went down later that day, they’d be sure to spot me from my shoes. Nice thought.

Also some curious folks on Facebook asked how the ferry travel works, and I thought, well, why not do a deeper dive (so to speak) and fill you in a bit on island life?

It took some adjustment for two people who were living in a city, literally on a subway line (our last condo was on Bloor in Toronto), to settle in a place where you really have to map out where you’re going and give yourself a lot of extra time. For example, the Malahat Highway is the main way for us to get up and down Vancouver island; summer construction, a snowstorm or a rollover can cause hours of delay with nothing to do but sit.

Here’s how our crossing to the mainland worked, though: to go to Vancouver for a 4 pm get-together, Susan and I got to the ferry at around 11:40 am. We purchased our “foot passenger” tickets from a dispenser, then traversed a very comfortable walkway to board the ferry. We had several choices for the 90-minute sail to Vancouver: you can sit in train-style seats that are placed in well-spaced rows, or go to the restaurant and grab some lunch (which we did). There are quiet spaces and a children’s arcade (neither of which was open at the time we rode), and a beautifully-stocked store, which is where I bought not one but two rain-proof coats during an earlier crossing. Great stuff.

When you disembark in Vancouver, you go straight to your ride, or in our case, a machine in the terminal that dispenses tickets. We bought a three-zone one to get us downtown, boarded a bus and then got off after the second stop to catch the train which can go downtown or to the airport. It was all pretty seamless and cost about $35 from home to our hotel. Not bad at all, considering Air Canada wants $299 one way, although you can take a float plane from Victoria to Vancouver Harbour for just about $170 with one bag included. So you see, it takes longer, but is super economical and when you’ve got a friend with you, the time simply flies.

It’s a great plan if you’re mobile, don’t have a lot of luggage and have a bit of flexibility. Oh, and Rob, being so much older than I, actually gets to travel for free on Tuesdays through Thursdays. How do you beat that?

Living on an island has other challenges: everything is more expensive because it has to get here by air or ferry, so there’s that. The housing is astronomical, as it is everywhere, but even more so here in paradise. Even further up island, prices have increased by percentages in the near triple digits.

The only real hardship (for us anyway) is when we take a trip, as we are in one month: finally getting to host that riverboat cruise along the Rhine with AMA Waterways! We get all the way back from Switzerland and then have to sit for four hours (I’d say “interminable” but it’s actually in a terminal so does that cancel the word out?) to wait for a 10-minute flight home to Victoria. We can almost see our house from there. But no…we have to wait. And with cancellations and changes being the only constant over the past several months, we’ll be lucky if THAT flight even goes.

I’m not complaining – it is what it is. I will be whining out of exhaustion once we get through customs in Vancouver, as we will only want to climb into our bed.

But considering how long we’ve been waiting, I guess four hours more won’t kill us. And yes, we’ll be masking every step of the trip.

Have a gentle week – I’ll be back with you Thursday and don’t forget that tomorrow, Tuesday, is Snooze Day – we drop another fairy tale for you on Drift: one I call Defying Gravity. Talk with you then!

Just a thought… Did it ever occur to you that you have fingertips, but not toe tips? And yet…you tiptoe, but you can’t tipfinger. Hmmm…. [Author Unknown]

Hello from another destination that is not my studio – and I hope if you haven’t watched these video journals yet, you’ll take the time to click and watch today – it’s actually from a Vancouver hotel room. You can watch it on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

My friend Susan Knight (former boss when we were both at Ocean 98.5 in Victoria) and I came over for a get-together with our new voice talent agency – new to us, that is – TaDa Voiceworks. OF COURSE we had adventures: getting successfully to our hotel after a ferry/bus/train ride, only to get stood up by an Uber driver, then calling Lyft and going to the wrong of two Tap & Barrel restaurants! Luckily we spotted the error (ours) and had our driver take us to the correct one.

Anyway, the video is shot yesterday morning prior to a nice spa facial, lunch with a dear friend and then a ferry ride home.

But in between all of those gentle adventures came the realization that an old saw I’d heard is NOT true: the great thing about shoes is that “my waist line may change, but my shoe size remains the same.” Well, not exactly.

You see, for the last two years of Covid, my foot attire has consisted mainly of slippers (yes with good insoles) and Skechers. But for this trip I pulled out a pair of new-ish patent loafers that I’d worn just once before.

BIG – size 10 – mistake. It wasn’t long into our first leg of the trip that Susan noticed what I was trying to hide: I was limping. Yes, those shoes that had seemed so comfy when first I put them on Tuesday morning, were hurting me – big time. (And they weren’t even the first pair I’d tried on that hurt that day.)

I hobbled through most of the day in those too-tight shoes, hoping to find a shoe store at some point after the meet and greet, but not having any luck. Yesterday morning, one of our first stops was at a Winners, where I picked up a pair of sneakers so white that if the ferry sank, they’d find my feet just from the eerie glow they emitted. No bother; they were priced right and they were comfy.

See, the problem is that my feet are used to being “free range.” I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to wear grown-up shoes again, but I get the feeling that the next time I fill a few bags for Diabetes Canada’s May “Declutter Canada” event, there will be plenty of much-loved but seldom-worn shoes.

I’m not complaining; my younger sister Leslie is just coming through the other side of a bout with Covid that has run through her house and I wouldn’t trade shoes with her, no matter how comfortable, no matter what.

Have a gentle weekend. I hope you’ve had a chance to listen to this week’s Drift with Erin Davis sleep story: The Fairy Frog from the Book of Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends. You can listen here or wherever you download podcasts and, of course, it’s free, thanks to Kathy and Kim at enVypillow.com…also a super comfortable fit.

Just a thought… Do not fear failure, but rather fear not trying. [Roy T. Bennett]

This is one of those journals I really hope you’ll click on to watch, either at YouTube, or at my Facebook page. Nevertheless, here’s a written take on today’s yummy yummy journal.

I had two store-bought cakes in the fridge for Easter dinners, but for some reason I was inspired to bake and create something. I’ve always wanted to take flower arranging and cake decorating classes. Maybe this year….

Anyway, I bought a cake mix and followed the Betty Crocker website instructions, but two layers looked just too…short. So Brooke and Phil were out and picked me up another one. Golden Moist, it’s called.

I added food colouring to the divided batter, and hoped for the best. How would the colours mix with the “golden” tones? Hmmm.

Then I had to think about icing it. Bought Betty Crocker whipped icings for that, too: white and chocolate. I wanted this cake to look like an Easter basket. Aim high, Davis!

After the four layers had cooled, I “cemented” them together with white frosting – two of the layers filled with a raspberry jam mixed in. Then I looked up how to ice it without all of the cake coming off on my knife or spatula and learned about something called the “crumb layer.” You put on one thin layer and let it set; this will be the one you actually decorate. Then the loose bits of cake, the crumbs, are sealed in.

Then I sat my butt down on Saturday in front of the Jays game with my old ceramics turntable (just a Rubbermaid plastic thing that was supposed to be a spice spinning thing) and began the work – one large flat knife and some green icing, chocolate icing and a whole lot of patience.

The top was supposed to be green coloured coconut, but we have some non-lovers of coconut in the family here, so icing grass it was to be!

And here’s how it turned out!

I put a Lindt bunny on top and I can’t say that my icing or coloured-in Tic Tac eyes really added to the whole thing (nor did the Sharpie art on its face, I’m sure) but I tried.

To me, the whole mystery was going to be how those layers came out in terms of colours!

I wasn’t disappointed! I think in future I would use a cherry cake mix for the pink layers (although they might not be as moist, so I might be playing with fire – or a flop – here). But all in all, it was good.

And how did it taste?

As good as it looked, I’m happy to say.

Thank you for coming by today and I’ll have another journal for you here on Thursday. By that time, we should be just about out of cake!

I hope you had a lovely Easter and Passover weekend and there’s a new Drift Story tomorrow (free as always): The Fairy Frog from Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends. Be well.

Just a thought… The care, therefore, of every man’s soul belongs to himself. [John Locke]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to listen to the Psychiatrist-in-Chief/Chief of Staff of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group this week. I only WISH it was for me; the chat was part of next month’s Mental Health episode of the Canadian Real Estate Association podcast I host called Real Time and this one, pardon the pun, really hits home.

Now with Easter and Passover almost upon us, no matter your religious or spiritual beliefs, this should be a time of reflection, of stopping to recognize sacrifice, and of hope.

In a religious sense it may well be, but for me, and maybe for you, too, that hope is elusive. That so desperately sought-after feeling of a fairy godmother waving her wand and saying, “All right everyone – awaken from your two-year sleep and throw off your masks, it’s all going to be okay. The dragon is gone, the plague has passed and we’ll all live happily ever after…” is just wishful thinking.

On Tuesday, Canada’s Dr. Tam said to put the masks back on. Yeah, good luck with that; there might be a truck tantrum, replete with defiled flags flying for “freedom.”

In reality – mine at least – the masks should never have come off in public and, yes, it’s exhausting. Being well-informed can feed the feeling of anxiety that many of us have had for weeks: for example, it’s a fact that the Omicron variant BA.2 is here in Canada (with 3, 4 and 5 showing up in South Africa now). Then there’s XE, which combines the “greatest hits” of the original Omicron (BA.1) and its variant BA.2. All we can do is watch with interest and foreboding the effects of the variants on other countries and pay attention to the science of when they’re expected here.

Of course, rather than hear from actual government health experts (with the exception this week of Dr. Tam) we now rely on foreign statistics, hospital numbers here, anecdotal evidence and waste water analysis: actual buckets of poo that are giving us more information than our governments.

But it’s not all Chicken Little and the sky falling. Any of the people we know of who have contracted the virus recently – those who are, of course, triple-vaxxed or even double-boosted – have said that they felt cold-like symptoms, if any at all. Which, when you set aside the concerns of long Covid, sounds like the best case scenario. Except that with those milder symptoms we could inadvertently be spreading it to people who are vulnerable: the very young, the very old, the immune- and health-compromised. I’m terrified of that responsibility.

As so many of us gather this Easter and Passover with gratitude and hope in our hearts in this season of renewal, forgiveness and new life, I’ll share the advice of the Chief Psychiatrist I mentioned off the top: be charitable in your heart and compassionate to those who won’t get a vaccine, won’t wear a mask. Love your neighbour, and love yourself.

And eat chocolate. (He didn’t say that, but I’m pretty sure it’s usually good advice.) Just not the Kinder stuff that’s been recalled. A ton of it – even Advent calendars. Here’s a link. 

Yeah, we got caught on it. Even I ignore expiry dates, but not recalls. Death by Chocolate should be an ice cream flavour, not a coroner’s finding. Have a good weekend and I’ll be back with you next week.