Treena Mielke
BLACK PRESS
Spring, hiding for several months under a crust of dirty snow, is starting to play peek-a-boo with all us weary winter dwellers.
It’s nice!
As winter slowly makes its most welcome descent to wherever it goes, I have found, much to my surprise, among the icicles and the crusty snowbanks some really cool (pardon the pun) moments to remember.
It is true. There is always so much stuff to worry about. In fact I am sure there are at least one-hundred-and-one reasons to be sad on any given day. Actually, I am surprised no one has written a book on that.
But creeping into the very fabric of sadness, like the ridiculous sight of a flower springing up in a crack in the cement, there are these unexplained moments of joy.
Weird how that happens, but one can only be grateful that they do.
A friend and I went out for supper and a movie the other night. That in itself was quite magnificent for little old me, who happens to be home alone for the next little while and was thinking of a peanut butter and honey sandwich as my simple supper fare.
But no, she whisked me away to a rather exotic chicken and cashew meal which I ate right to the very last cashew, enjoying myself, the cashews, the chicken and the company, immensely.
Anyway, the movie called ‘Wild’ was a tall tale (well, probably not all that tall, and maybe not a tale at all, because it could have happened) about a young girl who went into the ‘wild’ to find herself after her mother died and her marriage disintegrated.
Before the mother died, a scene showed her singing in her little kitchen. Her daughter, home from school, sank dejected onto one of the tattered old kitchen chairs. She looked at her mother in disgust.
“Why are you singing,” she said. “Don’t you get it? Life is hard. We have nothing. You married a loser who left you.”
“Yes”, I thought. “Be miserable, darn it. Life is too hard. Do not, I repeat, do not sing.”
I munched my popcorn!
Sadly, the mom died, hence the trip into the ‘Wild’ for the girl to find herself.
The movie has so much food for thought that I haven’t been able to digest it all, but this much I know for sure.
Walking is good and singing is even better.
Lately, I’ve done lots of walking, mostly because of the Fit Bit thing I have on my wrist, and not so much because of a desire to find myself.
I pretty much know where I am and I’m probably late.
But I must admit the ice walk I took with a couple of friends to Johnson’s Canyon did give a whole new meaning to the word ‘walk’.
For me, a faithful treadmill-type walker, slipping and sliding on the edge of a mountain, protected only by a guardrail, was a totally new, exhilarating experience.
And I must admit, it is right up there on my ‘favourite’ list along with red wine and music.
It was like walking in a mystical world of beauty where the water and the rocky walls around me were quiet and still, just hanging there as if they were suspended by Mother Nature in a magnificent, frozen white trance.
A delicious supper in my sister’s cozy kitchen (the pretty plates more than made up for the slightly burned carrots) and having breakfast with a little girl whose smile and summer sky blue eyes turn my heart to ‘grandma mush’ tells me one thing is for sure.
Spring has arrived early!
Treena Mielke is editor of the Rimbey Review, a sister publication of the Sylvan Lake News.