I’m going to let you figure that out. Matthew (inspiration for Big Or Little?) was born in 1975 and Kelly (inspiration for Red Is Best and “Babysitting Helen“) was born in 1978.
This picture of my kids was taken at Matt’s wedding in 2001.
I also have two stepdaughters born in 1967 and 1968 and five grandchildren born in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2002, and 2003.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, most girls were looking at pretty limited options: nurse, teacher, or secretary. I liked school, so I wanted to be a teacher.
I taught elementary school in Etobicoke (as far west as you can go in Toronto before you hit Mississauga) for five years.
I also wanted to be a mom and was lucky enough to have two wonderful kids (who are now so grown up they are almost older than I am).
My dad’s birthday is this week. I wrote this post about him in response to a Red Room challenge to “blog about great parents”.
My dad didn’t tell me how to live a life of courage and integrity. He showed me, in how he lived his.
When I was nine, and my siblings four and fourteen, he left the appliance service company he worked for to go into business for himself. With a wife and three kids to support, it took a lot of guts to forego a predictably steady income to branch out on his own, but he thought he could make a success of it and he did. He loved fixing appliances, but he wouldn’t do it evenings or weekends. Those times were for his family. He ran “Powell Appliance Service” out of our station wagon, with my stay-at-home mom acting as his answering service. He earned his customers’ loyalty by dealing with them honestly and with respect. He could have earned more than he did on the calls he made to their homes, but he wasn’t about making as much money as possible, just doing the best job he could (of everything he undertook to do), and he earned enough to provide his family with a good home, a cottage, and opportunities for a little travel.
My dad’s example helped give me the courage to make a go of living the financially unpredictable but independent life as a freelance writer. His area is things mechanical and mine words, but his example of learning by doing – some I witnessed and some I heard about in the stories he told of his life before I came along – taught me that I could do that too, learn by doing. So I could say that he’s at least partly responsible for the fact that my body of work spans many genres.
My dad was handy around the house when we were growing up, and after my sister and I married men who were not, he continued doing odd jobs for us: fixing our appliances, of course, or a leaky tap, installing a dimmer switch, or building a deck. He still takes being a helpful dad seriously. Just the other day, he came to my house and replaced a kitchen tap. He’ll be 84 years old this spring, but there he was, on his back with his head under my sink, reaching up into the dark with his tools while I held the flashlight. If only my ability to write could be of some use to my kids! (Well, they have been featured in some of my books; perhaps that’s something?)
Still living independently, my dad volunteers for the Red Cross, delivering Meals on Wheels to shut-ins twice a week, sometimes three times a week when they need someone to fill in on short notice. He has been doing that for thirteen years. Golf season is about to start up soon and he’s keen to get back out on the course. I hope that when I’m in my eighties, I’ll be as resourceful, active, and as unselfish as he is.
Part of his being a good dad to me and my sibs was being a good husband to our mother. In one of my favourite photos of them together, they are dancing and laughing. (Was it on the occasion of my brother’s wedding, when I didn’t know yet that I was expecting my first child, and their first grandchild, who would later be born on my father’s birthday? I think so.) When my mother’s health began to fail, he took care of her in their home for as long as he could. She lived in a chronic care facility for the last seven years of her life, most of them in a private room. This meant, for my dad, living pretty frugally and eventual concern about whether his savings would support him through his old age, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
After my mom died, my dad had the good fortune to have a wonderful friend and companion to share his days with, a lovely Scottish woman who made him laugh again and kept him young. Sadly, he lost her to cancer last year, but he was her best friend and he kept her company on her long and difficult journey. He faced that loss, too, with courage because “you have to”.
It seems I have not inherited my dad’s patience with the frail or ailing, but I am hoping, still, to learn it from his example. And I hope that as I face more and more the loss of loved ones, that I can do it with the same strength of spirit that helps my dad go on living his life.
I used to think my dad would live forever. I began to face the reality that he won’t three years ago, when he had his first small stroke. He has lived and is still living a good life, a life he can be proud of. He embraces life fully each day, especially on days when the morning sun streams into his apartment, but the thought of passing in his sleep does not frighten him. I wish for my dad a peaceful passing when his time comes, but I hope his health will hold and he’ll be with me for a good long time yet. I take comfort in knowing that in some ways, he will be with me always.
It’s still just once a week that I login at Yoga Today for an hour of yoga practice – usually on Monday morning, before I get back into my work and think I’m too busy to fit it in. But there’s one instruction that the women leading the online classes offer that stays with me through the week, and it’s helpful far beyond the yoga session: Lead with your heart.
During a yoga class, those words encourage participants to physically open their chests, to deepen a bend or a stretch. When you’re standing upright, leading with your heart has the effect of shifting the position of your shoulders and your shoulder blades.
When I was growing up, I was often told to “stand up straight, shoulders back, stop slouching”. (In less kind moments, my mom would say, “Kathryn, stand up straight, we can’t tell if you’re coming or going.”) For a long time into my adulthood, I heard a voice in my head admonishing me toward better posture in this way, whenever I felt myself sagging. But whenever I tried to stand straighter and keep my shoulders back, it felt like such hard work!
Now, instead, if I find myself tending toward a slouch, or trudging up a hill, especially after a long day at the computer, I hear instead, “Lead with your heart.” The physical effect on my posture is similar, maybe even the same, but instead of feeling ‘Oh I can’t, I’m too tired,’ I feel energized. My heart is leading me onward, and I can follow it, almost effortlessly, up any hill. (There are a lot of hills on any walk I can take in Rockwood, so this instruction from Adi, Neesha, and Sarah at Yoga Today, proves helpful often.)
It’s probably fairly obvious that “Lead with your heart” would have application beyond the physical meaning of the instruction. Consciously or not, it’s probably what led me to accept so readily the invitation to become involved with Reading Liberia a few years ago. It’s what produces a sense of compassion toward someone who might otherwise inspire impatience or irritation. I would probably do well to ‘lead with my heart’ more often in my writing life, too.
Last month I decided to drop the point of view of one of the characters in my novel-in-progress. For a long time I considered her the novel’s main character. I had a niggling feeling in the early days of thinking about this novel that the story probably belonged to the kid whose father is suspect in a pretty dire situation, but because of where the germ of the story originated (in an outtake of a previous manuscript), I convinced myself that the kid’s friend would, for all kinds of reasons, make a legitimate main character of this story. I wonder now, if I’d ‘led with my heart’ instead of arguing logically with myself, would I have been led down fewer blind alleys and would the book, perhaps, even be out there by now?
There is of course no point in second-guessing myself on this. Because of course the other thing yoga practice teaches, even if you only make it to your mat once a week, is to be kind to yourself and accept where you are right now. And right now, I do believe my heart is leading me back to that novel.
Photo Credit: Jesse Brown
I’ve loved reading books for longer than I can remember. (That’s me in the picture, reading in my gramma’s backyard.) As an adult, I started to wonder if I would like writing them, too. I wondered if I could write something that people who didn’t know me would like reading.
I was almost 30 when I decided to give it a try. (That was a long time and many books ago!)
So, with the kids home for March Break, what are you going to do to help keep them entertained? (Besides reading lots of Kathy Stinson books, of course!) Why not take inspiration from the open-face sandwiches pictured here? (Get it open face sandwiches?)
These faces were created by various members of my extended family at the cottage one summer. Kids from 3 to old enough to have their own kids participated in an open-face peanut butter sandwich contest. We just loaded up the table with bread, peanut butter, and all kinds of things that are absolutely scrumptious with peanut butter (study the pics if honey or jam is all you can think of), and then we let everyone go to it. Before the eating began, we awarded prizes in different categories – plainest, funniest, most unusual combination of ingredients, and so on. And fortunately we thought to take pictures!
Why not let the food artists at your place loose? I’ll bet you’ll see more happy faces around the table than just those on the bread!
Allergy alert: If there are peanut allergies in your family or the group of kids you’ll be hanging out with during March Break, almond butter, apple butter, cream cheese, or hummus can work as a base for holding all the facial features in place instead.
Seven years ago this week, I began volunteering at the CNIB Recording Studio in Toronto – reading books and teching for others who are reading. In addition to magazine articles and chunks of various textbooks, (and the foreword to a book being read by a male narrator), I have read a wide range of books – for kids, teens and adults, and fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
I blogged about one of those books last year, and then, because it was unique to my experience at CNIB, I blogged about it again.
This month I started reading my 23rd book: Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill. Like Ragged Company, its story is told from multiple viewpoints, but this time the voices will all be mine, and this one is narrated in verse.
As an avid reader, it’s satisfying to know I’m helping make books available to those living with vision loss. It’s a lot of work to prepare a book for reading aloud, but the whole process, whether reading or teching, is also a lot of fun.
Others volunteer for CNIB in other ways, across the country. It’s fascinating to read about the impact of some of those individuals working behind the scenes to provide vision support services.
In this 10th International Year of the Volunteer, is there some way you enjoy making a difference in some small corner of your world?
According to Volunteer Canada, there are 12.5 million volunteers in this country, working to make a difference in their communities. The United Nations has declared 2011 the 10th International Year of the Volunteer.
To help celebrate the impact volunteers make, the Toronto Association for Volunteer Administration has set an interesting goal: to collect 2011 images of “helping hands” by the end of the year. (You don’t have to be a Torontonian to contribute.)
Have a look at the images they’ve already collected. You may be inspired, as I was, to send in your image. (But be prepared, it may take a while for them to post your contribution!)
Or maybe you’ll be inspired to volunteer your time this year. 
During the last week of 2009, I devised a plan to help me give more time to activities I enjoy, but never seem to find enough time for. I called it The PIRDY Plan (P for Photography, I for Internet, R for Reading, D for Drawing, Y for Yoga. And I was in the plan in hopes of containing it, not finding more time for it.) So, how did it go?
First, some bad news.
I discovered very quickly that the time slot I thought would work for fitting in one of the five activities each work day was not remotely realistic. Having devoted the morning to my writing or a project I am editing, at 3:30 I am still working on other business: answering email, planning workshops or presentations, writing blog posts, updating my web site, reading for contests or juries, dealing with computer issues, and so on.
But there’s good news too.
I decided I don’t need to jump from my bed to my desk every single week-day morning. Surely it’s worth giving that pre-breakfast time slot at least <some> mornings to care for my body. At the moment it’s only one morning a week that I’m logging in for a free class at Yoga Today (for a while in the spring, it was two), but even one yoga session a week is a lot more yoga than I was doing a year ago, right?
More good news.
I decided that time to read deserves more priority in my life than a few minutes, or even 20, before going to sleep at night. Reading is what turned me into a writer, after all, and helps make me (I hope) a better writer all the time, right? Since reading on the couch in the evening too often proved soporific, and weekends were often busy with family, friends, or book-biz-related activity, I began allowing myself to read in bed with a cup of tea before breakfast, even on weekdays. As a happy result I am quite happily reading more books.
But, more bad news, too.
Besides the few pencil marks I made on one sheet of paper last January, I have done no drawing and have not played around with photography as much as I thought I would either. However…
More good: I can contentedly accept that at least for now, drawing is just not something that’s important enough to me to find time for. And I have continued throughout the year to take some pretty satisfying photos.
And how about the big I?
The Internet has simply permeated too many areas of life to limit its use to one time slot in the week. How do you limit time for finding information for a writing project, for example, or about a health concern (as I did recently during and after a nasty gall bladder attack)? The Internet has also helped me this year to decide what to make for supper, whether a company’s offer to give us a new hot water heater is a scam (yes), and it has given me a fun way to keep track of my reading life. And sure Facebook <can> be a time-waster, but only if you let it, and if you don’t, it’s a good way of keeping up with people you might otherwise lose touch with. And hey, how else would we have enjoyed the Hallelujah Chorus in Welland this season without the Internet?
Happy New Year!
Did you know that signing your donor card may not be enough to ensure that, in the event of your death, your usable organs and tissue will be donated to someone who needs them?
The Organ Donation & Transplant Association of Canada website provides information on steps you can take, wherever in Canada you live, to ensure that your organs will not be wasted when you die. As a resident of Ontario, I recently filled out this form. Since one organ and tissue donor can save up to 8 lives, I figure it was well worth the effort.
By the way, Kristin, the young woman I wrote about last spring, is still waiting for a heart. Her sister Alison said recently on Facebook, “What do you want for Christmas this year? Imagine if a ‘new heart’ was on your wish list. Give the ultimate gift this holiday season…”
To all who have visited my site in 2010, I wish you the best of this festive season.
