Christmas lights

True to the season in this winter wonderland. Across from city hall trimmed with lights, the Olympic Plaza glows with holiday cheer. The city lights as a backdrop only enhance the festive feel. So far Calgary has been the best place to spend Christmas.

Happy holidays to all!

To touch winter's breath

Libby is ready to face Jack Frost.

Stepping out, leaving my cozy climate-controlled townhouse, the air was chillily deceptive. The air surged crisply snapping against my ears. Walking down the stepped to the bus stop, Jack Frost circled my head, kissing my cheeks. Fallen snow crunched beneath my boots as I hurried, but not too fast though. The manmade (womyn constructed?) breeze of my own movement bit elite patches of bare skin: the slowly form crow’s-feet lines around my eyes, the peak of nose, apples of my cheeks, and tips of my ears.

The crisp air turned abrasive, crawling at my throat. Scarf, I have to keep my scarf over my mouth I reminded.

While I struggled to remember to keep my scarf up, my hat over my ears, and my coat buttoned all the way up, Libby followed me to the bus stop without complaint. Waiting for our ride, I asked Libby if she was okay and under the two scarves, coat, sweater, heavy shirt, shirt, undershirt, pants, pants, and pants, she nodded an affirmative.

We didn’t leave the townhouse out of necessity; rather, like moving to Calgary, going out was an excuse in will—to prove to myself that I could. To be trapped in my house because it’s too cold outside is unacceptable, especially after moving 12oo miles away from my mother and my friends, which essentially were the only social network I’ve ever known.

So Libby and I ventured out. We went to a nearby strip mall, via bus and train. Standing still with no wind, the frost-creased atmosphere seemed bearable, approachable even. However with rising wind, the frost-creased atmosphere turned hostile and we had to hide in a Starbucks to warm up.

Amazingly, the world around me appeared sharper, as if the air was thinner—even more transparent.

Even at -20f or -30c, the city kept moving.

A shower of icy flakes graced my sleepy gaze as I woke up recently. Before consuming my first cup of coffee, I started to ponder the importance of our first significant snow fall in Calgary.

In the aftermath of receiving a 10 cm snow blanket, I was surprised how deserted the city seemed. Buses ran extremely late, people avoided the streets, and trains never arrived to empty platforms.
We were explorers treading across virgin country. Navigating the sideways and trying not to stumble ignorantly into the streets, we paved a path for others to follow. Adventure was at hand.

Of course, these weren’t the first Canadian snow flakes I watched fall. Mid October, about six weeks ago, I first encountered a short-lived taste of winter. Libby and I had been out grocery shopping all afternoon, and shortly after dusk the weather turned. Crossing the Real Canadian Superstore parking lot (think Fred Meyers in Calgary), we faced a dry, skin blistering wind, yet on the return to our car the wind stilled and in its place—ashen powder littered my car.

Then in a blink of an eye, the hush gave way to a howl. To my marvel, flakes rode the swirl current echoing an aura of carefree delight. At three degrees Celsius (that’s about 36 degrees Fahrenheit), the roads remained clean with scrap snow melting or crumbling under car tires. In the wonder of nonchalantly falling October snow, drifting to my wind shield, the adventure of moving far, far away from my home town to steak a claim on a new life.

Now six weeks later, the novelty of snow has faded to a sense of seriousness and general respect for the elements. Leaving the townhouse means facing Mother Nature and praying the beautiful deceit of snow isn’t our demise.

Under the spell of mystic and delight, we left our cozy, climate-controlled apartment to touch winter. The desire to roll snow balls in our gloved hands, and feel Jack Frost’s kiss upon our cheeks drove us out. Out at the mercy of the elements, the air held magic. We hallucinated ice cream joy until the snow melt, the sun set, and the breeze turned into a wind chill warning.

Stumbling home—thank you Calgary Transit—we slipped from the trance of snow to be wrapped safely in the sweet embrace of hot chocolate.

Stripping wet layers of clothing off, we are satisfied with the white capped trees and pure clean crisp carpet enchanting the senses from afar. Through double-paned windows, the landscape is clean, cold, purified. For today, we are happily caged.

Heavenly Tones

The sky so wide,
Laced cherry through carnation canvas
Egg shell fringe dare hide
Swirling buff cream clouds darken
Sun sleeping—fading away
Sky scrape taking hold
Heaven’s tone
Surprise rose, my stilling stare
Light meets tone—captures color
Sweet majesty entrances me


Perhaps I’m still use to my former southern Oregon home where the sky is framed by mountain ranges. Looking to the zenith rivalled glancing out a green-framed window. Perhaps in Wolf Creek—nestled in the bosom of the Rogue Mountains, an appendage of the Cascade Mountain Range—I had a natural frame of reference to measure the distant between the heavens and my head. Perhaps time has faded my memory, but I don't remember clouds looming on the horizon.





Perhaps here in my new home of Calgary—roughly 2000 miles closer to the sun, moon, and stars, than Wolf Creek—the puffy clouds are simply closer, the wispy passing ivory haze could almost kiss my cheek.

I know the crimson sky at sunset is sunlight reflecting through natural and artificial air contaminants. I know wind creates the dramatic swirling patterns in opaque clouds. Yet looking up to canvas above I know painters hundreds of years ago depicted their God’s breath in the heavens.

You can't duck winter

Dried leaves
Browning grass
Balding trees

Evidence Everywhere

The weather turning, churning cold chill
Refreshing, startling, thrill
Breeze ruffles through feathers, gracing goose-bumped skin.
The wind, the season, the pond all heeds the tell-tale call
Water, bowing, turns stone
Winter’s here
Sweet summer sinking debris now prone
To stand not float
Feathers touch ice

After being cooped up in our little townhouse for a couple of days, we ventured out in need of fresh air and a place to jump without fear of bothering our downstairs neighbours. My four-year-old girl watched Angelina the Ballerina and now aspires to prance, hop, and jump ballet. Leaving the house, a need to reconnect to nature drove us to Confederation Park.For us newly mint expatriates, the changing season is rather unnerving. Snow on my deck has not melted although it only snowed once a month ago, and leaving the house without a long coat is not an option even on the sunniest of days. With each passing day, we struggle to adapt to the shorter days, biting wind, and the unknown “real” winter as our native neighbours dub the impending season. Among the turning autumn colours—tan grass, dead leaves and bare trees—we found ducks out of water. In the pond, a top layer of ice covered the wet depths, leaving the fowls with no choice but to stand on their pond. The metaphor wasn’t lost on me. We may feel out of place, Calgary may be a slightly different world for us, but we aren’t ducks out of water.

Empty Rays

Alluring light
Blinding bright
Against glass sparkling pass
With warmth promise
Red nosed though
The frosty air amiss
Anemoi—Boreas blows
Cold North undaunted rose
Frost bites, wind burns
In caps, gloves, scarves,
We venture through shining, empty rays
Seeing day
Yet feeling night


(City Hall, Downtown Calgary, Ab)

Leaving the house, my four-year-old daughter and I were optimistic about the day. The sun shone with glorious brilliance. White, eggshell shaded clouds hung against a powder-blue sky. How could we suppress the desire to explore the city, escaping my artificially lit house? While the thermometer read 15 Celsius or about 60 Fahrenheit, the wind whipped through the balding trees and barely repelled by our jackets. Wrapped tightly, we ventured out, taking photos along the way and the product of our adventures—inspiration.

(Lightrail train station in downtown Calgary, AB)

So What’s Up North? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!

After living in southern Oregon for nearly half my life, and after graduating from Southern Oregon University, I had the opportunity to relocate. I relished the opportunity to pack up my husband, my four-year-old daughter, and our life to find a new home. But where?

In searching for a new home, I sought a city that would offer personal and professional opportunity, tolerance and equality, and above all lack of discrimination. Unfortunately there seems to be a difference between tolerance and a lack of discrimination. Case in point, in the 2008 election, the citizens of California and Florida voted for Barack Obama to be the first African-American President yet against gay marriage, banning marriage rights for a complete section of the population.

As an American I have been raised to embrace the notion that the United States has two outstretched arms welcoming anyone and everyone. We live in a tossed salad of cultural variety or a soup pot of ethnic diversity. Yet America is the land of opportunity for some, we have a long history of offering freedom to some at the expense of others.

I want to raise my daughter to be culturally comfortable, ethnically aware and above all accepting. I want to raise my daughter in a tossed salad of equality—to borrow that metaphor.

I know, I am asking a lot. In my quest for blended, accepting equality, I found myself peering over the US border. I found Calgary Alberta, with 20% of its population considered “visibly diverse.” Calgary located in a nation that sponsors and protects cultural and ethnic diversity through a network of federally funded programs and government regulations. From programs to support publishing companies printing books and magazines telling the nation’s histories to separate religious, publicly funded schools, the general national theme seems to be acceptance.

I discovered a country that has lessened finically based discrimination by providing a wealth of social programs, namely socialized medicine for everyone—citizens, permanent residences, and individuals on visas. For a nominal fee, my family had health coverage from the day we entered the country.

I discovered a nation where marriage is not modified based on sexual orientation: Marriage is marriage regardless of the genders involved.

I discovered Canada.