Rural Routes, Blog Version

I have a pair of handmade Icelandic wool mittens that were given to me by relatives when I visited Iceland almost six years ago.

They are warm and serviceable, although one does feature a hole from a time our dog jumped up at me. The hole does not impact the mitt‘s wearability. And besides, I am sentimentally attached to them.

The mittens were in my jacket pocket one day when I walked home from Icelandic class. The day was balmy by Manitoba standards and I did not need them.

When I returned home, however, I discovered that one of them was missing. It must have fallen out of my pocket. By that point, darkness had fallen and I was not going to retrace my steps. I mourned the loss, but I told myself it would have happened sooner or later. Mitts go missing all the time. Unfortunately, one mitt is useless without the other, just as one sock needs its partner to make a pair.

The next day when I walked back to class, there was my mitten lying in the snow along the path. About six inches away from the mitten was a black sock. Not mine. I am positive that there were no black socks anywhere along the way the day before.

There is a mystery here. How did one mitten and one sock end up in the same place?

My Icelandic mitten now has two holes and I assume that it  – and the sock – were picked up by a dog or some other animal and then dropped together. Who knows?

I am just happy to have my mitten back.

ALL MY LIFE´S A CIRCLE

The American songwriter and singer Harry Chapin has always been one of my favourites. His ‘Taxi‘ forms the background soundtrack to  memories of the year I turned 18.

The song I think of most often, however, is All my life´s a circle, with which he ended many of his concerts.

“All my life´s a circle, sunrise and sundown… “

I am constantly reminded  that how we end up is often where we began, how today is a spot on an arc that relates to both yesterday and today.

For example, it seems a short time ago that Save a Tree – Use Plastic was the environmentally-friendly message we heard everywhere. My research indicates that plastic bags were invented in 1959 and over the next thirty years, they became commonplace.

According to my research, the inventor designed plastic bags with the idea that they would be reused several times, not immediately discarded once their contents were unpacked.

In my early years as a farmwife, I can remember washing used bread bags so that they could be reused.

In later years, we used to give our surplus plastic bags to the local storekeeper to be used again.

Now the message is eliminate plastic and return to paper or cloth, with the same goal of protecting the environment. We talk about planting more trees to save the world.

Our intentions are always good.

POLITICS AND THE MEDIA

As the graduate of a journalism school, I find much to think about in these days of so-called fake news and alternative facts.

The year that I graduated, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were invited to the university to talk about the Nixon impeachment, Deep Throat and the movie All the President‘s Men starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redfford.

The storytellers had become part of the story. And it seems to me that that was the beginning of a new cycle – twenty-four hour news channels, celebrity journalists and the arguable decrease in importance of print journalism – that has brought us where we are today.

Coincidentally it marks the end of the arc from the beginning of my working life to retirement.

FEED THEM AND THEY WILL COME

Last winter I bemoaned the lack of birds in my backyard. This year I solved the problem by setting out bird seed and suet. We have many birds this winter, and one very determined squirrel.

We also have at least two rabbits who, judging  by the evidence left behind, spend their nights in the shelter of the condo.

Small things can have a big impact.

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