Indelible Adventures: November 2016

Friday, November 25, 2016

Rituals and traditions

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Do you ever wonder where your family rituals and traditions come from? To be honest we didn’t have a lot of rituals or traditions growing up but the one that sticks in my mind is when we would all gather to spend either Christmas day or Boxing day together. Yes, we celebrate Boxing Day in Australia, and love nothing better than taking it easy, perhaps BBQ'ing and oh, definitely a game of backyard cricket. :-) So for at least one day each year we'd all try and get together an be in one place at one time. It was a wonderfully comforting experience to see everyone at once.

Certainly, tougher than it sounds with five kids, often spread all over the continent or world (oh, that would just be me), then on top of that balancing spouses and kids in addition to siblings. As you’d imagine it always took a bit of organizing to coordinate. However, for the most part we tried to make it home and celebrate this one time of the year, mostly for mum.

The last one I remember attending was my final in Australia, way back in 1987. It was a bittersweet Christmas, and the first since mum had died in April that year and so a little somber and not quite the same as before. I think we were all missing mum, who had been the larger than life matriarch of the family, and although in ailing health for many years still commanded the attention of us all, but that was then…

So it was interesting when I spoke to my sister recently and asked her what they were doing for Christmas she replied that they would have lunch with the kids that could make it (she has three grown kids, with six grandchildren) and then spend time with Max’s family later in the day. Of course, I then enquired if the family was going to gather…sadly no and that they hadn’t gathered for many years.

Huh, did I miss the memo on that one???

The closest I came to being home for Christmas was back in 2010 when dad was sick and in the last months of his life, but even then I was back in North America (Canada and Florida) for Christmas and New Year and wasn’t a party to family activities, in fact I can't even remember if everyone got together...

I have to admit it’s sad to imagine that that tradition is no more. I suppose given that I’ve lived in Canada for so long (almost half of my life…yikes!) then layer in the fact that for the past 20 plus years I’ve been too engaged with my family here to get beyond much more than a phone call to wish everyone ‘our best’ for Christmas and New Year.

Interestingly, both Zach and Sami said that the best part about our trip to Australia in March was the family get together’s where everyone would congregate in one place, much like our Christmas/Boxing days of yore and for at least a few hours got a taste of the complete and utter bedlam of my side of the family (yes, we're a boisterous bunch - no surprise there I suppose?).

It’s a shame that they don’t have more interaction with their first and second cousins on an ongoing basis, but that’s what happens when you live half way around the world I suppose.

As you know for the past four years I’ve been working on creating our own little family rituals for just the three of us.

Not all of them are travel based, although we love a good road trip and generally hit the road a couple of times per year. For the past few years we’ve driven to Florida from Toronto around Christmas using a few different routes, which is just over a 5,000km round trip. I may be the crazy one here (hey, that’s your outside voice!) but I personally love taking long slow road trips with Zach & Sami.

We have our own rituals when we’re on the road, whether its in North America or internationally.

Namely Sami is our resident foodie and so arranges all of our meals, including booking restaurants and finding cool and off the beaten track places to eat while Zach is chief navigator and neighborhood DJ - each nicely complimenting the other.

I guess the other traditions are the weekend brunches with them each individually. Zach has a firm favorite downtown where her can get the breakfast Poutine; I mean to say who doesn’t love Poutine? Whereas, Sam is more eclectic in her choices and enjoys trying new places on for our brunch outings.

All great rituals and traditions, but probably not your average everyday family ones. If I think about the traditions that most families have in North America they're mostly centered around the big days - Thanksgiving and Hanukkah/Christmas.

Let me see - growing up in Australia there is no concept of Thanksgiving, especially given that our first settlers were mostly convicts and not so happy to be downunder in the first place. Maybe a non-Thanksgiving is more appropriate in Australia?

The second is around the Jewish holidays (yes, my ex was Jewish and therefore so are Zach and Sami). Even at my place we still observe Hanukkah with the lighting of the Menorah and singing of the blessing each year - it's a nice reminder and connection to their early childhoods and a firm family favourite.

This year I'm heading to Italy for Christmas instead of our usual road trip, as I had the kids and took them to Australia for March break so traded the week at March for the week I would normally have them in December.

It won't be the same without them but hopefully being in Italy will soften the blow...hey, that's a personal tradition - being in Italy as much as I can that is. :-)

Here's to family rituals and traditions and may we all create many more!

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“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

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I hope you'r enjoying this years 30 for 30 photo essay running Nov 15 to Dec 15, this is an additional selection of photos that are from my archives that will not make the top 30.

Enjoy!

A young Koala at the Ballarat Wildlife Park - Australia
enjoying his own ritual of eating fresh gum leave shoots

Queen Street on a busy Saturday night in Toronto's downtown core

Dawn over the mighty Mississippi river in New Orleans

Crown Fountain at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago
on a clear winters day

The towers of Firenze (Florence) - Italy

Firenze laid out before me, taken from the top of the Duomo
on a magical summers day

Sunset over the Arno river in Firenze

Inter-island ferries ply their trade on Victoria Harbour
in Hong Kong

The depth of Mong Kok in Kowloon's bustling market

The family Sampan moored on Vietnam's central coast

Friday, November 18, 2016

Creeping ever closer

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I met a mate of mine for a beer earlier this week and he mentioned the joys of being an "empty nester" now that both his girls are attending University away from home. One of them is a mere 2.5-hour drive away, but the other is in another province and a flight away.

We got talking about life and its trials and tribulations, like you do over cocktails :-), but what struck me most was how visibly he missed them... He was putting on a brave face, but it was obvious it had not been easy. His, was an all too familiar lament that I've heard from other parents who have become empty nesters.

Wow, it really started to sink in...and not in a good way!

Now overlay my experience last week when I attended Zach’s parent teacher interviews and at the end of the evening my ex and I spent 20 minutes with Zach and his guidance counselors reviewing his marks and the potential candidate schools that he’s interested in attending next year.

From the very get-go in life Zach has been marking time until he went to University, he’s always been an "old soul" who somehow was born ready for it from a very early age. He was the sort of three year old that would entertain himself for hours just with books, sitting and looking at the pictures and memorizing every little facet...you know the type of kid right?

His guidance counsellors explained that not only are his grades incredible but his preparation with regard to his applications has been so far ahead of his peer group that he’s ready to start applying to his schools of choice right now, and with a a good chance of getting early acceptance.

He’s been targeting schools across Canada and in the UK, and barring any last minute hiccups will have his choice of schools…he thoroughly deserves it given all his hard work.
However, not surprisingly, since that night I’ve been reflecting on all the things that Zach and I have done together over the years, our frank conversations, the tears – both his and mine, our travels both with Sami and without, and the strength of our relationship. We talk everyday!

I realize that I can’t stop the onrush of life for him, nor would I ever want to, and to be honest I’m excited for him and what lies ahead, but there’s just a teensy, tiny little bit of me that wishes that things wouldn't never change and that our lives would stay exactly how they are today.

The likelihood of him going away to school is about as high as his academic average right now, so I just want to hold onto every moment that we have together irrespective of how trivial or mundane you might think they are.

I know it sounds sappy but being a single parent has really changed the dynamic in the relationships I have with each of them. They are both such different kids and therefore the relationships,as you’d expect are very different as well. No longer am I the parent who must be obeyed, (although to be clear discipline is an important aspect of being a parent.) but more of a guide, sounding board and confidant :-)

I think seeing your parent in this light has created a different dynamic between us and drawn the three of us closer together. A side benefit of this is that we all have a little more patience with each other, and often times more accommodating to each other’s needs when we are together. Its comforting to have them around me, and not even doing anything exotic or crazy...just being in the same room reading or listening to music together is awesome...yes, they're teens and no, I'm not crazy! (Ha! That's your outside voice btw :-)

The other important factor in our relationship is the level of independence and decision making that I enable them to have. This approach has paid off in so many ways and on so many levels that its amazing to see how mature and confident they are in all types of settings, environments and especially on our travels to other countries and cultures.
Being a parent is fraught with the unknown, yep – there is no user manual for being a parent. Like I say to Zach and Sami when I make a mistake - "I’m just trying to do the best I can, I don’t have all the answers."

They’ve seen me struggle and understand that I’m human just like everyone else, and that invariably we all have flaws and make mistakes - yep we're all human. Being real and unafraid to be who we really are has formed the foundation for a truly real relationship with them.

The fact is that I'm already trying to steel myself to the fact that he'll be living away from home sometime soon, and although I'll always be incredibly supportive there is no doubt that I will miss him like crazy.

So no matter where he goes next year I’ll still visit him – just not all the time although I'm sure he'll volunteer to accompany me on some of my overseas trips, I mean to say who wouldn't?

So here's to slowing down life and taking it just one day at a time!

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“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

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As you may know, each November I go back into my archives and choose 30 photos for 30 days (hence the 30 for 30), that are pretty amazing and that haven't been used before. My challenge has been choosing the top 30, especially given that I have almost 100,000 photos (yes almost 7 terabytes of data). So, these ones made it into the top 100, but not the top 30.

Enjoy!

TW

Road trip with Zach - down to Connecticut to watch Sami play soccer

The angles in Venice - Italy

The towers of Florence on a gorgeous summer morning

The frenetic pace of Hong Kong's Kowloon

The pink Town Hall in Civita Castellana in Umbria, Italy

The Australian beach town of Lorne - so quiet and sleepy in the Autumn

Drinks are up in Minneapolis

Arizona from Camelback Mountain

Nyhaven in Copenhagen's old and vibrant seaport

Winter sun in Sarasota, Florida....a lovely break!

Friday, November 11, 2016

Just three words...

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What is it about these three words that stopped me cold every time I hear them?

Growing up in Australia, we were surrounded by the ghosts of the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp - coined during the first world war as an acronym to be used on maps). From an early age the importance of Australia’s sacrifice in all the wars was heavily reinforced and great respect show for all those who served.

Its much more personal for me as my grandfather was an ANZAC, and although he didn’t wade ashore on April 25^th at Gallipoli he was a soldier of the First World War who fought on the Western Front in France for more than two years and somehow survived, albeit wounded and gassed in one of the most horrific wars of our time...but then again, aren’t they all?

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the date he enlisted - 11th November, 1916...how ironic.

The personal loss that I carry with me is that he died the year before I was born and so never got the chance to meet him or get to know him and ask him all the questions I still have for him. My mum would sometime regale me with stories, although now that I reflect back on those conversations it was never about his First World War service. It was as if those years had been stricken from his memory and the years after seen through a different lens.

I can’t even imagine the feelings of utter terror and frenzied chaos that he and his mates must have felt and endured leading up to being ordered, “to go over the top” and into, what for many…was oblivion.

How do you make sense of one minute shaking hands with your mate next to you, hearing the shrill sound of the whistle and then clambering up and over the sandbag parapets into what surely must be certain death as you cross a boggy, churned up battle field - and for what? A few yards of mud... Can you imagine losing your best friends day in, day out until there was no one left? How do you get up and over that bloody parapet just one more time knowing that perhaps this time it’s you who won’t be coming back? The futility of the situation must have been almost too much to bear.

I always wondered how grandfather kept his nerve under such impossibly trying conditions; did he just keep his head down and steel himself to the daily task at hand? Or had he made peace and accepted his fate come what may?

Grandfather bore the physical brunt of being wounded when he received a nasty gunshot wound to the face during the battle of Messines Ridge near Ypres in June 1917 and was repatriated back to England to rest and recover. And although this was a brief respite from the immediate dangers of being in the front line, he recovered just in time to go back into the line for the battle for Polygon Wood in late September. Tempting fate just one too many times must have played on his mind - no doubt!

How many thousands of families, the world over, lost generations to come from being either one-inch too far left or right… Makes you think doesn’t it? These questions and a hundred more I’ll never be able to ask, but they still play on my mind and particularly on days like today.

There are two days that bear special reverence in Australia.

The first is April 25th - ANZAC day in which all Australians pay their respects to those who fought and died in all wars. The day itself signifies the first time Australia went into battle as a recognized and independent nation against the strongly held Gallipoli Peninsula in modern day Turkey. And although the campaign was a stunning loss for the combined Allied forces over a protracted eight month period it's still regarded as the moment we came of age as a nation.

Over the years the importance of this day has changed significantly, in that its become much more mainstream and popular across all generations bringing everyone together in this national day of mourning.

The second is November 11th - Remembrance Day. This is the day I think about Grandfather most, and how surprised he must have felt having survived the war. What must have gone through his mind on November 11th, 1918 when the firing finally stopped at 11:00am?

I guess no one will ever know for sure but he and every other soldier irrespective of side during the conflict, and everyone since has became a casualty of war, with the wounds being both physical and mental in almost every combatant.

So to you Grandfather and all of your mates who didn't make it home - thank you for your service, courage and sacrifice.

Lest we forget!

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“Hanoi Posting” A series of fictional micro-stories by Terence Wallis

Come visit "Hanoi Posting" at its new home!

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No words....