2026: March 14: Sandra

One of the most faithful readers of this blog died last week. My aunt Sandra. She was my father's sister, 15 years younger than him - an age gap that I believe caused my grandmother some social embarrassment back in the day. Quite possibly Gran was the only person who actually cared, but she worried a lot about what people might say about her behind her back. Sandra was only 12 years older than me, and there was a time when we would get asked if we were sisters. She was diagnosed as a teen with Type 1 diabetes and managed it so vigilantly than she got a special certificate from the Diabetes Society for living 50 years on insulin, a feat not often achieved. 

My aunt Jill's wedding. L to R: aunt Anne, Grace (Gran), Jill, Sandra, Jack (Grandpop). The gloves! Photo from my mother's albums. 

Sandra in the early 1960s. Photo by my father. 

But the diabetes also meant she was slow to heal, and in her last few years she suffered a lot of health issues that made daily life challenging. Delicate skin meant falls and scrapes could easily lead to infection, for example, and we've known this was coming for a while. Still, it is hard to say goodbye to one of the two other people who were in the house the night my father died, back in 1989. 

And saying goodbye I am. In person! Yes, I'm taking a lightning trip to New Zealand on Monday for a week (with two of those days spent travelling), just as fuel prices and air fares soar. But what is money for if not to spend an afternoon with aunts and cousins and brothers and nephews and step-mothers celebrating a good life. 

We have been asked to wear colorful clothes. Oh, wait until you see my dress. Thank you, local Goodwill shop, it is perfect. Oh, also, I don't know if Sandra's children know that March 22 is my father's birthday. But Ingrid and I will sure remember. 

Here is a quote from one of the countless letters she wrote to me: 

“I used to worry about wasting time and think of it as a guilty pleasure. But I don’t anymore because I now know I never waste time. Everything is worthwhile. My goals are still lofty… you know, write a book etc, but I now know I’ll not get there, but I shall enjoy the process and that will be enough for me. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I guess it’s a case of accepting who you really are.” 

She got frustrated with things, like politicians who started unnecessary wars and walkers who let their dogs get too close to nesting shore birds and how there is sugar added to everything. She took solace in everyday beauty, in writing, in growing vegetables, and in singing. She got very concerned for my physical well-being one time when I told her I didn't sing and she was visibly relieved when I admitted that of course, I do sing in the car. One of the songs I remember her singing frequently was On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at (On Ilkley Moor Without a Hat), a traditional Yorkshire song about a person who goes a courting on Ilkley Moor without a hat on, catches a cold and dies. The lyrics include these (this is a translation from Yorkshire dialect into standard English):

Then we shall have to bury thee. On Ilkley Moor Baht' at.

Then the worms will come and eat thee up. On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at.

Then the ducks will come and eat the worms. On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at.

Then we will come and eat up the ducks. On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at.

Then we shall all have eaten thee. On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at. 

I am tempted to recite these at the celebration, although I'm not sure if everyone will appreciate it. Sandra would probably think it was funny. And I could add some interpretation, like, you know, we carry our loved ones inside us even after they are gone. Because we do. 

Me and Sandra. 1975. Sandra made us matching dresses for Bill and Ingrid's wedding. She only bought enough material to make herself a short dress because she was saving money. She was saving money because she'd met a British sailor at a party and she was going to England to visit him. My grandfather was so upset he told her he'd disown her. But she did it anyway. Then she married the sailor and brought him back to New Zealand, and my grandfather had to eat his words, because the sailor was Peter, and everyone loves Peter. Sandra and Peter stayed married for 50 years.

Sunday March 8: Sprung

On Thursday I heard my first red-winged blackbird of the year, but hearing one doesn't fully count, so it wasn't until this morning, when I saw two, that I could confidently say Winter is on the way out and Spring is coming. The sap is rising in the maple trees, the skunks are on the move (seriously, so many skunks). We've had a ton of rain, which helped melt all the snow, and the river is so high we had to turn around on our walk this morning because water had come up over the path and we weren't wearing the correct footwear and you don't want to mess with a fast running snow melt river.

Chenango River at Otsiningo Park

Everything else in the world is insane, so it is comforting to contemplate the familiar cycles of the seasons. 

2026: Sunday March 1

Sometimes I think it would be nice to belong to a church (you know, for the community), but I'm not sure how one does that if one doesn't believe in God. My best bet might be the Unitarians, although they're so accepting and kind hearted, it could get on my nerves after a while. That's the trouble with community, you have to deal with people. 

I'm thinking about Unitarians because I went to a funeral at the local UU church yesterday for someone I knew reasonably well years ago. Well enough to give her sons and her husband hugs and to offer to help clean out the house. Not well enough that they're likely to take me up on the offer. Anyway, the minister said meaningful things about grief only existing because love exists; the husband cried and we all cried with him, then he said sweet things about Spring coming and how we had another year ahead to do good together; then we sang "This Little Light of Mine," and you know I don't sing in public, but I stood up straight and enthusiastically mouthed the words and felt energized afterwards. 

Then I wonder, if it wasn't for all the bullshit, would Catholicism be a possibility? There's lots of singing. And ritual and beauty and forgiveness. Mary, she's merciful. There are some pretty radical Catholics out there, and a tradition of lay community that sometimes tries to circumvent the very problematic hierarchy and history. But again, the whole God thing. And Jesus as divine. Etcetera. So I'll just bumble along as I am for a while longer, I guess. 

I did a quick search for "church" in my photos. Some of them are more church-y than others. 

I'm curious what religion would go with this mural that the search identified as having church-like elements. 

2026: February 22: Reading and Writing

I have not taken an English literature class since high school (I haven't taken a science class since high school either, but that's a sad story for another day). You know I read a lot, but I've never taken much time to be deliberately conscious of how something is written. Sure, I sense clunkiness, or an author trying too hard, and I've had my share of frustration parsing the nineteenth-century sentence. Reading for the beauty of the language doesn't come naturally to me and sometimes I've felt guilty for reading too fast, for not appreciating the words themselves. As if I'm disrespecting the author.

Now, though, I'm taking these creative writing classes, and part of learning to do anything involves taking that thing apart and seeing how it was put together. I am enjoying it so much, slowing down, looking at the rhythm of the words and the sentences and asking how they change or support the meaning. Dialog, time markers, imagery, character arcs etc. It's all so much fun to think about, and to talk about with other people. Seriously, I'd forgotten what it is like to have someone else point to something and have it break open my thinking just a little bit more. 

Cats don't read or write. Weird. 

Then I get to go and try things out, see if I like them, if they work for me, and then I get to kind of forget about them again while I just simply write. 

(Oh, and perhaps this should be another whole post, but I want to write like Alysa Liu skates. I'm minorly obsessed with her right now). 

Hey, trying something out here: Movie of the Month: If you get a chance to see Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, you absolutely should. The only think I knew going in was that it was a comedy, and that might be the best way to experience it. Although I already know I want to see it again.  

2026: February 14: Photos

At various times in my life I've actively tried to become a better photographer. Results were mixed. I've got some nice shapshots, but nothing you'd want to call art. Currently the only functioning camera I own is my phone, and I've toyed with buying a new digital SLR but honestly, they're just too complicated. I loved my first ever camera because after I put the film in and set the ISO, I was able to adjust f-stop, aperture, and focus all with one hand, and without taking my eye from the viewfinder. Now cameras have 10 million buttons and knobs and multi-level menus and I just want to take a photo, dammit, not sift through an infinity of options. I'm sure I could get over this if I tried, it's just so easy to carry my phone around and use it as a notebook and leave it at that. 

Again, writing is generative. I did not open my computer today intending to write any of that. I was either going to add an installment to the "damn, it's been a cold winter" series, or share some photos of my father, since he died 37 years ago this week and I like the idea of memorializing a prime number anniversary. 

So, hey, I'll do both: 

Damn, It's Been A Cold Winter: 

Actually, though, today went a couple of degrees above freezing and I only wore one layer of pants on my run this morning! 

A scene from my Tuesday morning walk. That's the Chenango River on the right, all covered in ice and snow. 

Thirty Seven Years Is a Long Time. 

I have a lot of photos of Bill. Here is one. (Kodachrome). 

Bill and Ben the Dog at a surprise birthday picnic for Bill at Canoe Beach which is a little beach at the far end of Purakanui, between Dunedin and Waitati. We used to go there a lot. 

Why I Started Thinking About My Exploits in Photography

When I was at university I joined the photography club and used their dark room to develop and print my arty black and white film and a while back I scanned all those negatives and today I found this one while I was looking for Bill photos. Scanning color negatives is a little more complex, but I have been toying with sifting through my collection. Swedish Photography Cleaning! 

Ben the Dog in his spot by the front window of the Brownville Crescent house. He was a very good boy and shows up in lots of photos. 

2026: Saturday February 7: Cold Ramblings

Today winter won. I am not going outside. I will do jumping jacks in the kitchen or run up and down the stairs. I am fine with my decision, because look at this:

8 am. Wind chills making it "feel like" -23. In C, that's -31. 

Sometime when I bundle up for my walk I tell Michael "I may be sometime." And then since he went to school in the US and did not do a project on Scott's Antarctic expedition when he was 9 years old, I have to explain Captain Oates' last words as he left the tent in the middle of a blizzard, sacrificing himself in an attempt to save the rest of the team. 

Yesterday I incorporated my father's last words into a piece of fiction. Apparently they were "help me," and they haunted me for years and I'd snort whenever people talked about dignity in dying. Until I was talking to my aunt, who was in the room that night, and she told me he was trying to put his socks on and I've never laughed so hard at death as I did when she explained. Still not dignified, but certainly less horrific.

Change of subject: update on my congressperson, the very centrist Democrat. He wrote me a nice letter explaining that ice is terrible, he voted not to fund them, and he's signing on to impeach Noem. So that's a step in the right direction. Honestly, your congressional representative is often your most reliable conduit to influencing national policy. 

And a just-for-fun photo, because life is still fun, here I am trying to fit both myself and a moa skeleton into a selfie at Yales' Peabody Museum. 

Moas are/were very cool and it is sad they are extinct but I roll my eyes every time I see a reference to attempts to de-extinct them because Have We Learned Nothing, People? 

2026: February 1: New Haven

In which we learn how to pronounce New Haven correctly, see two plays, one museum, one library, get a back-stage tour, buy some Yale merchandise, meet Ella's roommates and friends, and generally have a good time.

Ella explains to Michael how the rigging system works.

Now I'm tired from driving home and I still have to thaw the soup for dinner and do some work for my writing class. So, long story short, Ella is awesome and we'll probably go back in the spring when it is warmer.