Dating a woman with Ben Franklin hours has been transformative: I was up at 5:30 this morning, and out on my bicycle across to Stratford for coffee at 6:30. It was a brisk morning, but I’ve learned this spring that, even as the temperature approaches 0ºC, as long as I dress warmly and the roads are clear, cycling is a breeze.

On the cycle back from coffee at The Lucky Bean I noticed that the pedestrian traffic signal at the Esso corner in Stratford was out. I Googled “pei road report” and was happy to find that the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure takes road problem reports by text message. And so I made a report. And, once they opened for the day, I got a reply:

This is a handy service, and I wish the City of Charlottetown supported the same thing (I’m the city’s foremost reporter of pedestrian signal problems, which means a lot of calls to Public Works).

Stephen B. Macinnis came along to the shop table this morning and we recorded an episode of his fountain pen show, talking about my five favourite fountain pens.

Delicious nerdery.

One of the many delightful things about L. Is her love of tiny interventions into public spaces, a love I share.

Over the last two months we’ve been plotting together to do something over Easter weekend, something hopeful at a time when hope seems in short supply.

What sprang from this plotting were 200 Cultivate Hope cards, printed on my letterpress on paper impregnated with wildflower seeds (if you look carefully you’ll see a tiny flower ornament on the card, courtesy a recent casting by Swamp Press of flowers designed by Vance Gerry).

We printed the cards last week, me and a hearty band of press assistants, and today we made our way to Dead Man’s Pond in Victoria Park to hang the cards for all takers. We were lucky to find the day bright and sunny and warm with just the right amount of wind.

If you go to the park today, you will find a card waiting there for you. Plant it indoors in a pot, covered with ⅛ inch of soil, keep moist, and in 7 to 10 days, hope will spring forth.

Last week and this I’ve been learning to canter Jack the Horse. It’s a whole new ballgame, and one that I’m, so far, only just touching the edges of.

The “canter switch” on Jack is to put pressure on his right flank while making a kissing sound (I’m not making this up). Canter is a different gait, and a faster speed, and it is, at this point, frankly, somewhat terrifying a prospect; the terror is leading me to pull back on the reigns and give mixed signals to Jack, so I’ve yet to achieve a full cantery orbit. But I’ve tasted it, and as much as it’s terrifying, it’s also deeply thrilling.

L., who’s been coming for riding lessons with me this month, generously took a video of one of the “almosts.”

James A. Reeves is a such wonderful writer:

York Minster is the largest Gothic cathedral north of the Alps, and it hangs from the sky like lace. Whenever I see these colossal palaces to God, it’s easy—and perhaps correct—to frown at all the blood and treasure hoovered up by faith-dealers to sustain a corrupted fantasy. Yet if I squint a certain way, I see something humble and profound, even a little heartbreaking: a community deciding, upon finding themselves alone and confused on a strange planet, to use their finest materials and labor to erect a space devoted to an otherworldly logic, hoping to find some answers.

My friend Stephen started a YouTube channel: PEI Pen Guy.

If you’re a pen nerd, it’s golden.

It’s also a testament to how a person with a phone, a tripod, and passion about something can become a broadcaster.

100% of my posts this week have been about interesting things being done by friends of mine named Stephen!

Stephen Southall has been my friend for 35 years, since we met in the summer of 1987 in Peterborough.

Over the years we’ve known each other I’ve spent time with many of the Southall clan—Carol and George, deeply interesting parents, had six kids, all of them deeply interesting people. They are a remarkable bunch.

For the past 13 years Stephen has made a household for his mother a powerful, inspiring act of service.

Stephen’s family, led by his niece Carol, have organized a GoFundMe campaign to send him to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker, a trip that would serve both to scratch his poker itch—he is a passionate student of the game—and to give him much-needed, much-deserved respite.

Perhaps the greatest thing to come from this fundraiser is this video, which may be the most singularly Southall thing ever produced.

As a favour to me, and as a way of honouring Stephen’s service, please consider throwing in $20 to the effort; your stake won’t solve what ails the world, but it will breathe life into the spirits of a dear old friend.

 I rode public transit this morning for the first time in almost three years: the early hour meant the bus was deserted—just me and two others—and the icy sidewalks, left over from Monday’s snowfall, meant the bus was a welcome alternative to the slip-sliding across town I would have had to negotiate otherwise.

I love the bus. I’d forgotten that. It was good to be back.

And there was wifi. Fast wifi.

Nine yellow balloons. On my birthday. In the late afternoon sun.

A montage of photos of the number 56, from the Flickr group No. 56

I turn 56 years old today. Two times twenty-eight.

If I live as long as my great-great-grandfather Than–97–then I still have 41 years left.

If I live as long as my father–84–then it’s just 28 years. Not tomorrow, but closer to the end than the beginning.

(It’s also the 20th anniversary of the first time I wrote about my birthday here).

Back in November, I posted this:

I’ve realized recently that the process of supporting Catherine through 6 years of living with, and ultimately dying from, cancer made me feel like I was 75 years old: all that time in hospitals and hospice, all that fragility, all that ever-closer end.

But I’m not 75 years old, I’m 55 years old. And getting a handle on that, and remembering how to do that, that’s a thing.

Now, 150 days later, I’m 56 years old, and I find myself in a lovely new relationship, I’m meeting new people, experiencing new things, I have a new spring in my step.

I’m looking forward more than backward, toward more than inward or outward.

At the same time, as I write, I feel surrounded by COVID, with new reports of positive cases marching ever-closer to home, and nary a day going by without a friend, or friend of a friend, declaring they’re isolating. Add that to the foot of snow that fell out of nowhere yesterday, to say nothing of the ongoing war in Ukraine, home to one quarter of my ancestors, and it’s a stressful, chaotic context to get a year older in.

In the midst of this, an insightful blog post from Rebecca Toh showed up in my feedreader:

These days I’ve been trying to change, but I’m also trying to be as gentle about it as possible.

Self-improvement can be insidious and a source of stress, because for many people, self-improvement is actually self-dislike in disguise. If we’re not careful, we can spend years on the self-improvement treadmill trying to reach our goals but feel utterly, utterly empty at the end.

There is simply no imaginary day in the bright future ahead when we’d wake up in the morning transformed, an ideal version of ourselves.

There is only transforming in the here and the now.

Which also means we have to do the work NOW and not tomorrow, but for us to truly transform, we have to do it with an attitude of non-striving, of not wanting to control the outcome exactly.

This is what I mean by trying to change, but also trying to be as gentle about it as possible.

I woke up this morning feeling groggy and a little out of sorts. The day was made brighter by the ones I love, and by friends old and new. 

There is simply no imaginary day in the bright future ahead when we’d wake up in the morning transformed, an ideal version of ourselves.

Today is the day.