You would have thought I had learned by now! On my next trip, my blue bag is going to stay at home!

We just passed the mile 0 sign for the Yellowhead highway leading out of Masset, BC, when I realized time really did seem to have gone at a snail’s pace so to speak. Two weeks earlier, glancing out of the window, the landscape started to unfold beneath us from the window of the plane. I had finally gotten used to the drone of the Air Canada prop job (even if conversation to my husband seated next to me was almost none existent). Leaving Vancouver behind, we were still a bit taken aback when Air Canada was offering $800 to give up your seat to Sandspit. We both agreed if Shan and Matt weren’t waiting for us the offer was tempting. Our youngest, Shan, was deployed last year to Masset on Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, in Northern BC for a three-year term. FaceTime has been our daily method of communication since their move...

Phase 11

As another weekly class assignment, I was asked to learn another folk song. Once again I went to the music library and glanced through the song books. I asked the librarian for some ideas of an easy-to-learn folk song and was referred to the song “The Story of Isaac” by Leonard Cohen. The melody line and the key of Em appealed to me. So I learned the song and nervously performed it a few days later in front of my classmates with my singing instructor, Sam, watching and listening intently to my performance.

After class Sam asked me if I knew where the story of the song came from and I said no. He said from the Bible when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. That evening, I looked in my Bible in the book of Genesis and sure enough, there was the story of Abraham and his son Isaac...