Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
- CS Lewis

* At 28, Sarah Polley starts over - What caught my eye in this article was her take on magazine photo-shoots:

Unlike many actresses, Polley, 28, has refused to do these kinds of shoots since she was 16. “I couldn't see how the desire to express ideas in films was connected to selling clothes,” she says. “For me it was like an idea born in outer space.”

I'm starting to become a fan. This interview has also inspired me to see her film, Away From Her, about a husband and wife dealing with Alzheimer's Disease. (More on Sarah Polley)

* Dr. John Stott Retires - I have long appreciated what I've read of John Stott's work, and was somewhat shocked to hear of his retirement. He was one of those people I assumed would 'aways be there', though I know that isn't realistic. So, I've traded shock for bittersweetness... everyone needs to move on, but it's always sad to see respected leaders step down.

* Snatched From the Holocaust - What a moving story of a little girl's experience as an outlaw, so to speak, during WW2. This is the first I've heard of the French contribution, such as it was, to the Allied cause. If your time is limited, then I'd recommend reading the 'snatched' article. If you have some time on your hands check out the online exhibit, Life in the Shadows and a 2003 documentary site, Secret Lives as well.

~*~

This post was inspired by a conversation in the movie Cars:

Sally: Forty years ago, that interstate down there didn't exist.
Lightning McQueen: Really?
Sally: Yeah. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way.
Lightning McQueen: How do you mean?
Sally: Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.

I've probably witnessed countless subdivisions pop up over the years, and I cringe each time I pass those signs advertising new developments along the suburb-countryside border. All benefits of economic growth aside, I've always seemed to love the country and I'm saddened to see long-time wilderness or agricultural land get eaten up by development.

My Grandma pointed out to me where one major street ended at the edge of her hometown (currently my 'home' town as well) many decades ago when she was a kid. That street has since stretched several more kilometres over old farmland - with homes, apartments, schools, churches, strip-malls, box stores, hospitals, dealerships, and parking lots in tow - before once again meeting country roads and scenery. I often wonder how quaint and cozy our town must have been before its population exploded, swallowing up little hamlets and villages lying in its path. A big part of me wishes it had remained quaint and cozy.

North American sprawl seems to uproot, re-route, flatten out, bulldoze, and pave over everything in its path, its concrete touch painting the landscape grey and lifeless. (Note: Token city parks and playgrounds don't count as 'nature'.)

Now true country-folk, on the other hand, know how to fit themselves and their style of 'development' into and around existing landscapes. The Austrian village of my childhood was just such a place. A stream wound its carefree way down the wooded mountain on its way to a river in the valley. Houses lined roads that accommodated this winding and weaving little stream, and I'll never forget our adventures as we played in the water, following alongside it on our bikes over hill and dale. Perhaps you can imagine just how anticlimactic city playgrounds were to me after moving from rural Austria into Canada's concrete jungles. At least I can be sure my husband and I won't raise our kids in the city if we can help it.

So forget the grid system, cookie-cutter subdivisions, and their glib promises of so-called development! When a municipality incorporates nature's beautifully random designs into its planning and architecture it becomes not only a child's fantasy playground, full of life and endless surprises, but also a more insightful and advanced form of organic "urban" development.

~*~

Gardening has crossed my mind often this winter and spring as I've looked forward to finally growing some fruits and vegetables of my own. I won't be able to dig a garden here at the house, since my parents may be selling it this year, so my husband and I have discussed the idea of a community garden instead. Our city has many community gardens scattered here and there, some that come with a fee and others that can be used free of charge. I'm looking forward to it!

All these thoughts about gardening had me reminiscing about our neighbours in Austria who had one of the most ambitious gardens I've ever seen. I was always in awe of the massive plot beside their house, which consisted of specially-chosen flowers, fruits, and vegetables organized in long rows from the front fence all the way to the end of their back yard. Some rows were even covered with a miniature (about one foot high by one foot wide) wood-framed greenhouse which the husband probably built himself. I aspire to craft my own garden one day that lives up to the standards they set!

I wonder if our neighbour-lady missed the days when her own two boys were still kids, because she really seemed to enjoy having my brother and me around. She babysat us while our parents were out doing church work or visiting friends, and during those evenings I remember her laughing and smiling a lot when we involved her in our games and playtime. She and her husband would also take us for walks through the village or up the mountain behind our homes where they'd teach us about the plants and animals we spotted along the way. My brother and I often ran (hopped, biked, skipped, or climbed over the fence) to her and her husband's place where she would feed us lunch, let us follow her around the house while she cleaned, let us water their garden or help her pick fruit from their trees as she answered our many curious questions about whatever it was we were doing. I miss those carefree days and the lessons we learned from our kind neighbours about living close to the land and understanding the nature that surrounded us...

So, do you have any gardening memories, past or present? What about hopes of creating your own garden one day? :)

Yesterday Mom and I were talking about unpleasant medical tests. She not-so-fondly recalled some über-nasty procedures she was forced to undergo before working at a daycare centre many years back. Everybody's concerned that you don't give the kids a disease, she explained, shrewdly noting, but nobody cares what the kids give to you! They can have worms, they can throw up on you...

She was right: Teachers and educational support staff walk into microscopic war zones each day at school, and it's every man for himself out there (figuratively-speaking). Other people's little angels are like snipers that pick off the grown-ups one by one with sneezes, coughing, and bathroom issues. They are nothing more than agents of germ warfare, a microbe-militia that infiltrate the adult world, handling their weapons with dexterous ease and releasing their poison with deadly precision. Their most sinister stratagem: Innocence. As long as they're cute, what can you do?