Hi Sweetie,

Some of the friends you steered yourself towards have just been using you to make themselves look good. They will never respect you. Stick with friends who you feel equal to.

Don't believe it when people compare you to your sister. Your edginess is there for a reason. Accept it without shame or regret.

Remember that magic "piece of chocolate" moment that evening in the backyard. That moment of insight, when you realized that the way to get what you want is to accept that you don't have it and move on, was important. You'll find it brings things to you that you thought were out of reach.

Just because you don't feel you have a talent for art, doesn't mean you can't draw. Your creativity crosses all boundaries and lights up every area of your life. If your teacher says you're not an artist, he is not right. He just doesn't know what to do with you.

Follow your heart and intuition as much as you can.

It's okay to cry. Save it for a not-too-public time, but cry all you like. Tears are a necessary function, made to release difficult or intense feelings.

No choice takes you down the wrong path. Some choices may lead to tougher circumstances, but each will bring you to what you need to know.

Just because your mom wished you'd settle in one field (or on one hobby) doesn't mean you are supposed to. Who you are is changing every day, and not being locked in to a specific path gives you the freedom to explore. Perhaps exploration and discovery are your life path.

Pay attention to your dreams. Dreams like the one where you learned how to ride a bicycle can make life easier.

Understanding why someone acts unkind to you doesn't mean you have to stand there and take it. You are entitled to walk away, even when it is someone you love.

Do what you love and what comes naturally. You may think that flute is a good choice in music class, but baritone is more fun. Tuba is even funner.

Just because someone is older doesn't mean that what they say is true. Different people believe different things. Don't accept everything they tell you uncritically. You don't have to agree with them to get along.

When someone says you aren't living up to your potential, remember that no other person is capable of telling you what you are supposed to be or do to fulfil yourself. Many of them are hoping you'll fill their own unfulfilled dreams. Others may just be parroting what others told them. They are only human.

Think about the kinds of things you love to do: taking the dog to the river for a splash, solving puzzles, riding your bike, reading, singing harmony. These are all aspects of who you are, and you'll carry the essence of these wonderful things through your whole life.

You may not feel like it sometimes, but you can trust yourself, your life, and the loving intelligence that brought your life into being. You are unique, supported and needed.

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I saw a weasel this morning under the tree. That's a first for me. I wasn't sure what it was. It was short 8" maybe not counting the tail, and tubular, and was a brighter white against the remaining snow in the morning dusky light. There, moving in great flexible movements, checking here and there, and was away before I had a chance to even see it well. I had to look it up to see what it was.

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This morning at Tim Horton's next door to the hotel. Yum.

The view out my hotel room window.

It was a great few days.

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Why in some of us, does just one cookie open the floodgates to all the other forbidden pleasures that rush through afterwards? Just asking.

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Tom and I have lived in Spring Water Lakes since 1976 and we have never stopped loving the place. When we bought the house, it was an unwinterized cottage that needed a lot of work to make it livable year-round. We've been in renovations ever since.

As members of the community, we are part owners of a beautiful bit of land that includes deep deciduous and evergreen woods, springs and lakes. We see lots of wildlife here including beaver, herons, deer, coyotes, foxes, hares and an amazing assortment of birds - not to mention the mosquitoes and blackflies.

This is Spring Water Lakes in the late summer, as it looked in about 1977 or 1978 from our front yard.

This is Spring Water Lakes in late spring / early summer in about 1981.

After an early autumn / winter snowstorm, in 1976.

A little more recent a picture.

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Tom Dane: Janet and Tom have been together for more than 35 years.

Our daughter, Lynne: Lynne is all grown up now with a family of her own. She lives not far away. Here she is with Kelsey.

Lynne and Shelly: We used to have a dog named Shelly who was very dear to us all. Here is Shelly with a much younger Lynne. Don't ask what Lynne is eating, but you might wonder why the dog is watching her so closely.

Lynne and Bryan on their wedding day.

Lynne & her daughter Jessica.

A more recent pic of Lynne & her daughter Jessica.

Jessica & Dakota playing with bubbles.

Janet's twin (no, they do not look alike), Judy, is a mother of four and a teacher of Computer Studies at a private school in Toronto Canada. She and Janet are very close.

Here is a photo of the twins as youngsters.

Here they are about 50 years later.
Janet also has family and extended family spread all across Canada from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Her brother, Mike and his family live in London, Ontario. Janet's stepsisters - Heather, Gayle, Barbara, Carol and Brenda - live in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

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This morning I read a short blurb in the Telegraph online about a fellow in Hawaii, who has been living in his house, knowing that one day it would be consumed by the volcano that has been erupting nearby since 1983. The caption reads, "Having been under the constant threat of lava for the past three years, Sleik had become resigned to the idea that his home would someday be taken by it, and welcomes an end to the stress he's had to live with"

This afternoon I will be in court to stand up with a neice. While she knows justice will come in the end, it is still hanging in the air and it would be very nice to see it resolved so she can get on with her studies.

Uncertainty is stressful. Like most people, I like happy endings and I don't want to wait for them.

Keeping busy helps me get through these times. But if it's keeping busy while that worrying refrain runs through my head all the time, I could just be making myself a bit crazier. And if people around me are really stressed by the same uncertainty, I might need to get some distance to keep my balance. It can be contagious.

Sometimes I can counter the stress by asking my body to relax. Our bodies are vigilant to the things that stress us. To our physical body, a constant niggling worry in our minds can be like a tap dripping. We tense up a little bit somewhere inside until the problem is attended to. "Oh. Dripping tap. I can't fix it at the moment." Then our body settles down knowing that the alert is no longer needed.

I remember an incident years ago, when my husband had taken a fall from his truck at work and was in the hospital awaiting surgery. The results were uncertain. I had no idea when he'd be able to work again, or if we'd have enough money during his recovery. The uncertainty was so complete that I couldn't even start planning. Oddly enough, since there was nothing I could do, it made it easier to give up the worry and stay in the moment. When I phoned my daughter that evening with an update, she said, "You sound almost happy." In an odd way, I was.

With the court thing today, each time the worried thoughts rise and my body tenses in response to the alert, I may have to remind myself that my role is not to resolve anything. My role is to be a loving auntie. And I may have to remind myself of this a dozen times.

It also helps for me to believe that there is a higher reason for all these unresolved troubles. But if I spend too much time trying to figure out what that reason is, that can often be a subtle way of slipping back into worry. So it pays for me to let that be a mystery that may unfold in time. After all, if it really is a higher reason, then it may be out of my reach.

So last night and this morning, I gave it a few minutes in prayer and meditation. And I spent a minute or so visualizing the happiest results I could, and imagining and feeling the joy and relief and pleasure we all would feel at a happy result.

Then I sat down and started writing this story for Starry Night. By writing the story, I am keeping busy, affirming my trust in life, affirming my intention to put worry aside when it crops up and taking pleasure in the joy of the writing itself. That's about the best I can do today. And now that the story is done, it's time to put that aside as well, so I can put my mind on something else completely.

Uncertainty can be tough when we want our happy ending and we want it now. But we don't have to keep ourselves hanging in the air. We can get busy with the other parts of our lives that are moving ahead and keep our focus happily on them.

Update: The court thing continues. I feel it will work out okay for her, but it does drag on. As for the guy in Hawaii, I'm glad his uncertainty is over, and hope he found a new home to love.

(Story originally written in July 2010)

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I often think that to accomplish something, I take a step forward, then another, then another, until I arrive. Ta Dah! But life doesn't always progress in that tidy a manner. It's often two steps forward and one step back. Then two steps forward and one step back. In time, after I have seen some success, I may find it's five steps forward and one step back, then 10, then more, but especially at the beginning, being in that backward step feels like a relapse.

It's discouraging. Along with the discouragement comes fear that I'll keep moving backwards, fear that there will never be any more forward steps.

Yet if I remember that "two steps forward and one step back" is often the way life works, I can see that backward step differently.

I can see it as a necessary part of bringing all aspects of my being up to speed. In my mind I may be ready to grow, but my emotions might still need some healing. I have a yoga teacher who talks about "issues in the tissues." If my "issues in the tissues" haven't had a chance to release, then that backward step can be a good way to integrate the issues with the new me. It's like there's a tiny little scared knot, sitting in my belly or mind, one that cries and worries and doesn't want to give ground because it's comfortable where it is, and it's scared that it will lose its comfort forever. Poor scared thing. It needs reassurance and support during these changes. It needs me to take that backward step and hold its hand while we move ahead together.

Or I can see the backward step as a way of rediscovering all I'm leaving behind by moving ahead. There's nothing like a relapse to help me remember why I was moving ahead. Right. This wasn't working for me.

When I feel stuck in the backward step and motivation levels are dropping, it can help to remember how good it feels when in the forward steps. It may feel like a different sort of good than I'm used to, but it feels good enough that I can aspire to get to know it better. When I gave up sugar in my coffee, I substituted it for cream. It took a few days to adjust, but I liked the change. My coffee is still good, just good in a different way.

When I'm stuck in the backward step for what feels like too long a time -- well, anything longer than a nanosecond feels like too long -- I might forget that this issue could be out of my control. Bigger forces may be at work than I can push against all by myself. If I've been in "try, try again" mode and blaming myself for not seeing progress, remembering that no man is an island can make things easier.

Being in that backward step can be pretty uncomfortable, but when I find myself there, maybe I can see it can as a good thing. Maybe it's giving me a chance to get to know where I am coming from and where I am going.

Through it all, I can take heart by remembering that just by aspiring to make progress, I do.

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Okay so I could be bopping along having a good day and then BAM. Something comes along that spoils the mood. Maybe a nasty word from someone who's usually nice to me. Maybe I unexpectedly fouled up a task that I've done a thousand times perfectly in the past. Maybe a bird pooped on my new dress.

The good mood has vanished and I'm watching out for the next thing that might go wrong. At the moment, it feels like I can't trust life.

To restore my good mood, I may need to act quickly. Here are a few things that have worked for me in the past:

• Compliment a stranger. Say, "Nice dress!" to the woman in the bank.
• Stop by a tree, any tree, and say, "Hello" to it. Trees are good.
• Have a warm tea - no, not a beer - you still have to get back to work.
• Stand on your head, or twirl, or swing on a swing. Make it physical and playful.
• Do something that's so easy you can do it in your sleep. It'll make you feel like an expert again.
• Stroke a dog or cat or water the plants. They love it.
• Buy a flower for yourself. Just one. Or maybe a pen. It costs only a bit, yet it feels extravagant.
• Change the radio station. Listen to something different.
• Or even better, sing.
• Find the lady in the red dress or the man in the brown hat, or the licence plate starting with "X." We're curious creatures, happy when on the hunt for something.
• Find a sunbeam and sit in it for a few minutes.
Sometimes, it doesn't take much to spoil a good day. Thankfully, it doesn't take much to turn it around again either.

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