It goes like this.

I get an idea.  Not a fleeting one.  My ideas are rarely fleeting.  Instead, they take hold and won’t relent until I’ve followed through on it.

Case in point:  While in Toronto, I had reason to be on the Don Valley Parkway.  The very first time I drove east on it, I saw an amazing rainbow bridge.

The idea:  I must get a photo of that bridge.

I pointed it out to Sam and kept driving, because after all, we were on our way to an author talk in Whitby, quite a ways away.

The next day, I woke up early and left the hotel room while Sam and Hawk were still sleeping and headed out on my own.  I had ages before I had to be in Pickering for a couple of author talks at Dunbarton High School.  I took the exit immediately after the bridge and aimed for where I thought I could park and walk along the trail that might end up at the bridge.

It was a park, and it was just past sunrise, and the sky was a bright blue, and there was birdsong, and a meandering creek, and not another car in the parking lot, and a neat path that lead toward the rainbow bridge.

I checked the time.  I had loads of it.  I figured 45 minutes, at least.  And so I texted Sam and told her where I was (just in case), and then took my coffee and my breakfast and wandered back in the direction of the bridge.  Along the way I saw red-winged blackbirds, and geese with their adorable goslings, two deer bounding up an embankment, and then at last, the bridge.

A beautiful rainbow-painted bridge.  I took several pictures, and tweeted one of them in honour of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, which it happened to be.  And then I wandered back.  I stopped to tell the geese how lovely their babies were.  I met a snail in the middle of the path and had a photo session with its fine and agreeable self.  I tried to capture the red-winged beauties with my iPhone, and failed.  Same with the deer.

Back at the parking lot, I checked the time again, and decided that a sketch was in order.  I pulled out my pencils and my notebook and started drawing one of the apple trees in the little orchard.

And then I got back in the car and realized that I was late.

Very late.

Distracted again by a multitude of sparklies.

See, most people think that I am exceptionally organized.  And it’s true, for the most part.  The secret lies in why I am so organized.; I need to be, because I am constantly being lured away by the task at hand by something shiny.  An object, a question, a person, an idea, something irresistable.  And so I keep everything in order, and stay as organized as I can, so that I can leave space for sparkly moments, which are not optional.  And sometimes I fail.

Like I did on the morning of the rainbow bridge.  When I grasped just how much time I’d spent in that little park,  I drove like a madwoman, leaning forward in my seat, cursing at the GPS as I missed my exit and the clock ticked ever past the time that I was meant to be at Dunbarton.  And so thank goodness for the librarian there, who’d told me to be there well before class began, because even as I lurched into a parking spot, I was fifteen minutes later that she’d asked me to be, yet still five minutes before the bell rang.  Smart woman.  Likely she’s had dealings with writers before.

The fact that my USB stick was nowhere in sight and so I couldn’t do my multimedia presentation, that’s another story altogether.  Suffice it to say, us creative types can try to be organized, and can even be pretty good at it, after years of learning lessons from being scatterbrained flakes.  But, sometimes my absentmindedness still gets the better of me.

In the case of the rainbow-bridge, I did what I’d set out to do; get a photo of that amazing artful piece of beauty that pops up all colourful and hopeful along the greenbelt beside the traffic-clogged and somewhat dreary Don Valley Parkway.  I had an idea that I needed to see that bridge up close, and that I needed a photo of it.   I saw it, and I have the photo.  In the case of the missing USB stick, thank goodness that I can still wow a crowd with the simple art of storytelling.

Not that long ago I wrote about how our kids are rarely apart, and now here I am writing about how I left Esmé behind and took Hawk with me to Toronto last week.  When Esmé was small, I took her along with me to Edmonton, and Victoria, and other authorly destinations.  Last year I left her home with Jack while I took a then 7-month-old Hawk with me to Nova Scotia, which was the first time that I’d left her overnight other than the debaucle that was Hawk’s homebirth-turned-emergency-C-section.  Even then I busted out of the hospital early because I missed her and wanted to be at home.

Last month I took both kids (with my mom to look after them )while I did readings and workshops in the Yukon.  Last week I went to Toronto as a nominee for the White Pine Awards.  I couldn’t afford a plane ticket for both kids, so I took nursling Hawk with me, and Auntie Sam too, to look after him while I was treated like a rock star at the Harbourfront Centre, and then at the various high schools that had booked me to speak.

It’s hard leaving Esmé behind.  She was excited to have Jack to herself for two days, and then Grandma to herself for another couple of days, but she was sad not to be coming to Toronto with me and Hawk.  Esmé loves traveling, especially flying, and so she was a little tender about not coming along this time.

She helped me pack, and made sure that I had snacks for the plane.  I promised her that I’d call each afternoon, and do FaceTime so that she and Hawk could see each other.  I promised her that when she’s older, she’ll be able to come along with me all by herself.  Jack and I figure she’ll be ready to do that pretty soon.  She’ll need to be able to entertain herself  offstage while I do my author talks or signings or workshops or what have you, which she could almost do now.  Something like having to go to the bathroom would throw her for a loop though, although perhaps a teenaged embassador could be assigned to be her buddy, in case she wanted a glass of water or a toilet, or both.

This time though, she stayed home.

The morning of the flight, Esmé and I went on a date.  We wandered up the street towards the coffee shop, talking about what she might do with Baba while Hawksley and I were gone.  I asked her to remind Jack to vote, and she wondered if they could go to Granville Island or go swimming or maybe make cookies.  We wondered what she might see at the paleontology field trip on Friday with Grandma.  She wondered if the plane I’d be going on would have movies, and what kind of drink I’d get when the attendant came around with the cart.  I assured her that Hawk would not be allowed to have pop, which she was a little worried about.

Esmé and I sat together at the coffee shop, sipping our drinks and grinning at each other.  I told her I’d miss her, and she told me she’d miss me too.  We held hands on the way home, and then we packed the family and luggage into the car, picked up Auntie Sam, and drove to the airport.  We kept our goodbyes as light as possible, so that my heart wouldn’t be so heavy that the plane would have trouble taking off.

As Hawk and I climbed up towards the clouds, I pointed out East Van.

“Our house is down there, baby.”

“Baba!  Dede! (his word for Esmé)”

“Yup.  They’re down there.  And we’re up here.”

He pointed to the clouds.  ”Puffballs!”

He wasn’t worried.  His heart wasn’t heavy.  In his mind, we were doing something fun, and when we were done, we’d all be reunited again.  And he was exactly right.

(ps. I still missed her though.)

The last time she was here, she brought out a couple of paper lunch bags that had been folded in half and stapled together with a long stapler. So what, right? So EVERYTHING!

Once she explained what it was for, I got really excited. She uses them with her grade 3 students to make ‘Me’ books, with pages about their families and favourite things and such. And what makes these originally non-descript paper-bag books so marvelous?

All the pockets and flaps and potential.

First of all, you can’t get much cheaper. Paper-bags are super cheap, and you can use whatever fancy paper, stickers, or craft supplies you have on hand to embellish them. When you fold and staple the bags, you end up with two side pockets, and two secret flaps, but once you slice open the back two sections, you end up with two top pockets too. Swoon! So many places to tuck treasures!

And the application for these books is endless. The first two we made were birthday cards, one for Jack and one for Auntie Sam.

But you could make ‘Me’ books, they could be used for scavenger hunts, story books, comics, party craft/favours, somewhere to collect Important Things that go together. We decorated the pages with illustrations and love notes and stickers and fancy paper, and tucked things like hand-made bookmarks and lottery tickets and tattoos into the pockets. The results are utterly enchanting.

ps. If you don’t have a long stapler (we don’t) and don’t want to acquire one (not sure if we do or not), your local library likely has one (ours does) and you can take a bunch of bags and make up several paper-bag books at a time (we did).

And why would you want to do that?

Just ask Esmé.  She can tell you.  As she digs deeper into her bug learning, she is getting more and more excited about the interesting things that bugs do.  Like eat aphids and thripes and mites that will decimate your garden, for example.  That’s what ladybugs are good for.

We were just listening to an expert discuss pollinating bugs on CBC’s Almanac just now, and Esmé was fascinated with what she was saying about bumblebees and honeybees and how important they are.  And then she heard the woman say that sometimes wasps eat bees.  She wanted to write that fact down and explore it more when we go on our upcoming field trip to the Honeybee Centre in Surrey.

Back to ladybugs … Esmé caught one the other day, and was able to study it up close.  First she put it in her small ‘isolation’ bug box, one that has a magnifier lid for a better view.  Then she moved it into her ‘bug condo,’ so that it would have access to food and friends (aka, her five-at-any-one-time slugs).

The lovely thing about her sustained interested in bugs — and my facilitating that passion with support from Project-Based Homeschooling — is that we’ve built up a small library of resource books and magnifying glasses and insect boxes.  So when Esmé gets interested in a new kind of bug or bug fact, we can just look it up and get started studying it.

It was Sam’s birthday party yesterday, and Esmé proudly announced to the guests that she was an entomologist.  One of the women asked her what that meant, and of course Esmé explained.  ”An entomologist is a person who loves bugs and loves learning about bugs and studying bugs and doing all kinds of bug things.  And snails too.”

I always tell aspiring writers to call themselves a writer now, because they are — writing — now, right?  Same goes for my little entomologist.  Nevermind what she wants to do when she ‘grows up’ (I’m 38 and don’t really feel grown up), she’s an entomologist right now.

My first memory of them is from the raves I went to, almost twenty years ago now.  I remember pulsing music, heavy on the drum and base, heavy on the trance, and beyond that I don’t remember a whole lot, being that it was a rave, after all.  It was the nineties.  Enough said.  Ecstatically.

I remember the glow sticks, though.  Dark warehouse basements in the industrial part of the city, and bits of neon light, dancing, spinning, glowing.

Now glow sticks are pretty common.  We take them camping for fun.  To the Folk Fest to help pick our kids out of the nighttime gaggle of them running along the dim paths and through the fields after dark.  And we brought out a couple the other night, to enhance our pre-bedtime dance party.

It was Jack who started the tradition of putting on dance music before bath time and letting the kids boogie out the last few sillies of the day.  At first, I worried that it would wind the children up and make it harder to put them to bed, but it does the opposite.  It wears them out, once and for all.  It doesn’t take much, two or three songs, and it’s a great way to reconnect and come together after a long day.

The other night we turned down the lights, put on some old Moby, and even older Chemical Brothers, and pulled out our old rave moves, none of which impressed the kids.  They just liked dancing in the dark ,waving the glow sticks.  They liked taking the glow sticks into the bath best of all, though, where they got another long run in the dark before being brought up to bed and lovingly clutched during story time and as they fell asleep.  I woke up in the night and pulled one out from under the covers, still glowing a warm pink light.

Glow sticks, endlessly entertaining.  Difficult to photograph, though, so please do excuse the images.  I’m still not the master of my camera, when it comes to a challenge like that.  I’m working on  it.

As for Jack and myself, it turns out that we can still bust out the oh-so-earnest rave-ish dance stylings of the mid-nineties.

No soothers though.  We’ve never been into those, and neither were either of our kids.  Baggy pants and platform shoes and tight-fitting shirts and bad home-dyed blue hair on the other hand, well  … let’s keep that between ourselves, shall we?

It’s hard to say who gets more out of a trip to the farm.  Esmé loves planning and packing and doling out treats for the rabbits, and she especially adores the guinea pigs who room in with said bunnies.  Hawk loves the ducks and the chickens, and often just observes them and then screeches with glee.  He’s very good about not running after them, which is ever so sweet.  Jack loves watching the kids interact with the various beasties, and I get to be distracted by all the characters there are to be imagined and studied.

This time I packed my sketchbook and pencils along with Esmé’s, and while Jack kept an eye on Hawk, I spent some time sketching the animals and taking photos.  I love drawing from real life, and especially so with animals.  By the time we left, I’d fallen in love with an imaginary Indian Running Duck who will very likely make his way into a children’s picture book someday.

When it comes to inspiration for imaginary characters, there’s nothing better than drawing from real life.  Figuratively, and literally.

That’s right, trumpeter swans!

They’re gathering in the Whitehorse area, waiting for their various nesting grounds to thaw.

The lovely Rebecca’s mother, Mary, is a Yukoner who knows all about birds.  She told us that a couple of scouts fly ahead each day to see if the nesting grounds are ready, and if they are, they don’t return, signaling the rest to follow.  If the ground is still frozen, they return to the group and the waiting continues.

We had one part of one day to get out of town before my writerly obligations began in earnest, and so we took off towards Tagish, with hopes of seeing these majestic birds.  I told Esmé that we were going on an adventure to see if we could find the trumpeter swans, but I wasn’t sure if we would.  Or if we’d see them in the far off distance, no bigger than wee white spots on a snowy horizon.

We hit the trumpeter swan jackpot!  We saw one pair, then another.  Then as we crossed the bridge in Tagish, we saw dozens.  We turned back and had a picnic by the river, keeping a respectful distance so as not to disturb them.

“Duh!  Duh!” Hawk proclaimed, which is his word for ‘duck.’  ”Duh!”

“Swans, baby,” Esmé corrected.

“Duh!”

“Swans”

We hardly noticed the cold as we watched the graceful birds glide along the water, dip their heads under to feed, and turn their tufty white bums skyward.  And the trumpet song … it really does sound like a trumpet!

Okay, we did notice the cold.  But still, it was a glorious day!  What a magical and unforgettable afternoon.

And what book did we pull off the shelf when we got home?  My fusty old copy of Trumpet of the Swan.  I’m enjoying it again, and Esmé is enjoying it for the first time.  Only, she knows exactly what a trumpeter swan looks and sounds like.  We took home a beautiful poster of a trumpeter swan standing in water (free from the visitor’s centre in Whitehorse … thanks, Yukon government!), and it’s now on the wall in the under-the-stairs hidey hole.

“Duh!” Hawk announces when he sees it.

“Swan!” Esmé says.  ”It’s a swan, baby.”

It’s just plain awesome, I think.  Truly awesome.

This year when the lovely Sara Davidson (organizer, educator, pink-sparkly-goddess extraordinaire) emailed at the usual time, I said, “Yes, please!”

And off I went.

Sort of.

Off I went, with my mom in tow so she could look after Hawk, who was going to come all along, and then Esmé too … because I realized that I couldn’t leave her for that long!

We landed in Whitehorse with three suitcases, two carseats and a backpack stuffed with a new Grimm’s fairytale collection, playsilks, dice, art supplies, and a couple of little plush rats that the kids are particularly into right now.  And twenty pounds of Carrie Mac books.  And some other stuff, like my coffee mug, some homemade cookies (thanks, Baba!) and the bookmarks Esmé made for each one of my thirteen students (see picture below).

I like to travel light.

This was not traveling light.

Nonetheless, we unpacked and set up camp at the Westmark, ready to spend the week.  I was busy as stink, which meant that my mom did a whole lot of sitting on kids.  Thankfully, Whitehorse is a great city for families.  They have an awesome Canada Games Centre with plenty of fun activities for kids, and a brand-new library with a charming children’s area.

While the kids and Grandma tromped around Whitehorse, I performed all my writerly duties, including an evening reading at the spanky new Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre, the two day workshop at the highschool, and an evening reading in Haines Junction.  All in the company of a few mighty fine authors; Jerome Stueart, Beverly Brenna, Dennis Allen, and Drew Hayden Taylor.

The teenaged authors were a delight to work with.  Such big, sparkly imaginations!  I wish I’d had a week with them and their stories and poems.  We worked on character development, did a whack of writing, ate M&Ms, wrote some more, talked a lot, and took up every square in of the little room we were in.

As for the North, we are on-again, off-again lovers.  The first time that we fell in love, I was twenty-one, and I thought it was for ever.  But then I fell in love for real and forgot to go back up after that first flirtatious visit.  I’ve thought of the North often since my betrayal, and always fondly.  I know we will rendezvous again, the North and I.  Perhaps at the Pierre Berton House Writer in Residency, Dawson City, with my family in tow?

How about it, beautiful North?  You, me, the Yukon River valley, and a wallop of the aurora borealis … and Whitehorse playing in the background.  Not because they have anything to do with the Yukon in particular (other than their name), but because they are stunning too, and there is always a place for a mesmerizing song alongside a miraculous landscape.