How many light bulbs does it take to change people?

Far away, on a hill. Perspective.

No, they're not in jail. It's the loft at Walden. The boys love it when I shut off all the lights and get the candles of the chandelier going. It's amazing how bright it seems with 6 candles burning in a small cabin miles from any street lights or city light pollution.

Every summer at the cabin I have to spend at least one evening on my back on the dew-soaked lawn, staring out at the stars. Even emerging from a candle-lit cabin, it takes about ten minutes for the eyes to adjust to the dark. I'm not there so much for the finer detail, but the macro feeling. Sure, you can see Andromeda and most of the Messier Objects and faint nebulae, but what I love is the feeling of vertigo that I can induce by contemplating the ribbon of the Milky Way that stretches across the sky from north to south. Our puny solar system is out on one spiral arm of a galaxy that is spinning around a huge blob of billions of stars burning at the middle. So, lying on my back on the hillside at Hartsville, next to Walden Cabin lit and glowing warmly by six little flames, I feel dizzy like I'm staring at the hub of a ferris wheel as I swing around going backwards at the Ex. Billions of huge fires in the sky merged to a faint milky white corridor of light against the black forever. It's freakin' awesome.

When the cold and dampness finally get to me and I head back inside, I appreciate the little candles and the comfortable simplicity of my loft bed flannel ever more, especially if I'm sharing the space with my two little stars.

I'm really, really small. And remembering this, experiencing it, makes me feel dizzy, giddy, and free.

God keep my land, glorious and free

I love this photo. The energy and hope in the flag. The joy on Jasper's face. Me not quite believing that this is my son, at my place. That was before it was "ours."

It's June 2001. The leaves are just coming out, but the grass has had a few weeks to get ahead of us. Jasper was making his first day trip to Walden. He was only just over a year old, but really ten months because back then we were still talking about "corrected age" to account for his 3 months prematurity.

We were in PEI for a family holiday, but also because it was becoming evident that Dad was dying of cancer. He'd been with me earlier this sunny day at the cabin, helping to oversee the installation of a new wood stove. I was planning to rent the cabin for the first time that year and the old Franklin potbelly stove was unsafe. It has been my great grandfather's. Dad took it with him. He never came back to Walden.

The cabin has always been an important father and son place, and symbolic in so many ways of relationships: birth, growth, change, death, renewal. When this photo was taken I was still of the mindset that I had control over these things -- that I could rehabilitate this forsaken clear cut. That I could fix my relationship with my father by creating a space where we could be together without talking about any of that. We built the cabin together over 3 years, starting in 1995, and by doing so created a place where we could reconnect after over a decade of drifting apart.

This photo, this day, marks an important transition from one father-son relationship to another, and the beginning of a more objective era when I finally realized that I could learn a lot about life and progress by just observing. I like to think Dad was at about the same place in his life, finally opening up a bit, just three decades older and terminally ill. It was too late for him. Not for me.

Now Jasper's nine. That little spruce at the corner (that Suzy and I stole from a ditch up the road) is now taller than the cabin. And I'm counting the days until I get there again. With my boys. In our little cabin.

Simple things

I ran 14k yesterday. It's the first time I've gone that far in one day, and it felt great. I started and ended at the Agriculture Museum of the Experimental Farm in Ottawa, running along the Rideau Canal and over Hartwell locks to Hogs Back and on to Mooney's Bay. The Agriculture Museum was packed with kids, including my own, who were there with Suzy and one of Suzy's best friends Michelle and her two girls for egg hunts, bunnies and newborn chicks. It was madness there, but people were smiling despite a sharp spring breeze. The sun was shining. And there seemed to be an air of giddy discovery as if it suddenly dawned on the whole city at once: "Wow, it's Friday. I would just be sitting at work now. This is way better." And what could be better, really, than a barnyard full of kids and young parents, with animals and easter eggs and the occasional dashing staffer dressed up as a white rabbit. Funny.

A good Friday.

Today I went to Harry Rosen to buy some new duds for an event at the National Gallery this week and emerged with just a tie. Then I was lured by my sister-in-law into Lucky Jeans and dropped a bundle on distressed jeans, embroidered shirts and a wide perforated belt with a huge bright brass buckle. I felt young. I'll wear those shirts with loose linen pants and sandals on the patio at the cottage this summer. I live for how the sand makes my feet feel at the end of a long day of exploring at the seaside. Between there and deep in the woods at Walden, summer is all I can think about lately. I'm due. And my summer in PEI is still 3 months away.

You can say what you want about Facebook, but a friend I haven't seen since grade 3 is helping me find a contractor and to order windows for the cottage reno in PEI. Wade and I last collaborated on building a tree house in Winsloe, PEI in 1977. Sometimes social networks work.

Tonight we're slipping over to the in-laws for Easter dinner. Simon's wearing a ninja outfit. Jasper's got a new DS cartridge. I bought Suzy a new shirt from Lucky. Tomorrow morning there's the sunrise choir service at Rideau Park. "Christ the Lord is risen today ... alelulia!" always makes me cry like a baby with joy and pain because it was Easter just after that service in 2000 when my babies were born and one died.

Some might say I'm lucky. On Easter weekend I'm not ashamed to use the word blessed.

>> Photo: Outdoor shower at Walden Cabin in PEI. Bliss.

Misc Me

I type with three fingers of my right hand, and two of my left, plus one thumb for the space bar. I'm fast but not efficient. And if someone's watching I just can't type. Only recently did I realize that the space bar had nothing to do with outer space, but the space between words. Computers are so amazing. Space age.

Eight years ago this month I had a burger with my dad at the DQ on Bank Street in Ottawa South. I was there again tonight having strawberry sundaes with Suzy and my boys. The decor is exactly the same, but dad died just five months after we were there, in 2001. I remember that night because Dad finally agreed that maybe Noah's Ark was a metaphor, and not a historic event.

Now I'm terrified of dying young too.

In high school, the very last day of grade 12, in fact, I was called to the Principal's office. Charlottetown Police had showed up and wanted to arrest me for arson. The night before, someone had set the smoking shelter on the side of one of the portable classrooms on fire. I know what you're thinking: Smoking shelter? It was 1986. In PEI. And the evidence that I was to blame? My science scribbler was used to get the fire going. Great police work, guys.

I had strawberries for breakfast this morning and only by mid-morning, in the middle of a meeting, did it occur to me that I'd recently been obsessed with them. It was brought to my attention by Dan when I commented that two pens in a row died in mid sentence over the past day. And then I got home and the price on the defrosted pork tenderloin was $6.66. I can't stand all these signs.

Thanks. I feel better now.

Oh, make sure you check the peanut bits for freshness before you have them sprinkled on your strawberry (OMG, there it is AGAIN) sundae. And keep your eyes on the kids and the future.

Priorites

Let's see. Where to start.

A secret: I don't think about what I write here before I start to type.

A confession: I hate my hair. Tomorrow my experiment with "growing it out" comes to a swift end.

A promise: I will add the screen room on the front of the cottage this year.

**

It's a crime that grey hair has a different consistency to it. I'm quickly losing my flowing nutty brown to kinky wacko grey. Here's a freebie for you inventor-types: Come up with an electric razor attachment that cuts only hair that's wiry and grey and you'll be rich. Somebody ought to do it and it can't be me because by the time I secured the venture capital or got one of the Dragons on board, I'd be all grey and then my razor-WOW! (or whatever we'd call it) would just render me bald.

Over the past two months I've been on the road a lot. And I don't mean just a little more than usual. In 12 weeks I've been in Washington DC three times, twice to Alberta, to New Jersey, twice to Pennsylvania, a couple of times in Virginia, down to San Antonio and San Diego and across to San Francisco. Oh yeah, there was the 24 hours in Seattle (thank God it was sunny), and a quick hop across the pond to Oxford and London.

Twelve weeks. I'm not bragging. Seriously. If you think business travel is exotic and fun you obviously haven't done very much. If I didn't have my running I would be a MESS. Since January 17, I've also run 210k, mostly on a treadmill. Despite the distance, I'm still only clocking at about 5:50/k. Or, it could be because of the distance.

The thing is, I know that I've lost perspective on what all this means. I'm noticing things like grey hair and being a little more tired, and my old hypochondria is back. I'm more superstitious and aware of cracks in the sidewalk, but I'm not touching the stove elements five times before going to work - yet. The crappy part is still thinking of myself as bounce-back-quick 20-something, but then looking in the mirror. The other day a friend asked me about varicose veins; another colleague at work poked her head into my office and asked me if I was having a stroke. God.

I need to write more. The kinky wackos are coming off. And I'm taking six weeks off this summer to play by the ocean with my kids. And if that doesn't help me bounce back, I've got some thinking to do.

The year ahead

I'm disappointed tonight, but I shouldn't be. Today I found out that I was not picked for an international fellowship that I'd been nominated for last December. I won't be going to Yale University after all.

It was a long shot anyway. But I had stellar letters of reference. A Premier, CEOs, gurus, etc. I have to admit that I had my hopes up there and was told I was a strong candidate. But there was one spot for someone from North America in a group of 18 representing the planet, so the competition was tough.

Next year.

The thing is, the program was only four months and anyone who knows me at all knows that despite all the travel and growth and opportunity I've had over the past 2 years, what I long for is perspective. It's time to have a break from Ottawa, and I was hoping four months in New Haven, CT would provide it.

Nope.

I have to admit, though, that I also feel a bit relieved. Yale would have meant a severely truncated holiday at Walden this summer. It would have meant another year of delay in the reno at the cottage. It would have required Suzy to take a leave just months after getting a great new job. We would have had to uproot the kids to the US, sell the house. It would have meant temporarily stepping aside from One Change at a time when consultants are telling me to keep my hand firmly on the wheel. We're hiring four new senior managers over the next two months. I should probably stick around.

Perhaps the lesson is that one thing I could not expect to learn at Yale is patience. And that's really what I need. In just three years I've built a multimillion-dollar NGO that's about to announce its partnership with the UN at a glittering reception at the National Gallery of Canada. I should be happy. I am, in fact.

A few weeks at the cabin with the kids is what's needed. The tree house needs a roof, and the woods still have a lot to teach. Great perspective.