Last week, Ash and I went to our halfway ultrasound to meet our little…girl! To celebrate, we hosted a small dinner party with two pre-purchased boxes of pink and blue cupcakes to unveil at dessert. It was a moment I will always remember when we flipped the lid open, revealing 4 frosted pink cupcakes, and everyone screamed. I am so glad we did it that way.

The ultrasound photos showed us a healthy, upside down, thumb sucker (who happens to be kicking me as I type this). She may or not have the exact same profile as Ash (I think she does).  I have to admit, the day after our ultrasound, as exhilerated and breathless as I was with the idea of having a daughter,  I was a little sad too for the little boy who almost was - we spent so much time imagining both a girl and a boy. 

But now my thoughts are full of girl – and all the wonders that entails. There are so many things I want to do, show, give, experience with our little girl,  including the Saturday night we spent walking the seawall at English Bay and our beautiful Sundays on the patio and how much I love her father.  

Photos from Etsy Sellers OneLifeJewelry and SeaUnicorn.

Going to Granville Island this Friday night to partake in the new, though poorly advertised Winterupption festival.  I just heard about it yesterday when the Dean of our School of Music popped his head into my office to tell me about a show he’s performing in. His band Poetic Justice is backing up a spoken word performance. To the average person (i.e. a husband-type) this might sound like torture. You say “spoken word” and suddenly husbands get all twitchy like you’ve just suggested you’d like to clip his toenails or have your fifth child. Luckily, Ash is pretty adventurous. Plus he made me sit through The International last night in Coquitlam of all places…so I’m pretty sure I have a little marital give-and-take coming my way. 

Anyway - all So I Married An Axe Murderer jokes aside - this Winterupption Festival sounds like fun. There’s everything from live music, to street theatre to market culinary demonstrations. And I believe even a glass or two of wine.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial,

national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no

need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made,

any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking

forward in that light.

- from ‘Praise Song for the Day’ by Elizabeth Alexander

Well, this is it. My last blog post as Miss Hargreaves. 

Today, Bill, the Facility Manager at work (not to mention, the loveliest Scott you’ll ever meet – perhaps, even, a gift from my Nanny) – brought me a very offical nametag reading “Jennifer Wilson.”

Yes, I am beginning to feel like someone new.

I’ve written and erased about a hundred sentences trying to capture the sum of experience for this medium. But those thoughts will stay in the journal beside my bed. Instead, I’m taking Frost’s sage advice. 

See the door on my little atelier?

It says, Ferme. 

And if you’re lost enough to find yourself

By now, pull in your ladder road behind you

And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.

Then make yourself at home.   

Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Hasta Luego,

Jen

Like poetry, sometimes places or people ring true in the depths of you. And that is how you know.

It’s how I know one day I must go to Little Sparta’s Garden so my soul can keep growing.

It’s how I know to marry Ash this weekend and claim my glimpse of the sea.

And it’s how friends know to send notes like this one on the eve of a life:

“Work must be KILLING you this week. All my good hair/skin/nail thoughts are with you. I just ate some salmon and dedicated all the fish oil to you.”

Thanks, Alice.

Enough champagne to last a lifetime of Wednesdays

(and sometimes Sunday mornings mixed with Orange Juice)

Jen