Moving Ahead

I'm sorry for being so scarce here recently. The birthday celebration extended into the weekend, and Sunday was an all-day commitment with my choir-- but a glorious one: the Missa Brevis and an anthem by contemporary British composer Jonathan Dove in the morning, followed by total immersion in William Byrd in the afternon.

Then, this week, I've been working on a grant application to the Canadian Council on the Arts, for support for a writing project. Though I wrote many grant applications for non-profit organizations, this is only the second time I've only applied for a personal grant. I didn't get the first one, a number of years ago, and I have no idea about the chances for this one. What I'm finding is that although it's a lot of work, under a tight deadline, it's been very helpful to have to write a concise description of the project. I feel like I actually know, now, what I'm trying to do!

I have to include 20-30 pages of writign samples with the application, and last night I re-read most of the posts from The Fig and the Orchid, the account I wrote here about my father-in-law's last years. It was the first time I'd read it since he died, and he came back to me so brightly and clearly through those stories, especially the recounted conversations. What a character he was! I'm so glad I wrote a lot of it down, and someday we need to collect that material with some of Jonathan's photographs and publish it. We've needed some time to go by, though.

The weather has turned cooler here, and that means the amusing sight, on the Montreal streets, of people dressed in everything from shorts and tee shirts to parkas and wool hats. As for myself, on the bike, I'm somewhere in the middle, wearing a fleece layer and a windbreaker. I did pull on some gloves one day recently...and the trees are not only starting to turn, but dropping some leaves. Autumn is moving ahead, and so, I guess, am I!