So here’s a weird thing. I’m on Facebook and a number of classmates from high school have contacted me after searching for our high school. It seems as if all of them live in Western Canada and live lives that feature water, snow, horses or cattle, and nature. Always nature. Don runs an inn on Vancouver Island and gives lessons in white water kayaking (here is his website - stay in the yurt!); another teaches yoga in Vancouver; yet another has a ranch in Alberta. They lead lives that humble me, that I cannot imagine living myself because I would fail miserably, and because the hugeness of the nature would swallow me.

But the best is Charlie, who runs a ranch in Alberta. He says, “I run a business hauling water to oil rigs as well I run an animal health service for a 20,000 hd feedlot as well as training and buying & selling horses.” Okay, that’s a lot of information, so I had him translate for me. That’s 20,000 head of cattle he is talking about. On 160 acres of land. He goes on to say that it is his wife who hauls most of the water to the oil rigs: “We have a 2 ton dodge truck with a tank on it we only haul the potable water to the trailers that the rig workers live in while they are on the rig site.” I have a lot of respect for Charlie’s operation but could never imagine doing his job, or living  as remotely as he does.

One day not too long ago after a particularly long and hard week at work, when I came home on Friday evening with a head like cement, I called my sister. She and her family live in the town where most of these folks grew up. Her husband answered the phone. He was sitting in the upstairs sunroom in a rocking chair watching the ducks on the pond and enjoying the view of his rather expansive property. It was 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon. He wasn’t sure what he would do for the rest of the day. (“You must at least be drinking a cup of tea!” I croaked). We had a long and lovely chat, which ended with him quoting Voltaire’s Candide: “Everyone has to tend their own garden.” And it seemed to me that if there is one thing these friends I have mentioned here in common, it is that they tend their gardens.

 I dedicate tonight to my excellent friend Lindsay, who is getting married at a castle near Dundee, Scotland. Long may she run. I dearly hope they play Neil Young at her reception party tonight. Lindsay was something like my mentor at SAP. Maybe not officially, but certainly responsible for sparking my baptism of fire. My first day at SAP I was greeted by two beautiful young women: One was Lindsay, the other was Simone. I wondered if all SAP employees were young and beautiful.

Lindsay and I spent our days talking and talking and talking. And writing. She is a great writer. Careful. Extremely meticulous. But a hilarious storyteller and most entertaining companion. She introduced me to the department, where we wrote speeches and newsletters and mails for one of the members of the executive board. She showed me the ropes. It was a real shame when she decided to leave. Kind of the end of an era. She had just gotten her company car, a smart little BMW. Many of the young women in the department drove BMWs, mostly of the 3 series. ”I can pass anything in that car,” I remember one of them saying one day.

I’m sorry I cannot be at Lindsay’s wedding tonight. I was honored and delighted to receive an invitation, and trouble to have to decline. But my brother Michael is visiting from Canada. I told LIndsay I would come to visit her in Scotland, with husband, sometime soon. And then we will celebrate. And talk, and talk, and talk.