Dear Friends

This week the UN launched an appeal for $6.5 billion in aid for Syrian refugees, caught by civil war in their country, and now freezing in camps  there and in neighboring countries. Apparently this appeal is unprecedented in "peace time."  The situation is complicated, too, by an early winter of uncommon ferocity.

The deep causes of this crisis are hard (for me at least) to discern.   Whatever, the upshot is human suffering on a large scale, and I'm unclear what you and I can do to help besides urge our governments and NGOs to answer the UN's call. 

So where does that leave us at this end of one year, and the beginning of another?

Not out in the cold, thank goodness, and at this moment, I think that's the best message that I can send you. The Soderstrom clan and their friends who read this are extraordinarily lucky.  What's happening to so many others should put our little trials into perspective.  Quit your bitching,  seize the day, and if you can find something positive to do, so much the better.

Certainly we had many good things happen this year.  For the first time in five years, Lee and I took a trip together (an elderly cat, impending grandchildren and the fire kept us from leaving simultaneously since 2008.)  Two weeks in British Columbia and Washington State, hiking, eating and drinking well, and visiting family were great fun. Here's Lee on a beach on Vancouver Island to show you just how relaxed we were.

Lee also had a chance to spend a lot of time in his shop.  He finished a chest of drawers/changing table for Thomas: that's the little guy doing a test drive of one of the drawers.

Lee also made  a small octagonal table for our friend Ruth Rose-Lizée to hold a plaque she'd brought back from the Taj Mahal.  And he accomplished many less interesting projects around the house, like rebuilding the front steps.  He's now getting ready to make a bedstead with a marvelous unusual design: more about that next year.

Besides riding herd on him, Thom's parents kept busy with education. Lukas soldiers on with his Ph.D thesis about Nietzche.  The end is in sight, he says.  We have heard from those who should know that it promises to be most interesting.  Sophie, for her part, returned to full time teaching first grade this fall: lucky kids to have such a good teacher as they begin their academic career. It's also great that Thomas has a place in one of Quebec's excellent network of subsidized daycares so that both she and Lukas know he's growing in a secure and stimulating environment.

Jeanne, at three, attends a similar daycare in her neighborhood. which she likes a lot   If the weather cooperates (lots of snow is forecast, but we'll hope for the best) she and I will go pick up Thomas at his on Monday, December 23: she loves her cousin and she's curious about where he spends his days. The photo is of her at work in Elin's office at the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal. 

Elin continues to teach and make music as well as working in arts management.  Emmanuel's enterprise Le Canada de Louis XV, which presents programs about 18th century New France, has had a good year.  One of the high points of 2013 for both him and Elin was the celebration of the 275th anniversary of Fort Rouge by the French near Winnipeg.  There were 18th century banquets and musical soirées and much toasting of Le Roi! (Louis XV, of course.)  Click here for some photos.

As for me, my book Desire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography was published by Oberon Press in early November.  The collection--my third--was a project I began in the winter of our fire, so in a way that difficult period has had a very nice ending.

The Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec gave me a grant to work on it, and since there was some money left over, I used it to go to South America in late November to do research on my next non-fiction book.  It'll be called Road through Time, and will be about the roads humans have made since they started walking on two legs.  I took a bus from Cuzco through the Andes into the Amazon basin in Brazil: the background photo, taken near a pass that's 4,725 meters or about 14,000 feet, is a close up of the snow on the cordillera.  I also checked out roads and transportation in Curitiba and Brasília: two very different approaches to urban organization.


So to end this epistle, I leave you with an interior view of the cathedral in Brasília designed by Oscar Niemeyer.  You'll note the angels descending toward the men and women of good will below.  Or so I'd like to think.

Best wishes for 2014.  Bisous.  Beijinhos.  Keep warm.

Mary