It is moments like these that make being a "sports-parent" worthwhile. Autumn's gymnastics club was invited, along with three other local clubs, to present a demo at this year's Canadian National Gymnastics competition, held at the Olympic Oval. Our club, Stampede City Gymnastics, had 5 girls competing this year at Nationals - the most of any gym club in Alberta! Simply to sit in the audience and watch our girl on the floor at such an event, where the best female gymnasts in the entire country had just completed the finals for Floor, was sheer joy. I don't think we have any illusions that Autumn will be a national-level athlete...but she could be! She LOVES gymnastics, and is so tough, strong and dedicated. She is blessed with a truly great coach who specializes in training female gymnasts to compete at a high level. I will try and keep this blog updated with Autumn's progress!

Music

Anyone who knows me knows I am addicted to music. I always have songs in my head, my hands and/or feet are always tapping out rhythms, unheard to anyone but me. I don't know where this came from, but my love of music has been with me for as long as I can remember. Of course, memory and music have a very strong connection, and I am acutely aware of having lived my life in the presence of music.

My parents were not particularly musical, although my father's music has stayed with me, as have memories of drives to North Carolina or Virginia Beach with the 1970's AM-radio mix of America, Bread, Al Stewart and honky-tonk Elton John. I think that sort of paternal musical transmission - memories of vinyl records, one of the first familial collections you were able to access and discover, as well as the annual summer car-ride soundtrack - is fairly common, and to this day I feel deeply connected to the music my dad liked. It was not an eclectic collection, and by any standards it mostly represented what a guy my dad's age in the Seventies was supposed to listen to - Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, Gerry Rafferty, Jim Croce, Burton Cummings, Herb Alpert, The Band, Jimmy Buffet, The Eagles, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel. There were also the staples of "mom n' dad" collections, some I liked and some I ignored - Nana Mouskouri, Roger Whitaker, The Sound of Music, Abba, Elvis' Blue Christmas, Charley Pride, Joan Baez, Anne Murry, CCR.

I imagine all of these albums have a lot to do with my love of the singer-songwriter. He also had some stuff which may have paved the way for some of my more eclectic musical tastes - the "Numbers" album by Cat Stevens, which was way out there for my straight-edged dad and may have been a mistaken purchase (no Peace Train on this one!) but was akin to a magical find for me with it's imagery, jazz-influences and orchestral scope; he also really liked Charles Aznavour, who remains one of my favorites.

All this is to say that our musical landscape begins somewhere - in the home - and evolves over time. I loved my dad's music as a kid, and of course discarded it when I had the purchasing power to build my own collection. "Peace Train" gave way to "Ramble On", "Songs the Minstrel Sang" to "Hey Joe", and "Baker Street" made way for "Tumbling Dice". My musical education continued, from Hendrix, the Stones and Zeppelin to The Clash, Black Flag and Ska, from The Cure, The Chameleons and The Smiths...and so on. Forty-one years in and I am as engaged by music as I ever have been...my cd collection is large, my musical attention span both far-reaching and ever searching. It is no surprise that I want to transfer this musical obsession to my daughter!

Music has always been a part of our house and daily lives, and Autumn has been exposed since an early age to music of all kinds. I think many parents dumb down the soundtracks of their lives when their kids are young, as if children can only appreciate the Barney soundtrack, Disney tunes and plinking lullaby cd's. Why not expose your kids to Mahler, Bob Dylan, The Waterboys, Charles Aznavour, Metallica? Knowing how important music has been to my life, and how the songs of my youth have stayed with me, I have tried to ensure Autumn has lots of musical memories and a good grounding in good music. I am quietly thrilled when she really takes to one of my ever-changing stack of car cd's - her favourites right now include The Hidden Cameras, Danielson, Born Ruffians, and Seabear. She also really digs Disney songs, The Sound of Music soundtrack, and High School Musical. Tara has a pretty different musical palette, and exposes Autumn to mainstream radio, classic rock and some country. Autumn has also started piano lessons, and is really quite taken with both learning how to read music and the act of playing music. She is quite good, learns quickly and has a good ear for melody, tonality and time. I hope music is a constant companion in her life, and that she looks back at the musical education she received from her parents with thanks. She will certainly inherit a large cd collection one day!

This one is for the family...here is Autumn's first beam routine "in competition"! Her home gym, Stampede City Gymnastics Club, held their annual Calgary Classic Gymnastics Open in May, 2008. Young pre-competitive gymnasts from 5 gym clubs took part in a demo-tournament all afternoon, showcasing their evolving skills on all four women's apparatus. Keep in mind, this was Autumn's first time performing these routines outside her home gym, and there were hundreds of people in attendance! Great job Autumn, we are so proud of you!

Those who know me well know this - I am a reader. I admit to having a kind of ADD-style of reading, whereby I read widely on a subject, all the while reading widely on a variety of other subjects. This makes for a large, somewhat eclectic, book collection...arguably the best kind. It also means I am constantly besotted with a particular book, author, or topic, which I in turn am trying to foist on friends and acquaintances, or inject into everyday conversations. If you have suffered through this, I apologize retroactively! Readers will recognize the symptoms, and will relate, commiserate and join in. Non-readers will wonder what all the excitement is about, and where can they rent the movie version?

Since reading is so important to who I am as a person, I imagine I will be sharing recent reads on these pages. I will try and recommend more than I review...who the hell needs another literary review smugly announcing why you should read this or that book? I know I enjoy getting book recommendations from friends, and I dig getting a glimpse of their literary enthusiasms...it is a little like opening the lid on someone's brain, seeing how they think and internalize what is important to them. So, here's a bit of what has been stimulating my recent brain activity, for what it is worth.

James Howard Kuntsler's most recent piece of non-fiction, The Long Emergency, is a must-read. It challenges mainstream and widely held ideas on peak oil, suburbia, technology and progress, the West's car culture, the addiction to fossil fuels, geopolitics, environmentalism...you name it. He goes sacred cow tipping, big time; it is both bracingly refreshing and bloody scary. It also serves as a wake-up call - neither the market nor the government will effect the societal, economic and political transformations required to "save our asses." He stipulates a long series of reality checks are coming (some are happening as we read), and self and societal delusion, made myopic by a deeply ingrained and widespread sense of entitlement, will give way under the "trauma of the Long Emergency."

Read this book...share it with people...leave a copy on the bus, in the airport...better yet, in the mall.

Check out his website and blog as well...he is an important voice in our time. http://www.kunstler.com/

The Right Candidate for the Left

Holy Shit...the Democrats have made the right move - in public, in front of everyone. Even Mr. Obama echoed the self-doubt intrinsic to the Democratic Party of the post-Clinton years; speaking in St. Paul, Minnesota last night he addressed this issue, telling his crowd of supporters, "You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations." Without meaning to sound smug or facetious...it's about fucking time.

The Democrats, now that they have confirmed the People's candidate, have just finished the bike leg of this triathlon to the White House; the marathon that is the presidential campaign is a few months off. They will convene in August to demonstrate how ready they are to tackle the Republican presidential machine, show a united front (to themselves, mainly) and unveil the most anticipated Democratic ticket in many decades. Talk will now gravitate towards vice-presidential nomination strategies, Obama's safety and security, the historical context of Obama's candidacy, and endless round table discussions on Race in America.

I find hope in the challenge Mr. Obama's candidacy presents. I believe a Clinton coronation, assumed by so many, would have revealed an America disingenuous with itself and it's desire for meaningful change.

I look forward to watching Mr. Obama lead a renewed Democratic Party to the White House. I look forward to seeing how colour-blind the US has become. I am excited to see what will happen when the most powerful nation on the planet - a country increasingly defined by it's contradiction - elects a man of mixed race as it's leader.

I am uncertain what this project will end up being about. All endeavours in life end up being reflections of what efforts are made, how much honesty and sincerity have been applied. I want to reconnect with my love of writing, and see this as an oportunity - gratuitously self-aggrandizing though it may seem - to do so in an organized and hopefully entertaining way. We shall see!