Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

Contact

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

recent posts

  • Keep getting up

    I am the perpetually novice skier. I’ve been downhill skiing since I was 19. I’ve been cross-country skiing since I was 28. But years (heck, decades) can go by between outings. Every time I do go, the downhill slope looks as daunting as the first. Then I ski down it and a hint of muscle memory returns. Then again, a bit more. Every time on cross country skis, I freak out when the trail turns and drops. I can turn. I can descend, but not simultaneously!

    I was feeling somewhat sad about this. How is it I am six decades along in life and still skiing only the easiest of runs. But after a three-day weekend of doing both kinds of skiing, I realized, this is me. Perpetually novice skier. So I will just enjoy all the best parts of it and laugh about the tumbles.

    The best parts: three days in a cabin on a lake with the amazing Craig and the wonderful Isaac. Beautiful mountains, stunning night skies. Occasional encounters with people in an actual sleigh being pulled by a muscular clydesdale. Feeling that muscle memory return.

  • First principles: Imperfection

    Thanks, Google, for letting me know that I am reading “A Brief History of Time” on author Stephen Hawking’s birthday. And thanks for creating such a great animated video with Hawking narrating. One of the quotes: “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Without imperfection neither you nor I would exist.” What a stellar human.

  • A musical pact with a 96-year-old

    My mother and I confessed our shameful secret to each other on New Year’s day. Irene told me she had stopped practicing the piano and I said I couldn’t remember when I last picked up my guitar. We commiserated on our failure to be our best selves, and then agreed that we’d help each other by promising to report via email every day that we had done at least a little practicing, even just 10 minutes.

    And this is what I adore about my mother. That at 96, and wheelchair-aided and living in a nursing home in southern Alberta, she’s still got game. I took this picture of her when I visited in November 2020 — height of covid, no vaccines available. I had to quarantine in Canada for two weeks before I could see her and let me just say that she was worth it. We had so much fun. On the last day of my visit it had been snowing, and when I arrived at the nursing home for a last goodbye Irene was busy putting on coat and hat and gloves.

    “What are you doing?” I asked

    “I’m going outside. It’s snowing!” she said with that gleam in her eye that always brightens a room. I would say she wears her soul on her sleeve, not just her heart.

    So. We didn’t say anything about resolutions for the new year. We just agreed we’d be a practicing support system for each other. We are a week in, and we are good.