Roxanne Delage Media Arts

While sharing testimony, a number of years ago, someone explained to me the notion of living life wide, or deep. That you can set up roots in one place and grow your life, deep like a majestic oak, or spread your seeds in the wind like rolling fields of dancing wild flowers. Neither is right nor wrong, better or worse, no more or less fulfilling. They are simply different paths. 

I have, in my life, lived both. 

As a child, my free-spirited mother carved out a wide path for my sisters and me, instilling a voracious sense of adventure in my soul. At 18, when I left the shelter of her, although not always stable, but loving and well-meaning wing, I continued to expand my path. 

For years, however, no matter where I was, throughout the year, my heart always led me home at Christmas. They were synonymous – home and Christmas. It was like a beacon. 

Mother loved this time of year and always, despite our meager means, made everything beautiful. It was one constant in our turbulent childhood, and subsequently, on my wide-life path. Although she's been gone for almost half my life, now, I'll hold those memories, dearly, forever.

After many years of some deep living, I put what I could in my van and went on to beat my path and spread my wings even wider and further than they had ever been. It was transformational, inspiring, healing. 

Then one morning, after thousands of miles and four Christmases away, I felt called, like a soft whisper, to come home. .. So I did… Think I’ll live a little deep for a while. 

Time to Come Home 

My long road home has no regret 

No tangled trail to forget 

Not a stone unturned 

Not a bridge is burned 

It’s just time to come home 

The first time I left I was just a girl 

On my way to move the world 

Some time has passed since I set sail 

Going back to where they send my mail 

It’s just time to come home 

Footlights and late nights 

Now, on back home, I set my sights 

To rest instead, the wings I spread 

Just going home to lay my head 

It’s time to come home 

Somewhere near East Jesus, it occurred to me 

It was time to turn around; home’s where I want to be 

Little dog rides shotgun, singing road songs all along 

Back to the place where they notice that I’m gone 

Crossed all Ts and dotted Is 

And all the who, what, when, where, whys 

This town’s been good, this town’s been bad 

The only home I’ve ever had 

Now it’s time to come home 

With new stories to tell, for a one-night-only performance, I’m overjoyed to join forces, once again, with my old band brothers, including  the masterful, Rod Robillard, on guitar, the ethereal, Marc Carrière, on the flute, and the consummate, Jim Sharp, on drums. Joining our musical family is my family, sister and brother-in-law, Leigh and Al MacDonald, singing backup, and rounding out the cast, is special guest, bassist extraordinaire, Duane Smith. 

We’ll be performing some brand new originals, some old favourites from the first album, and also covering a selection of our most-beloved traditional and contemporary Christmas songs. 

The show will take place at the picturesque Cornwall Golf and Country Club, on Thursday, December 12, starting at 7 pm. Doors open at 6:30. This is a licensed event. Show tickets ($20 per) are available through e-transfer to roxanne@roxannedelage.com or at the door. 

Dinner reservations can be made separately through the Club, by leaving a voice mail at 613-931-1122 ext. 227. 

We’d love to see you there!

March 29, 2019

It was my birthday, yesterday. I turned 55. 

Like most days since I moved out to the country, in late fall, my morning routine was much the same. 

First thing is first, I start the fire which has inevitably burned out during the night. I open up the vents and stir the ashes in hopes there are hot coals still clinging on to life. I throw on a couple of small splits, make coffee and tend to The Toots. 

I open up the curtains on three large, south-facing windows and check the tall pine trees, which helps me gauge how strong the wind is blowing, hence, how big I can build my fire. 

I have heated entirely by wood, this winter, a ritual which I have enjoyed immensely. It brings me back to my early childhood, living with my grandparents, in Laggan, Ontario. Nannie would make toast on the stove using a reconfigured wire hanger. Everything tastes better on the woodstove. 

With a French press of coffee and my lap top, I sit at my desk, in front of the windows, looking out at the trees, the snow, and the lonely, wooden, lovers’ swing, immobilized for the last four months by snow and ice and the absence of a suitable candidate. 

Through the cluster of tall pines, across the road, is the Mennonite church where my neighbours gather to worship. I love to hear the clip-clop of hooves coming down the road. I stop what I’m doing and watch the parade when they come by. 

So anyway, yesterday, as I sipped my coffee and checked some sweet messages of birthday well-wishes, I noticed a lone crow coming to settle on the very top of the long, gangly sprig, on the tallest of the hundred or so pines on the property, her weight bending it over. 

It was windy, but she hung on for the longest time, teetering and balancing like a daredevil high-wire act. Although she could have flown off to somewhere safe, she just braved the wind and maneuvered her wings out to help her keep her balance.

I couldn’t help wonder why. Why would she hang on like that, and lean into the struggle, when she could very well have just flown away to a lower branch or tucked herself in, somewhere, away from the wind? 

Then, it struck me, and I understood where she was coming from… She was loving it!

For a great part of my life, I’ve been hanging on for dear life, grabbing at the tallest, metaphorical branches that I can reach, teetering in the wind. Although, I could always choose a lower, safer branch, often, I choose the most precarious of branches, in sometimes the strongest of winds. I’m not always successful and I’ve taken some falls, but one thing is for certain, and the crow can attest to it, the view from those branches is spectacular. 

Thank you so much for the kindness you paid me, yesterday - family, friends, community and those I’ve met along my journey. I love you, too xxx

It happens every year around this time... Wanderlust... I’ve got it, it’s bad, and it’s sure to get worse as spring morphs into summer.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have had a love affair with the ocean. The first time I saw “big water” was in 1976, on a family trip to Vancouver. We were living in Edmonton at the time… Now there’s a whole ‘nother’ story…

We had moved to Ottawa in 1974, from Alexandria (via a year in Cornwall) and my gypsy mamma decided that it was time to sell everything we owned (not that there was that much to begin with) and move across the country. I can remember all our belongings being laid out on the front lawn at the grandmother’s place and it being auctioned off, carried away, by strangers… toys, records, dishes, everything… 

We only stayed out west for a couple of months. I remember returning back to Ottawa and living in a virtually empty apartment, for a while. Eventually, my sister and I bought a second hand record player from the neighbour upstairs, financed by our babysitting money. At least, we had music. We collected 45s. It was the summer of Bohemian Rhapsody, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, and Silly Love Songs…  

Anyway… Back to Vancouver…  

Although I was very young, I can remember feeling how grand and special the ocean was. It was early spring, cold and rainy, but my mother still took off her shoes and put her feet in just to say she was in the ocean. I may have missed the significance at the time, but I realized as I got older that it was something else that I inherited from my mother - an unmistakable draw to the ocean.

April 1, 2018

Happy April, Happy Easter, Happy Spring and Happy Belated Birthday to me.

I have just recently celebrated another birthday. I like birthdays for many reasons. This one, I spent with two dear sister friends. It was a wonderfully rainy and dismal, late March St. John's Day, so other than a walk with the Toots, between the raindrops, we stayed in. We had fish tacos, red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and wine, a lovely chat about everything and nothing, and watched Lady Bird.

The film wasn't what we thought it would be, after all the hype, but we certainly all agreed that it reminded us of our generation's version of that coming of age genre, Pretty in Pink. Remember that one? Ah, a road trip down memory lane, another reason I like birthdays. Thanks Witches!

In honour of road trips and birthdays, I want to re-post an entry from a couple of years ago.