personal
Archived Posts from this Category
Recording “To Shiver the Sky”
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 May 2020 | Tagged as: aviation, culture, music, personal, travel
The conductor beat out a measure. A rich orchestra sound flowed from 80 headphones into 80 heads. With a sound like an earthquake’s rumble overlaid with angelic choirs, 80 voices sang out: “Una Volta che Avrai…“. And I was sitting 10 metres in front of them. Wow.
Impressions of Italian grocery stores
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Oct 2019 | Tagged as: culture, personal, travel
For the last six weeks, I’ve been shopping at grocery stores in Venice, Naples, Rome, and Florence. My Carissima and I are self-catering during an extended trip through Italy. My grocery store sample is limited and unrepresentative, but even so, the experience makes me appreciate the treasures at these Italian groceries. And, it helps me appreciate by contrast what they grocery stores back home in B.C. do well. Continue Reading »
Macbeth
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 30 Jun 2019 | Tagged as: community, culture, music, personal, Vancouver
I’m going to be in an opera! I am in the chorus of Heroic Opera’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth on Friday 5. July and Saturday 6. July in Vancouver. It will be a marvelous show. The singers are powerful and exciting, the direction is incisive, the costumes are lavish.
To the children whose parent just died
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Aug 2018 | Tagged as: community, personal
To K. and C.:
It is a sad, painful road you have to walk. I know, because I had to walk a similar road myself back when I was 19 years old, and my younger brothers only 17 and 16 years.
Be kind to yourselves. The grief is real. Over time it recedes, but expect it to wash in again every so often.
But your strength is also real. You are not the first to walk this road, and you will not be the last. But others have found life, consolation, and joy despite the road — and because of the road.
You will too.
You had a wonderful mother, and I say this having only ever known her back, and left shoulder, on the Orpheum stage. How much more of her wonderfulness you received.
Yours in tears and strength, step after step,
—Jim DeLaHunt
Background: Four times in the past six years, untimely death has rippled my wider circles. Twice a parent died, leaving behind teen-aged children. Once an adult child died, leaving a parent bereft. Once a father died as a young adult child was about to get married. Each time I found myself reaching back to my own grief at my father’s untimely death, when I was young myself, for words of comfort drawn from my healing. The most recent time was a week ago. I wrote a card to the two teenagers who survived their mother’s death. It seemed fitting to capture the message, because there will probably be a fifth and a sixth time. I’m leaving out the detail of their identity, because the message stands without it.
We are sponsoring a refugee family
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Mar 2018 | Tagged as: Canada, community, government, personal, Vancouver
A month ago, three human beings were in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. Now they are in Canada, and I am part of the team helping to take care of them. It has been wonderful to watch Canada welcome them. Continue Reading »
Celebration of the Life of Elizabeth Allwyn (1927-2016)
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 26 Sep 2016 | Tagged as: personal
Our mother, Elizabeth Boise Allwyn, passed away on September 18 from illness. The family invites her friends and neighbours to a celebration of her life.
September 28, 2016 (Weds) 2:00-2:45pm
Dining Room, the Willows
3115 Squalicum Parkway, Bellingham [map]
As our mother wished, this will be a simple affair. Family members and friends will speak on different aspects of Elizabeth and what she brought to the world. There will be an open space for participants to share their own feelings and memories.
A short reception will follow.
The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Lydia Place (lydiaplace.org) and to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Greater Illinois Chapter (nationalmssociety.org/Chapters/ILD).
Directions:Â The Willows is near St Joseph’s hospital and the Sunset Drive exit of I-5. By bus, Whatcom Transit Authority routes 3 and 4 stop right in front of the building. By car, take I-5 to exit 255 (Sunset Drive). Head west on Sunset Drive; after 0.3 mi, right (north) onto Ellis Street; after 0.2 mi, first right onto Squalicum Parkway (St Joseph’s Hospital is straight ahead); after 0.1 mi, at a sign for The Willows, left onto Levin Lane, then forward until you enter the Willows parking lot. There is limited parking in the Willows. You might find it easier to park in the clinic parking lot to the left just before the Willows driveway. Continue Reading »
No longer a foreign troublemaker in Canada
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Jan 2016 | Tagged as: Canada, personal, USA
I’m no longer a foreign troublemaker in Canada. I’m now a Canadian citizen troublemaker!
On 29. January, 2016, Ducky and I affirmed allegiance to the Queen of Canada, and completed our metamorphosis into Canadian citizens. It was a brief ceremony, an hour and a half made up of bureaucracy with a layer of pomp and ceremony. There were 80 new Canadians, from about 15 different countries. The couple next to us were from England and from Scotland — I wonder how they grappled with shifting their allegiance from the Queen of the United Kingdom to the Queen of Canada. We spent our first 45 minutes shuffling up to a counter, where our application was checked one last time. This was a formality; the filter was last November’s citizenship test. We sat in 80 numbered chairs, which ensured we were in the same order as the stack of 80 Certificates of Citizenship. We heard a speech. We recited the Oath (or in my case, Affirmation) of Citizenship, in English, then in French. (Thankfully, our presiding Judge Roy Wong had quite good French, unlike the cringeworthy mangle we heard at a high-profile Canada Day citizenship ceremony a few years ago.) We sang “O Canada”: mostly in English, keener me in the bilingual version. We filed past Judge Wong in our carefully numbered order, and received the correct Certificate of Citizenship. Most people went off to work. A few of us stayed for photos.
Interestingly, we lost our Canadian permanent resident cards in the transaction; we are now citizens, not permanent residents. If we were to visit the US soon, we might not be able to get back in to Canada. So our next task is to apply for Canadian passports. Hopefully, they will be mailed to us within a couple of weeks. Then we tell the NEXUS program about our changed status, and are free to scamper across the border again.
We don’t lose our US citizenship. It used to that 8 U.S.C. § 1481 took away your US citizenship, if you became a naturalized citizen of another country. But the US Supreme Court ruled (in Afroyim vs Rusk (1967), according to Wikipedia at least) that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution overrules that Congressional statute. So now we stay US citizens until we express a clear intent not to be. And it’s a great situation to have: the privilege to live in a wonderful country like Canada, while still being able to travel and work in the USA. When first we moved to Canada, the cross-border tax expert, the late David Ingram, counseled us to get Canadian citizenship as soon as we could; for born US citizens it was all upside and no downside. He was right. Sure, we get the joy of filing both US and Canadian tax returns. But there are experts who help us with that, and a tax treaty that most of the time means each dollar is taxed by either Canada or the US, not by both.
For our first year as new citizens, we get free admission to thousands of parks and museums nationwide, thanks to the Cultural Access Pass. VIA Rail will give us 50% off a ticket, even a multi-week cross-country sleeper car trip. We are planning our adventures already! And we were touched by the enthusiastic welcome from Canadian friends on Facebook (and warm congratulations from US friends), also this one, and this one, and this one.
Oh, Canada, our home and (naturalised) land!
Why I won’t buy Chums anytime soon
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Aug 2015 | Tagged as: personal
I won’t be buying Chums eyewear retainers anytime soon.
1000m above the ground in my paraglider is no place for my dark glasses to fall off. My prescription dark glasses, you see, without which I can barely make out anything. So, I relied on my Chums eyewear retainer on my dark glasses. Imagine my dismay when I pulled them out of my helmet bag recently, and saw this: Continue Reading »
I still do
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 22 Aug 2013 | Tagged as: marriage equality, personal
Today back in 1998, my uncle Spencer Boise asked me, “Jim and Ducky, do you both recognize the rights and responsibilities inherent in the marriage contract?” and I replied, “I do. I have come here freely to take this woman to be my wife. I promise to love her, comfort her, honor her, and keep her, above all others.”
Continue Reading »
The Social Justice Tithe
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 31 Dec 2012 | Tagged as: culture, personal, robobait
With the year coming to an end, it is the season of making donations to organisations doing good in the world. In both Canada and the USA, this is motivated by a tax deadline; donations to certain charities by December 31 can be tax deductions for that year. It’s an opportunity to lay out here a concept that I helped draft a decade ago: the “Social Justice Tithe”.
The Social Justice Tithe means giving at least 10% of your income to some combination of charities, religious groups, and political groups that enact your values.