I don’t know how many times I got lost in the North End of Van Dyke Road. It was my Grandma Elsie who told me not to count things like that. Returning from ice skating at Noonan’s Park with my two cousins, she asked how it went. “I fell six times,” I said. “Why would you count that?” She shook her head with tight lips, handed me a variety pack size of Kellogg’s cereal, and I knew not to do it again. 

Wandering once again down the hill into the untamed North End, I found myself disoriented. When it happened, the only thing to do was to look up. Up was familiar. Up carried the sound of garage doors opening, bicycles popping wheels in the gravel. Up was familiar. Comforting. Home.

I suppose we always have a need to get to higher ground. I hope we do anyway. And we can’t get there by counting our failures, but striving to do better. It’s always up. “Things are looking up. Get your hopes up. Spirits are running high.” 

It took a couple of hours to finish her — the woman in the sketchbook. Two hours of her looking up, telling me to keep looking up. I count on my sketchbook, my hands, my heart, for such things. I’m pretty sure Grandma Elsie would be ok with that.