Five Years a Writer

My cottage attire met the standards of need paired with availability; style was optional -- and unique.   Dear Clifftop Cottage: I wish I weren’t writing this letter, but the time has come. The choice is made, the deal done, the door closed. For good. For real. For us. For a new family, that same door is now wide open, and I bid them welcome and wish them the same times we had there. Years of hard work and good fun (often one and the same), of peace and quiet (except when it was noisy with people and power tools and vehicles), of that spectacular view (no matter the season or the weather, that view held our gaze and our heart), and of sighting the local wildlife (deer, bears, coyotes, foxes, otters, martens, birds, dragonflies, butterflies…). Looking back, every moment was worth it. Because, of course, memory fades of those moments when the cat caught a mouse behind the sofa (eek!); of when the toilet got plugged (argh!); of when the cottage was so cold when I arrived one early Decembe

I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going when I started to dig in the ground of my new front yard. I just knew that I didn’t want all that grass or that huge tree or the boring junipers around the house foundation. I was younger then, full of energy, so I just started. Deborah and I didn’t know what we were doing or where we would end up when we started to talk about our lives as women and as writers needing to embrace the changes that life had either thrust upon us or that we were calling into our lives. We just knew that our conversations were necessary and revealing and, ultimately, healing. We were not so young then, yet full of curiosity, so we just started. It was hard work ridding the front yard of what was probably decades of grass, but with the help of a good friend and the encouragement of my partner, it slowly disappeared into wheelbarrows and then down the riverbank at the end of my street. A little while into this method, I learned that the riverbank was private

Snowdrops are symbols of the promise that winter will end and spring will begin. On the Canadian prairie, every year, we desperately want to believe the promise of this tiny flower. The news is full of the US election. So many words, so much hot air, so many calls for Kamala Harris to get specific on policy. But I am fine with her focus on being “a joyful warrior for the people”, on generating “an opportunity economy”, and on her commitment to “not going back”. I am fine with this so-called soft approach, because I don’t put much stock in hard promises made on the campaign trail. A lot can happen between a promise made on the trail and that promise becoming law in office — wars can break out, pandemics can arise, economics can take a dive. And, regardless of any chaos that might arise, we expect our leaders to pivot on their platform and to keep our lives and our livelihoods on track. So, promises will, inevitably, get broken, though not always with good reason. Here in Canada, many of

I blame Katharine Hepburn . Maybe Lauren Bacall . Possibly Audrey Hepburn . But mostly Katharine Hepburn. With her glamorous looks, chic sense of style (those flowing, high-waisted trousers!), and her fierce independent spirit, I loved her on screen. I wanted what she had. Phooey — I wanted to be her. The closest I came was to smoke. Back in the 1960s, when I was not yet 10 years old, a woman smoking represented a woman independent, a woman of her own mind, a woman doing her own thing. That was the woman I wanted to be. So I smoked. To be sure, not real actual cigarettes. I ‘smoked’ short pencils or tightly rolled up paper, glued together and coloured at one end to represent the burning part. As you can see in the top photo, my siblings got in on the act and I was my most suave and sophisticated 8- or 9-year-old self lighting my sister’s ‘cigarette’. In high school, my best friend taught me how to inhale. Menthol cigarettes, pilfered from her mother’s supply as I recall. No wonder th

This week's post is a short story inspired by four things: a quote from Kay Redfield Jamison's memoir An Unquiet Mind (“Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.”); a photo of two young girls (below); the painting titled “Tea” by the astonishing American artist Andrew Kowch (see it here ); and a piece by my writing friend Darlene D that she read aloud in one of our "Spark your Writing" sessions. While writing is a solo act, it is most fun -- and often most productive -- when pursued in the company of generous and willing writers who share their talent and uplift my own efforts in the pursuit of story of every kind.  The story below is fiction; the core message of loving friendship is not.  Magdalen and Matilda: A good life The lifelong friendship between Magdalen and Matilda began in kindergarten and persisted into their old age. The abiding love between them overrode the niggling annoyances that any genuine friends

I watch the nightly news  in the vain hope  it won’t be all bad.  It is.  Bombs there. Murder here. Pain and suffering everywhere.  And, also, talk of freedom.  But I don’t want that freedom of more guns and  tighter borders and  lower taxes and  values so shallow they obliterate me.  I want the real thing.  Complex.  Challenging.  Alive with the tension of  difference and  nuance and  change, and seeded with love and respect and  community. I do not always understand this freedom  but I know with certainty it will hold me,  will take me into a future not yet spoken  but one that would speak for all.  A future built on the freedom  to be who we are,  to love whom we love,  to live in simple dignity.  Not one up or  one over the other, but  side by side. This freedom is  clean air to breathe,  pure water to drink,  real food to eat.  This freedom is  open borders,   open hearts,  open minds.  Vain hope?  I hope not.   I hope... ...........................................................