Five Years a Writer

Scilla, a hardy early spot of colour in my Canadian prairie flowerbed: a sure sign that change is coming Many years ago, an acquaintance asked me who my partner was. “Why, Val, of course,” I replied. “Oh my goodness,” came the response. “You’re still with her ?” The tone was incredulous, the message clear: After all these years and you’re still with that woman. The implied exclamation points did not suggest anything positive. I was astonished then and remain so. That anyone would suggest that a connection cemented over time, that a commitment firmed through the ups and downs of experience is not something to honour and nurture, to cherish and to work with. Of course, not every relationship is worthy of such respect. Some should never have been started never mind have lasted; some should cease limping along out of mere habit. But ending a relationship purely ‘for the sake of change’ or because ‘it’s been X number of years and new is better’ is, in my view, an odd approach to living in ...

Dare to declare who you are.  It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech.  The path is not long, but the way is deep.  You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap. St. Hildegard of Bingen Lucky enjoyed being in the sun, but she loved having the wind in her face. She would sit for hours on the front step, watching the kids playing in the lane, but her favourite times were when we drove out of town a ways and walked through the open countryside, the breeze keeping things fresh and clear for both of us. Lucky would trot ahead of me, looking, sniffing, exploring the world at ground level, always hoping for something exciting. Sometimes, she would get the scent of a rabbit or maybe another dog that had passed along the path earlier in the day and she would streak off to see what exciting thing she could find. But mostly she was content to stick close to me and walk as my companion in the beautiful landscape of the English Lake Distric...

Saturday will mark the first anniversary of my mother’s death; it feels rather like waiting for that other shoe to drop — expecting it, knowing it must come in the natural order of things, and wondering what it will feel like when it arrives. No way around it; it will simply be. A day — another day, an otherwise ordinary day on which to live in Mum’s absence while knowing her love for me is ever-present in my heart. My mother was not one for marking private anniversaries publicly, though she enjoyed being celebrated on her birthday. She didn’t believe in a ‘special’ day for mothers in May: “Love me every day or don’t bother me on Mother’s Day,” was, essentially, her attitude, though she never said those exact words. I would call her anyway, to needle her a bit about the day and to ensure she could chime in with others at dinner about phone calls from offspring. I don’t need a special day to remember my mother. I think of her all the time, speak often of her with my partner, Val; with ...

April is many things, including ‘ the cruelest month ’. In my neck of the woods, it is the month of yoyo weather that sees a hall closet bursting full with every type of jacket needed for what the up-and-down-and-back-again weather might bring: On Saturday, we reached 18 degrees Celsius, while Monday morning brought light snowfall. Sheesh. But, in my heart, April is the month of mothers, for mine died last year on the 26th of this month, while Val’s mother died on the 7th in 1999. We speak often of these fine women, as one should of those we have loved in a deep and formative way. And for me, I must confess, this includes talking about television. My mother and I used television as a love language between us.  We spent many a happy hour watching our favourite movies and shows together. This was no mere passive past-time; no, no. We wouldn’t just sit and watch, waiting for something to happen. Goodness, no. We provided our own commentary, speculations and assessments of the action a...

  Holly, the cat: in kitten hood; hiding in the ferns; relaxing in her dotage One year ago on this date, I arrived for the last time at my mother’s in Edmonton. She died three weeks later at the age of 95-and-a-half, after a long and good life. I’ll write more about my mother’s death another time; today, I am writing to celebrate a different long and good life — this one belongs to Holly, our feline companion who turns the equivalent of 84-human-years old today. I hesitate to call myself her ‘owner’; anyone who has ever had any kind of relationship with a cat knows full well that we don’t own them. We share our house and our heart with them and, if we are lucky, they return our love and affection with something akin to acceptance. Having grown up with cats as the family pet, I tried to branch out once I had my own place. In the early 1980s, I tried to share my life and home with a dog, but it was not a happy experience — for either of us. I did not understand how to relate to a dog...

NOTE:   I wrote this piece for my current writing group, in response to two prompts. First, a quote from Joanna Trollope’s 2017 novel  City of Friends : "…that tragedy was not going to spill over into making an equal tragedy of both their lives, and their marriage. 'I don’t mind the idea of sacrifice,' he said, 'I don’t even mind the fact of sacrifice. But it’s got to be worth it.'" Second, an oil painting by Swedish artist Anna Maria Lindholm Rogberg, titled 'Group Chat', depicting four girls at the beach: feet in the water, cellphones in hand, heads bowed to their screens. Together, yet apart. (Find her on Instagram  here .)   *** I didn’t get a cell phone until the summer of 2013. By then I had been teaching college students for about seven years, over which I had witnessed the steady rise of the cell phone in the classroom. What had once been an unusual and exceptional tool for only some students had become an extension of just about every student’...