Five Years a Writer

Just four of my recently purchased gold-rimmed "things" that, to my eye, are lovely. I wonder what their story is... We are in the season of many things. Some things are wrapped up and exchanged as gifts. Some things are welcome, come with a story, and are cherished. Other things...well, not so much.  We are in the season of many things, so I have been thinking about things...  Inanimate objects. Maybe a hair ribbon, a hubcap, a diary, or a notebook.  Each inanimate, until we do something with it — the hair ribbon that holds together the silky golden hair of the first grader; a diary filled with appointments and names and to do lists. A notebook with scraps of writing that amount to something, maybe. A hubcap that protects the lug bolts on the wheel until the car hits a rut and the hubcap bounces off — left to rust in the ditch. Then, if you’re in a crime story, that hub cap holds the key to the murder case because it pinpoints the location of the one crucial detail that ...

I am retreating. Between mid-December and early January, I shall be tending to the important mat ters of solitude, sleep and self-care (a term I find somewhat nauseating even while valuing the action itself). Though retired from full-time work and deeply privileged with my home & hearth and general well being, I am sick and tired of the state of the world beyond my own four walls. I am sick of politicians and billionaires yammering about one thing while delivering another; sick of commercial enterprises inundating me with ads exhorting me to spend in order to save, to give in order to redeem, and to shop local — but shop nonetheless; and so sick and tired of both real and metaphorical murder & mayhem all around. I want out and away from all that — for a while, at least. I want peace and quiet. Paper and pen. Laptop and tea. Ideas that transform to story. And I want time without obligation and expectation. I no longer work full time, so, of course, I have time. But it’s a matter...

When my older sister was just a young girl, she asked the assembled adults this riddle-question:   “When is a door not a door?” The adults knew the answer, When it’s ajar , but my sister didn’t get it quite right.   “When it is a jam pot!”, she offered in reply to her own question, then, I’m sure, giggled madly. Such fun to have outwitted the grownups!   I don’t remember this directly, but I recall with fondness my mother’s retelling of this tale, which inspired me recently to invent the character in the short story below. Poor Clemmy, such a good heart, such a lot of not-quite-right in her life.   *** Getting it right, but not exactly right was one of her specialities.   When asked to contribute a salad to the potluck, she would bring a jello mould with fruit cocktail and tiny marshmallows, not the leafy greens dressed delicately with a homemade vinaigrette that was wanted.   She adopted a cat from the local humane society but it was a sickly thing with on...

William Morris design on a magnet There is nothing ‘designer’ about me or my home. I like what I like, things don't need to match, and labels don't impress me. But I do  appreciate the quote from British designer William Morris: “Own nothing … not useful or beautiful.”  Now, we could debate long and hard what ‘useful’ and ‘beautiful’ means to each of us, but when the Morris quote was the prompt in a writing group  recently , it got me thinking about my iPhone — a thing of both beauty and usefulness, in my view.  I was out for a walk one afternoon, my phone tucked into my back left pocket, and before I knew it my mind went down a creative rabbit hole: I would have a conversation with (not on) my iPhone! This is what I said.  ——————— You are so beautiful. Sleek, elegant, slim.  You are so useful — ever-present though easily muted, an easy fit in my back pocket, so handy, so wide reaching. And yet  — I don’t think William Morris would approve of you despi...

MONTREAL, Canada, Fall 1967: I remember the feel of the cool fall air on my bare knees, as I walked to school in my pinafore-dress-white-blouse uniform. The nip of the wind against my skin got me moving fast towards the warmth of the building and my classroom that held a desk of my very own. BANBURY, England, Fall 1973: I remember the creamy custard poured by the school-lunch ladies, out of white enamel jugs — large, the ladies (from my perspective, as a short 13-year-old) and the jugs (never holding enough). The custard, sweet, warm, the flavour of comfort to make the pudding (think Bake-Off sponge) taste delicious. And I remember the fact of learning, the fun of my friends, and the frantic pace of the field hockey games that left my fingers so cold I could barely unbutton my skirt-and-Airtex-blouse Phys Ed uniform. I want to remember that I loved those games. I shall remember that I did. What I cannot remember is any fear, any frights, any famine. My childhood and young adulthood w...