Posts

From Page to Stage: Writers perform their words

Image
Many years ago I had a bad experience collaborating with three others on a small business venture; we had grand ideas but somehow forgot (how?) to factor in the effort to find clients for our service. Crazy, and stupid, too. But, as my dear mother comforted me, the money I lost was far less than I ever would have paid for an MBA — and the lessons I learned run deep and inform my decision-making to this day. So. With that experience and those lessons in mind, I am putting it out here today that, a few (or maybe several or possibly many) months down the line — if all goes according to a larger plan, I’ll be seeking an audience for a venture that exists, so far, only in my head, and for which the location is not yet ready. Amanda playing a nerdy kid in "Emil and The Detectives" at the children's theatre,  summer 1978 While my main creative act these days is writing, back in my younger days I did a lot of theatre — beginning in Grade Two when I played the shoemaker’s wife in

How to replace a toilet seat in just four YouTube videos

Image
Blessings of the universe on the makers of helpful YouTube how-to videos! We bought our house almost 24 years ago, because Val and I liked the layout of the main floor, which enabled us to knock out several walls to open up the space. We redid the kitchen from the ground up, taking down the wall into the dining room to create one large light-filled cooking, eating and living space. We knocked the two small bedrooms into one large one. But we left the bathroom alone. It was functional, the pink colour scheme was bearable in the short term, and our bank account needed time to rebuild itself. Three years in, we mapped out a plan for a new bathroom — from the studs out. We hired the necessary contractors, developed a razor-sharp project timeline, and then headed to the cottage for the duration of the work. Remarkably, the reno went according to plan and we returned to a modern bathroom. (Albeit with the solid and supremely heavy original iron bathtub still in place; that was simply too muc

LETTERS & LINES: Twenty-six on 20

Image
Poetry is not my usual medium, but sometimes a prompt will inspire me to write in that form.  Below is a piece sparked by a contest; the challenge was to write a poem in 20 lines focused on loss.  The 20-line constraint got me thinking about other number-defined things and, somehow, the alphabet came to mind  —  26 letters. Hmmmm, I pondered: How about a poem in 20 lines about 26 letters. OK, I said to myself, I'll give it a go.  The content evolved as I wrote, with me not knowing at line 1 where I would end up at line 20; all I knew was that, somehow, I needed to make the 26 letters of the English alphabet the focus woven around the idea of 'loss'. And do this on 20 lines. (How long is a line? What do the contest creators mean by 'line'? I don't know and I didn't let that bother me.)  The result is below. I'll let you be the judge of it... All I know is that,  even though I missed the contest deadline,  I had fun playing with my idea in this form, and

Love in the Archives: Living with profound grief

Image
Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins Baltimore, MD: Apprentice House Nov. 7 2023 Posted to Amazon It seems crass to say I enjoyed this memoir-in-essays, given that it’s about how Eileen Vorbach Collins finds her way back into — and keeps herself in — the land of the living following her daughter Lydia’s death by suicide. But I did, and there is much to appreciate: the award-winning writing; the unvarnished truth about the bone-deep grief she continues to feel; and the grounding of her experience in the everyday. Vorbach Collins’ essays make clear that being present to the quotidian — mothering her younger son, Daniel; returning to work; finding her way into support groups; continuing to breathe even while screaming her anguish at unexpected moments — is the challenge after her cataclysmic loss. Vorbach Collins uses writing as a way to process her grief and her experience of living with that grief, still, more than twenty years after the death of her daughter. I am grateful s

Woman. Freedom. Fear. #IWD2024

Image
Bread and roses, bread and roses...   Advice for a woman wanting to live free in 2024 Learn independence early, for it is addictive. Live in the gaps between the stories. Don’t take NO for an answer. Dance in the face of your fear. The only real freedom is freedom from fear. There is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of your mind. Then & now I spent my 'gap' year  between high school and university working as a nanny  in Grenoble, France. One time, returning from a weekend away, I walked home  from the train station after midnight. It was not fun, but walking was the only option. It wasn’t far to the flat; my host family was not responsible for picking me up; and, for some reason, I couldn’t or wouldn’t take a taxi. I made it home without incident and climbed the ancient stone stairs at the back of the building and into the safety of my room and my bed. I was young, just turned 18, and I was fine. I am considerably older today and there is no way

Star charts and motivation: Staying active in my post-commuting world

Image
Amanda ( in blue jacket ), way back in her sporty days, possibly in Switzerland, circa 1965 When I was about five or six maybe, it was time for me to stop sucking my thumb. My clever mother induced me to change my behaviour by making me a star chart: Every day of not sticking my thumb into my mouth (sounds horrid to me now, but I remember vividly the sense of comfort I derived from it — paired with my super soft blankie rubbing against my cheek ….mmmmmmm, so lovely) — every day of not engaging in that particular form of soothing behaviour would earn me a small gold star. A full week of such grown-up behaviour would earn me a BIG gold star at the end of the line. And a full month got me… something, I don’t remember what, maybe a set of roller skates or a pack of gum. The big payoff, I think, was not as important to me as those daily and weekly gold stars. Small shiny things that marked my daily progress in a visually accountable way. The method worked. I stopped sucking my thumb. And

In the dark times, we must sing

Image
In dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times. from “Motto” by Bertolt Brecht We are in dark times. Though I cannot sing (in tune), I can write and I do write, so that is what I am doing in these dark times. Writing about these dark times. The world is witnessing the beginning of Year Three of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed so far and countless civilians dead or maimed, I wonder how much worse it can get. Of course, actually, the world has already gotten a whole lot worse with the October 7 invasion of Israel by Hamas last year. A stark and bloody reminder that dark times can always get darker. How to survive? For those fortunate enough by happenstance of birth to be nowhere close to those two conflicts (only two of 80  in the world today  according to the Geneva Academy ), I believe it’s important to be aware of the magnitude, to witness the horror, to hold the victims in our heart, and to keep hope aliv