Five Years a Writer

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The Edge after Happiness: Imagining inside the mind of the caretaker

- February 10, 2026

One day towards the end of my father’s life, while he was still at home but no longer the man of whom my mother had thought on first meeting him, 'If he were to ask me to go to India with him tonight , I would go' — one day, six-decades-plus later, my friend J was helping my mother with some banking. J asked Mum something about how she was doing given Dad’s state of health — and Mum replied, 'Well, the man I would have gone to India with, without even knowing his name, that man is long gone.' By this point, Mum had been caregiver to Dad following a stroke about ten years prior and, though she never said a word to me or my siblings, she was obviously tired on many levels — fulfilling her duty, fine, but possibly no longer experiencing flutters of unfettered joy in the relationship. I never talked to my mother about the toll my father’s illness took on her (she was intensely private about such matters) and now that she is dead, I cannot ever have that conversation wit...

The joy of musical resistance: Singing strengthens bonds, invigorates community

- February 03, 2026

It was silent in the yoga studio that early Sunday morning, as about a dozen of us sat in meditation. After a certain amount of time, that silence cracked open when one of the women broke into song. While I don’t remember her name or what she was singing, I do remember the impact of her voice raised in song in that setting. It honoured the group and invited the collective to move from silence to active connection. It was quite something — in the moment and, as my memory attests, it remains so in my mind and my heart all these decades later. I can't really hold a tune, myself, but I love music and song, and I have been reminded of the power of both by watching what has been happening in Minneapolis. People are resisting in many ways, including by singing, which lifts my heart and moves me to tears. A community organizer in Minneapolis was being interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about Singing Resistance , a group that organizes groups to sing together on the street and in public p...

HOW we read is maybe more important, even, than WHAT we read: The importance of "deep reading"

- January 27, 2026

My 'to be read' pile -- honest to goodness old-fashioned books, plus my Kindle (limited connection to the internet) I start my day with words. Well. With word games . On my phone. Wordle then Spelling Bee then Connections then Strands . All via the New York Times , in which I might scan the headlines and might sometimes read the full stories. But the word games are a daily ritual — a brain warm-up for the day ahead. I move through each puzzle at my own pace, sometimes jumping between them if I get stuck, and often listening to early-morning radio in the background. Sometimes, the words coming at me over the airwaves capture my attention and then my imagination and then I am diverted down a thinking road sparked by more words, other words, words that paint a picture of... something out there in the larger world. And then I might get bored with that spoken-word-painted story and I return to the word game on the small screen of my phone. Throughout the day, I read many...

When taking a risk is the only option, the only question is when (and how) to act

- January 20, 2026

I am feeling very January-ish these days. Maybe not surprising, since we are just past the mid-point of this inevitable opening month to the new year... A lot has happened (and is happening) on the geopolitical stage and, try as I might to make it not so, what world leaders do filters down into my daily life. I refuse to look away. In fact, I am doubling down by embracing the new-to-me social media experience of THREADS (part of Meta’s online empire that includes Facebook and Instagram). I entered the Threads world cautiously, not really wanting to be there but, once there, became swept up in the remarkable real-time documentation of the day’s news by ordinary people (always check their profile, always verify their identity). Which is how I found myself, via my phone screen, on the streets of Minneapolis seeing up-to-the-minute recordings of ICE agents doing a horrifyingly realistic job of acting like thugs against ordinary Minnesotans doing such outrageous...

Instructions for living a life: Peas in a pod or what?

- January 13, 2026

Peas in a pod: the same, yet distinct The larger world is fraught, very fraught, these days. I pay attention, yes, and I ground myself by standing firm on the foundation of my daily living, the roots of which run deep. . . In my early university days back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I fancied myself a budding intellect. I loved sitting around with my friends talking, talking, talking with coffee or beer in hand — solving the problems of the day and debating the politics of the moment. The secondhand bookstore just down the block from the coffee shop we frequented held endless fascination for me, and I spent many a happy hour browsing the shelves and exploring the big world of ideas they held. I discovered the unusual art of Aubrey Beardsley , and somewhere along the way I found the poetry of Kahlil Gibran . Neither was being taught in any of my classes, but each captured my imagination, and opened my eyes and my mind to the world around and beyond me. Gibran’s poem “...

The sharp edge of a new year heralds fear, power, courage and risk: Let's go!

- January 06, 2026

A fresh blotter on my craft table for my notes and jottings in this new year. I like the sharp edge of a new year. We are done with the old and, with a flip of the calendar page, we are into a brand new beginning. Three hundred and sixty-five days in which to be and do ‘new’ or, maybe, to keep being and doing what we have always been and done: Being ourselves to the best of our ability. Either way — new or more of the same, the year will unfold and so will we: Unfold. Open up. Step into…whatever we are able to make of this year 2026. Before sprawling head-first into the new year, I like to look back to assess the past year, which I usually do by reviewing my phone and desk calendars, taking stock of personal appointments, teaching highlights, and writing milestones, then crafting some kind of story about the past twelve months. But this year I did something different. I looked at my craft table blotter on which I jot down things that catch my attention while listening to the...

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