Five Years a Writer

Thank you to everyone who emailed or submitted a comment on last's week essay about their own childhood fear of the dark, and their own particular and creative way to handle that fear. I chuckled, I empathized, I loved knowing I was not alone in this very specific young-child fear... Memories of a different kind this week.  The view across Lake Winnipeg from Clifftop Cottage I have a love-hate relationship with my iPhone’s ‘photo memory’ feature. It shows me pictures from my camera roll, popping them onto my screen in a pattern known only to its own algorithm. I enjoy the ones of my late mother, to each of which I respond, Oh hello there, Mum. Good to see you. But when the phone selects one of the zillions of photos I took at the cottage, I am annoyed. They are lovely photos of a lovely spot, but having the picture appear unbidden always, every single time, reminds me of what I no longer have access to.  Selling the cottage was necessary, and selling the cottage changed how w...

...not my nasturtiums Ober-Eschbach, Germany, 1971: It was a sunny Saturday morning, but I dragged my feet walking home from school (a quaint German tradition — school on the weekend), because I knew that I was walking towards an empty house. A house gaping with rooms with no one in them to greet me. Quite unusually, my parents were off on a shopping expedition in Frankfurt (the big city) and wouldn’t return until early afternoon. My siblings were at friends’. I was on my own. Alone. In the house. And I was fearful of entering it. My 11-year-old imagination was fertile with goblins and monsters and generally bad people coming from the shadows of the laundry room to get me. My mother, knowing of my trepidation at being home alone, was clever: She had planned ahead with me. We had decided that I would enter the house through the basement door at the back of the house and would go directly to the play room at the end of the hallway. There, Mum would have left me a snack. All I had to end...

From left, my convocation photos: Bachelor of Arts (major in literary translation French to English)/University of Alberta, Edmonton. Bachelor of Journalism/King's College, Halifax. Master of Arts in applied communication/Royal Roads University, Victoria. When I was just 17, I didn’t understand the significance. By 22, I had figured it out, and by 28 and then 46, I knew the drill: Go to school, study hard, learn lots (not necessarily in the classroom), earn sufficient credits to be awarded the diploma or degree — and then don the cap and gown and walk across the stage to receive it. Pomp and circumstance have their place, and that place is at convocation, which marks the end of all the months and years of work and provides a moment to celebrate the achievement of all the hard work. But the extended impact of convocation ceremonies hit me only after I had finished my final degree and was now in the teaching role at my local college. Twice a year, instructors were asked to attend the...

Tintagel, South West Coast Path , Cornwall, England My memories of a family holiday in Cornwall, England from the early 1970s are few but vivid: fishing for mackerel off a small boat in a rocky sea; meeting the Fosters — a large and lovely family who taught us how to play Racing Demon, a raucous card game that we continued to play for years in our own family; and cool weather — family photos show us in jackets and long pants, no swim suits ever captured on camera. These memories are precious reminders for me of a particular summer * during my childhood. Hold that thought In 2018, when I heard of a new memoir by an unknown author about the walk she and her husband took along the South West Coast Path in Cornwall, I knew immediately that I wanted to read it: memoir is a genre I enjoy; the landscape through which the couple walked is raw and beautiful; and their story sounded amazing — hardship and loss, redemption and healing, renewal by way of walking, and success through writing. Ever...

a maple leaf from eastern Canada I love my car I love our cat I love my country I love my partner I love my parents I love my country I love your garden I love their goldfish I love my country I love his hair I love your house I love my country Is all this love — this loving things — the same? Equal? Worthy of the word? Hmmmmmm…. Throwing love around is easy when it’s just a word…   but put into action and what does it actual ly mean? We hear “I love my country” a lot from politicians, especially these days with politics far and near being what they are — fractious, divisive, often snappy, sometimes scary. What do the politicians mean? That they love the people and the animals and the nature within the man-drawn boundaries of the geography they call country? That they will protect them with their heart , their head and their work ? That they love the opportunities a particular geographic place has given them? That they would march to the border and protect everything — and ...

Thank you for the love you sent my way in response to last week’s post . When I put the story about my birthmark out into the world, I didn’t know how it would land. But your comments and messages confirm two things: My readers are observant and kind, and my writing can spark powerful connections when I risk vulnerability in telling a story whose time has come. Writing about something a bit hard can open not only the writer but also the reader. That opening is the magic that happens when we tell our story with both truth and, dare I use this old fashioned word, honour. Tell the story as it is, don’t hedge your bets. In so doing, you honour yourself and, crucially, you honour your reader by trusting them with that truth.   The poet David Whyte says, “vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding under-current of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature.” Marion Roach Smith, author, memoir coach and teacher, says vulnerability ...