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Where is the biffy on Little House on the Prairie -- and, also, where are all the insects?

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In our house, the day is done once we have watched the news, Val has prepared the cat’s overnight food, and I have closed up the big windows, always finishing with the kitchen window. In the height of the summer months, the screen on this window, which has an overhead light, used to be a manic bug circus: moths, mosquitoes and other winged and buzzing insects dancing at the screen, trying to get to the light on the other side. To avoid trapping these creatures between the screen and the glass, I would shut off the light to encourage the insects to fly away. Then I would close and lock the window. But a few weeks ago, I noticed there were no bugs — no bugs at all dancing at the screen when I went to close the kitchen window. The silence and the empty screen shocked me. Where have all the bugs gone? Wait. No need to tell me. I know; we have brought this on ourselves. Enough said. Well, maybe fifty words more: I wrote a micro piece about that bug-less window-closing experience; it was pub...
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Hearing my words spoken (and sung!) had me grinning like the Cheshire Cat

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Hearing my words spoken by a stranger was an unexpected delight. When she burst into song — well, that took the experience to the next level for me. It all began about a year ago when I read a piece of my writing on a local early-morning CBC radio show. Morris Bay, self-declared Poet Laureate for Seniors and founder of Company of Poets, heard me, contacted me, and subsequently invited me to read that piece at a local event he puts on monthly at various seniors residences. I went, enjoyed reading to a new and appreciative audience, and have stayed in touch with Morris. About a month ago, he emailed me. He and his poet-friend James were putting together an anthology of poems by those who had read at one of his events in the past year or so. Was I interested in submitting something? My knee jerk response was, Ha, too bad I don’t write poetry. But my more considered response was, Hang on a minute. Of course, I do. Some of my writings include poetic compositions and, sometimes, I quite del...
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Remember: Hold dear the memory and WRITE IT DOWN!

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Back in the spring, when my friend Jane asked me if I wanted to share stories about our mutual friend Kathy who is facing health issues, I said YES! immediately. I didn’t first wonder if I had any stories from our time together four decades ago or if they might be worth sharing, I simply committed to remembering and to sending along what I came up with. I sat down that same day and spent some time thinking about my years in Nova Scotia, and my friendship and community activism with Kathy in that province. The memories came trickling, then flooding in  — meetings, rallies, gin & tonics, boat rides, meals.. . I wrote them up, simply, unadorned, and sent them to Jane, as others did, too, and now a booklet of memories is in the final stages of production for sharing with Kathy’s family. I come from a family of memoirists, so writing about one’s life seems normal to me, and I certainly know the value of doing so — I have plain photocopies of writings that go back to my grandparents ...
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How can we know we are making the right decision when we say NO to an opportunity?

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“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” attributed to Winston Churchill (see note below) Making decisions is one of the most challenging things we do as humans in this world. Make a good one, and life unfolds “as it should”. Make a questionable one, and it might all go sideways. Which decision will take us down which path? How to know? Decision-making is, at least in part, about our tolerance for risk and our sense of trust: How willing are we to take a risk on whatever the circumstances are that the decision will take us into? How much do we trust ourself and any others involved to make good of those circumstances? These questions are ever present in my mind and were given new life recently when I listened to Tricia Rose Burt’s TEDxPortsmouth Talk “How I redeemed 35 years of regret” — because regret is a close relation to risk and trust. Get the risk and the trust right, and regret doesn’t show up. But get either wrong and, wham, ...
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Anticipation is cousin to anxiety — more fun, but just as nerve racking

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Anticipation is the silver cloud version  of its more bleak, less hopeful cousin Anxiety Butterflies in the tummy the same Even if the waited for, longed for Anxiously expected X — whatever X may be, Is quite different. Because even when the longed-for X is good, Possibly wonderful, it’s just a theory until it happens, has unfolded until anticipation becomes experience it could all go sideways, end up all wrong. Anticipation without concern or doubt or fear is for the innocent, children maybe adults possibly anyone who has no reason to believe (who has no reason to believe?) That no one will show, know, care That everyone will snark, snort, deride  It's the stuff of nightmares that daytime light can banish But then the dark returns… But then, Oh, look: here comes another day With light, with love, with hope. There goes anxiety. Here stands anticipation: Arms crossed, Looking to see how time unfolds builds, takes me inexorably towards X... *** When I was seven, the biggest trea...
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Five years into retirement "I have written a book!" are five words I didn't think I would be saying...

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56 years ago , my parents gave me a typewriter for Christmas.  38 years ago , I began my career in corporate communications.  20 years ago , I began teaching communication skills to college students.  5 years ago , I left full-time work to live the rest of my life.  This fall , I will launch my handbook on how to be a writer in four steps. I have never been pregnant but I am feeling the anxiety and thrill of that point in time when, if I were pregnant, I would be beginning to tell other people of this amazing experience taking hold of me and of what I will bring forth into the world in a matter of months. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen, I can feel it, but so much can still go wrong between now and the expected moment down the line… I hope the analogy is not in poor taste. I am quite definitely not birthing a baby, but I am planning to deliver my first ever book into the world this fall. This feels at once intensely personal and wildly public. I have spent years...
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Photos, memories and longing: the curse of the iPhone’s algorithm

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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...
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