Five Years a Writer

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  I came for the cake. I stayed for the kindness.  Photo by  Calum Lewis  on  Unsplash I am a fan of The Great British Bake Off. I had heard about it and had watched its Canadian spin-off long before I actually fell down the rabbit hole of Victoria sponges, crispy biscuits and signature challenges that is the essence of the series. I didn’t know either Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry , the two judges — had never heard of either of them, in fact, but I quickly became a fan.  I loved the Britishness of the cups of tea on the table, I loved the hugely varied accents with which everyone on the show speaks, and I loved the drama of each segment: Would the mousse meld? Would the bread rise? Would the showstopper actually stop the show? And, in among all that drama, I was delighted by, and became enthralled with, the kindness underlying the competition among the participants. And, most particularly, I fell in l

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  All cats have three names: the one we give them,  the one that’s a special name,  and the one only the cat knows  —  “the deep and inscrutable singular name”.   T.S. Eliot All of our cats have at least three names, as Val likes to riff on the actual given name and come up with variations. Bountiful became Boo. Blanco became Blinkety. Lewis became Louis-Loo. Holly becomes Hollywood (“She’s a bit of a drama queen,” says Val). What Holly’s “deep and inscrutable singular name” is, we can but guess at. She is not telling. Blanco "Blinkety", the white cat. Photo by Nancy Clark I know that Eliot is right about cats, but I have often wondered whether his naming wisdom applies also to humans.  My given names are Amanda Julia — a lot of ‘As’ and, when added to my surname, a lot of letters to fit in the small space provided on a lot of forms. To my ear, both names are round and soft and, with

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  The concept of leadership is much on my mind, as there is such a dearth of it in our world today.  Yes, individuals are in positions of leadership, but that does not make those ind ividuals leaders.  For it is their actions, not their position, that make them so. I agree with Tuli Kupferberg that "when patterns are broken, new worlds emerge".  L E A D E R S H I P: E is for EVOLVE and A is for ADAPT At its essence, leadership is about change, so in today's Leadership by the Letter, I'm making E for Evolve and A for Adapt.  I put the words “leader” and “change” into Google, and I got more than 790 million hits in less than a minute. A quick glance over the top results showed that many of them are about an individual leading change in an organization, or persuading their team to embrace change, or best practices for change leaders. The implication is that in relation to change,

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  In the early days of our collective lockdown, much was written about how we should be maximizing our time and doing all those things that, previously, we didn't have time for. Now, many weeks later, much is being written about how that was bunk and we should just chill and live our life.  Photo by  Marcelo Leal  on  Unsplash It got me thinking about Brené Brown and her advice to distinguish between what is important and what is urgent. And that took me on a Google search, which landed me on Dwight Eisenhower, who, I learned, was quoting an academic from Princeton during a speech at the UN, when he said, "I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." This became The Eisenhower Principle and is represented by a matrix — and, of course, these days, there's an app to help you with it, but old-fashioned pape

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  For me, today is Day #50 of living in social isolation, staying at home and working from home. To a large extent, I have accommodated to the restrictions by focusing on creative endeavours: These days, after work, I fit domestic chores in and around my collage and writing projects instead of the other way around, as I used to. I am enjoying this shift in focus, although, when it comes, I will welcome the freedom of nipping out to the shop for that missing ingredient for dinner. One of the daily routines I complete is an entry into my “Daily Log”, which I’ve been keeping since September 1, 2018. I began it as a way to become more mindful about my ordinary everyday life and, largely, the entries reflect precisely this. It is not a journal of personal secrets and earth-shattering thoughts; it is a record of my days as they pass through into weeks and months.  Photo by  Kelly Sikkema  on  Unsplash I wa

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  The concept of leadership is much on my mind, as there is such a dearth of it in our world today.  Yes, individuals are in positions of leadership, but that does not make those ind ividuals leaders.  For it is their actions, not their position, that make them so. I agree with Margaret Wheatley that "leadership is a series of behaviours rather than a role for heroes." L E A D E R S H I P: L is for LISTEN Obviously, L should be for “lead” and maybe it will be, but not until all the other letters are defined and inhabited. Today, I’m making L for Listen.  Photo by  Emiliano Vittoriosi  on  Unsplash First and foremost, leadership is about being with other people. No one can be a leader in isolation. If you’re on your own, you might be leading yourself -- and that’s good and necessary, but I’m thinking about leadership in relation to others.  To be a leader means offering vision, sup

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  COVID-19 hit Manitoba with its first case on March 12. The next day, my workplace announced plans to shut down and two days after that I began working from home: #WFH. It was a bit of a rocky adjustment for me, as work time & space bled into personal time & space — until I moved off the dining room table and set up shop at the back of the living room, leaving the dining table free for more important matters: eating meals.  My mind was buzzing with everything that was going on in the world and at work, and by the evening on day two of #WFH, I felt like my head was going to explode. So I did what I often do when feeling wound up, I took myself down to my craft table and started playing with paper, scissors and glue. That evening, I made my first piece in the series I am calling COVID-19: end date unknown . It is my representation of the virus itself.  I have now completed nine pieces. Sometimes, I