Five Years a Writer

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  It was a Sunday afternoon and I was puttering around the house, listening to the radio when, suddenly, the woman speaking stopped me in my tracks.  “Profanity is the verbal form of civil disobedience,” she said . I stopped puttering and listened. She went on: “Profanity is an essential tool in disrupting patriarchy and its rules…I understand how language works…I know exactly what I’m doing. And I say, ‘Fuck the patriarchy,’ because I am a woman, a woman of colour, a Muslim woman. And I am not supposed to say ‘fuck’.”  The woman speaking was Mona Eltahawy and she gave me the theory to explain my own practice. I went out that afternoon and bought her book, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls .  I am a woman, not large, not tall, petite, it could be said. I do not take up much physical space in this world. But I have long understood the effect I have on my surroundings...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  We were mesmerized by The Bridge , the Nordic noir crime TV series, with the fascinating lead character of Saga Norén from Malmö, Sweden, and the brooding Martin Rohde, lead homicide detective from Copenhagen. The story’s central crime places the victim right in the middle of the Oresund bridge that connects Sweden to Denmark, hence the series’ name. Oresund Bridge (source: Wikipedia ) But the crime is not the impetus for this post; no, that comes from a scene in Martin’s bedroom in which we see a regular bed, shared by he and his wife. And on that bed, not one but two duvets — each one twin-sized.  Val, who has traveled in Scandinavia, turned to me and shrieked, “They’re sleeping Danish!” Which is to say, two people, one bed, two duvets.  At first, I thought this odd. But, in the intervening time, have come around to seeing not only that this habit is far from odd but that it makes...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  Difficult things are hard to say. In times of great emotion, the words can stick in our throat and choke us. We cannot get them out, no matter how significant the feelings or how much we want to share them. It’s like there is a block between the heart, the mind and the mouth.  But this past Friday was not like that. This past Friday, I had a monumental conversation with my mother. She had things she wanted to say, needed to say, so she called and said them.  It was immensely moving and meaningful. A health scare was the impetus for my mother to speak and for me to respond. It was wonderful.  Wonderful to hear the profession of love and appreciation for me and others in my mother’s central circle of family, friendship and care. Also it was admirable — admirable for Mum to speak the words so deep in her heart, admirable for her to overcome the fear of the health scare and to voice to h...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  No one can concentrate and be productive forever. Even the most diligent among us has to give in to the occasional daydream, give themselves up to the frivolity of Facebook, or give way to some honest-to-goodness deliberate time-wasting.  I am finding my work-from-home significantly more intense than I ever imagined it would be. My days are longer at my desk, and so much of my time is taken up with tech-mediated communication that, at the end of the day, I find my mind at once filled with all it has handled yet empty of capacity to discern what any of it really means -- at least at this stage of the day.  It is then that I gravitate towards sweet mental release — a walk, a cup of tea (or something stronger; it depends), making dinner, or zoning out with yet another episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Whatever I choose, it is a pleasing distraction from corporate duty and a necessary respite from i...

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 individuals leaders. For it is their actions, not their position, that make them so.  L E A D E R S H I P: R is for RESILIENCE The R could be for respect or reward, but I am making the R for RESILIENCE. Every leader must have the gumption within themselves to take their people up and over the edge — when it’s obvious and easy, and also when it’s complicated and challenging.  Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash To overcome the critics, the naysayers, the heels-dug-in-crowd, a leader must have the courage of their convictions and the skill to articulate their vision. They must be confident and capable, able to withstand stress and defeat, and be willing to get up and try again when first they fail. This is ho...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  Zoom. Webex. MS Teams. FaceTime. Messenger. WhatsApp… We have a myriad of high-tech tools to keep business flowing while we are in lockdown — and we may continue using them, even after we’re able to return to our bricks and mortar offices. They’re available. They enable continued productivity. And many of us find them exhausting. Much has been written about why , so I don’t need to.  What I do want to write about is the satisfaction I feel in having invented a retro low-tech gadget that helps me stay on top of my revolving To Do list and priority tasks.  My current home desk is much smaller than my on-campus office desk, so I have less room to spread out and less surface area on which to organize my work into numbered piles that indicate their order of importance. After several weeks of frustrating work-from-home experience, I landed on the solution.  It has a total of four compon...

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.  We are not at the cottage on Lake Winnipeg for this iconically Canadian May Long Weekend. For a variety of reasons, we have stayed in the city.  If the COVID-19 lockdown has taught me anything, it is that making do, keeping the horizon closer and smaller, is not so bad — if I can just keep my mind in check.   Rather than striding down the road for what is, I think, around that next corner, I am getting better at seeing what is right in front of me, of focusing on the immediate. It’s a constant trade-off between expansion and contraction, but it’s doable. I just have to be willing to see… Beauty in the little green shoots of new growth coming up in the front garden  Joy in the kids riding their bikes down the street  Contentment in managing with less For those of us with greater experience of more and bigger — and I count myself among this number — our current experience of ...