Five Years a Writer

I need to do some housekeeping. Not ironing exactly, but straightening out and tidying things up. This blog has been an energizing and intense focus for the past five or so weeks, but I need to step away and figure out some technical things associated with it. I know enough about this blogging platform to put up a post and to have it publish when I want it scheduled. But I’m not savvy much beyond that. However, I learned a valuable lesson at the recent conference I attended. The keynote speaker experienced some glitches with his tech-heavy presentation...and he just powered through them. He wasn’t fazed by them at all. “This happens with technology,” he said. Boy, is he right about that!  If we’re going to engage with today’s online or e-world, we need to be prepared to stumble through the odd pile-up, jump over an unexpected hurdle and — maybe most importantly — ask for help when we need. Here’s where you come in.  The ‘subscribe by email’ function on Blogger is being discont...

From an article in The Washington Post by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick on April 7, 1999:   “… cooking a soufflé is like jumping off a cliff. Take the leap, and there's no going back. Floppy egg whites — tough luck, your soufflé won't rise. Underbake and you'll have a soupy mess. Overbake and a once beautifully majestic soufflé will collapse. Get your timing wrong — soufflés have no tolerance for late-to-the-table dinner guests — and your soufflé will fall…”   But I cooked a soufflé yesterday! Metaphorically, that is.   The presentation I did at the College’s professional development day went very well. With over 100 participants! Online. What a sense of accomplishment.  I jumped off the cliff, but had planned well enough that my ingredients rose like air and were delivered, fully baked, to my audience with pretty good timing.  It went well because I traded my nerves for the intention to simply do my best. That commitment enabled me to prepare well and to deliver the ...

Yet another cooking show. Yet more contestants vying for the approval of the expert chefs on hand to taste and to test their food. I don’t actually understand why I find these shows so compelling, except I never know what they’re going to cook — or who is going to be doing the cooking. And that’s intriguing. And keeps me coming back, episode after episode.  The other day, the show included an older woman who was cooking with her daughter and grandson. She clearly had skills, but was not what you might call dynamic. However, she was confident; in fact, she exuded confidence.  At one point, she said to the host: “I don’t get nervous. It’s pointless. I just do my best.”  And I immediately liked her. That attitude spoke to me as someone who gets nervous — tries not to, but does. But her simple solution: Just do your best. Well, that made sense to me.  She had put herself onto the show. At some level she wanted to be there. So why succumb to nerves? Why not simply bre...

It was an unexpected contract that left an unexpected mark on me.  The job in 2015 was to proofread reports arising out of hearings held by Canada’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission .  Proofreading means reading carefully, noticing each word, each letter, the combinations and relationships, one to the other and all together. With my ruler held beneath each line, I missed nothing, took in everything. And I could not believe what I was taking in. But believe it I did. And believe it I do.  It was the first time I learned about just what those men and women “of the cloth” did to children in residential schools. Awful. Horrific. Wicked.  The recent discovery of the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School brings me right back to those TRC reports and the words of so many witnesses.  My job then was to correct typos. My job today is to hold the spirit of those children in my heart. And to do better by them. We are each on...

Last summer, we had a new fence built in the back yard. As part of the project, we also had (what turned out to be quite a lot of) pea gravel delivered to shore up those areas around the house that needed a bit of a refresh. Pea gravel is a good medium for me to work with, as it is small and easy to shovel and move around. I was pleased with the overall aesthetic result, but flummoxed by an unintended consequence.  By tidying up the areas along the sides of the house, I lost the various corners and crannies in which I had stored different things that just didn’t fit anywhere else: pots and planters that I know I’ll need one day; bits and bobs that will surely be just the thing at some point; scraps of lumber that are just too precious to chuck.  But none of any of that was suitable anymore against the pristine and beautiful new pea gravel, carefully shovelled and than raked to look Zen-like in its fresh state. Some stuff I chucked, some I moved into the garage, and some I ...

The street is quieter without them, but I find that I miss them. And I regret never learning their names.  They moved into the corner rental a while back and were most distinguished by the noisy blue truck the parents drove. The kids had fun playing in the front yard, and I exchanged a few words with the dad as he sat on the front step smoking. But our connection never got beyond a nodding acquaintance, and that likely overstates it.  Recently, we saw them loading items into the truck and driving off, but they always came back. It wasn’t until the other day that I realized they must have moved. The blue truck is gone. The kids are no longer in the front yard. And the dad is no longer on the front step smoking. The rental has that vacant sense about it.  Why did I never take the moment it would have taken to stop as I walked by their house to say more than just ‘Hi’ on the fly. Why didn’t I make the effort to be more neighbourly? Well, I thought there was time for tha...