Five Years a Writer

Almost 30 years ago, I lived in a small house closely situated to the equally small house next door. In the middle of one summer’s night — windows were open — I was wakened by the woman next door saying loudly, fiercely, unequivocally “NO!" Then, silence. I pondered the meaning of what I had heard, then went back to sleep. The next day, the woman's boyfriend moved out. I have always remembered her No and his leaving. I can imagine the mid-night context of her exclamation, and I am quite sure of the next day's action. A powerful learning. Roughly 20 years ago, I worked with a woman for whom No was the opening gambit of just about any conversation. In a position of influence and authority, she would meet a proposal or request with a No, then follow it up with whatever reasoning she deemed appropriate: Too expensive. Not clear enough. Too soon. Too late. Not relevant. Whatever, it didn't matter, because that No, predictable though it became, in fact, pushed us — c...

I dislike New Year's resolutions. Way too much pressure on a person to actually keep them!  But I do like the open door that a new year offers and, with that door, the pathway to new possibilities ahead.  As those possibilities present themselves to me (in whatever shape or form) over the course of 2019, I shall try to keep these guiding thoughts in mind:  Be aware of patterns in my life: Nurture the good ones, ditch the bad ones Listen and speak for the purpose of having conversations ; don’t just say things Make difficult decisions only once; then, simply execute them (i.e., just do it, don't re-make the damn decision) May your New Year be filled with bountiful interesting and productive possibilities. Peace and love to all!  My vision board for 2019

New Year's Eve is fast approaching. That moment of reckoning with myself and the world: Will I get out and into the celebrations or stay in and ignore the hoopla? Of course, it's a no-brainer: Staying in and away from all the hoopla is what I'll do. And have done for the past few years. I've had my share of fun parties and gatherings to ring in the New Year, but am gratefully over the desire to be part of a crowd to enjoy the moment -- which comes well before midnight for me these days! In the previous century, during my early university days, my flatmates and I hosted a New Year's Eve party to which a lot of people came. I remember nothing about it, other than my sense of amazement that people had actually come! Because I remember equally vividly the housewarming party my roommate and I had thrown to which no one came - not. one. person. Mortification doesn't begin to describe the emotional experience of that dreadfully empty evening. And to this day, I c...

Another memory from our days in Germany, in the little village of Ober Eschbach, where we lived. This memory is  circa 1971. ---------------------------------------------------- It was a sunny Saturday morning, but I dragged my feet walking home from school (a quaint German thing that, school on a Saturday morning), because I knew that I was walking towards an empty home. 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 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 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 planned ahead with me and we arranged that I would enter the house through the basement back door and then would need onl...

It's fun to delve deep into memories and see what comes up...My family lived in Germany from 1968 to 1972. This memory is from that time in a little village. We were the (odd?) Canadian family that lived on the outskirts, just across from the tram tracks... -------------------------------------------------------------  Ober Eschbach ~ 1970: The dance studio was a freestanding building the teacher had had constructed on her own property in the village where we lived. I took ballet class from Fraulein Sandrock once a week. I went, in large part I think, because my friend Andrea took classes. I went harbouring fantasies of tutus and spotlights and main roles in the annual production. That never happened. But I enjoyed the classes and the small parts in the annual show – I danced one of the soldiers to Andrea’s Sugar Plum Fairy; I remember that distinctly. I also remember one particular class: The focus was pirouettes. We must have been taught the move, and practiced i...

Schedule is just another word for commitment. At least that’s how I see it. The freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want, without limit or constraint, is (a) nothing I’ve yet experienced in life and (b) not something for which I (currently) long. What I do long for is the freedom to set my own schedule. And that would be a schedule that has my own writing at its core, the promotion of my own writing as a major component, and the development and delivery of my own workshops as a key priority. Ah, well. I’m not there yet. So. What can I do in the meantime? Duh! Set my own schedule within the constraints of my full-time job commitment, of course. This means, first and foremost, taking myself seriously as a writer, as someone whose words can and should be carried out into the world for readers to find. I’m working my way towards this state: slowly, steadily, surely. With each post I publish, I own that identity a little tiny bit more. And it’s all connected, of cour...

Dateline Winnipeg, Monday, October 29, 2018:  Her pink hat caught my attention and drew my focus to the rest of her - the stance was more planted than a regular transit user normally takes when waiting for the bus, and the space between her and the other woman was a bit closer than I would expect in a public place. Then I noticed that the second woman was rooting around in her bag. Ah, I realized what was going on. A panhandler. Female (the pink hat gave her away, though it had no pussy ears; it was just a pink toque). With more than an edge of assertion. A hard tension emanated from her. The transit loop was not empty of other people, but it was still early morning dusk, and an encounter long in the past with an aggressive glue-sniffing woman has put me on perpetual guard, so I moved along and away towards my own stop. From a distance, I kept an eye on the pink hat and, eventually, saw it move with its owner across the street and away. This was my second encounter in the s...