Five Years a Writer

Settling into our seats before the gala event started, the vice-president and I both leafed through the program. When I saw the sponsorship ad from my employer I was shocked. It was the wrong one! I had a moment of blind panic wondering how that could possibly have happened on my watch as department manager, then I leaned over to the vice-president to alert him to the problem. Eyebrow raised, he told me we would discuss it in the morning.  I have no memory of that conversation, but I do remember clearly the feeling I had when I realized that I had played a major part in creating the problem. As I had gone over the chain of events leading to the program’s printing, I remembered that the event communication person had called me to ask if I was sure the ad we had sent was, in fact, the one we wanted to have in the program. With hardly a moment’s reflection, I had said, yes, it was. Oh, the person said, OK. And that was that. Problem cemented, though I didn’t know there was a problem ...

The other day, while doing some routine desk work, I was half-watching an online baking show streaming live on Facebook. Neither baker was known to me, but, these days, I enjoy watching true ‘live’ shows — no editing down to fit the time, no editing out of unsuitable or unfortunate comments, just the action happening in front of you: real people in real time doing the simple task of baking. Anything could happen! Nothing happened, it turned out. Well, nothing related to the cupcakes being made, that is. That part went smoothly: The ingredients were measured out and mixed, the young host asked the not-so-much-older guest baker questions along the way, as they do, as is the reason for the show, really. The questions enabled the guest to plug her latest cookbook; standard fare on a baking show. But then one of the exchanges caught my attention and I brought my focus full-on to the screen. The guest was burbling on about how unexpected her publishing success has been and how she can’t beli...

I am just about the least ‘on trend’ person you can imagine, but I have caught the Wordle wave and am enjoying the daily spelling ride it offers. I have come to start my day with this five-letter word game that involves some luck and also a good amount of mind-engaging deducing. I play it on my laptop, but enjoy noodling out the options with old-fashioned pencil and paper.  My results are not going to bring an invitation from Mensa, that’s for sure, but I’m not in it for anything so grand. I simply like chipping away at those five blank spaces until I land on the correct arrangement of vowels and consonants and — like a TV game show — the spaces flip over, all green now, to reveal — ta da — today’s word. And then, of course, I post my result to Facebook, because part (most?) of the Wordle wave is about sharing one’s solo effort into the larger community. Not for spoiler effect as regards the day’s word, but for the fun of seeing who took how many tries to get that word. ...

  I love the medium of radio; I am a radiophile. I listen to CBC, Canada's national broadcaster, live and I listen to it at my convenience through the CBC Listen app . I love radio's immediacy and its capacity to harness our listening in the moment, for the moment.  The short soundscape here reminds me of why it is such a magic medium.  Come with me (literally), through the magic of radio and my local morning show, on a nano vacation: Ignite your  imagination! ——— Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. Photo by  Stephan Eickschen  on  Unsplash

The art teacher came up to my desk, leaned over my shoulder and said, “Amanda, that’s what they get mental patients to do!” — a comment that did not exactly build my confidence as an art student. (Nor was it a high point in the field of teaching, shall we say.) We had been given carte blanche in art class that afternoon so I was experimenting by dropping wet paint onto a sheet of paper, folding it over and smoothing my hand across it. I found the resulting abstract shapes of colour quite appealing. The art teacher did not. Oh well. I had no aspiration of a life in the visual arts at that time. But fast forward five decades and I find myself wanting exactly that and, while getting closer to being able to say ‘I am a collage artist’, I also hold back from saying it with gusto. Could my reticence go back to that one experience in middle school? Can I really still be stumbling on that man’s ill-judged comment? Maybe, but I think the notion of being a Creative, that is, someone who spends...

“For dessert we had fresh raspberries and cream,  for we cannot scrimp every day.” This is the only line I remember from an essay that I read more than two decades ago.  The topic was losing a job and learning to live with much less money. The lesson was that it is soul destroying to live only in the grey zone of budgets and frugality. The point is that we must have something to look forward to, something to brighten the day, something that brings flavour and colour and satisfaction to our life, if it is to be worth living. This is good advice as we near the 2-year mark of the Covid era, with its restrictions and strains (in every meaning) and fears: Let us walk carefully through the coming days (or weeks and months), but let us do so not always on tip toe, on edge, in perpetual rejection of all things bright and light.  Let us occasionally, at least, be bold in our movements and wide in our embrace. Let us put some raspberries and cream on our table — whatever that migh...

Updated with live link; see below It starts with an idea. If you’re lucky diligent, the idea grows and morphs and attaches onto other ideas…and so it goes, until you have something worth writing about. It starts with a blank page. If you’re lucky diligent, the page becomes populated with words that grow and morph into sentences and paragraphs…and so it goes, until you have a piece of writing.   It starts with one reader. If you’re lucky diligent, that reader, over time, multiplies into others…and so it goes, until you have many readers, some of whom are friends, some of whom you don’t know and are not even related to.  The more you nurture ideas and fill blank pages with words and send them out into the world of readers, the better chance you have of being read and of finding more readers.  Self-evident, of course, so what’s the point? There are three:  One : Ten and a half years ago, I had a personal essay published in The Globe and Mail, which was a lovely unpla...