Five Years a Writer

The cat would not take no for an answer, so I got up to feed her in the very early morning hours. It was pitch black outside but, through the one living room window that didn’t have the blind all the way down, I could see some commotion on the street. It seemed noisy, too. Hmmm…what was going on? I peered out and saw a City truck, with lights flashing, and two men. They appeared to be bashing away at the curb…oh! At the curb! Right by where the street drain cover is still buried under snow and ice. I had tried in vain to chip away at it on the weekend, because we’re expecting a ‘weather event’ this week that includes both snow and rain. With nowhere for any of that expected precipitation to go, it would pool on the street and cause serious trouble for all. By chance, earlier last week, I had come across an online report that I could submit to the City masters alerting them to a frozen street drain. If I provided location details, they would send out their ‘super steam unit’ (my name f...

Sunflowers are the national flower of #Ukraine For a long time, I have not watched the evening news. But these days, I am watching it every evening. The images compel me. I am not living them, so the least I can do is witness them. A young man with a duffel bag, slung across his shoulder. One duffel bag. And his Canadian passport. That got him across the border into Poland. A young girl, holding her aged cat. In a shelter. Where will she go?  A young boy, alone, reaching for food from the volunteer and showing the phone number written on his hand. Who will pick him up?  An old woman being helped, oh so carefully, across a makeshift bridge of planks. Will she make it to safety?  All of them leaving their home and security in Ukraine, for who knows what and who knows where. The images stick in my brain and they got me thinking: What would I take if I had to flee? Sparked by the news, the pieces below come from my imagination, written on March 12, 2022, in the safety of my...

Amanda through the ages (from L): about 2 years old. About 21 years old. Heading into her 60s. To mark International Women’s Day on Tuesday, some women are writing letters to their younger selves with advice or wisdom from their older point of view. I took up the challenge. It was an interesting exercise to write such a letter to my younger self — thinking back to what that young woman thought success could look like (the corporate ladder) and how my unfolding life has shown me what it actually has come to mean for me (my own character). In the ‘writing as tool for transformation’ courses I have developed with my creative collaborator, Deborah Schnitzer, we include several writing exercises that invite the participants to write the same story from different points of view. It’s a powerful means to open up our understanding of our own experiences. I encourage you to write a letter to younger self. You might be surprised to read what you’ve learned in the intervening years.  -----...

This photo of Joan Didion and the quote was the "spark" for my super-short story The world is mad with delusions of power and horrifying invasions, but this past Sunday saw me step away from that roiling mess of humanity for a 2-hour break to focus on telling stories. It was so much fun. I am co-leading a 4-week course called Spark Your Writing, with my creative collaborator, Deborah Schnitzer. Each week, we send out a ‘spark’ (a prompt) to the participants and they have the week to write something in response to it. On Sunday afternoon, we gather via Zoom to share what we’ve produced. In a time of great destruction, it is both nurturing and necessary to connect with our creative capacity and put our energy into making art. Writing stories is one way of doing that. I have spent years and years saying, 'I don’t write fiction'. But last week’s spark got me going and sent me down a road I don’t usually travel in my writing: I wrote a fictional short story. A super-sho...

Not a blow-up hot tub or bouncy castle in sight. Just thousands and thousands of people, all marching for women’s lives . That was the scene on April 25, 2004 in Washington, DC. It was a glorious sight and an inspiring event to be part of. I was there, among the million or so others, and I still remember the feeling of community, camaraderie and conviction that filled the air and fuelled our chants. Collectively, we sent a message to politicians and individually we re-upped our commitment to the cause. A number of my friends from across the country had met up in Washington to be part of the historic gathering of protesters against George W. Bush and his regressive policies on abortion. We made a long weekend of it, enjoying the city’s museums and restaurants before the march on Sunday. We mixed fun and politics. We did not break the law: We came. We protested by marching. We returned home. The point is that protesting is an essential form of democratic action. It’s a way to, literall...

With blockades of bridges, borders and city centres dominating the news these days, I am thinking much about lines — where to put them, how to draw them, and when to walk them. We each have our limits. Some of us wake up one day with ‘enough!’ as our impetus for saying, This is where I draw the line. I must act. Our life experience informs our politics and, in turn, those politics shape how we draw that line — privately, with an X on the ballot; or loudly, by joining a public protest. I’ve done both, but on Saturday when a friend asked if I was going to the counter-protest at the Manitoba legislature, I said no. While I supported the idea, I wasn’t going to engage in this debacle that way. I have marched for issues clearly defined. I have voted for politicians who speak to my values and my priorities. But the ragtag bunch of individuals digging in for so-called ‘freedom’ speak neither to my values nor my priorities: their demonstration of ‘freedom’ looks too close to populist ana...

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 ...