Five Years a Writer

Tuesday, July 26, 2022 It takes a lot to get through this life, but, if we’re lucky, we don’t have to face the ups and downs and roundabouts on our own. If we’re lucky, we have a few good friends with whom to face the challenges and, also, to share the joys. Mendel Schnitzer was one such friend to me: there in the tough times and willing, so willing to share in the fun of life, too. He would have been 74 years old today, if kidney disease hadn’t felled him five years ago. I mourn him to this day. But in mourning him, I acknowledge his generosity in so much: his time (he was never too busy to do a favour), his skills (more than once, he helped us with plumbing issues at the cottage or the house), his resources (Need a tool? Mendel had it.). I give thanks for his sound advice in the early days of my freelance writing & editing business: “Don’t nickel & dime your clients to death. Know your value. Set your rates. Deliver good work.” It’s advice I follow to this day. I celebrate hi...

Imagination is more important than knowledge, according to Albert Einstein. While it is maybe arguable as an absolute, as a general guide for daily living in these still-Covid times, I find it both helpful and hopeful. Here’s why: Last Saturday evening, Val and I went out. Actually out — like out of the house and not for routine boring chores, but for a social event that promised an evening of stunning photography and illuminating stories by the photographer. I had bought the tickets in part because I am a fan of the photographer and wanted to meet her in person, and in part because the event was a fund-raiser for Fort Whyte Alive , a local non-profit that “connects humans with nature”.  I mention this because I doubt I would have hauled us out for a purely social evening; that it had a ‘good deed’ element to it made the effort of leaving the house and sitting in an auditorium with a large group of strangers not only worth doing but worth the risk. I imagined it might be fun...

One day after work many years ago, I hopped on the bus that I thought would take me to my downtown meeting. But after a while, I realized that, while I had taken the correct bus number, I had chosen the northern extended route instead of the direct-to-downtown route. The ride took forever and, by the time I arrived at my destination, the meeting was over. During the time of my unexpectedly long ride, I had been incommunicado with the outside world, as this was in my pre-cell-phone-owning days. I eventually called my colleague from a payphone in a hotel lobby to explain my absence at the meeting. Sheesh. What a way to end a long workday! I’m sure that many people experienced a similar feeling of being lost in time and lost to their colleagues and loved ones when, last week, the Rogers network went down right across Canada : No cell service. No Internet. No contact. And, maybe worse, no way to pay for their morning coffee, either: Many vendors could take cash only, as both debit and ...

I often think about public space — and especially in the summer. So many more people are out of doors, doing their thing, which, sadly, all too often involves making noise at a level I find anti-social. Why can people not modulate their voice and speak quietly, without polluting the air well beyond their immediate surroundings? Why must they play music loudly from their cars, bikes and decks? Use ear buds, people!  Why do people insist on walking down the street talking on their phone — often using the speaker option?   Phone calls are private; take them indoors, people!   I fear that we have, generally, forgotten that we do not walk through this world as stand-alone entities. We walk with others — like it (or them) or not, we are not solo operators in our yards, neighbourhoods or city streets. As soon as we exit the private space we call home, we enter public space — and we share it. Be polite, I want to yell. Be aware, I want to scream. Be quiet, I want to shriek. But t...

Change is the one constant we can count on... Amanda June 30th : This day last year was my final day at my college-instructor desk.  The next day was the first day of my next chapter. Tomorrow, July 1st, will mark the end of my first 365 days as a retired person, a retiree. Whatever that means to you, for me it means having the time to explore who I am in this next chapter, in this Third Act, and what I'm doing as myself in my own time.  It turns out, the longer I am retired, the more things I am interested in doing in the time I now have.  Today, in addition to being a writer, collage artist, and community educator, I am also a writing coach. You can read about this newest identity I am evolving into  here . Holly The other day , Holly, the cat, pulled a disappearing act that caused my heart to lodge itself in my throat. I have written before about how she has gone missing or, to be more accurate, has hidden herself from our view. So, this time, I thought I kn...

Black cats: good luck or bad? She — let’s call her Joelle — was lucky to get the morning off, back on November 8, 2016, so she could cast her vote for Hillary. Her cousin was not so lucky; she had to take unpaid leave. She did, but it cost her wages just to cast her ballot.  She — let’s call her Marianne — was lucky that her appointment at the clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah was for the evening of June 23, 2022. She was able to get the abortion she had chosen. Her colleague’s sister was not so lucky; that woman’s appointment was for Saturday, June 25th and, by then, it was too late. The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs had come down on June 24th, upon which Utah made inducing an abortion a second degree felony,  and her appointment was cancelled. She  —  let’s just call her Doctor  —  was sitting at the kitchen table, large windows behind her, overlooking the extensive back yard. She bent down to pet the cat just as the bullet shattered the window; aimed at ...

Relationships are as fascinating as they can be fragile and fraught. Between the mere mortals that we humans are, the fine art of communication and commitment can challenge even the most skilled and careful among us. For this reason, I love the stories Joanna Trollope weaves in her books. They are always and inevitably about the trials and triumphs or failures of connections among and between people. Trollope, a fifth-generation niece of Anthony Trollope , writes about the English, a culture and a people that are my heritage. I like being immersed in families for whom a cup of tea and cold-buttered toast with marmalade can be breakfast. The characters tend to be ordinary contemporary individuals, living their lives while trying to navigate a change of some kind, sometimes introduced by a new person in the village or in the family, and sometimes by a change in circumstance — illness, aging, birth or death of a pivotal person relative to the protagonist(s). Put like that, it sounds so m...