Five Years a Writer

In his Lettres Provinciales ,  the French philosopher  and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously wrote:  “I would have written a shorter letter,  but I did not have the time.”    In the second year of my master’s in applied communication, the 50+ students divided quite naturally into two streams: Those who had a core question they wanted to investigate with research and writing into a full-length thesis, and those who preferred to take a broader approach with a selection of courses and one long paper. I was in the second group. For the life of me, I could not come up with one sole question to hold my focus for the final year of study. Instead, one of the profs helped me translate my frustration at the often obtuse and dense articles we had to read into a short-term investigation of discourse conventions across different disciplines. In plain English, this means I investigated how a research paper written by scientists (about the link between exposure to...

The colourful birds were wonderful.   Once upon a time late in the last century, two women traveled to Mexico. They booked a beachfront apartment, rented a VW Bug, and set off for adventure. In those pre-internet days with rudimentary email communication, it was tricky, but doable, the assumption being that two and two would, indeed, make four. All would work out. And it did. We enjoyed a wonderful late-winter holiday on the Mayan Riviera. The weather was good. The apartment perfect. The car exactly as expected. Even the language barrier didn’t pose a significant problem, thanks to a small phrase book and my willingness to just give it a go. Our apartment was at the very top Back then, 24 years ago, ‘giving it a go’ got us far: From the Cancun airport, along a small track to the apartment and then off to find a place for dinner — all in the dark. It was exciting not daunting. We had adventures every day: in the supermarket buying food, at local cafes figuring our way around a menu...

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss , read the poem below to the rhythm of 'Green Eggs and Ham') I do not like the time change, old I am I do not like it slam damn bam. Would I like it here or there? I would not like it here or there I would not like it anywhere I do not like the switcheroo I do not want it — for me nor you! I think that makes clear I do not like the time change; while longer summer evenings are pleasant, they don’t really last all that many days out of the year’s 365 and, as soon as we reach the summer equinox, we begin the slide down hill towards shorter days anyway. I say, let’s just stick to Standard Time and learn to love it and live with it. After all, it’s not like we actually gain daylight hours; we merely exchange morning light for evening light. Yes, I speak as a morning person. I say, Down with the time change! Up with early morning rising! The history of Daylight Savings Time (DST) has to do with having more daylight at the end of the standard 9-5 work d...

International Women's Day is March 8th — tomorrow, at the time of publishing this post. For me, it is a day to be political: Women hold up half the sky (a Chinese proverb or maybe just propaganda by Mao Zedong, I'm not sure) and we make up 50% of the world's population (according to multiple sources), yet we continue to be sidelined from genuine power and influence in almost every sphere. Sure, women are in leadership positions all over, but we have yet to break serious glass ceilings in the world of politics: talk to Hillary Clinton or Kim Campbell, for example — even Jacinda Arden who did get the top job has left it and I wonder just how challenging it was to be a youngish woman and new mother leading New Zealand; it's not like the socio-cultural infrastructure changed overnight when she was elected back in 2017. And in the world of sport: Talk to Canada's national women's soccer team, for example. And in the world generally: Talk to the women of Iran or an in...

At about 5 foot 2 inches, I am a short person. The world is not really made for me: I often need to ask a tall stranger for help getting an item off the top shelf at the supermarket, and I use a grabber to reach things out of that awkward cabinet above the fridge in the kitchen. Being short can be challenging, but it is not a problem — it’s more a matter of accommodating to the realities and, until my super powers are sharpened, working around them. But February is a whole different matter. The shortest month of the year , it has an outsized capacity to drag on…and on. Thankfully, today, it’s over, and we can move on into March which, regardless of what actually happens, heralds spring and all the hopeful possibilities that this budding season brings with it. If November is winter’s start on the prairies, then March is summer’s overture. Bring. It. On! Current fantasy; future possibility Sunday, February 26, 2023 (mound includes snow taken from off the house roof, but still...) Winte...

I want to edit the world. Take my blue pencil, strike out February 24, 2022, put a line through Moscow and Putin, emphasize Ukraine in BOLD ALL CAPS, give it its own page, its own boundaries, insert ‘free from’ in front of invasion, replace tanks and guns with ‘flowers and cakes’, and edit out death altogether.  I want the world to be other than it is. I want big countries to make smaller footprints. I want the sun to warm not burn, the waters to refresh not drown, the air to be pure not polluted. I want babies to be loved, women to be honoured, men to be decent, all genders respected. I want to edit the world so power becomes peace and destruction becomes love. As the world — that I cannot edit — watches and marks one year this coming Friday — February 24 — since Putin invaded Ukraine, I am reminded that life is hard and harsh and horrid for so many. And, indeed, more so than any human should have to bear. When I wrote A List for Leaving  last March , I was naive believing ...

A silly tale to mark February 14th, known as Valentine’s Day Of all days for her to lose her hair it had to be today. Of course; that’s how her life seemed to go. No such thing as luck for her, or not good luck, anyway. Once the wind caught her white head of fluffy beauty, away it went on the breeze to who knows where. Now all she needed was to bump into Daisy or Rose or Petunia and that would put the tin hat on it. Maybe she should have worn a hat, she wondered. That might have averted the disaster that was her newly bald top, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Today of all days, it was going to be rough. No one would give her a second look. No. No, all eyes would be on the others. On Rose in particular. That she was merely a hot house wannabe mattered not one whit. Men lined up for her, women, too, these days. Equality being all the rage. Ha! No equality or respect for Dandy. She was always overlooked, even mocked as only a weed. But her roots went deeper than Rose’s...