Five Years a Writer

Posy bright and sweet Quiet presence hidden scent Pleasing memory The other day, a friend brought me a posy of sweet peas from her sister’s garden. The scent emanating from those small, beautiful flowers almost knocked me over: sweet, rich, unmistakable. I placed the posy in a small vase and put it on the kitchen windowsill. That evening, while I was making supper, that scent wafted its way to me and, for a moment, I felt pure pleasure at the beauty and the bounty of nature represented by that small posy. Pleasure. Smaller than happiness, bigger than fine, just right for this moment that came to me on the air.  The root of the word goes back to Middle English (plesir) and Old French (plaisir) meaning ‘please’ — as in, to please someone. Usually someone else, but sometimes ourself (in any way, in every way). The feeling of pleasure is maybe fleeting but the memory of that pleasure can linger long past the moment itself. May your days be marked by sweet, rich, unmistakable...

Disappointment is not something any of us aim for, I’m sure. The very last thing I ever want to be told by someone is that they are disappointed in me. But this week, I have been very disappointed in others. Life goes on, but that niggling thread of “if only” and “why could it not have been different” lingers in the corners of my mind. Last week’s lightening-quick sale of our cottage ended in disappointment all round when the deal fell through at the final hurdle. The details are not what matter here; what matters is that age-old life lesson about counting your chickens before they’re hatched and sharing good news before it is fully rooted and secured. But who among us has not jumped the gun? Presumed that all would go as promised, as planned? Believed in the goodness of people and trusted that the story would unfold as it had begun — smoothly, seamlessly, successfully? Ah, well. Sometimes it just doesn’t. So we find ourselves at a new beginning, with a different round of showings and...

More than anything, I wanted to tell my mother. Earlier, I had told her that we were planning to sell the cottage. She was surprised that we were moving ahead with this because she knew how much we loved the place as, indeed, she, herself, loved it, but she also understood that time moves along and one’s capacity to keep doing everything changes along with it. But Mum died in April, so I can longer tell her anything. And I am realizing more and more how her absence means I am on my own in this world of ours. Not literally. I am not alone in my daily life. I have my family and friends and community. But in the larger sense, there is now no generation above me, no older generation to be the buffer between me in the here-and-now and whatever comes next out there in the universe for me. For so many years, I had parents and grand-parents, aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles. Now they are all gone and I am the aunt. My sister and brother and I form the buffer for the two young fam...

The sparks from a writing session: o ne image, one quote   I shared the piece below in a writing group, having written it specifically to be read aloud; the tone and cadence is conversational, and its rhythm fits that of the summer months...meandering, musing, contemplative. Its  origin is in the two sparks shown above — an Edward Hopper painting and a quote by Maya Angelou.  As I began the writing process, I didn't know what to write and then, once I started, I didn't know where I was going, but I did, eventually, arrive at a point that surprised, and also pleased, me. So often, this is how writing (and life ** ) goes.  Written early morning Saturday / Shared   Sunday afternoon My train of thought My train of thought this week has been like a train I took from Grenoble, France to Florence, Italy back in April 1978: It had a departure point and a destination and it left on time, but, somehow, it arrived late without ever encountering anything on the tr...

Mum, cringing; Amanda, smiling; Charles, grinning at the camera --  all enjoying morning tea made by Dad outside on the Coleman stove and served in  thick melamine mugs. Since learning that the townsite of Jasper and part of Jasper National Park have been engulfed by a raging wildfire , my mind has been filled with memories of one particular camping holiday my parents took us on way back in 1971.  At the time, we were living in Germany for my father's work, so the 6-week trip in a truck camper through British Columbia made a particular impression on my young mind. We had summer holidayed in Spain and winter skied in the Austrian alps, but that trip around BC with its spectacular scenery and those camp sites in national and provincial parks was out of this world wild and wonderful.  I remember the campsites, those enormous trees, the quiet, the fun of cooking over a fire, the not-so-fun of rudimentary toilet facilities, the...

  CONTEXT : I am writing this on Monday July 22, 2024 for posting on Tuesday July 23, against the backdrop of Joe Biden having stepped down on Sunday July 21 from the ticket in this November’s US election. ———— I’m wrestling with a big problem of my own these days. I will listen to experts and to those with more experience than I have, but, ultimately, it is I who must make the call. I am the one who created the situation and it is, therefore, I who must sort out the problem that has ensued. While I do not control all the factors involved in the problem, I nonetheless feel — and am — responsible for it. Oh, I want things to be different. For sure, I want to have known more from the outset, to have managed the situation more expertly along the way, to have, actually, made a different call from the very beginning. But here I am now. Facing the hydrangeas in the raised bed in the front yard. After a wicked rain storm. The beautiful bountiful blooms are water drenched; the branches and...

I’m sitting on a piece of writing that I like, that my first reader really likes, and that other early readers have given a thumbs up. Yet I have still not submitted it to my desired place of publication. What exactly is my problem? This writer’s dilemma reminds me one of my favourite scenes between Meryl Streep (playing Karen Blixen) and Robert Redford (playing Denys Finch Hatton) in the 1985 film Out of Africa : KAREN: Why is your freedom more important than mine? DENYS: It isn't. And I've never interfered with your freedom. KAREN: No. I'm not allowed to need you. Or rely on you, or expect anything from you. I'm free to leave. But I do need you. DENYS: You don't need me. If I die, will you die? You don't need me. You're confused. You've mixed up need with want. You always have. KAREN: My God. In the world that you would make, there would be no love at all. DENYS: Or the best kind. The kind we wouldn't have to prove. KAREN: You'll be living on...