Five Years a Writer

Peas in a pod: the same, yet distinct   The larger world is fraught, very fraught, these days. I pay attention, yes, and I ground myself by standing firm on the foundation of my daily living, the roots of which run deep. . .  In my early university days back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I fancied myself a budding intellect. I loved sitting around with my friends talking, talking, talking with coffee or beer in hand — solving the problems of the day and debating the politics of the moment. The secondhand bookstore just down the block from the coffee shop we frequented held endless fascination for me, and I spent many a happy hour browsing the shelves and exploring the big world of ideas they held. I discovered the unusual art of Aubrey Beardsley , and somewhere along the way I found the poetry of Kahlil Gibran . Neither was being taught in any of my classes, but each captured my imagination, and opened my eyes and my mind to the world around and beyond me. Gibran’s poem “...

A fresh blotter on my craft table for my notes and jottings in this new year. I like the sharp edge of a new year. We are done with the old and, with a flip of the calendar page, we are into a brand new beginning. Three hundred and sixty-five days in which to be and do ‘new’ or, maybe, to keep being and doing what we have always been and done: Being ourselves to the best of our ability. Either way — new or more of the same, the year will unfold and so will we: Unfold. Open up. Step into…whatever we are able to make of this year 2026. Before sprawling head-first into the new year, I like to look back to assess the past year, which I usually do by reviewing my phone and desk calendars, taking stock of personal appointments, teaching highlights, and writing milestones, then crafting some kind of story about the past twelve months.  But this year I did something different.  I looked at my craft table blotter on which I jot down things that catch my attention while listening to the...

December 27, 1966-December 27, 2025 Cordt was my colleague and friend — and my mechanic on call. I met him when he began teaching at Red River College and I immediately liked his straightforward approach to everything — communication, teaching, friendship. When I needed something, he helped me out. Never made a fuss, was always present for me. When I had a question about something with my car, Cordt was my first call. When my mum was ready to give up driving and sell her car, Cordt gave advice on process and price. I had a question, he had an answer. He willingly lent me his car for errands at lunch. When I lost an election to be on the college’s board of governors, he brought me a “loser muffin” and we laughed together. He made my job as department schedule-maker so easy with his willingness to take on any new course, anytime. He gave me countless rides between our workplace and my home. When he wanted to try out the newly opened Jollibee restaurant, he asked me to go along; he loved ...

Such intensity! Amanda at about age five, writing something. I like my green beans steamed just long enough that a bit of crunch remains. Then served with just salt, maybe a squeeze of lemon — maybe. My favourite green veg, plain, is obviously what it is, there on the plate. My writing is, I think, a bit like those green beans: plain, accessible, identifiable for what it is — a thinker making sense of her world via words served up, unadorned, for enjoyment and appreciation by anyone who joins her at her virtual table. Until I came up with the green beans analogy, I had been contorting myself to shape today’s post  —  to make it fancy, doll it up, hide its inherent simplicity with sophisticated technique and impressive side notes*. And then I heard my mother’s voice exclaiming, “Don’t drown the green beans!” She meant, just cook them and serve them. They are good as they come, naturally. So.  I am closing out my posts for this year by saying a simple and sincere THANK YOU ...

Last year at this time, I wrote a story that hit the notes of romantic nostalgia , which I titled "Holiday Magic". Many of you liked it and it continues to be a well read post on this blog. This year, I have written the sequel to that story; I hope you like it as much as last year's. 🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 🎄  🎄 What if this year for the holidays, she did something quite different. For the past number of years, she had kept herself alone in a house filled with beautiful decorations and wishful thinking. It was good, but this year she felt ready for something different. More active, a bit more bold. Why decorate the house and then wait for him to arrive when she knew damn well that he wouldn’t — because he couldn’t. He was dead. She knew that. Though he lived on in her heart, in her head she knew he was gone forever from this plane of living. So. This year, she would break that habit of looking back and lon...

December’s darkness brings the return of the light in many ways, and light brings hope. Literally, a new beginning in the new year ahead. But hope is not some flimsy notion laid over the mess we’ve made of things. Hope is a fierce clinging to what we know in our heart: Things can be different, better, more loving  —  but only if we fight for it to be so. This week’s post is about hope — or maybe Hope, as I spell it in my story below. The three quotes I open with make clear just how active hope/Hope must be for it to lead to something new and better … -------------------------------- “People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”   Source: Twitter/“Mathew” @CrowsFault   “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”   Sourc...

Just four of my recently purchased gold-rimmed "things" that, to my eye, are lovely. I wonder what their story is... We are in the season of many things. Some things are wrapped up and exchanged as gifts. Some things are welcome, come with a story, and are cherished. Other things...well, not so much.  We are in the season of many things, so I have been thinking about things...  Inanimate objects. Maybe a hair ribbon, a hubcap, a diary, or a notebook.  Each inanimate, until we do something with it — the hair ribbon that holds together the silky golden hair of the first grader; a diary filled with appointments and names and to do lists. A notebook with scraps of writing that amount to something, maybe. A hubcap that protects the lug bolts on the wheel until the car hits a rut and the hubcap bounces off — left to rust in the ditch. Then, if you’re in a crime story, that hub cap holds the key to the murder case because it pinpoints the location of the one crucial detail that ...