First published in 2017; tis the season to repost. Joy in the Journey* is one of the themes of Advent, which is a central part of the Catholic religion, to which my mom was faithful. For me, that thought always takes me back to a dark country road, under a green and white blanket, under…
Category: memoir
The March This Time: a Collective Conversation
Looking back to 2014, it seems a kinder, gentler time. Dr. Cornett is a wise, genuine, passionate teacher who leads with spirit and vulnerability. Interesting to look back at his work, now that Dr. Jordan Peterson has risen to prominence; now that Me Too has had its moment, now that this kind of conversation feels…
On the Passing of Elizabeth the Great
She showed the world how to be a woman of worth, of dignity and of steady courage – to be clear, I place her beside and after my mom, my spirit mom and my aunties. They are the personal, she the societal image of what a woman needs to be – strong, grounded, gracious but relentlessly firm.
What a gift to live during her reign. May her soul pass through the Western Door and find its true reward for a life of service and leadership. God Rest Elizabeth the Great.
Top Books!
April 29th, I was out with two very special women, who’ve been at my side and had my back since I was 10 years old. How fitting that they were the ones to take me to Chapters South Edmonton for a post-dinner rummage around the literary offerings there. Mark Messier’s memoir was prominently displayed in…
For World Theatre Day: The Great Winfield Chicken Coop Disaster
https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2021/The-Great-Winfield-Chicken-Coop-Disaster Thrilled to have this little story published on All Lit Up. Names changed to protect the sensitive (if not innocent).
Legend…
Every town has its legends. Back in 2017, The Yards published a little article I wrote about one. Image by Janka00Simka0 on the legendary pixabay.com
My Mother’s Ghost Knits a Scarf of Chain
Originally posted on O at the Edges:
? My Mother’s Ghost Knits a Scarf of Chain When I look up rust scabs flutter from your clicking needles, subsuming even the brightest link in this moon-drenched room. Communion’s possibility perished in that wicker basket, and we hold close our secrets, looped within circles, joined in these…
The Grove in the Night
It was night in Kyoto. In a grove on a mountain, in July 1995, as I was preparing to leave Japan, I received one of the great gifts of my life. It began with the Kyoto Connection, an international arts gathering. Over several months, I’d taken the stage at the Connection in various guises: as…
Day 5: unmarked
a brag, a middle finger at those ghost moments that, when she was dying burned again through her mind so many years, her birthday a crucible enduring, unpopular outcast youth; beauty seeking wings, and made cruel she sang at Carnegie Hall with grit built in backwoods honed in bully-yards defiant in second hand clothes we…
Day 2: San Antonio Tlayacapán, In the Pocket
In this pocket weighing in pebble by pebble mountains of consequence my passport in that pocket of expat artifice American dollars translate to big houses high walls with shanties built into their pockets poverty that never knocks at carved doors, iron gates shoulder pushed against shoulder on cobbled streets in the same slight tide as…
In the 80s
Back in the 80s, we were going to die of nuclear war, whether instant or over-wintered, in a flash or frozen slowly. In the 80s, we danced to big-hair music genderbending stars with cocaine voices synthesizing freedom, formulaic fun. 80s, and rumours from New York and San Francisco disco drugs and a mysterious…
In Residence
Well, I’m In-Residence now. Following in footsteps of many respected colleagues, peers and mentors, I’m the Writer-in-Residence at MacEwan University. A residency is so much more than a sponsored time and space for pursuing one’s own artistic goals, although that, in itself, makes a residency a wonderful thing. I’m being paid to obey my muse,…
Prairiepomes 