Where I spray-paint my thoughts…
Sometimes people share a meme online where they ask, "What would you be doing if you'd fulfilled your childhood dream for when you grew up?" Mine is the most boring answer: exactly this. I never wanted to (or was qualified to, really) do anything but teach and write. I decided in about Grade 2 or …
I'm usually a pretty honest person, partly because of morals and partly because I'm a terrible liar. But 23 years ago, when I became a parent, I discovered that parenthood ushered in a whole new era for me, one in which lying often made things easier for everyone, and lies were told to an audience …
Yesterday, March 11, 2021, was the one-year anniversary of the day the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Canada declared a day of mourning and remembrance for the more than 22,000 people who died of COVID in that last year. I remember March 11, 2020 -- still three days before we got our first case …
Kids probably have more interesting pastimes nowadays, what with video games and everything, but does anyone Of A Certain Age, like me, remember playing "Mother, May I?" One kid would be "Mother" and stand facing a row of other kids some distance away. "Mother" would say something like "Take three giant steps," or "Take two …
As 2020 draws to a close, I'm doing a bit of what we all do at the end of a year: look back, evaluate what we did, thought, and experienced, pick out some of the high points, make best-of-the-year lists. I've already posted a Best Books of the Year list, as I always do, but …
This year, I read somewhere between 90-95 books, which is lower than previous years -- and lower still when you realize that a sizeable chunk (maybe close to 20?) or those 90+ were rereads of old favourites. There were weeks during the height of the COVID lockdown here in March/April when I couldn't wrap my …
I checked Twitter this morning to find out that some white, male, British* writer who won the Booker Prize in 2005 has decided to use his one wild and precious life to complain that he wouldn't be able to win it today, as a straight white male, because of a "'woke' movement" that he …
Dear United States of America,We've had a good run. Our relationship goes back to my mother, who was born on your soil in the beautiful borough of Brooklyn, New York, and proudly held onto her American citizenship all her life despite having moved to Newfoundland at the ripe old age of 20 months and remaining …
In the spring of 1979, when I was thirteen years old, I fell in love with two men. It was an impossible romance from the start. Not only were they both inaccessible to me, but they were each other's sworn enemies, standing for starkly different values -- one doomed to die at the other's hand. …
Above is a not-very-great picture of me doing the thing that has, hands-down, given me the most personal satisfaction and enjoyment during the long weeks of pandemic lockdown: preparing food hampers for home delivery out of our (otherwise unused) church basement. For five years we've been running a hot meal program every second Sunday, but …
Continue reading "Lighting Candles in Corners: Some Thoughts on Charity"
