Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
I stuff down the cookies as if the faster I eat the more I can distance myself from the misery that has bubbled to the surface. “Write about it,” my psychologist suggests as she ushers me out of the door, our session having run past the allotted time. I told her about the weekend I […]
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The forecast for last night was a frost warning. “The rooftops were white this morning, did you see?” a neighbour asked me at our communal brunch. I hadn’t noticed, but I am feeling it in my body. Things are seizing up. We’ve had a week of get-togethers, starting with Thanksgiving. Tuesday, we drove into town […]
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Subtitled My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin, Apprenticed to Venus is the part memoir, part novel of Tristine Rainier, who mentored under the famous diarist. Although I have been inspired by Nin’s words, I have known very little about her, so I was eager to read this book. Rainier, on an errand from her artist aunt, encounters […]
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Shadows shift, alter, but never fade. They are contrast for light, a companion to our fears, the joy of a good mystery. This week, it had been my intention to photograph shadows, to have fun with what emerged, but life does not always follow our intended map. Instead, another woman came forward to make allegations […]
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I turned to God when my foundation was shaking, only to find that God was shaking my foundation. – unknown I’ve carried this quotation with me since my early thirties, a time when the bottom fell out of my life and I fell into a deep abyss of depression and mental breakdown (or breakthrough, as […]
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Inquiry is a trait teachers hope to instil in students – the ability to not just take for granted that which they have been taught, but the curiosity to question evidence, and to research beyond what is given. Questions form the basis of a reflective life. This week’s challenge was to think about the questions […]
Read More“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Prior to […]
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Summer bursts with activities and plans, and I am already wondering at the folly of trying to move in the midst of it all. I put out a group text yesterday to solicit help from our kids, and the response was as expected: We are away that weekend. Can we help with the pre-move prep? […]
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“I’m too old to change!” Father snapped at me when I suggested that some of the stress Mother was suffering might have to do with his behaviour. “Look in the mirror, Dad. If you see a reflection, it is not too late to change.” It was a line I borrowed from Alan Cohen, an author […]
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“We’ll give him a few more minutes, shall we?” The kindly old man seated across from me crossed one leg over the other and sat back as if he had all the time in the world to wait. “The thing is…I mean…,” I hung my head in shame. “I don’t think he’s coming.” “Ah, yes.” […]
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