Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate introduces the shameful story of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, an organization run by Georgia Tann, a woman who made money by abducting poor children from their homes and selling them into adoption. Wingate’s novel imagines what life would be like for siblings taken from their homes and […]
Read MoreOne of my favourite podcasts is The Moth where people share real life stories based on a theme. An episode I listened to recently focused on coincidence. According to Oxford Dictionary (online edition) the definition of coincidence is: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. This particular podcast includes stories replayed […]
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My husband is googling “The Declaration of Independence”. I am just trying to breathe: a tempest of emotions, thoughts, and fears attacking rationality. I try to think back to another time when I felt such terror…to reassure myself that this will all pass…but I think about my son who recently converted to Muslim for the […]
Read MoreCognitive functioning is currently down a notch. (I know I’ve complained of this before, but bear with me – I think it merits understanding.) I found a recipe for Easy Lentil Curry on the blog: Simple Vegan. Since I love curries and lentils, I decided “easy” must mean it is doable even for me. Part […]
Read More“I get hit on everyday at work,” a young mother recently disclosed. “Anyone of those men would be happy to look after me. My husband just doesn’t appreciate me enough!” I don’t know what has motivated this woman to make such a comment, but I fear she is on the brink of destroying many lives. “There […]
Read MoreI understand the need for political change – here in Canada it represented a landslide win for a young, politically inspired, English teacher with “great hair” as all the election attack ads reminded us in hopes of discrediting him. I get that Hilary has a less than spectacular track record tainted by rumours of corruption. At […]
Read More“Who is the audience?” As an English teacher I often asked this question, to which many students would reply: “Everyone.” Everyone, of course, is not the correct answer, but I understand how difficult it is to define such as elusive entity as ‘audience’. “Imagine,” I would invite them, “that you just failed an important test and […]
Read MoreMust have been the dimness of the lights, or maybe the thick haze of cigarette smoke that masked the truth of my age, because the doorman didn’t flinch as my sister led me into the crowded bar. Rows of long plywood tables lined either side of the room, each one overflowing with bodies, more men […]
Read MoreGo play in traffic, kids! was a favourite direction of one of my aunt’s. This particular aunt was snarly, often critical, and never filtered in her commentary on life. Her favourite point of contention was how spoiled we children were, how unappreciative, etc. She also frequently threatened to move to Alaska to get away from […]
Read MoreI am contemplating the importance of punctuation when writing poetry. Please be advised that I am not an expert – either of the period or the poetic form – just a woman, who having stumbled upon the possibility of penning a word or two, has found herself questioning (which definitely needs a question mark, doesn’t […]
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One Woman's Quest II 