Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
I ask my three-year-old self to show me her home, and she points to the floor beneath the formica-topped table in the kitchen. There, caged within the chrome legs of table and chairs, she is out of the path of adult legs, whose movements are as unpredictable as their moods. I ask my four-year-old self […]
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Parents brought children to the occupation in Ottawa. They set up camp on a main thoroughfare, in front of apartment buildings and retail shops, and obstructed the lives of others. They honked their big rig horns, left their diesel engines running day and night, and set up barbeques, and food tents, and bouncy castles, and […]
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Find an issue people are able to get passionate about, say, child trafficking. 2. Share information and increase the outrage. Start with facts, but insert the occasional manufactured story to test the waters. Maybe try Pizza Gate. 3. Increase paranoia by suggesting that so much is hidden from the public. Again, use actual cases, for […]
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There’s a restlessness in me that defies explanation. It’s not that I am bored – I have any number of creative projects on the go – it’s that I have a sense that I’m missing something, something that lies deep at my core. But what? And how do I access it? Something that is dormant […]
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Post marital disruption, I would go to the river every day, say a prayer for guidance, power walk off the stress, and then sit in quiet contemplation facing the water. My son referred to it as “Mom finding inner peace.” Power walking is a thing of the past, and every day is no longer doable, […]
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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 past week has been very draining on many levels. Â I know others have felt it, as well. Â The surge of emotional and psychological upset has taken its toll on my physical well-being. Â I spent the morning in bed, and part of the afternoon, and then, since the rain was holding off, I asked Ric […]
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“…he had always been popular and happy and things had always worked out.”                    (Holly LeCraw, The Swimming Pool) I close the book, feeling the rage shifting just below my sternum. It’s the second time this week […]
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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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I’m on a field trip with several classes of middle school students. We are attending a local theatre to watch a live performance.  One boy, in particular, is concerning me.  He misbehaves regularly and needs constant monitoring.  I rotate between the balcony and the main floor keeping an eye on students and come upon the […]
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One Woman's Quest II 