Numbers

June 13, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

525: the number of displaced Ukrainians on my list needing hosts. 525 out of the 300,000 who have applied for refuge in Canada. I am one of a team of a dozen. 7 days ago I hit a wall. The pain just doesn’t want to subside. So now my team is -1. The numbers haunt […]

The Numbers Don’t Tell All

April 10, 2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

“We only test the front line workers.” This from Public Health. My daughter has been sick for days with cough. Via video chat, her family doctor says she likely has COVID-19. She prescribed inhalers and cough medicine. It didn’t really help. So she called the doctor again. “I can’t see you in my office if […]

Another Piece Published

March 8, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

(The Story Circle Network published two of my pieces in their quarterly e-journal. The category is “True Words” and the following article plus my poem “Retirement” were both accepted. ) Dead Ends and Surprise Beginnings The emails started arriving the morning after I presented at the regional conference—invites and accolades validating my life’s passion. Here I […]

The Spirit of Wild Horses

February 12, 2018.Reading time 9 minutes.

We’ve come back to Coon’s Bluff in hopes of seeing the wild horses. The day is crystal blue, without a cloud in the sky. My heart is heavy. I woke up in the middle of the night, with the lines of a poem running through my head. Without turning on the light, I reached for […]

Confessions From the Sickbed

December 27, 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

Before illness, I counted days and hours, not out of drudgery – I had stretched myself beyond normal limitations. Before illness, I wore responsibility like a hero and defined by work, prioritized tasks above well-being. Before illness, I joked about the disabled, lounging around, living the life of leisure, usurping the system. Before illness, I […]

How Illness Improved my Writing

October 7, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

It’s no mystery that stripped of all obligations and confined to a bed provides the coveted time to pursue writing skills, however; it is the actual experience of illness (in my case ME/CFS) that provides the platform for expansion. Although I have been a ‘writer’ since my early years, the past four have marked a […]

Depression On Board

March 20, 2017.Reading time 3 minutes.

Depression rides along with chronic illness, not as a cause, but as a response. The limitations of this disease (ME/CFS) are not easily defined, yet, if pushed, will result in undeniable consequences. You would think that after three years, I would know this, and yet, I continually fall into patterns of denial. We travelled 3,000 […]

Time To Press Reset

November 29, 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

Even when illness is chronic there is a tendency to look for signs and hope of healing. It catches me every time : the false hope that I may have turned a corner. Undeniably, there is progress. Last night I was able to bathe alone without worry of falling or passing out. Last year, I […]

Lessons From Ballroom Dancing

October 25, 2016.Reading time 6 minutes.

Early on in our relationship, Ric and I signed up for ballroom dancing classes. It was a small class for beginners, so we thought it might be a good fit; both of us loved to dance. “I’m not very good at letting someone else take the lead,” I confessed on the first night. “In dancing, […]

Illness, Life’s Intruder

July 7, 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

Before illness (ME/CFS), I had my life lined up, like a shopkeeper perfectly aligning her shelves, ready to get down to business. One more course and I would be at the top pay scale, qualified to fill many shoes in the education field. I had landed my dreamed-for job in Special Education, and was starting […]

Of Light

There is light in unknowns –at least I project it there –caught between the currentashen landscape and the achingsof a solitary childhood… I like to think faith guides mebut she is muted like the gardensof my dreams, more etherealthan palpable and I need concretehave waited too long for that train of certainty to carry me […]

Time Out

My to-do lists have grown appendagesare teaming up in a huddleplotting their next play Wait a minute, Guys! I pleadthe afternoon sun has caught meat just the right angle,and my chair, with a mind of its own,is reclining… Can’t we save the game day anticsfor another time… (Image my own)

Off Center

The scenery outside my windowis passing by too fast, andI’m facing backwards, wavesof nausea disrupting the view I focus on emotion, animated,try to discern its origin, realizeit is misplaced; I am disorientedlaugh at the enormity of my blunder.