NATURE LOVE. Pine trees, birches, purple clematis, chickadees and sparrows, hikes, walking and running, parks, and waterfronts (lakes, oceans) and the landscapes of Iceland, Scotland, and Ireland are a few of my favourite things.
Sifting through the rich compost soil is something gardeners know well: letting it pour and slide through our fingers, feeling its warmth, its richness, its readiness to be used for planting, its smell of worthiness. Writing is a lot like this. We all have things we are proud of, memories where we can look back […]
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I call her baby blue, or Blue for short. She is adorable, growing fast, silver-blue, five feet tall. She has quickly taken on the steady and faithful role of watching over our house and neighbourhood street. Behind her people are camping out under a makeshift tarp and hiding away their hurt, across from her a […]
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My Dad was the first to convince me that we don’t call it “dirt,” we call it soil. It’s beautiful and rich and it’s from the earth. It’s valuable, a gift. It’s something we respect. Dirt is dirt. Soil is soil. This is soil. This past week, I felt the impact of the incredible sorrow […]
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Sorrow + joy. I have woken up this morning to what feels like a new world. It rained last night. The temps are a little higher, the air feels fresher and wetter, and a bit of the snow has melted. And my heart is stirred up in so many ways. But most of all, I […]
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Turns out rain is my blue space. It helps me relax and calms my mind. What blue space does that for you? About an hour ago, I was sitting down to write a blog post, and the kettle was on for a hot cup of tea. I am dog sitting today (this makes me very […]
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I was sixteen, going on twelve and twenty. I was loved by family and friends, and also had my share of teen angst: alone and lost in my own spirit, the way a bird thinks it’s ready to fly long before its wings have reached their feathery span. That summer I worked at a tree […]
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There is a chorus of frogs all around me. It has been one of the greatest moments of wonder so far on my trip to Victoria. My family lives in a different house now, with trails and ponds surrounding their backyard, and as I write from the sunroom, watching the red streaks of sunset over […]
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Mary Oliver, a well-loved poet, talks about paying attention and noticing what’s in front of you, of being fully aware, of staying in the present moment and writing poems about where you feel awe and wonder at the world. Her poem “The Swan” helped me see a swan with more wonder and curiosity and gratitude […]
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They say the first game of darts was imagined during the rain. A group of archers gathered indoors in a pub while waiting out the rain, and started aiming their short arrows at a point on the wall. Someone told me once I am a pluviophile: a lover of rain; someone who finds peace of […]
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