You know when you can’t sleep – you toss and turn, count sheep, think positive thoughts, try meditating, go get a glass of warm milk. Nothing works. At 1 a.m. you look out the window to see if anyone else has their lights on, 2 a.m. you check your email and FB messenger, 3 a.m.…
It’s early fall in Toronto. The trees are turning to flame, the days are getting cooler and shorter. The nights are getting longer. It’s just after 7 p.m. The lowest hydro rates have kicked in and for the second time this week I’ve thrown a load of laundry into the washer. Suddenly, I’m thrust back…
My daughter is a frontline worker. She’s not a doctor or a nurse or a personal support worker. She works frontend (which means she helps the cashiers) at Costco. Five days a week, seven hours a day she’s there with her face mask and her gloves helping to get the job done so the rest…
When my 7-year-old grandson asked me, “Who would I be if you hadn’t ‘dopted Mummy?” I murmured “Mmm,” and said, “That’s a good question.” “Well Jana,” he insisted, “Who would I be? Would I still be me? Would the lady who ‘dopted Mummy be my grandma? I wouldn’t want that. Would I have cousins in…
Spot was a stray: part sheepdog, part terrier. I don’t know how he got the name Spot — he was black with no markings — or how he came to live with us. Well, he didn’t actually live with us. He lived in a kennel outside. “Please Dad,” I would plead. “Can he just stay…
I stood in front of the dusty chalkboard shoulders back, arms at my sides, stiff like a soldier. I stared out at my six and seven-year-old classmates and took a deep breath. It was my turn to do morning talk (show and tell in Canada). I don’t know what drove me that particular day to…
It was early spring, the end of the August school holidays. The sky was blue. No clouds anywhere. I was staring out the window wondering what I would do for the day. I knew I would clean my room, do dishes and peel the potatoes for tea. These things I did every day. But what…
When I lie on my couch two little girls look down at me; one in pink, one in blue. They are sitting on a velvet chair staring solemnly into the camera. They watch from a large wooden frame. On the back of the frame, it says hand painted by portrait artist F. Parker, framed at…
The world was waiting for Y2K. Depending on who you listened to, we were either facing a massive computer failure or the catastrophic end to the world. But I wasn’t too concerned. Because my world, as I knew it, had already ended.
We were on the cusp of the Sixties. New Zealand teenagers were joining the rock and roll craze that had taken over the United States and the United Kingdom. Parents who had survived the Second World War were faced with another war – the war against the youth culture with its loud and inappropriate music…