It’s early afternoon on December 24th as I write this. We’ve just finished a light lunch and a chess game (I’m on a streak these days, and not a positive one.) I’ve assembled our traditional Christmas Morning Wife Saver, and it’s resting in the refrigerator for the morning. Gerry’s at the dining table trying to finish…
Category: Slice of Life
Here’s Some Light
Hi, friend, It’s a windy, chilly Tuesday here in Saskatchewan. As usual, Gerry spent the morning at the fitness center. I wrote a note to my granddaughter and popped it in the mail along with a little something I hope delights her, then went and got my hair cut. We just finished lunch, two games…
Teachers and Friends
For each of us, there comes a time to let go. You will know when that time has come. When you have done all that you can do, it is time to detach. Deal with your feelings. Face your fears about losing control. Gain control of yourself and your responsibilities. Free others to be who…
Ambiguity and Liminality
I have come to this space a few times—once when I was in the sanctuary of the library, surreptitiously sipping tea from my thermos because food and drink are “not allowed at this time.” Just say what you mean, I thought, bristling at the signs placed here and there throughout the building. If it’s the…
Game Seven (and other trivia)
When I opened the blinds this morning, I gasped. Nature does that sometimes with the brilliant eastern sky. The wonder doesn’t last long, so it’s worth pausing to appreciate, and, as Mary Oliver told us in her poem, “Instructions for Life,” “Pay attention. Be Astonished. Tell about it.” It’s the morning after Halloween, and we…
How the Grandparents Are Making Out
One morning this week, I sat in a doctor’s office and, at the end of the consult, we shared scoliosis surgery stories. Mine, a half-century ago, that decimated my senior year, with weeks of traction, months of being completely bedridden, and more than half a year spent in a full body cast; hers, when she…


