It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. A few years ago, I heard about a practice that sounded like a wonderful idea: to think about what you’re grateful for as soon as you get out of bed every single day, the minute your feet hit the floor. Ever since the idea was planted, I’ve meant to make gratitude part of my morning routine, but so far, it just hasn’t happened. It’s usually only when I’m feeling low that I think about pulling gratitude out of my bag of tricks, as I’ve found that it’s almost impossible to feel lousy and grateful at once. Gratitude trumps the bad stuff 99% of the time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, give it a try. Continue reading
Shifting Gears
Last weekend, literally right after I finished writing my last blog post, my cousin Daniel flew into town to visit me. We had a most awesome time being tourists together, and eating more delicious shellfish than I have ever ingested in a year, let alone a 72-hour period. (My kosher-keeping grandmother was surely rolling over in her grave.)
On Daniel’s last day here, we were somewhere between the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden and Van Dusen Garden (I’m all about the gardens) when our conversation turned to my “situation” – not working, that is. Continue reading
The Spiritual Job Search
Big sigh of relief. It’s not just me. I’m not the only crazy person out here looking for her “right work” while not looking at job postings. In fact, I might not be crazy at all. I might be… hold onto your hats, folks… I just might be part of the leading edge. The vanguard, if you will. (Picked up that word learning about Lenin in History 10 my freshman year at UC Davis. Also picked up the word “paradigm” that year. Big year for my vocabulary.) Continue reading
Listen. It’s a New Season.
At 8:13 this evening here in Vancouver, Fall showed up. She said 
she’d be here, and here she is. A new season has arrived. Thanks to all of the gods and goddesses who made this possible. Thanks to my parents for… oh wait, there I go into my Tony Award acceptance speech again… back to now, Hilary, back to now. Continue reading
Moodling? Procrastinating? Either way, it’ll get done.
This won’t be a long entry, because I’m procrastinating – I’ve got to get back to my moodling.
I feel so much better about not getting things done since my coach turned me on to Brenda Ueland’s 1938 book, “If You Want to Write.” Apparently, all of this “sitting around” and feeling like I’m not “creating” is actually a necessary part of the creative process. The only part that’s not necessary is feeling like I shouldn’t be putting things off. Continue reading
The Times They Are a-Changin’
I started reading the Sunday New York Times seven years ago under protest, when my then-live-in girlfriend unilaterally started “our” subscription. Eventually, I fell in love (with the paper, that is). But all relationships change, and this one is no exception. This past Sunday, I opened my front door and, instead of being greeted by that deliciously thick roll of outstanding writing, I saw the broken toilet that had been removed from my bathroom the previous day but hadn’t yet made its way to the dump.
Thank god, I don’t think in metaphors. Continue reading
Peacefully Busy
I’m busy. It’s the first time I’ve felt busy in three months. I know it’s been that long, because it was exactly three months ago today that I declared that there would be no busi/ness in my life until August had ended. I took the summer off, period. I had an amazing, eye-opening, fun and fanciful season. And then this week, just like that, September showed up. And I got all busy. Continue reading
Coming Home
In her poem, “The Journey,” Mary Oliver writes so beautifully of the hero’s leaving home; it is only by doing so that she can one day return home again.
I left my creative heart a long time ago – is it time to come home again? Continue reading
Are Things Getting Any Better? Let’s Say Yes.
I’m not sure if I actually heard what I think I just heard on the CBC News on Radio Two just now… it sounded like a group of civil rights activists “booed” at some other group (the identity of which I missed) at a rally commemorating the 40-somethingth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech… and to top that off, they went off and had a rally of their own.
All of which is to say, if I heard that right, then no one in that civil rights group today was actually LISTENING to the words that Dr. King had to say. Wasn’t the whole idea – I mean the WHOLE idea – of the civil rights movement to bring us together? Continue reading
Playing the Part
I went to the Fair the other night, and found myself looking at the experience through the eyes of a writer. Continue reading
One Eyed Queen 