At some point along the way this summer, I told someone out loud that I was a writer.  I remember the moment well, and probably commented on it in this blog at the time.  I was dropping something off at an office downtown when I ran into an acquaintance of mine who works there.  She politely asked me what I was doing these days, and I blurted out,  “I’m a writer,” shocking myself as I said it. Continue reading →

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve written anything on this blog, and I’m wracked with a strange sense of unease about that.  I’ve hit a bit of a wall with my writing of late.  I told myself this morning that I would write today, and now I have exactly 15 minutes before I have to leave the house, so I am just doing it. Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

I went to the Fair the other night, and found myself looking at the experience through the eyes of a writer. Continue reading →

Moon Over False Creek

A good yet challenging weekend in Seattle.  Family time comes with lots of probing questions about my choices of late, without a lot of answers in my back pocket.

Driving home tonight, the words to David Whyte’s poem, “Faith,” run through my head and keep me grounded. Continue reading →

I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland these days.  Yes, I know it’s an over-worn analogy, but every time I turn around, there’s another rabbit running by that attracts my attention, and I have to pinch myself because there’s nothing stopping me from following it.  Or her.  Or him.  And so I do. Continue reading →