My Irish times
One of my favourite Ferron songs goes like this: All the world can love you save for one And I don’t know why it is that…
For the novel not yet written
This morning I rolled out of bed, grabbed a pen and blank paper, lit the fire, poured a coffee, and wrote a novel. Okay, I didn’t…
We are not the only one
I receive a poem by email every morning. I don’t always read them. Some days poetry seems like a frill. Or maybe it’s just the wrong…
What would make you happier than anything else in the world?
What would bring you more happiness than anything else in the world? I find this question excruciatingly hard to answer. It might be a Libra thing—ask…
Tightrope walking as if there were no net
When I was in my 20s and working in a spirit-numbing job in Victoria, I and a group of coworkers met downtown one bright summer’s day…
Hidden miracles
We can never know, when we embark on an adventure or a morning, where it will take us. As Paulo Coelho says in Warrior of the…
Of a place
Every so often the Universe takes me on a thought-train ride. Do you understand what I mean by this? I encounter an idea or a passage…
When a kiss isn’t just a kiss
Liz Gilbert tells a wonderful story about how an idea for a novel jumped from her to Ann Patchett when Patchett kissed her on the mouth. Gilbert’s…
Staying put with pomegranates
For years I have placed pomegranates around my house: here and there, on windowsills, on my desk, on my altar. They are reminders sparked by a…
To break a promise
The other morning I walked to my place of prayer, leaned into the brilliance, and said what I needed to say all along, in words as…