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Coronavirus conundrum
So. We’re three weeks into self-isolation and home working due to COVID-19. Everyone’s lives – all around the world – have been turned absolutely upside down as we do our best to ensure we stay healthy and don’t transmit this illness to those we know. I’m fortunate to be fully employed, and even if there has been a pay reduction, work keeps me busy during the days, and money in my bank account. For that I am very fortunate. But it’s still hard. I’m missing my coworkers. I’m missing the jokes in the hallways, the coffee room chatter and the… Read more…
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Forging new plans
My view – the planned version Today I was supposed to be boarding a plane to my picturesque Bosphorus-view flat to spend three months of a four month sabbatical soaking in the inspiration that only the magic of Istanbul can offer. Instead, I spent Day 1 of Ontario’s shutdown of essential services working from my dining room table, writing communications about a global pandemic. The world has changed so much in the past little while. Two weeks ago today, I was starting to get concerned, but still thought I’d be going. By the Friday, I was sure that even if… Read more…
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Slipping through my fingers
Remember that dream? The one I’ve spent the past year planning? I’m beginning to think it was just a hallucination. I’m on the countdown to a four-month sabbatical from work to try and write something worth reading. I’ve got five days left at work and another five until I’m supposed to fly to that view I’ve dreamed about for years. The one that was supposed to inspire me to great things. But with every day – even every hour – that passed last week that view slipped slowly further and further from my grasp. And now, like a mirage in the desert… Read more…
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In a blinding moment of clarity
Have you ever had one of those blinding moments of clarity? You know, the ones that make you see everything in a completely new light? I was invited to dinner a few days ago. As I broke bread with this wonderful family, I sat beside their eldest son. I’ve watched him grow up for the past few years, starting as a shy boy starting grade 9 in a new country. Now in grade 12, he’s a polite and handsome young man with a shock of black hair, bright sparkling eyes and olive skin. He was confidently telling me about his… Read more…
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Bang!
I got rear ended a couple of weeks ago. I was in my car, on the way to work. Traffic was backed up on the bridge over the highway, so I was literally at a standstill, watching the red tail lights on the cars below. Then it happened. BANG! My reading glasses, which had remained perched on the top of my head from my morning perusal of the newspaper before I left the house, were suddenly on the floor, and my heart was racing a million miles an hour. It took more than a couple of deep breaths to… Read more…
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A new year, a fresh page – what to write?!
Yesterday, on the last day of 2019 – the decade, in fact – my Facebook feed was full of that quotation – you know, the one that talks about today being the first blank page of a new 365 page book, and that we should write a good one. A little googling tells me it’s from to singer/songwriter Brad Paisley, but it’s often unattributed. Regardless, thoughts about writing that book is a little more than metaphorical for me this year. This year, in fact, we get an extra day – 366, in total – not just the standard number. Canada’s…
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Let me tell you a secret
I’ve been keeping a secret. Actually, I haven’t been keeping it very well, because it’s been slowly leaking out among close family, friends and colleagues, like air from a balloon. But its getting closer, so its time to let it out before I burst. I’ve had some ideas bubbling in my mind for a few years. Bits and pieces of stories, settings and characters – all ideas for writing that I have wanted to flesh out. Slowly, bit by bit, they’ve been taking up more time in my head, but with work being pretty much all-encompassing for more years than I’d… Read more…
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The November blues
I hate November. For me, November is the cruellest month. The gloriously coloured leaves have fallen from the trees like tears. We’re all a bit hypoglycemic after tumbling from our Hallowe’en sugar high. The joy of one extra hour of sleep has been replaced by the depression that comes from realizing that darkness descends before work is done. Art Credit: @CBC It’s dark when I wake up, dark when I go to work – where I spend the day in my windowless office – and dark when I go home. November is the month where the year is made or lost. Where… Read more…
