Seeing In the Dark

So, it’s been a bit of a rough week, and I’ve got nothing to complain about. Apart from being closed up in my countryside cloister due to a broken-down car, great things have been happening. I’ve pretty much filled my pilot course (one spot is left, in case someone wants to nab it over the […]

Beginnings

So, things have been nuts. My mom came to visit, two days after the movers hauled everything into our new house. We picked her up at the airport and – you might already know this – when she got inside our front door and started climbing the stairs, she pretty much collapsed. Cue 911, and […]

Happy Birthday, Bro

I woke at four this morning, and with night around me, the dark, quiet fields outside, I wrote for a little while. A couple of poems came out: one about the sleek black kitten who lives in the house we’re house-sitting on a hobby farm in Alberta, another to my brother whose birthday is today. […]

Circles and Loops

Grief is not linear. It does not come in stages. It loops back, squiggles forward, circles and dips. Like everyone says (everyone who’s been there, I mean), it comes in waves. Buried in novel revisions, focused on creating, I’ve been doing okay. But then I hit send to deliver my manuscript to my agent, looked […]

I’m Not Okay (And That’s Okay)

Yesterday, my doctor asked me if I’m “getting past” my brother’s death. It’s only been eight weeks, I said. And he was my brother. In some ways, I’ll never ‘get past’ it. Yes, she said, looking away. We keep them in our hearts. Well, duh. I don’t really need the platitude, thank you very much. […]