I go to visit Rose at her assisted-living facility once a week. She is 98, tiny and frail, semi-blind and semi-deaf. She can shuffle slowly around with a walker, but needs a wheelchair to go beyond the building. As she breathes she makes a high peeping sound in the back of her throat, an effect …
Category: Non Moms
Such wonder
If i was three years old i would laugh at the sound of laughter. I would ask for milk and have it handed to me in a spill-proof cup. I would discover the alphabet in a clothbound book. I would run full tilt, trip, fall flat out, cry, be comforted, get up, run and fall …
I was born on this day
My 40th Interdependence Day birthday bash featured a pedal-powered sound system, firespinners and dj’s and bicycles with flaming wheels. I’ve celebrated on Mt. Elfinstone and in Horsefly and on a glacier. Last year i convened a spontaneous garden party. I might yet throw something together, and if I do, it will be fun. But i’ve …
Happy mothers and non-mothers day
We marched down Wall Street this morning, all dressed in black. Wall Street in East Van that is, down in the semi-industrial paradise by the port lands. A parade, in honour of the Buddha’s birthday. Two smiling black-robed priests led the procession. I followed, striking the brass inkin bell. Behind me walked a tall man …
I have no pictures of my mother
I remember my mother as a small solidly built woman with eyes like angry blue marbles. I see her sitting at the kitchen table, smoking Matinée Lights and drinking cold coffee. I can’t remember ever having had a real conversation with her. We hardly knew each other except as adversaries.