What is my place in this unruly world? Wake up anxious, tumbleweed in belly. What use am I, what is the point, why was I born? Get up, get dressed. Get a job. Get a coffee. Get a life. Turn on the computer – a message: Robin Wheeler has a cancerous tumor on her pancreas. …
Category: Life of Carmen
Seeing and being seen
Walking down Commercial Drive. Low muttering and footsteps coming up quickly behind me. I turn around—me, short and weighed down by my backpack full of computer and stuff—and look straight up at a tall man close by my elbow. He glares down at me, a young native man in a tan trench coat . “What …
The Old Man’s People
I am going to the Ottawa Valley on January 26, to join The Old Man’s People for a nose-to-nose conversation with Death. What fun! I honestly have no idea quite what I will be doing there, but it just seems to be what I need to do. I have been advised by the instructor, Stephen …
When the heart stops beating
One night this past summer I was biking home to Dorje Ling from an evening event at Hollyhock. The night was pitch black , warm and clear with no moon as I pumped and swooped, up and down, eyes wide in the darkness, skin tingling, blood rushing thump thump and all the subtle night smells …
That time of the year
What time of the year? Oh right, that time. No, I’m not. Doing anything. Giving anything. Getting anything. I’m not resistant, its not political – I just don’t. OK. Here we go again, try to get your head around it: by blood and by culture, I am Jewish. I don’t, and I never have. A …