Last week a tornado touched down in the Laurentians. I missed the action due to an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon in the National Capital Region, two hours from Mont Tremblant. The last time I saw Dr. William D. was 2019. I arrived an hour before the 2:15 appointment for an x-ray, then returned to the waiting room just in time. Two hours later, my number, U-122 Room 17, flashed on the screen.

“I set alarms off at airport security checks because of this metal plate in my shoulder. Can you give me a letter?”

“Anyone can write a letter, so no, it won’t be helpful,” he said. Will is six feet tall. He stands while I sit in a chair on wheels.

“What about my massage therapist who says I’m too uptight about the metal plate.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he replied. We looked at the x-ray together.

“Looks great,” he said.

We talked about another concern I had which included the metal plate and death.

“You have dark thoughts,” Will noted.

I should have taken a picture of the x-ray; proof for airport security that I am not carrying a weapon. There are millions of folks with metal in their hips, knees, legs, feet other body parts. My case is minutia on the scale of health issues. If you have any tips getting through airport checks without becoming the focus of attention, I’d like to read them. Will had a point. I have dark thoughts.

The next day while whining about cancelling a trip to my friend’s cottage, I watched the busy bees circulated the lavender I planted three years ago.

“Lavendar probably won’t survive the winter,” Bridget the landscaper told me the first year we met. Mine did.

“Pine needles can ruin your soil,” she added.

The morning glories have reappeared for the third year. The wild garden seeds sown in the spring are blooming. I am not a master gardener. Except for the years of figuring out what grows in pots on rooftop gardens in Vancouver while my life at fifty hit a tsunami and dark thoughts dominated. I did not till the soil. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was my closest connection to gardening growing up. Planting seeds in a pot was not gardening, one of those lies I held onto during those murky years. It was a series of choices. A magnolia tree in a barrel is a great match with holly shrubs that no one else wanted. Could morning glories bloom in boxed planters? Was a chocolate cosmos a conversation starter when friends showed up on the roof? The impact of digging and planting as a place for transformation didn’t hit me until I moved to Québec.

“There are multiple surprises when you dig,” a palaeontologist told me when I interviewed him for my novel Argonauta. He shared a few adventures which I may write about in another post.

In late winter, when the first snowdrop flowers nose out, I crave dirt and colour. Now it seems whatever else happens like dark thoughts, or bees on lavender, any pot or patch that fills the balance of order and chaos fits the blueprint of the shape of my life. It’s peak summer and bright yellow is the main event at my place, in spite of the rain.

In August I will be on my way to the Haute Savoie region in northern France and then to Lausanne in Switzerland, for chorale concerts with Le Choeur Tremblant. I won’t be singing but I will be the reporter at large. I’ll send postcards via Substack.

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Celebrities come to Vancouver, not to be seen but stroll like us ordinary people. The first time I saw Peter Falk aka Columbo sitting on a cement bench outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, he held a sketch book in one hand and a charcoal pencil with the other. I ate lunch and often supper at the Gallery as it was a block from the Manhattan Co-op where I lived. It was during my season of Sarah Brightman and Andre Bocelli blaring Time to Say Goodbye, aka my marriage breakup.

The next time Columbo was back sketching at the Van Art Gallery I walked over to the bench. He invited me to sit down and chat. He talked about Vancouver as a paradise discovered.

“Sketching helps me to observe people,” he said. “It’s nice to sit by myself in your city.”

“I carry a notebook,” I replied.

The rest of our conversation escapes me. Deborah, All the best - Peter Falk he wrote on the last page of my journal notes.

My mother had autograph books. Anyone could sign. Later she favored a guest book at the entrance of our home. If you had a meal or came for tea you couldn’t leave without jotting down a line or two and the date. You did not need a platform to write in my mother’s books, although a celebrity would probably get a special page. The next evening, she spent time on the phone calling everyone to chat about ‘last night’.

Each time I moved my mother gifted me with a guest book. Occasionally, friends would sign if I asked. Most times the pages were left empty. The book was in a drawer, easy to forget.

Last week I found a note from a friend in the same notebook Columbo had signed. As some readers know, I’m on a roll to rip up my journals. Here’s a portion of the letter:

“As I thought about you, I got this picture. I saw all around me the sky was heavy with clouds dark, grey and looming, I was high up travelling through and as I turned around, I saw the horizon was wonderful. Blue sky and sunshining even on the edge of the dark clouds a blue band along the horizon. I knew by faith it was your future. …. Be responsive to look after yourself.”

The letter was unsigned. If I had my guest book at the entrance the person might have signed it and left a line about our time together on a dark night in my studio apartment. Today, If I knew who wrote it, I would FaceTime her/him for a catch-up chat.

The Performance Review

“Are you always going to write about identity?” A member of the Lucid Book Club, in Vancouver asked me this question when I gave a reading from my first novel, Argonauta, eleven years ago. The room was full of psychiatrists, psychologists, residents, and other writers. The establishment of this group is predicated on the notion that novels, film, poetry, and memoirs are not only about literary merit and entertainment but can also be about ideals that make us re-consider who we are, how we live and how the Department of Psychiatry views the practice of psychiatry/psychology.

As others read from their poetry, memoir and film excerpts, the affirmations from the group beamed like warm spotlights. I was last on the list of readers. Silence followed. I was not prepared for the question. The only question. Intimidation struck like lightening. The room was storm central.

I hope not,” I replied. I didn’t stay for wine and cheese after the performance review. Instead, I walked for ten blocks talking to myself about what I wanted to say like maybe what makes a person a person? A deep well subject I could have talked about since there was a lot of research for that novel. Or, I use my own life for art, like Miriam Toews.

I am in pre-launch prep for my second book, Letting Go of My Ocean View, A Memoir About Attachment, Faith and Finding Home. I’m part of a group in Montreal which is a mix of writers, poets, podcasters and film makers. No readings allowed. Its a meet and greet and lots of talk like - what are you working on. A webinar by NYT writer Amy Stewart called Crafting a Winning Launch agrees, no readings. Instead, create a book talk. Amy suggests we prep with ways to keep people listening. What are some questions people might ask: like how you wrote the book, remember the laughs, the emotional and sentimental values. in other words, tell stories people will remember.

Amy does not travel with a trunk load of books. Let the host, host the book sales, she says. Market your talks. Focus on your website, write a discussion guide for book clubs and don’t forget to send thank you notes. I sent a thank you email to the Lucid Book Club in the Department of Psychiatry once I had several positive performance readimgs about Argonauta.

To read or not to read will be the question I will consider before my next book is launched. Let me know your thoughts. As always. I welcome your comments and feedback.

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I left my grey hair behind when I turned 50. Aaron, my new colourist said ‘no’ to red, but I insisted and walked out after two hours looking like a vampire with a makeover. At the time I hosted video conferences for UBC Faculty of Medicine, but my hair became the focus at the meetings. What did you do to your hair? When the roots appeared three weeks later, I went for blond. I returned after three weeks and asked for a discount since our relationship was cutting into my co-op life budget.

“Highlights, more money but longer in between visits,” Aaron replied. He’s a natural blond, I can tell.

I’m not great with finance, as the money slipped through my paycheck. No discount with colour plus highlights. This went on for too many years, until one lunch break at a bookstore, while reading The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins, a fiftyish woman walked by with grey hair. I discreetly followed the Emmylou Harris double around the store craving for grey. But I married during my blond season. When I told the new hub about going natural, he surprised me with “good idea, silver is hot.” I won’t go on about the rest of our conversation.

“I want my silver hair back but with no roots showing, especially when I’m on camera,” I announced at the next appointment.

“We can blend the grey with highlights and lowlights that will cover the regrowth,” Aaron said.

“Ice” I said at the next video conference when asked about my latest colour.

“It’s called Ice.” Lynne from Victoria texted “like Elsa the Snow Queen?” I hadn’t seen the movie Frozen, but I did notice the trending return to grey or gray as noted in the NYT ¾ gray hair and laugh lines on the catwalk.

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April is Poetry Month and this year the theme is Land and Sea.
I wrote Offsetting moons ago in response to John Davies’ poetry. His poetry celebrates our relationship with the four elements - air, sea, earth and moon.

 
Offsetting

Naturally I aim to be an offsetter 
advance the trends to renewable energy 
get off the grid, reduce a carbon footprint 
small deeds I believe the climate needs.

Never mind if it’s a smog day so dull
you can’t hear the silence of the woods 
Or know the mysteries of dark matter,  
the earth will quake and shift tectonic plates. 

In geologic time there was a dance 
where fire, air, earth once agreed  
an Orchestra as the poets imagined 
the planet turned in perfect harmony. 

Today I listened to Good Books, Big Questions podcast with guest Olivia Eldredge, the Editor of The Message Women’s Devotional Bible by NavPress. This is a Bible that includes content warnings before stories about rape and abuse. Hosted by Karen Stiller, the podcast took me back to the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, where I viewed the works of the18th century artist, Camille Corot. The artist was well known for his pastoral landscapes, and his depictions of biblical personalities. One painting I will never forget is Hagar in the Wilderness. By my estimation the painting measured 8’ x 5’ and depicts Hagar and her son in the desert with an angel hovering over them. The angel’s presence was predominant on the toile, however there was something else that caught my attention more than outstretched hands and enormous wings. Eyes. Artists know that capturing the thoughts of any character must come through the eyes. Camille Corot managed to show the fear, confusion, and hopeless despair through Hagar’s eyes.

Hagar was an Egyptian handmaiden, given to Abraham by his wife to be a surrogate. You can read her story in Genesis. Hagar’s story represents pain and injustice that mark so many women who are victims of disorder in our society and the church. Twice Hagar was driven to extremes and the second time resigned herself to letting her son die. Today there is an alarming number of women in difficult situations. Despair in the face of adversity pushes them beyond the limits of hope and dreams.

I stood in front of that painting for hours that afternoon. I was transported back to the street where my biological mother stood after giving birth to me – alone, rejected, and no baby to take home. It took her years to talk about that day and it took me more years to write about it.

But there is a hope side of Hagar’s life despite the reality that she was a cast-out and alone in the wilderness. Hagar was the first woman recorded to have direct communication with God. Not just once, but twice the Lord appeared to her – twice in thirteen years. The circumstances of her life didn’t change much in those years, but one amazing highlight carries hope. Hagar’s eyes were opened to the knowledge of God – “I have seen the One who sees me.” Not only does she experience the consolation of God during her hopelessness, but her eyes were opened to see the well of water that would save her son’s life and her own.

I haven’t read The Message a Devotional for Women, but I would be surprised if Hagar’s story was overlooked. Give a listen to the podcast – and don’t hesitate to ask the hard questions about women in the Bible. Portions of my post today are from Have I really seen the God who Sees Me an article I wrote in 1997 for Son Esprit a French denominational magazine printed in Québec.

How old are you, if asked in Cree culture can be translated as how many winters are you? Half a lifetime may be my answer, without revealing my age. By this time in February, I am ready for the absence of snow. In Mont Tremblant where I live the skiers, snowboarders, skidoo owners, and skaters want more. How do you engage with the white wilderness outside?

One February afternoon years ago I wandered in downtown Ottawa eating strawberries. The temperature was – 40, with brilliant sun rays that sketched the ByWard as an ice palace. Later, I wrote a silly poem inside a warm café. No, I won’t share it with you.

Last week I walked down Sussex Drive to view Winter Count, an exhibition at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, that delves into the contrasts and contradictions of this season. A mosaic of artistic traditions displays the connection between Indigenous, Canadian settler and European Artists over several centuries of the Great White North.

The showroom doors opened to an atmosphere filled with summer light. Nothing dreary on these walls or in the showcases. There was colour on the cold landscapes, the dark mystical northern lights, and the handmade clothing. I stood before a winter painting of purple and lime green firs and made a note to check out the firs on our Tremblant property. A good way to grow a winter vocabulary, like hoar frost, and royal mail canoes is to read all the plaques. I usually skip through them. I didn’t know that unlike toboggans, sleds have runners underneath, allowing for a faster ride. I had no idea that pointed hoods and red sashes were once fashionable winter clothing.

A group of high school students with their notebooks sketched as their teacher opened their understanding of the artists and their techniques. I forgot my notebook and pencil, otherwise I might have joined. After the tour they sat in the cafeteria posting their artwork on social media.

How many winters are you? The Winter Olympic athletes would have a variety of stories, if asked. I dare not question any one of the multitudes of skiers up at the mountain here in Tremblant. Do you endure or embrace the season of white? Or maybe you have great memories singing along with Joni Mitchell – I wish I had a river that I could skate on. Until one day you fall and end up walking through the season with a metal plate in your shoulder – my 2018 February experience.

Winter Reads on my shelf:

Russ Ramsey – Rembrandt is in the Wind – Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith

Adam Gopnik - WINTER – Five Windows on the Season (mine)

Margaret Atwood – Book of Lives (Library check out)

Mary Norris – Between You & Me – Confessions of a Comma Queen (Library check out)

Virginia Evans – The Correspondent (Library checkout)

Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space – Library Checkout)

Rebecca Serle – One Italian Summer (Library Checkout)

Dani Shapiro – Still Writing

A friend called Debra, belongs to the Advanced Style group of stylish seniors in New York City. Never do when you can overdo, say these stylish seniors, and Debra knows precisely how to show up overdone. Her energy is catchy. Debra writes about aging, healing, and the joy of living in the now. Debra and Cynthia should meet.

In the movie Midnight Night in Paris Marion Cotillard wanted to live in the post impressionist’s era during the 1880 – 1890 alongside artists Paul Gaugin, Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent VanGogh. Lautrec’s Chat Noir is a poster that lives on today alongside van Gogh’s Starry Night and Café Terrace.

What era do I belong in I wondered as I left Cynthia at the shop. Possibly the 70s although I wouldn’t be wearing bell bottoms. Not the 80s or 90s. My colorist in 2004 asked me where I was in those years when he mentioned a band or movie I’d never heard of.

For those of us who write historical fiction choosing an era, is risky world building. Not everyone wants a trip to the past when they read. My novel Argonauta gave insight to an historic event reader never knew about, but thinking about a sequel has been a challenge. Someone mentioned I write a prequel. Maybe when I’m ready to spend a chunk of time in the 40s.

A Mary Oliver poem is how I’d like to live. Not like the happiest shell on the beach, but let’s say a tolerance for ambiguity, let my mind rest and observe. I wrote this a few days ago when outside my window a snow squall swept in. It was 2:30 p.m. dark, windy and thick snow swirled. I’d been waiting all day for an electrician to come. Several heaters in the house weren’t working. The temperature was dropping to -30 this weekend and I was going to be in Ottawa. But the flakes against the windows, the white and the green, the quiet outside and in, and my Mary Oliver moment took over at least for rest of the day.

Ruminating on the present or the future can be anxiety producing especially in the global upheaval we are experiencing. Mary Oliver was not immune to seasons of abuse, grief or any of life’s challenges. I don’t want to live a small life she wrote. Open your eyes, open your hands. I have just come from the berry fields, the sun kissing me. Read how her poems full of hope and risk. Open your life, open your hands.

After writing a memoir for three years I’m ready to integrate the past with the present. Living as a Mary Oliver poem won’t happen every day. When those moments arrive , I’ll stay in the present with my eyes, and hands open. I want to see beauty and grace when it happens, wrote Annie Dillard. And like Mary Oliver and all artists we want to show it to others. I’ll be back chatting with Cynthia soon thanking her for the nudge to dig deeper. Here’a a photo of Debra from NY and yours truly Deborah. Stay warm friends in this present cold spell. Share those moments of beauty and grace when they appear.

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The forest acts as an outdoor art gallery in October but now the leaves have left, Mont Tremblant goes dormant with closed till Nov. 24 signs. When the ski season sets in, the lights go up, and the tourists will return especially for the Women’s Giant Slalom December 6 – 7.

Bleak dark days are the best times to work on projects like a sequel to my novel Argonauta. The political scene in Québec is heating up again and the pages may or may not include another referendum. Billie in the local bookstore where my current book sells, tells me he does not like sequels. He offers this comment after a discussion on the success of Québec author Louis Penny. I’ve been to the fictionalized Three Pines aka Knowlton in the Eastern Townships where I witnessed an international crowd of mystery fans buying tickets for another book in the Penny series. This November I’ll be in Montreal to colour in more of the set up for my sequel, hoping there will be no referendum to write about.

Speaking of colour my shelves this month includes books like:

The Wild Dyer, by Abigail Booth

Book of Earth – A guide to Ochre, Pigment and Raw Color, by Heidi Gustafson

Fabric by Victoria Finlay Author of Color: A Natural History of the Palette

Colour by Tricia Guild

I also have some unopened dye samples from Maiwa School of Textiles on Granville Island, Vancouver. If writing and research, can take you down the rabbit hole - I’m guilty. To what do we commit ourselves and for how long asks writer Kyo Maclear. Monet painted the Nymphéas 247 times.” It took me some time to understand my water lilies,” he wrote. Stay tuned, I’ll be following up with the line by Kyo Maclear in another post.

The Dye Makers is a book idea fermenting in my head for a couple of years. I’m six chapters in and my writing takes me into the world of textiles, food and feasts, work, and women in the Greek/Roman world. If you know of any local dye makers send me a note. I would like to bring the past into the present with one more character. Chasing colour in November and December is one bright path to the end of 2025. As always I look forward to your takeaways on this post.

About the Photo

My visit with the kids to the Color Factory in New York where we entered an immersive experience that tell different stories about colour. Colour can be a celebration for your senses. The immersive installations are meant to expand our boundaries of perception and engage senses in unexpected ways.

I don’t wear red and green together although it’s a splash everywhere I look lately. The colours this season bring me back to a time in September where green and red would-be life changing.

My friend Lucie and I were having lunch at a local bistro, in Aylmer, Québec. The menu was a fusion of French and Vietnamese plates. Late September, outside the air was warm as summer. The patio was surrounded with marigolds, sunflowers, and a view of the Ottawa river.

Lucie is the French Isabella Rossellini. Her diamond ring shone like a centerpiece on the white tablecloth. We’ve have been friends since the days when her kids were small, and mine was a teen. Her house was the most colourful in the neighbourhood. Our dogs Alice and Max were the wildest. I was a minister’s wife and Lucie meant more than someone who showed up on Sundays in our church.

"J.F. and I decided to have a winter wedding in the hills of Wakefield," she told me. “I would like you to be our célébrant,” Lucie said. “But only if you feel good about this.”

“My French is rusty.”

We dug into a classic crème brulé sprinkled with pomegranates and mint. My spoon tapped the burnt orange topping much like crème caramel’s cousin.

"Your French is fine,” she replied. “You don't have to answer right away."

Lucie wanted an early March wedding. I had time to process the French-only ceremony—or tell my friend to find someone else. I googled the French word célébrant to make sure I understood I was to officiate the ceremony.

The government provides a twenty-page guide with a list to ensure this ceremony was ‘somber.' The célébrant must read several articles of the Civil Code of Québec during the ceremony like rights and obligations, choice of residence, direction of family, contribution to the expenses according to their means. One article states the spouses retain their name and exercise their civil rights under those names. A government official would interview me to ensure I qualify. They’d want to know about the presence of clowns or whether a performer would officiate the ceremony.

“Marriage, like poetry, can swerve over to the path of self-expression without your knowing” writes Wendell Berry. My friend’s invitation to stand in front of a crowd and lead her to repeat sacred vows released once again the sting of divorce from the minister. When you’ve sat for hours with so many couples through their challenges, your own marriage should not go off the track.

Before the required interview, I drove to the wedding venue. The Belvedere sat on a cliff overlooking the Gatineau Hills, a highlight in Wakefield, Québec. Thirty-five minutes from Parliament Hill the region is a magnet for cottage dwellers and outdoorsy types. Two young women were busy dressing a bicycle with floral arrangements. “Feel free to roam the site both inside and out,” they said. French charm surrounded the banquet hall, with views from every vantage point, so the colored forest was ever-present. A couple of photographers were gesturing to one another about the possible angles of light. What’s a wedding without the focus on capturing those glossy moments?

The terrace held several billows of white cloth set to hover over the couple as the vows would burst forward into the white winter setting. As I stood under the archway, in front of the wooden table, I imagined how it would be with the candle arrangements and flowers and seventy-five guests waiting for the ceremony. There would be wool blankets, probably red, neatly folded on the rows of wooden benches if March weather happened to drop to -20. Somebody would light the campfire. I saw my former congregants seated in those benches amongst Lucie’s real estate agents, colleagues, friends, and family members.

I turned towards the stunning view of the lush landscape. At the top of the cliff, the forest was a fall of russets, mustard, greens, golds and of course a variety of reds. The air carried the scent of the turning of time. I’ll be wearing my blacks and browns soon. I wasn’t ready to face the coming dark days. Embrace your pain then take a break from your pain, like an evade-encounter dance writes Alan D. Wolfelt, in his book Too Much Loss: Coping with Grief Overload.

In January, when the snow fell, I was drawn into trips to Montreal with Lucie for her wedding dress alterations. The name January comes from the Latin ianua meaning door or gate. We worked on the details in Rosemont in a shop with walls lined in fabrics and floors covered in pins. Our Russian dressmaker Mila laboured with fastidious purpose. Redesigning a dress for marriage is an act of re-creation, like opening a new door.

Later, seated in a bistro on Maisonneuve Boulevard, eating Portuguese grilled chicken and tarts, Lucie and I chatted nonstop about March, being backward-forward, like winter hangs on as spring pushes for space.

The wedding day arrived with the music of birds. Lit with sunshine and melted snow at 4:00 p.m., the outside benches at the Belvedere were full of friendly faces waiting for the ceremony to begin.

More from Wendell: We join marriage, by giving our word. Both take on a form, like a container that keeps a poem or marriage together. You may have a vision and desire when starting a poem or a marriage. And then you realize this is going to be more difficult than you thought. You know nothing about the road ahead. It is an act of faith to a door of possibilities.

I chose to read as section from the biblical poetry of Song of Songs: Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. Sometimes where you read changes how you read. The French language is lyrical, and maybe that’s why I spoke loud to the crowd in the transcendent setting, sounding convinced in this powerful belief in new beginning. I plunged in with words on how love can transport you beyond familiar frontiers, how it gives grace to be flexible, how it motivates and changes your perspective on life if you accept it.

Under the dark winter sky, the bride and groom waltzed, eyes locked into the moment. Later, surrounded by the warmth of the wedding party, I danced the evade-encounter through the night

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When the Stars Rain

How do you linger in the flavours of the eighth month?

August is the month when my body gets drugged by the Laurentian air beach weather. Moon sighting, star gazing in the dark nights during this last exhalation of summer's breath keep me looking up. Clouds may take over when the stars rain, but Saturday night lit up with music and colour from Whitehorse, a Canadian folk rock band on the Mountain in Tremblant.

In August the Perseid Meteor Shower posters are everywhere in the Laurentians as the astronomers and those who want to be promote the dates which may or may not be cancelled due to the clouds.

This August the heat could best be tamed at Lac Tremblant with all the city tourists escaping for relief. My best beach memory so far this summer was spent on a 4-hour date with a friend talking mostly about stress and noisy city tourists.

My writing life reboots this month with another version finished – 4 Names, 28 Moves – A Memoir about Gaps, Grief, & Grace.

A sequel to my novel Argonauta is taking shape – with thanks to the Pillars of Plot suggested by author Barbara Kyle.

After several years of research there may be hope for A Dye Maker’s Story – biblical fiction about a woman called Lydia.

It seems Home is a familiar theme in my writing so no wonder I like this new word –

*Hiraeth – A spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is the echo of the lost places of our soul’s past and our grief for them. It is in the wind, and the rocks, and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere. (a pop up from Instagram)

August Reading:

Non-Fiction

Our Good Crisis – Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes (Reading with Friends)

30th Anniversary of The Artist Way – Julie Cameron (I’m back journaling)

The Book of Alchemy – A Creative Practice for An Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad along with wisdom from 100 writers, artists and thinkers. Read her book Between Two Kingdoms if you want to know more about Suleika.

Sur la Piste de Maud Graham – Promenades & Gourmandises – Christine Brouillet & Marie-Ève Sévigny. Québec author Christine Brouillet is much like reading Louise Penny in French of course. (Setting, Food & Scenes from the author’s novels)

Fiction

My Friends by Fredrik Backman – (a gift from a friend back in June for my hub’s bday) It’s a long read with shifts from present to past but gives language to grief in a fictionalized way.

A Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff – a slow beach read without a plot but heavy on character and language.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards – another beach read with plot, tension and character development.

August is a month with a melancholy edge writes Suzanne Stewart in The Tides of Time. But as I write a military jet flies loud and low over our country home.

Happy Birthday to those born in the month the stars rain. One more August thing – In July I stuck anti-collision decals on our windows to keep the birdies from fatal crashes. Do they work? No. The birds continue to bump their beaks. Help.

What about you friends? How do you linger in August?

The security guard called Betty in the Department of Permissions. “Tell her to leave it at the desk,” she told him.

“Tell her I would like to come up,” I replied. Standing in the lobby with a hand delivered copy of five years of work, there was no way I was going to leave my precious at the entrance. “I’ll come down,” Betty huffed over the phone.

I thought if I made it to the offices one of the editors or agents anybody else, but Betty, would want to talk about the book.

“Nice cover, she said. “I’ll take it home and give it a read.” Betty the twenty something, short, slender, confident, permissions clerk leafed through the pages.

“I thought the Lindbergh family gets a copy, and the other remains in house,” I said.

“Right, eventually.”

“Do you have a cafeteria?’ I asked.

“Not for the public.”

“How about a tour?”

“We don’t allow uninvited guests.”

How many naive assumptions could a lobby hold? The security guard made it clear I should leave.

I locked Random House in a memory vault for a time. Now, every summer while walking around the lakes in Mont Tremblant, I pick up a few shells. A woman’s life is always changing, accommodating, then shedding, the old for the new; one person’s expectations for another, until finally, victoriously, emerging stronger, complete wrote Ann Morrow. But I have thoughts of my own on the design of a life. Send me yours on those gifts from the sea or anywhere where you find metaphors for the design of a life.

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If anyone can circle a topic enough times, it’s Dani Shapiro. I have just re-read her updated edition of Still Writing. Whenever I tell someone about Dani Shapiro’s five books of memoirs, the eyes widen, head bends, lips curl. How do you write so much about yourself, they ask?

Shapiro’s memoirs are both plot and compelling story, as well as meditative/reflective. She says very simply: plot is a fancy word for whatever happens, and structure is a fancy word for how it happens.

In her book Inheritance -A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity and Love she discovers through DNA testing her father is not her real father. The meditative component of the book explores the ethics of secrecy and anonymity, the connection in genetic traits. The plot carries the reader through the narrative of disbelief, facts, shock, and the insistence of the sperm donor to remain unknown. The research is thorough, revealing the harsh realities of the sperm donor industry. Shapiro is a product of mixed sperm. Did her father know? Did her mother know? I study the voice, tone and style throughout this book because so much of her material becomes a type of journalistic reporting. Although compelling, the focus is to expose the sperm donor industry. At the same time, she is writing through the process of discovery—affirming her own genetic links and biology.

In Hourglass – Time, Memory, Marriage, the content is structured within 165 pages, in one chapter, filled with journal entries, vignettes, and quotes. A reader can jump to any page without the usual need to follow any chronological sequence. Some of the vignettes or scenes can read like page fillers. I like this type of narrative. On the flip side a lack of tent-pegging, pinning down the details, to place and time can confuse the reader.

In her book Devotion —A Memoir, Shapiro explores her search for faith and meaning, despite a happy marriage, healthy child, home and writing success. It reads like a spiritual detective story.

Shapiro is an expert at circling the story, and by that, I mean she can write about a situation from various angles, to explore everything, and see everything most fully. Brett Lott calls this “literary triangulation, a finding of the subject in a three-dimensional grid through digression, full frontal assault, guerilla tactics and humble servitude, all in an effort to simply see.”

Sharing life stories through memoir can get so close to the truth that it can serve as a means of therapy. But beware: it may get you in trouble with the readers.

Author Rachel Cusk, novelist and nonfiction writer, wrote A Life’s Work – Motherhood memoir to not-so-nice reviews, even public outcry. She likened her pregnancy and experience of motherhood as gothic horror and labour camp confinement; the public did not agree. The radical imagery enraged readers. Rachel Cusk responded to the criticism seven years later with Shakespeare’s Daughters, an essay defending her writing on motherhood: “I was only trying to be honest.” In her essay she reflects on what is deemed worthy of literary interest in the public’s mind: this is an important book because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women breast feeding or postpartum. What also struck Cusk is the unexpected protest from some of the reviewers, mostly women who did not hesitate to criticize her ability as a parent.

On the opposite end of the spectrum too much happiness can get the readers riled, even if you are a prose stylist like Adam Gopnik. He admits he has a lovely life. And yet his love of life and family has not always been well received. For Gopnik the critics dislike of his works such as At the Strangers’ Gate, caused him to go for therapy. “You never get immune to it; you’re waltzing along with a relatively acceptable self-image and then someone comes along and portrays you as a monster of privilege.”

“Are you always going to write about identity?” a member of the Lucid Book Club in Vancouver asked me when I gave a reading from my first novel, Argonauta, several years ago. The novel set in Québec during the 1970 October Crisis, is an unsettling realistic portrait of a family torn by their own crisis of separation and identity, The room was full of psychiatrists, psychologists, residents, and other writers. The establishment of this group was predicated on the notion that novels, film, poetry, and memoirs are not only about literary merit and entertainment but can also be about ideals that make us re-consider who we are, how we live, and how the Department of Psychiatry views the practice of psychiatry/psychology. I hope not,” I replied. But the truth is most art happens in the raw material of our lives. As I continue to write, I feel I am closer to shedding a more focused light on certain things but never close enough. And yes, I have written a memoir – 4 Names 28 Moves – What About the Gaps.

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The Ferrari Festival transformed the parking lot at Mont Tremblant Mountain with impressive cars and judges with straw hats and bow ties. I spent my time at the venue with the Italian opera singer, where I listened without understanding. The music of a structured phrase, the accent, tone, and intonation of music are little appreciated until you abandon one language to learn another.

To know a new language to immerse yourself, you must leave the shore. Without a life vest, writes Jumpa Lahiri, In Other Words.

I left the shore with no vest and wandered through the stark cement tunnels of Université Laval, with a need for the music of a structured phrase and the proper accent of the French language. After endless hours of grammar exercises, lab sessions, and oral discussions with bumbling comrades groping to utter something intelligent, I waited for the sounds of coherent words to flow. Language carries multiple levels, nuances, and complexities like our personalities. If you dream in a new language, then it belongs to you. Graduation from Laval would be like the spring thaw.

Later I moved to Arvida (aka Arvi-dul), previously an English enclave in the borough of Jonquière of the city of Saguenay in the Saguenay-Lac-St Jean region of Québec. There was one English family on our street. Nickie asked me to join the English Alliance of Québec. I said no about leading any English event. I was obsessed with French only. I dove into the land of immersion - church, culture, and verbal communication with the Bescherelle – the guide to conjugating French verbs. I lived a guest life between the two cultures until, one day, I landed a part-time job in the Jonquière mall where my friend Hélène worked.

“Of course, you have to meet the weekly quota expected from all employees,” my employer said.

What could be so difficult about selling purses, bags, and polish? Previously I sold expensive art in downtown Vancouver. In this remote part of the country, where the mall manager gave me a horrified expression when he heard my accent, I would sell purses and plug the polish in French only.

The news spread to the American Army Base in Bagotville about the French speaking English woman selling purses – and just like that – my quota soared. The women from the Base were temporary exiles in need of an English kind of shopping trip.

“Ask me all the questions you want with your American accent,” I said.

Since when had I been so cheerful? These ladies from south of the border were having fun. Resistance can be exhausting. Later, I knocked on Nickie’s door, and she invited me in for tea.

“I’m going home to Britain for the summer,” she said.

“I will miss you. I’ll feed the fish and look after the aquarium while you are away.”

After the venture of selling purses, I tried a deeper dive into French through a linguistics course, thinking it would help with proficiency to write in both languages. It didn’t. I barely understood the complicated structure of the course material. I quit the program, knowing translation would never be a second career.

I wanted to write Canadian stories. I was certain I could turn out a Canadian novel in French until I started reading the works of Mavis Gallant. It began with research on the black-market business of selling babies. I was writing a novel at the time about three sisters and their lack of a proper start aka adoption. I found Traders in Fear: Baby Farm Rackets Still Lure Girls Afraid of Social Agencies, published by Mavis Gallant for the Montreal Standard. At the heart of the controversy were William and Lila Young, who were described by Gallant as blatant participants in an international traffic in babies. The article charged the couple exploited young girls in desperate circumstances, bullied them into giving up their children for adoption, ignoring accepted standards for adoptive placements and provided a questionable standard of medical care. The trial damaged the reputation of even more as accusations such as burying babies in butter boxes from the local grocer left images of babies tossed aside in leftover packaging remained with the public. The Youngs sued the Standard for $25,000. The case in court was dismissed. Yet, the trial triggered much needed reform of policy for the welfare of children in Canada and the U.S.

As a journalist Gallant wrote on her favored topics: the cultural art scene, social issues, family institutions and post war politics such as war-brides, refugees, and immigrants.

“Non-fiction as a genre, especially newspaper work, was, as Gallant says, my apprenticeship.” Journalism also proved pivotal from a stylistic viewpoint and helped her develop a vision for the world. Many of the home truths about time, memory, history, voice, and imagination are at the heart of her fiction.

Mavis grew up in a French English milieu leaving her with what she describes as two systems of behavior, divided by syntax and tradition: two diametrically opposed manners led her to realize that she herself could not write without mirroring the other position. She purposely set out to keep her fiction in line with her double vision. The process and language of her writing as English, being linked to her “imaginative thinking” was her langue écriture.

“If I began to write in excellent French,” Gallant said, “I would lose English as my writing language, but without linking French to imaginative thinking.”

While Mavis was living and writing in Paris, I was a child living in Fontainebleau, an hour away. My days were spent in French only settings. Years later I wanted to write in French, but like Mavis I couldn’t afford to lose English as my writing language. There were translators with the ability to take my written prose and like musicians transpose my work into a French version that mirrored my writing voice. Translators value each word spoken or written because the mix with imagination adds a double vision to any text. For that reason, I keep a stack of French novels and poetry. Without my English life vest, they take me farther from the shore: a linguistic pilgrim to French but never a translator.

1. Mavis on my bookshelf:

2. In Transit by Mavis Gallant.

3. The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant

4. Reading Mavis Gallant by Janice Kulyk Keefer (Library copy)

5. French favorites

6. Les villes de Papier by Dominique Fortier (Paper Houses)

7. Mes forêts by Hélène Dorion (From my Forests)

8. Chambre 1002 by Chrystine Brouillet

Share Notes from Tremblant by Deborah A.M. Phillips

As I walked through the piazza, the scent of cannabis permeated the entire block of Vancouver’s Library Square. The coliseum inspired design, a haven for readers has nine floors plus a green roof. There are seasons when it serves as a set location for the movie industry. Arnold Schwarzenegger donated a large sum after filming one of his blockbusters at the VPL Once a film crew on sight triggered the sprinkler system flooding the atrium and lower level, damaging thousands of books.

Within the walls of the piazza design, I discovered the writings of Betty Jean Lifton, adoptee and adoption-reform advocate. I pulled the first of her trilogy books - Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter from the shelf. The margins had notes, pressed dirt, food stains, and underlined sentences that gave witness to the book’s power. I imagined all those adoptees reading and re-reading through the pages on their own quests for reality. When the worn, torn, falling apart Twice Born was removed from circulation, I bought it for one dollar.

Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience followed. I shared her belief that sealing birth records, cutting adoptees off from their biological past, and keeping secrets from them, makes them a separate breed, unreal to themselves. She introduced me to Joseph Campbell’s concept of crossing the return threshold – the journey would not be over until I integrated my past into my present life. She held my hand during the years I crossed from secret to reality.

In the Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness the final book in the trilogy, Betty writes about how secrecy affects the formation of the adopted self. She also addresses the series of traumas adoption carries. Of course, adoption is viewed as a fortunate process: the child is rescued, and the adoptive parents are saved from childlessness. But the process is also a trauma. Both the child and birth parents pay a price when they repress their grief and loss. As complex as a reunion is for everyone, once the adoptive parents get over the shock and shed their emotional fears that the adoptee is being disloyal and ungrateful, they can have an enhanced relationship. These books dispersed the dark cloud I lived under for 30 years.

Betty dedicated Journey of the Adopted Self, to her two mothers, who, she wrote, “might have known and even liked each other in another life and another system.”

I imagine a reunion between my adopted mother Mary and my biological mother Betty. Mary would talk about living in France and travels around Europe after I was adopted. Betty would sit in silence because she was certain I never left Saint John after the giveaway. They could talk about growing up in New Brunswick because they both did. Or the world of knitting. They could listen to each other's stories about teenage weddings, or their last visit to Vancouver a horrible disaster for Mary and a joyful reunion for Betty. Would Betty ask Mary why she adopted me? Would Mary share her need for another baby and her surprise pregnancy six years later with the birth of a boy. How would she feel about Betty's version of the events immediately after my birth? They could share in their role as my two mothers. They could talk about me.

Journal writing is like taking a walk around a messy room and putting stuff where it belongs. Capturing life in words helps me process what is going on between my inner and outer self. A place to deal with difficulties, ambiguities, painful and negative emotions. To come into our true self, we must acknowledge and integrate our so-called dark side, I read years ago during one of those not so good days. Some seasons are hell. But I have journaled about the joy of walking through the Ottawa market eating strawberries at -40 in January. Some days there are prayers, gratitude, and lists of impossibilities I need to explore. The art of writing it all down keeps me sane. Or so I think.

My journals are not filled with recipes or eat memories. No letters of wisdom, like the kind of treasures you don’t mind leaving behind to your children. Neither are the pages flowing with daily data or superficial events. They are not filled with creativity and imagination ideas. I have a stack of large size notebooks for artistic thinking, seeds of ideas, novel plotting, and character shaping. Small size decorative notebooks are reserved for quotes, menus, like what I cooked Christmas 2015.

Moleskins were never my first choice for introspection and reflection. I write in Clairefontaines, a brand with unlined pages and colorful hard covers. A Pineider fountain pen with olive green, cobalt blue, or violet refills helps the drama spill out. I imagine a few bookcases of journals would add style to a home office if I had one. But these pages are first drafts, for my eyes only. Seeing yesterday through the eyes of today fuels imaginative writing. I return to the pages as a memory exercise. Maybe my rewrites will bloom into another genre like a poem, fiction, or a personal essay. First drafts contain those kinds of seeds.

I slink low, cough, or go to the bathroom when requests to share first drafts happen in a writing course. But one time after several students read and were applauded, I stood up. I read three pages titled Wild in the City about a photography show in New York called The Wild Horses of Sable Island. In a place called 'the end of the world', those wild horses evoke something stronger than emotion in many of the gallery visitors, including myself. Was it because the horses inhabit a place protected by lack of any human intervention? I sat down to silence after those last lines. No discussion no comments. The teacher offered ‘interesting’ and moved on.

I started shredding my journals filled with years of introspection, laments, and reflections several months ago. I am a memory hoarder making too many visits to the past. These ventures to both the dark and light side the

past show few signs of ending.

“I don’t want my daughter left with boxes of journals when I die,” I confessed to my writing coach about my need to shred. The task of shredding is mine to carry. As Mont Tremblant is aiming for ‘greenest region ‘in our belle province of Québec, it takes time to pull pages from those glossy hard covers. The goal is to shred before someone reads them.

Are you leaving your private diaries, notes, and journals for your kids? Or do you find good material in a first draft? In case you are wondering about the photo, it’s me. I found it during a one of those visits to the past.

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It started with a fish story. Fossils on the Gaspé shore preserve the era when sea creatures turned terrestrial. Years ago, before flying to the Gaspé to speak at a women’s retreat, I read about the limb-like fins on fish fossils in the Miguasha fossil beds suggesting that the first creature to gain a foothold on land included relatives of gill-and-lung-equipped Eusthenopteeron foordi, a much-studied fossil so far found only at Miguasha. This fossil site in Québec is world-renowned and I planned to visit it. The retreat took place in Point au Pic – in a 150 house which was a six-hour drive to Miguasha. The setting for one of the characters - Sophie and the restoration of the 150-year-old house came to life after my weekend in the Gaspé.

I never made the trip to Miguasha.  Instead, it became one of the places included in my novel Argonauta.  I first read about the argonauta from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift of the Sea. Anne wrote about the shells she found on a beach vacation in Connecticut. Each chapter is a reflective piece comparing the various shells to a theme or pattern of what she is experiencing in life. The chapter on the agonauta spoke to me in several ways. You'll note the quote at the beginning of my book. The argonauta is very different from the other beach finds as it is not fastened to its shell; it is a cradle for its eggs. When they hatch, they swim away, and the mother leaves her shell to start another life. The imagery grabbed my adopted self, I ditched all the other possible titles for my book.

On my way home from the retreat, I stopped at a bistro-style bed & breakfast called L’Ete, in the Charlevoix region. Writer’s portraits displayed on the walls, got me dreaming about places writers write. So this region previously known as Murray Bay, became another setting in the book,

While workshopping Argonauta at UBC in the Creative Writing program, I interviewed paleontologist Jim Haggart ‘” I knew there would be paleontologists in Miguasha, but what if there were not just fossils, but dead bodies discovered so I asked Jim – “Who determines the complex decision to move a coffin or a buried body”?  Is it realistic to 'hold a memorial' like I wanted to write? "It is very appropriate to respect a final resting place," he affirmed. Then he started to tell me his other wild stories and discoveries on digs, but I'm not allowed to share.

The fun of writing fiction happens when the characters kind of show up and then with their own personalities, take you on a new journey. Thanks to Jim and his thoughts and feelings about discoveries of bodies on a dig, Gillian, one of the characters, and her team uncover a body I call 'the unknown woman’.

As the plot emerged, the backstory morphed into the FLQ crisis which happened in October 1970.  I spent hours in the library researching the events. You can read about the book list and experts I consulted on this historic event in Argonauta, but this is a fictional story, so naturally, I took some liberties.

When I did readings at several events, many in the audience were unfamiliar with the October Crisis. Others were adopted like the three sisters, and they wanted to share their stories. I also did a reading with the Lucid Book Club sponsored by the UBC Department of Psychiatry. "Are you always going to write about identity," I was asked. When you put yourself in a room full of psychiatrists, psychologists, and residents, the odds are they are going to dissect your mental status.

“I hope not,” I replied. And then wrote another non-fiction book – 4 Names, 28 Moves (unpublished).

Argonauta was launched in October 2014, 10 years ago, and still selling.

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The stream of house guests has drifted elsewhere, the summer festivals are no longer billboard features. Beach chairs disappear, along with sultry August. I could plan to resist the word Fall, except life in the Laurentians turns into a painter’s paradise.

The cyclists geared in cleated shoes, funky sportswear, and crash helmets arrive for the September splendor but not only with bikes. Their luggage arrives at the lodge situated along the Petit Train du Nord. You can cycle with your group, grab your bags at your destination, and arrive dressed in cocktail garb, for a 5 à 7, before taking the free bus to the Mountain. Maybe they have reservations at the Fairmont Grill or the Casino. They’re chatting about meeting in 45 min. to start with drinks. The auberge is stocked with a selective assortment of appetizers, coffee, tea, beer, and naturally wine. This is a resort town.  

I observe this in the lounge, not the patio, because I have a patio at home and that’s not where I want to be. Instead, a periwinkle blue shabby chic chair beside the stone fireplace seems like a comforting place to re-read edits from a manuscript that may or may not win a contest. In July my name popped up on a shortlist, included with 7 others for best new manuscript.

Are Shortlists torment? Your writing narrowed down to qualify for publication, big money, or literary achievement - -possibly. Author Anne Michaels is on a long list for the Booker Prize. In September there will be a short list announced. At the Ottawa Writer’s Festival, when she read excerpts from Held her long list nomination my friend K and I grabbed Kleenex.

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Lists are for colors, like mustard, chartreuse, russet, Tyrian purple, blaze orange, misty grey, and periwinkle blue, edible plants, or recipe ingredients. A list of risks and rewards when writing a memoir, is helpful. Tips for writing about place and strong settings also work for writers’ groups.

After scrolling through the announcement in July of my shortlist nomination, I dropped the manuscript in a basket of drafts.

I forgot I entered the contest in April or May. In June, I sent it to an editor, even though several essays were already published. She rearranged the essays, along with notes, and weaknesses, and listed opportunities to flesh out ideas. After 6 weeks of intense deep-dive revisions, we agreed to revisit in September.

The Shortlist looms with a date before official Fall kicks off. Maybe my manuscript will turn into a book published next year. And maybe the wild garden I’m working in the mini forest of pines and evergreens that continue to bloom will bring out more colors like purple, gold, and peach. Some won’t make it, but I’ll keep sowing seeds and digging before the evergreens dominate. And I will start a list, not a short one, of ways to turn the page to other projects.

Tremblant is a region where I have no history. Except for a small circle of friends with whom I share a past, Tremblant is a no need for detachment kind of place. Every day is a new experience. For example, this week there’s been a shredding of journals - mine. Why do we write them and accumulate too many? For many years, journal writing was my walk around a messy room, slowly picking things up and putting them in their right place again.

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” asks W.H. Auden. People write journals in all kinds of ways for different reasons. Thought starters, ideas you may want to explore, lists, and exciting places you have visited. A journal can be a commentary on all of life, not so in my case. I have notebooks for every compartment of life. But my journals have taken me down the habit of visiting the past for too many years. I tend to seek in the past not what is there but what I want. When you work around the facts of the past, fabrication can set in. This is where story-telling and biological facts become blurred. I considered hiring a research expert or a private detective like my father-in-law did to confirm details about his Caribbean roots. The outcomes are in a binder somewhere in the basement here in Tremblant or with another family member in Vancouver.

The pages of my Clairefontaine journals are not lined; they are filled with delight, aspirations, anxiety, doubt, death, and dross, which are meaningful only to me. While digging deep, into the long story in my journals, I have fallen into other genres like action adventure, horror, or thriller in my dreams, which may or may not help my writing life. The idea of recording dreams holds some interest if I could wake up in the night to write out the details.   

Journals kept me sane. Until there was a memoir – which is not supposed to be a journal. Sick lit (another name for memoir) stays in your journal unless you recover well. A memoir is meant to go beyond those events that happened to you to make a connection for readers to be inspired, or shocked, or maybe educated. Yes, I have written a memoir – honest, reflective, (but not overly) with humor. And I have reached a respectable recovery rate – if there is such a number. A memoir puts a frame onto life by limiting what’s included.

“Are you always going to write about identity?” a member of the Lucid Book Club in Vancouver asked me when I gave a reading from my first novel, Argonauta, several years ago. The room was full of psychiatrists, psychologists, residents, and other writers. The establishment of this group is predicated on the notion that novels, film, poetry, and memoirs are not only about literary merit and entertainment but can also be about ideals that make us re-consider who we are, how we live, and how the Department of Psychiatry views the practice of psychiatry/psychology.

I wanted to explain how the novel with all the drama fits alongside my own story, but I replied with “I hope not” instead. And then a few years later, I started an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction to write a memoir – 4 Names & 28 Moves – A Memoir in Fragments (Working Title)

There are so many genres of the self to reshape a story. Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, is simultaneously a memoir, a novel, and a cookbook. Publishers didn’t have a category for The Oysters of Locmariaquer by Eleanor Clark. It wasn’t religion, travel, history, or a novel, but it was a braided multilayered kind of memoir about living for five months on the Norwest coast of France in 1961. Travel Memoirs can be a good read if it’s not all about what you saw. I remember getting through a cold spell in Northern Québec with Riding the Red Rooster by Paul Theroux and Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau’s Closer Together is a personal journey through self-knowledge and acceptance. She writes about attachment, parenting, yoga, and nature. But is it a memoir? I would say yes – it’s about structuring her life as a story.

I’ve counted to date 28 genres of the self and possibly more, like the number of moves in my lifetime. I will be moving back to fiction writing where it will be possible that I show up in some form in the stories, but hopefully not often

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I remember the afternoon when I became painfully aware that somewhere in the daily rush of things I had "disconnected." While strolling through an art gallery I was drawn to a piece – Mon Oasis by Québec artist André Bertounesque. The image of a woman seated at the edge of a lake, gazing towards distant hills set the tears rolling. I was a minister's wife at the time, running on empty in the summer of my burnout.

Art led me to Hogsback Falls and a six-week summer job where I spent six of my lunch hours - duck watching. The rushing water poured chaotically over a high wall of massive rocks in the hidden place called Hogsback Falls

It's the fluidity of water - the way it constantly renews itself – that reminds me of the possibility and the need for change and renewal, writes poet Luci Shaw

The carefree ducks diving in and out of the water providing food and protection for their young – birthed one of those stunned moments where everything that should cause you distraction instead holds you in suspense. You know - nothing enters, and nothing leaves. When it's over you've awakened to something new – a clarity and pure vision. Annie Dillard calls this place living in the purity of the moment. After six weeks of duck watching to the white noise of the waterfall, washing of ripples, and working alongside the War Amps heroes – clarity and purpose held me hopeful for a new season of energy

The ducks and I are back together this summer at Lac Tremblant. Tuesday afternoon, I had one of those I'm never writing again days after sending a month's worth of edits to my editor. I lay on a beach lawn chair gazing in a be still moment with the ducks and the water - chaos followed with a group of six-year-olds caught sight of the mallards and the chase was on. 

How do I attain this place of stillness when surrounded by constant activity this summer? It's hard to be still in a resort town – when there's an aerial ballet at the tree top walk – you'll have to see it to believe it with this group of high-flying acrobatics. There's the Blues Fest, Jazz Fest, Classical Music Fest plus a house full of guests all invited by yours truly. I won't miss any of this saturation of activity.

But still – I need to be still – more purity of moment life. A bit more music by Alexandra Strélinski, calm, dreamy, and imaginative, might help. Or possibly more duck watching. Send me a note friends on how you find your living in the purity of the moment place.