All articles filed in Day in the Life

The sierra is skin and seeds  It grows as you see it   Pink and curved like a wet flower Bigger than life  Through the garden and the apricot trees Water hose coiled like a grey snake We walk in a group of five Ingesting everything you shed  With Maria Chabot The architect who became friend The crumbling pueblo two centuries old  Was reborn   It…

Some writers begin their work with a prayer, and some turn off their Wi-Fi. Others enter the flow when the kids are sleeping. Like Sylvia Plath, like so many women. There are authors who start with the last sentence, which feels God-like and scary. Some, like me, share their work widely along the way and…

After parking the vehicle a few blocks from the venue, we take an inaugural selfie and scamper down Queen Street. The early evening sun dapples our faces as we walk under the big trees while squealing: “She’s here…Alanis is in London!” I don’t own any of her albums but wanted to see the concert after…

It’s not a happy cry. It comes from below the surface, where the ovens line up for us. They do that. But the oven isn’t simply about the end or quitting the violence of Ted and illness that led her there. The oven is about her fight for herself and the love for her children.…

Ojibway poet Richard Wagamese begins his magnificent book of meditations called Embers by saying: “Mornings have become my table.” Like the table, his life has been battered and scarred but also full of sacred energies, which he channels in the hollow stones that surround my neck every time I turn his page.  The neck is where we…

Every time I lean against the kitchen counter or make a slow move to grab something from the closet, I am grateful. I feel heavy and grounded and light and spacious. Even when my mind is doing a frightening array of tasks at the same time, whirring speedily, I know I have the space for…

Sabbaticals are twelve golden ticket months that appear in the academic calendar once every seven years. It’s when we get to focus on research, personal development, graduate students, and writing. Travel to a sister institution or to work with colleagues in different parts of the world is often part of these venerated breaks from the…

Today starts with the customary 5 am wake-up call from Elliott, which I pretend to ignore in a futile attempt to stretch out the inevitable. I like when she and Jhona gather with me in the dark, stepping on my body like bedroom adventurers claiming their territory. We communicate in chirps, meows, and love. Once…