1904, Montreal, Canada A little boy walks down the streets of Montreal with his father. The child’s name is Eric and he is 8 years old. His father, Thomas holds onto his hand tightly saying little to him along the way, but Eric will remember this walk for the rest of his life…   The […]

Summer nights in Lapland have a peaceful, still quality lent to them by the magic of the midnight sun. The light, so bright at such a late hour alters your sense of time and place. Is it 10 am? 10 pm? It’s hard to tell. It was 1970 and I was staying with a Lapp […]

I leaned on the fence feeling utterly defeated. The factory hum of bees in the Linden blossoms, the loudest interruption of the peaceful afternoon, went completely unnoticed. I wasn’t taking in any of the pastoral beauty spread out before me, as I watched my little flock of hens in the yard, lying in the shade […]

First of all, how did I start my story telling? And when? Well probably not that young (not as young as this photo shows), to be honest, but I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read – my mother said I was 4 when I learned – and I always enjoyed writing. When I started to tell stories, though, was not long after the time I refer to in my Mirages post. As I mentioned, my parents separated and then divorced. And I began to make up stories.

Martha looked up at me as I stood by her walker and said “I know I can’t live at home just now. It’s too cold and they tell me my drive is frozen solid. I could slip on the ice and hurt myself. I have to wait for the summer before I go back.” I looked at the profusely flowering sweet smelling rose beds beside us as I walked slowly with Martha around the nursing home garden. The July heat was intense. “Of course,” I reassured her “your farm is in good hands while you’re here.” But Martha was already gone from me in that moment, looking out of a window far away in her mind....

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Cairn Island, as if strangely reversed, appears to rise like a mirage of land far out in the shimmering water of the Saint Lawrence river. I stand on the dock and find myself transported back to the last time I looked out on that scene. I was about 6 years old.