Cafés and a Conversation with Myself. Sitting in the Fehrenbacher Hof café in Portland today, typing on my laptop, gives me feelings of, all at once: freedom, happy singularity, and communion…
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REINVENTING YOURSELF
Lately I have been thinking about reinvention. A few acquaintances have used the word in describing my recent life transition.
What does reinvention mean really? And what does it mean for someone like me—or you perhaps?
GENETIC MEMORY AND IMAGINATION
I have been reading about genetic memory, and pondering how it connects to writing, everyday choices and lifelong yearnings.
Genetic memory refers to how the experiences of our ancestors are embedded physically within us, and continue to affect us daily. The idea is that the experiences of fourteen or more past generations, or perhaps ancestors who lived as many as 1,000 years ago, make up what we know and feel.
Do we still grieve and react and process our lives through the lens of these ancestors’ experiences? …
IRREGULAR & DISORDERLY
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.—Gustave Flaubert.
I spent the past weekend at the Cabot Trail Writers Festival, held in Cape Breton at Colaisde na Gàidlhlig, The Gaelic College. Throughout the weekend, Gustave Flaubert’s advice–above–was like a pedal point in my ear…
YOU MENTIONED YOU WANTED TO MOVE TO CANADA? (Three lessons and a self-quiz)
A few weeks ago, on the morning of September 6 to be exact, I was sitting in my Nova Scotia kitchen overlooking the beautiful Lunenburg harbour, reading the news on my iPad. As I finished an article about North Korea’s claim that they can fit a hydrogen bomb on a missile that could hit an American city, this email came in from my ex-mother-in-law, Rosalyn Borg: …
THE POWER OF CLOSE OBSERVATION
Observing–and I mean slowed-down, patient observing–puts me in the best frame of mind for writing. It involves slowing down, and noting what I am seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting. Once I am in that …
LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF: FULL-TIME WRITER, DAY ONE
I’m a 60-year-old Canadian-American woman executing a very intentional life transition from full-time job to full-time writing…
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