Travel

The sunny news from around here is that I recently drove up a regional road with the three Chumbuckets, that is my three teens, to get their COVID jabs. We didn’t see any hitchhikers. Yeah, yeah, who hitchhikes anymore? Still, I like to keep an eye, you know? One summer day – Child No. 1 was with me – we did help one, a middle-aged woman who clamoured into our vehicle with her

Now we’re going to look at some important new developments in the world of travel, namely that if you have plans, well, good luck. Even if you fly off to nowhere, you might not get back home easily. This is the latest from the Ministry of Miserable Pandemic Affairs. Don’t make travel

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ This morning I FaceTimed the family. Child Number 1, a musical girl, was having sinus pain. So I looked up there and noticed Taylor Swift and a hall of high school girls having a party. Looks like they'd moved from my daughter's inner ear. I suggested this may be causing her pain,

The thing about those wild once-upon-a-time stories is that the good ones are always more true than we imagine. They can touch us profoundly. So here’s one: Once upon a time there was a little girl. A lost girl. Before I share more, though, let me say, as if it needs saying, that being lost is no fun.

I’m gardening with my son, the cool, wet dirt between our fingers. I think of John, my friend, a fellow traveller, recently dead of cancer. He’s still somehow, seen. Still felt. Funny how that goes, how you often miss what’s right in front of you. Then, when you take the time to pause, the smelling salts of life get you to sit up and do what your mother always told you: pay attention!

I’m a white Canadian. But I easily imagine myself as a dark Arabian. A Muslim. There, on the streets with a kufiya on my head. Or there, I’m a Muslim woman with a beautiful, but hidden, face, walking along the beach. I’m just telling you. I mean, what if I was born in, say, Yemen.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, September 17, 2016) ABOARD KLM FLIGHT 535 TO UGANDA ✦ I’ve always envied people who could watch their mothers grow old. My mother, I’ve shared previously, passed on when I was in kindergarten. I hadn’t seen her for two years prior to that. Funny to think of it here, half asleep at 40,000 feet.

So, I just filled out Canada’s most recent census, barely beating the May 31 deadline and thus staying out of jail and fulfilling this duty of those of us living in this great country. Before letting me go, the questionnaire asked if I or anyone in the family would mind if all the sordid details […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, May 20, 2016) HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ So it's the middle of the night and my wife walks into the bedroom and says: "There's a mouse in the dishwasher." This is strange even for our household, the sort of announcement that suggests my wife is hallucinating from working way too late, again, or that I'm having one of those dreams.

Past, Present, and Future walk into a bar. It was tense. + There’s no such thing as a self-made man (or woman), no, not even those of us who have a net worth of $10 billion (Mr. Trump) have made it without some help on the way. It’s easy to think otherwise but travel is […]

ATHENS ✦ I'll never forget the unknown boy and his horrible end, not any more than I'll forget Arash and his eyes on the day we met when the waters of the Mediterranean were cold.

So, it’s Day 5 of our official return to our own home, Day 4 of the kids’ return to school, that is their Canadian school, this, their annual routine here in Hamilton for the next couple of months. Of course, this is long enough to get new clothes (thank God for mothers willing to do […]

It was the other day, since my family’s recent return to Canada, and I was on the massage table (I’ve had a bad back for 30 years), and we were talking about her husband. He has MS and it isn’t getting any better and soon, with the help of some friends, she and he and […]

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, April 22, 2016) BRUSSELS-ZAVENTUM AIRPORT ✦ Once upon a time (otherwise known as "the old days,") people would watch news on their old televisions, or listen on their old radios, or pick up old newspapers that even landed on their front porches (remember front porches?) with a thud.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, February 13, 2016) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was over lunch in Dundas with my sister, somewhere between the spring rolls and the coconut shrimp, when the question came without any hint to suggest this would be one of those ‘aha’ moments that can be unpacked and looked at and handled for a lifetime. “So of all the places you’ve been,” she asked, “what’s your favourite?” I might have said Paris or Berlin or Seoul, or maybe Amsterdam or London or Istanbul, or maybe somewhere in the Mid-East or Africa ...