It’s only December but my thin bones already long for summer. For light. For warmth. Where’s Africa? It’s over the ocean. And I’m on this side, often chilled when I stand at the large window behind my bedroom desk. I look into the darkness, so deep and wide and without form.
My own view is that winter fathers and their kids should get free movie tickets on weekends. For Sunday matinees, free popcorn should be added. Yes, free movies for the winter fathers of the world. Someone should start a petition. Winter fathers are fathers who are separated or divorced
Today’s rumination is about the art of writing. Cursive.
For the children out there, you’ll want to ask your parents or grandparents what this is, and how it all works, and why on God’s good earth anyone would involve themselves in it.
I feel like a Neanderthal for even mentioning it, but since I’m older than I look I’ll tell you that when I
The young lady was my heart’s desire. She was my long-time prayer. This, when I was a much younger version of myself. It was on the 11th day of the 11th month when her letter arrived. She wrote briefly and dispassionately. Her words drained the room of colour.
I walked through the cemetery today. I often do. It was me and the cold and the wet and my old umbrella.
The umbrella is covered in deco of old newspaper headlines: the Jays won the World Series; Gorbachev was dismantling the USSR. My umbrella and I blew around like the news
It was a recent evening at the University of Toronto when I was reminded of it all, that hope is better than skepticism, that faith is better than doubt, that love (in the abiding sense of charitable love) is better than fear. I was reminded, too, how I’ve always felt more kinship
I don’t believe in war. In name and in family heritage, I’m Mennonite. In spirit, I’m pacifist.
But children, it seems to me, should have a working knowledge of war. Because in war there’s not only darkness and fear, there’s light and courage. There’s humanity. There’s humility.
So, my children, like children everywhere, are about to return to school.
This brings some uncertainties. It’s my children’s first-ever September back-to-school in Canada.
More so, I’ll need to work at having more JFKs again.
Before I explain what a JFK is, let me say that in
