MEANINGMAKER

memories

  • we are so lightly here

    Today, my phone’s photo app offered me a montage it called “Looking Back.” I usually ignore those compilations, but this morning I opened it as the downtown blurred past outside the train’s window, on my way to work. There, among… Continue reading

  • awake on the train

    I left the train this morning one stop before City Hall, where I would usually get off —something I do on the mornings when I want a short walk to clear my head before work. I’m usually a stander on… Continue reading

  • the guest book

    In the basement this afternoon, looking for a paint brush, I noticed a clear plastic bin on a low shelf. What caught my eye was a snatch of colour I immediately recognized as a beautiful throw that my dad’s mom, my… Continue reading

  • glory days

    Tomorrow night in an American stadium when I see The Boss step on stage, I’ll briefly think about the guy who bullied a couple of us on my high school bus when I was in Grade 9 and 10. A… Continue reading

  • what it will be

    Whenever life got hard, Mom would often say, “it will be what it will be.” I assumed that she meant that things would turn out as they should — good or bad — and she would deal with it either… Continue reading

  • i would have loved her

    For many, many years, there has rarely been a day that hasn’t begun with a cup of tea and the obituaries. I read them each day even before I read the daily headlines. Sometimes, I notice trends. For example, around… Continue reading

  • time goes by

    This picture was taken the day my mom turned 75. That was seven and a half years ago now. Four years ago this afternoon, we sat together – my mom and dad and sister and I – in a puke-coloured… Continue reading

  • the only one

    Tucked away in the corner of a little Italian place that, after the sun went down, was dim like a mine shaft and just as cold, we sat discussing the living we’ve done over the last 30 years. The two… Continue reading

  • thanksgiving

    It’s overcast at the cottage this morning. It was a spur of the moment decision to come up here late yesterday. One minute we were sitting on the bed folding laundry talking about this year’s brilliant fall colours. Twenty minutes… Continue reading

  • a brilliant wreckage

    I left a brilliant wreckage. A white-hot, smoking tangle of family and love and hopes and forevers, the shatter of which was so great — at least in my mind — that after the words were out, there was no… Continue reading