Elaine’s Wig



Elaine’s Wig





















sitting with


If you sit with grief

and hold its hands

in yours, they will be cold,

it’s true, but they won’t

steal you from yourself.

If you sit with sorrow,

and hold it to your heart,

you will ache

but it will not take you with it

when it lets you go.

If you sit with hope

it floats above you

til you choose it

grasping its tail and pulling it

on to your shoulder.

and then it is yours,

for its lifetime, as long as it lasts.

Feed it, scratch it under the chin

and  let it roam free.

It may bring you a pebble,

a treasure, a fruit

and when sorrow and grief

come calling,

it will sit on your shoulder

eating pistachios

looking at them with bright eyes

until they know

it’s  time to go.




Colouring calendars, colouring books

Here are two thingamabobs that I have had a hand on making that  are helping raise funds for two mental health organizations that are close to my heart!

The 2017 Colouring Calendar is $10 and all proceeds go to the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia.  Poem story What Hope Looks Like and accompanying line drawings by me! Order the calendar from SSNS. For more information: http://ssnsc.blogspot.ca/p/2017-fundraising-colouring-calendar-now.html.

Kindness is a colouring book based on my poem of the same name, with colouring page illustrations collaged by me from my line drawings and found images in the public domain.  They are for sale for $12.95 from me or from the Canadian Mental Health Association Halifax-Dartmouth Branch, which receives $5 from the sale of each copy.

Hope you’ll consider supporting these two wonderful organizations. Both calendar and colouring book are ideal gifts to send by snail mail!

ssns-calendar          20160802_103142

What not to wear this Halloween

I loved Halloween as a kid. Running around in the dark, half spooked, breath ghosting the air, feeling my pillowcase get heavier and heavier with wonderful things like chips and chocolate bars. There were stories of older kids stealing candy from younger ones. I  thought how unspeakably cruel that was, but I never knew anyone that had that happen to them. Then when I was 14 living in Boulder, Colorado,  there was a scare of some kind–someone tampering with Halloween treats. I wondered how twisted did a person have to be to do something like that.  Everyone was a little worried.

Now there are teal pumpkins to protect kids with food allergies by signifying homes giving out allergy safe treats.  Seems like a great idea…  sad that it has to be done but for whatever reason food allergies seem to be a lot more prevalent and teal pumpkins  help Halloween to be inclusive of everyone, including the kid with a deathly tree nut allergy.  There is also a conversation about Halloween costumes, the ones that are offensive to some because they are seen to be culturally insensitive and inappropriate. To others, the conversation itself is offensive. But to a big majority is seems to be a conversation that bewilders. From the comments made  on cross Country Check-up tonight, people don’t seem to know what the fuss is about. The vast majority agree that “black face” is offensive  but don’t seem to know what to do with other cultural and religious depictions in costume.

Most people don’t have the intention of hurting anyone with a costume, and yet nevertheless, costumes apparently have the ability to hurt people.  I think this is indisputable because people have said , “That costume hurts and offends me.”  It doesn’t matter that someone doesn’t mean to hurt a person, it still hurts.  People may say another person has no reason to hurt. It’s just an innocent costume, they say. Some people will be  concerned enough to change their costume because they don’t want to hurt the people who  expressed their feelings.  It’s when people get angry to be told that a costume is insensitive, hurtful and offensive, that I begin to think that they feel threatened to be told they have even inadvertently done something that hurt another person. It’s weird because  if someone stepped on another person’s foot without meaning to, and were told that it hurt, they wouldn’t get red in the face and tell the person they’d hurt that they have no reason to hurt, that they are infringing on their rights by telling them they’ve been hurt.  They’d get off the person’s foot, apologize,and try not to do it again.

I think the problem is really that people like me, raised in a society which has oppressed and violated and destroyed whole cultures, don’t see it or don’t want to see it. Both are problems for  the people at the other end of that oppression.

There’s a big and interesting conversation to be had about how to address this problem. I see it as a problem, when the stated feelings of people are not acknowledged. Some think that legislating bans against certain types of costumes is the way to go. I don’t really know. Rules can be a helpful tool to creating social change and changing minds, but it seems like there should be better ways. It always does seem like there should be better ways, and there are, if only we would use them.

Listening to the people who say they are hurt would be a start.  Not brushing them off, not talking over them, and not dismissing their feelings as nonsense. I have learned the hard way that I should shut up sometimes and not talk, but listen. I recommend it as a starting point to a meaningful conversation with hurting people.















i need to let go

but i don’t want to

it’s only a reflex


it’s only a reflection

of a need long ago


like when you were waiting

that time

at the airport with the sign

with their name on it

but they never came.

That fear of abandoning

the thing your heart


in case it forgets

how to want something else.










Gastroliths and goodbyes

saying goodbye to people places and things. it’s like eating pebbles, it’s that hard– but apparently some birds do that because it helps them digest. I am just a featherless chicken… and clearly balking at the need for gastroliths… that’s what the swallowed pebbles are called. whoever invented goodbyes probably never had to use one. just like it was probably a man who invented the corset. it was probably someone with no heart and eyes in the back of their head who invented goodbyes.

seeking writing pad

I’m planning to go live somewhere else for three months in the fall, and I’m scared. Scared I’ll be lonely and unproductive, scared I will feel miserable and question why I decided to do it. I love Halifax and Dartmouth and I love my friends and I’ll  miss them like crazy. I’ll miss my family and swimming at the pool at my friend’s apartment building and being able to hop on a bus and just go somewhere and the CMHA and the coffee shops.   I’ll miss  having a familiar routine of sorts. My new routine will incorporate several hours of writing a day, walks, reading and a good deal of solitude I imagine. Most of all it will involve getting caught up in my novel again, and hopefully finishing a rough draft.

That sounds a little like heaven,hell and purgatory all mixed up together. It isn’t going to be easy clearly. But is it the right decision to go away to write? People do it all the time. But for three months?

I will need music. I will need to cook and eat well, exercise enough and sleep enough. I will need appropriate clothing for the weather which will be edging toward winter at the end. Honestly I am not sure I am entirely cut out for this adventure but I’ve done something like it before and managed alright. This time I am sticking closer to home for a lot of reasons, some of which I don’t have words for.

I’m looking for a place to do this thing. I’ve decided it needs to be near water.  Does anyone know such a place? I can pay rent or cat sit. I can do  my own dishes and keep to myself. I need laundry facilities and wifi, and  it needs to be non-smoking. I’m going to see a place this weekend, but it might not be the right place. It needs to be.