5.  There's a mysterious quality to writing. It's important to acknowledge that words have tremendous power and with writing comes a responsibility to truth and understanding. 

​I love to write.

Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I love having written. The actual process of getting those first words down can be tough, and I empathize with writers when it comes to staring down that blank screen. But once I've got them down, I love working with the words until they sparkle. 

I've worked primarily as an editor, but over the years I've written deeply personal essays that have appeared in many publications, including Canadian Living, Western Living, and the Globe and Mail.  I've also  written poetry, some of which was published in literary journals. 
Click on the link below to read samples of my essays:

The New Normal (EAT magazine essay)
Reflections on a pandemic spring ... more
An Exquisite Absence of Stimulus  (Globe and Mail essay)
Silence has a way of coaxing us away from constant doing and into a more salubrious state of “sitting quietly, doing nothing,” as the famous Zen poem recommends ... more
Today’s Home Journal  (Western Living column)
Welcome to snap, crackle, pop psychology Anais Nin-style ... more
A Day at the Cottage  (BC Hydro contract magazine essay)
The day begins like this: sun sparkling on a dew-tinged lawn ... more
The Greening of the Kitchen (EAT magazine feature)
Putting commonsense and buying power behind the greening of the busiest room in your house ... more
Healing Ourselves, Healing the Planet  (Mindful Word magazine essay) ... more
A Deer’s Tale  (Canadian Living personal essay)
A spiritual lesson in being with what is ... more 

This poem appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of
​The Harpweaver literary journal.

The Shirt
The old white shirt, redeemed by bleach and hot
hot water, dries stiff and crisp in the midday sun.
It is warmth in my hands now,
memories of a grandmother, of white
cotton pillowslips, country air captured beneath my
city-child face. A woman smell:
Javex and soap and scald-hot
water, sun and wind and washing
soda on laundry Mondays,
the smell of white for me.

On this soft
sponge day,
heavy air of sweet rocket and wax
arbutus leaves, we sit on a long green chair together
Me behind, you in front, the shirt like a child
between us.

It has seen better days, but it is butter-soft when ironed, an old friend about the shoulders.
I will fix it, I tell him, reconnect its spent
seams and connect with anyone who has ever held a needle and a thread and was grateful for their power to restore.

Am I a goddess of the needle, witch of strand and seam? It seems like magic that binds it together.
The needle so fine, so sharp and silvered,
My hand so small, so quick, so educated
in its ways. I thread it, caress it, 
wave it like a wand
and begin to sew.