Between seasons
I’m looking forward to spring - listening to birds, smelling fresh earth, watching things grow. But it’s not smart to wish time away, so I sit here in the dark before dawn with wonderful coffee, writing and reading before the day begins. For now, this is enough.
Morning Alarm
"I've broken my no-news rule and watched analysis on Greenland. Very smart people. Too smart. Everyone grasps the obvious but won't accept the regime's actual depth - or shallowness. There's no strategy beyond I want it. When you have ultimate power, a child's logic is often all that's left. - Bluesky"
Every day I try to write something as I finish my first cup - in summer it's about birdsong, or maybe the start of an innocent children's story. This morning my mind wandered to the news, and I wrote the above.
Podcast after article over-analyzes, searching for new meaning where there isn't any. (Never focusing on the people these actions affect, by the way.) Each commentator normalizes what's happening - I assume to have something to discuss - when really all that needs saying is: these actions are wrong, and here's what we need to do about it.
The smartest analysts keep looking for chess moves. But when someone has ultimate power and no accountability, sophisticated strategy becomes optional. What's left is impulse without consequence. A child's logic: I want it, so I'll take it. The disturbing part isn't hidden complexity - it's the shallowness.
A couple of years ago, my son and I discussed university plans. I tried convincing him to consider studying in the States - that if he did well enough in high school, money could be found. Despite its problems, it remained a place where a smart, ambitious person could find opportunities unavailable here. Work with a good organization, stay healthy, build a solid career.
Thankfully, he didn't choose that path.
But now another worry surfaces. He's smart, dogged, athletic, loves his country. If what comes from the regime's mouthpieces holds any truth, young men like him may form the backbone of resistance to military action against their home.
A thought unimaginable just a few years ago.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is January talking - dark mornings and darker news cycles, amplified by voices that profit from alarm. Maybe I've listened to the wrong podcasts, let anxiety compound into something larger than reality warrants.
But the rhetoric keeps escalating. And rhetoric, even when it doesn't become action, shifts what we accept as normal.
Now I'm thinking about it over morning coffee, writing it down between ideas for bedtime stories, trying to understand how we arrived here - and what small, quiet acts of clarity look like when the noise gets loud enough to drown out reason.
No Visits, as Per Usual
Uncle Wendell did what my father could not, and my mother didn’t—he kept a diary. Not a deeply personal diary, where he recorded his thoughts or emotions in any depth. Something much simpler.
I ended up with them when I cleared out his apartment. I was hesitant to keep them, even more hesitant to look at them, and most of all unwilling to have them destroyed. We weren’t terribly close, except for the memories of summers on his farm—the primary gathering place for much of my mother’s side of the family. I learned about hard work there, and developed a love of ice cream that I carry with me to this day. When my mother and father separated, it became our home too for a short time, while I assume my mother got things sorted out.
He never married, nor was there ever a love in his life that I knew of. I remember it being mentioned that his heart had been broken, or something like that, but there was never much talk about it. For a long time, I wondered if perhaps he was gay—something his generation and social circle might not have accepted, and so he kept it hidden. This wasn’t the case, I was told. He simply seemed to enjoy being single, or perhaps was too shy to do anything about it. This dedicated bachelorhood seems to run in the family; I have a cousin who is much the same.
My feeling is that someone should bear witness to his life. He has diaries that go back decades. I read his diary for 2024 last night—it’s quite possible to read an entire year in a single sitting. The diary is in the form of an agenda, so each day holds one entry. He recorded the weather and what he did that day. He also recorded deaths—of which there were an increasing number—and visitors and phone calls, of which there were fewer and fewer.
While it lacks detail, you can still read between the lines. He valued the tradition of the Sunday visit, of which there were only a handful for the entire year. A good meal among the seniors in the Cornwall area brought him great joy, as did the infrequent visits to our house for a holiday meal. Wendell was never able to take the initiative, never pick up the phone to call, and you can see loneliness punctuate many entries with words like abandonment and phrases such as no visits as per usual. His social circle had become small.
Reading the days laid end to end, the absences become harder to ignore. The phone rings less often. Names stop appearing. Meals are noted, but shared less and less. The diary does not complain—much—or explain; it simply keeps going. In that steady accounting, I feel a sadness that has no single moment, only a long, quiet shape—one I might not have noticed at all if he hadn’t taken the time to write it down.
Unburdening
I've been hauling furniture to charity, the first step in what feels like a long unburdening. The Japanese have danshari for this: the practice of letting go, the relief that follows.
My house is still full of things I don't use, don't need, won't miss. Each trip to the donation center teaches me the same lesson: I've been carrying weight that was never mine to hold.
More trips ahead.
The load gets lighter every time.
Stay still. Stay warm. Eat bread
There's something about winter—the freezing cold, the white snow—that makes me want to curl up and hibernate. I slept in today, which is unusual for me. And now that I'm up, all I want to do is sit here gorging myself on carbs.
Gone is the meditative morning practice: appreciating nature over coffee, writing, the morning movement, the delay before eating. I'm practically glued to this chair and that sourdough bread is calling. As is the butter. And I could make cookies.
My stomach is practically gurgling in anticipation.
Cabin in the woods
I finished the advanced writing workshop last week, and today my final class of the year—a session with Marion Lougheed—begins and ends in a single afternoon. This has truly been the year of writing classes. Over the past couple of years, I’ve also taken courses in creativity and art, and usually, when they end, I feel a little sad knowing I won’t be gathering with those people anymore. I enjoy not only the learning, but the small community that forms around shared interests and the conversations that rise out of them.
This time, though, it feels more like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. These past six months, my attention has been scattered in a hundred different directions, and I’m looking forward to focus again. Winter is good for that. Our house in Montague feels like a cabin tucked into the woods, hidden from the world at large. All it’s missing is a wood stove—something I’m still considering, if only our insurance would allow it.
Like many intense workshops, I suspect the real learning will come later, when I sit down to read the editorial reviews of the work I submitted—and when I finally have space to reflect. That’s not to say I didn’t learn anything in the moment. When you’re in a “room” with writers who are far more competent, there is always something to absorb. And Lindsay offered sharp insight on an impressive range of craft and non-craft topics. Her students at U of W are lucky to have her.
A few of us from the group plan to keep meeting weekly to review each other’s works-in-progress. I’m hoping that will give me the momentum I need to finish revising one of my manuscripts. Reading their work will inspire me, too.
In the coming year, though, my focus must shift back to our small business. It has suffered from neglect, and many opportunities have slipped by. I'm increasingly aware of just how competitive the landscape has become. Yes—competition. Even though we’ve built something honest for kids, the field is growing crowded with both indie creators and corporate interests vying for the same audience. And in this work, unfortunately, scale seems to matter.
Wendell
Wendell passed away last night. You could see it coming, but there were always small signs of hope—moments when you thought he might still enjoy good meals among new friends. He was strong once. COVID and pneumonia made him frail. Cancer, heart problems, dementia, a constellation of ailments couldn't stop him.
He was the last of his generation. With him goes the last reason for cousins and distant relatives to gather. The connections were always tenuous—built around those of his age, not between us.
Wendell liked being around people. He belonged to a generation that understood rituals, that knew how to mark endings. So when I learned this morning there would be no funeral, no visitation, I was surprised and then relieved. I couldn’t imagine why he’d left the arrangements to me. I know nothing about the traditions his generation valued. I think most of it is theatre anyway.
Thankfully, I’m not the executor of his will. If this morning’s conversation with his law office (Carr, Stevenson & MacKay) is any indication, that role will be exactly as grinding as you’d expect.
I called to notify them of his passing. They reminded me my Power of Attorney was now null and void. When I asked if they could notify the executor, they said they’d only speak to the executor from this point forward.
So who notifies the executor if no one knows who that is?
They repeated themselves.
It was one of the most obtuse conversations I’ve ever had. They could have simply outlined their process and been done with it. Instead, we performed this small dance of bureaucratic logic, going nowhere, saying nothing, not dissimilar to a conversation I had with Bell Alliant a day earlier.
After the call I thought about ceremony—how much his generation knew about marking endings, and how little is left now. Just tasks, and phones, and people who speak in rules instead of names.
Waiting
When my mother had cancer, I flew home from China and spent four or five months with her - the last in palliative care, the rest sorting through everything that follows a death. She had constant visitors. I had all my days. It felt like a privilege, even in the grief.
My uncle is in the home stretch now, but it’s a long one. At 94, he’s stubborn and strong despite his frailty. He has no family, so we’ve been slowly - very slowly - trying to tidy his affairs before the inevitable arrives.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m busier now, or if it’s the nature of his decline, but this feels far more exhausting than what I went through with my mother. He has dementia. He falls. Every week the care home calls, and each time I wonder if this is the one.
There’s a sense of responsibility - he’s the last of a generation. But this experience has also given me clarity about how I want to manage my own end, hopefully in the very distant future. And a deeper appreciation for those who navigate the slow fade of a loved one entirely alone.
Soon
We visited my 94-year-old uncle Wendell last night, after finally spending hours at his former apartment sorting what mattered - what could be donated, what might bring a few dollars to give away in his name. He doesn't own much of value, but I've heard stories of families parking dumpsters outside and shovelling entire lives into them when time runs short. A life deserves more reverence than that. He's been gone from his place since June, and the guilt weighs on me - I wish I could have done this sooner.
He is the last of his generation, a man whose resolve carried him through trials and watching everyone he loved leave first, and he is fading. His former self still surfaces - flashes of who he was - but even that dogged will has grown weary. He's finally somewhere good now, a home where they feed him well and wheel him out to sit with others at dinner. He has lived long, so the sadness isn't so much that he's leaving. It's how: the confusion, the pain, the loss of agency that comes with a slow exit.
Last night Wendell told me he wanted to take me to dinner, though he wasn't sure where he'd decided we should go. He was upset too - said he'd been moved to so many different places, that he kept wanting to call me to bring him home but they wouldn't let him. None of it is true, of course.
I'm hoping he lasts long enough for me to tell him everything has been taken care of—that his wishes were honoured. But beyond that, I hope mercy moves swiftly.
PYI Conference
I spent this past weekend in Toronto for the Package Your Imagination conference. Every time I attend a writing conference or workshop, I’m reminded how far I still have to go—and how mismatched I sometimes feel in these spaces (a square peg in a round hole).
The conference itself was great, capped off by a moving talk from Marsha Skrypuch. I could listen to her tell stories all day; her life has been so impactful and interesting, and the work she’s produced reflects that richness.
It was also good to be surrounded by others creating stories for kids, even if I mostly kept to myself. I’ve made peace with my introversion and accept both its strengths and its limits.
I had also booked a one-on-one session with an editor that evening, and unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointment. I had understood it to be an evaluation—something like a blue-pencil session—whereas he seemed to approach it as more of a pitch opportunity. I wasn’t presenting my “best work,” nor was I looking for a publisher; what I wanted was feedback. Instead, he offered little of substance.
One moment that stuck with me was his insistence on giving my character a label—asking whether she might be on the spectrum, have ADHD, and so on. I replied that she fits the archetype of many types, but can’t we simply accept her as she is within the story? (And by extension, people in real life?) Of course, I understand the value of categories and labels—I used them extensively in my professional work for 20 years—but I also know how limiting they can be. Labels can confine, and they can create barriers to empathy. Kids, especially, want to see themselves in a character.
Instead, the session became a series of open-ended questions I wasn’t prepared for, and I failed to redirect the conversation.
On the brighter side, Sheryl came with me on the trip. As we always do when visiting a city, we walked for hours, covering much of downtown Toronto. I wish I could say we discovered incredible food. We did have some great pizza—something Charlottetown, despite its many pizza spots, doesn’t quite deliver—but when it came to choosing dinner Saturday evening, we fell victim to “too much choice.” We ended up at Fran’s, only to discover amazing Asian restaurants later, after we were already full.
Our flights with Air Canada were a pleasant surprise: smooth travel, good service, and even decent food on the return trip.
Census
The birds disappeared from my coffee ritual days ago—migrated, I assumed, to somewhere kinder than late October.
But this morning they’re back. Mostly caws, some chirps. Talking to each other in that urgent way birds do, as if they’re comparing notes on where they’ve been.
In the rare gaps between truck engines proving something to no one, it’s peaceful.
Maybe they just need to sleep late now and come to life with the sun—rationing their songs for the shorter days, conserving something the cold will ask them to spend.
Winter vigil
It's cold. Trying to be prepared. Thermos for coffee, hat for head. The birds have gone—only crows now, and shrieking gulls. A family of squirrels argues in the trees. One races the branches above me, frantic. Soon we'll hold our breath until spring, hoping everything that left comes back.
The Vanilla Problem
You knew you were invited only because they were being polite. Nothing more.
But you didn’t care—the promise of this treat was enough.
You step into the ice cream shop, and the sweet, buttery scent of waffle cones wraps around you, bringing a warmth of memories. For a moment you’re eight again—hands sticky, worries small.
Your eyes scan the glass case, landing on rows of colourful scoops—salted caramel, blueberry swirl, and double chocolate fudge. You can already taste the cold sweetness melting on your tongue as you know which flavour you will order.
They order first, each with practiced fluency. The workers move easily, cones already lined up, their choices pre-approved.
Then it’s your turn.
“Vanilla.”
A pause. “Just… vanilla?”
“Yes, please.”
Behind you, a small sound—a soft exhale, a wordless opinion.
They don't look at each other. They don't need to.
You sit down with your simple white bowl of beige. They make room physically.
"Good?" someone asks.
"Yeah. I like vanilla."
They eat their complicated flavours with renewed attention.
You don't come back.
You'd failed a test you didn't know you were taking.
An exercise.
That Advanced Writing Class
I've had a couple of workshops now where we critique each other's writing through short editorial letters, followed by conversation. I don't feel comfortable using the term "workshop” or “editorial letter," so I call mine peer comments. I've learned quite a bit already, though not all necessarily what I thought I'd be learning.
Compared to seemingly the rest of the world, I read far too little. Whenever the conversation turns to "What do you like reading?" or "What are you reading now?" I mumble something inconclusive. A problem that plagues me in all parts of my life: decreased attention span. I just can't seem to sit and read. Also, I'm short on time.
I know how to write an editorial letter, but I either don't know how to express what I want to say, or I don't know what to say. Learning is sometimes difficult—see lack of attention span and time.
My mind swims with too many different things: music, design, running, fitness, podcasting, business. Quieting these skills and interests feels necessary when trying to work on writing, yet all of these areas that comprise my generalist skillset play a role in who I am. Perhaps this is again a result of decreased attention span.
Lastly, I've realized just how much I don't like staying up late. The class starts at 9 PM, which is usually my bedtime. By the time I'm relaxed and ready for sleep, it's midnight, which means I start the next day with an even greater sleep deficit than usual.
Cold Coffee
Stars shine in a clear sky. Cars multiply, their headlights bright as suns, trying to compete.
The only others awake at this hour: ducks and schoolteachers starting their day. A dog cries in the distance. Raccoons scurry through bushes.
Coffee grows cold.
Most mornings I start my day with slow coffee in our yard by the river. I try when I can to write something, I think this kind of writing was suggested at a meditation class I took, but I’m not sure. I just write what I see, and hear, in the moment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s not about success or failure. I have been putting these on my Bluesky account.
No hope?
This is a whole post by Seth Godin that I often return to for the best definition of stupidity:
Not smart is a passive act, remedied with learning, experience and thought.
Stupid is active, the work of someone who should have or could have known better and decided to do something selfish, impulsive or dangerous anyway.
The more experience, assets and privilege we have, the less excusable it is to do stupid things. And at the same time, the more useful it is to announce that we’re not smart (yet).
I think of this definition whenever I slip into one of the meta socials and get punished by stupidity.
I know I’m not smart, but I do try.
Every classroom, every public space should post the scientific method: Observe → Ask → Hypothesize → Test → Analyze → Conclude → Repeat.
We’re bombarded daily with nonsense from socials and from weak editorial standards. Maybe we’re doomed. But we should still try.
Why Kids' Podcast Titles Are Getting So Ugly
Discovery matters a lot in podcasting, and there are many ways to get discovered—traditional ads, episode swaps, collaborations, social media campaigns (not effective), feed drops, and paid podcast ads. Perhaps the most visible form of discovery is the text that podcast apps use to index and surface results in search.
This means your podcast title and episode titles are often the first things people see.
The Diary of a CEO doesn't go out of its way to over-explain itself. It's not called The Diary of a CEO: Personal Diaries of the World's Most Fascinating CEOs with Stephen Bartlett, Hosted by Bartlett Media Ltd. It's just clean, sharp, and memorable. That simplicity works.
But in kids' podcasts? Things are starting to look a little different.
There's been a noticeable trend toward over-optimization. Instead of straightforward titles like Silly Goose Stories by Maplewood Media, you'll see something like:
Silly Goose Stories: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast by Kids Bedtime Stories by Maplewood Media.
Episode titles look like: Silly Goose's bedtime adventure ✨✨ the best bedtime stories for kids, followed by more of the same keyword soup in the description.
It's not enough anymore to just say Silly Goose Stories by Maplewood Media or even Silly Goose Stories: Stories for Kids. Now titles have become this repetitive jumble of search terms, cramming in every possible query someone might type.
These techniques are as old as Google search itself—when Google's advertising business became so important that it sparked the "keywordification" of online writing.
We know it works on the web, but does it actually work for podcasts? Maybe. Maybe it's worth sacrificing clean, descriptive titles for SEO soup. I don't know. But while I'll throw in a descriptor or two when it makes sense, I'm trying (and sometimes failing) to resist this trend for my own sanity.
Some things shouldn't sound like they were written for a machine.
Five times I scratched my human.
Look, I'm fine being left alone. I'm a cat—a predator. She seems to forget this basic fact.
The first time, she insisted on sticking her face in mine, babbling some bubbly nonsense like I actually care what sounds fall out of her mouth. She still has a scar just below her left eye. I was aiming for the pupil, but despite her size, she moves quickly when properly motivated.
The second incident happened when she was crying uncontrollably for some pathetic reason and decided I was her personal therapy animal. Do I look like a teddy bear? I'm a cat, for god's sake. Got her hand this time—really deep. At least she stopped crying.
We coexisted peacefully for weeks after that. She maintained proper distance while fulfilling her basic obligations as my servant. But then—boredom, wine, who knows—she thought it was time to "play."
That third scratching was inevitable. Fluffy toys trigger something primal in me. Some ancient rage bubbles up from places she'll never understand. The toy didn't survive. Neither did the unmarked skin on her legs. No toys since then. Smart human.
The fourth time came when she brought home another cat. Another cat. In my house. Some pathetic orange tabby that immediately tried to eat from my bowl. I don't share. The scratches across her forearms were a gentle reminder that this is a one-cat household—emphasis on one. The orange interloper was returned to wherever she found it by evening.
Last week brought the fifth lesson. She had the audacity to move my food bowl six inches to the left because she was "cleaning." Six inches might as well be six miles when you're disrupting a perfectly calibrated system. I'd been eating from that exact spot for six months. The scratches on her ankle were educational—a master class in "ask before you redecorate my domain."
But as I watched her bandage her ankle, something strange happened. She didn't curse at me. Didn't threaten to take me back to the shelter. Just sighed and said, "I know you're scared, buddy."
Scared? Me? I'm a predator.
But when she went to bed that night without our usual routine—no treat, no reluctant head scratch—the house felt bigger than usual. Emptier.
Maybe the sixth lesson can wait. Maybe.
An exercise in “five things I’ve.”
Deliverance
It wasn’t like the movies. No finger snap, no golden dust. The righteous didn’t ascend in robes of light, and the damned didn’t claw their way from graves. Just… absence.
I have theories. The water they blessed in mason jars. The fasting that replaced medicine. The way they gathered in packed halls, breathing each other’s certainty while the rest of us got our shots and kept our distance.
They called it holy. We called it what it was.
The southeast went dark over a long weekend. Scattered pockets elsewhere—always the same demographics, same voting patterns, the same hand-painted signs about freedom and faith. Social media feeds went quiet, then the accounts themselves: no farewell posts, just profile pictures frozen in time. Smiling faces that would never change again.
The conflicts ended because half the combatants had simply… stopped being.
I walk past the abandoned churches sometimes, doors hanging open like mouths caught mid-prayer. Inside, hymnals still lie scattered in pews, pages turned to songs about deliverance.
Maybe they were right. Maybe it really was a rapture.
Or maybe something worse is still waiting, and we’re only next in line.
Avoiding My Own Words
I'm procrastinating. It's taken me all day to start looking at a manuscript for a book I wrote. I have a meeting in October with another editor, and I'm taking a creative writing class with Lindsay Wong. Both need to see something.
I sent it to an editor who did a developmental edit that was finished back in March. I've hardly looked at it since. Reading her editorial letter is like someone kindly telling me all the problems I had—and still have—with writing in general. It's annoying.
But I started, and that's the hardest part sometimes.