Recently, I ventured to a local gas station and waited in line while the cashier in the booth waited on a customer. Her name tag read “Joice”. The elderly man in front of me said, “You should add an ‘RE’ before your name.” The cashier glared at him and he walked away. I approached the […]
Gathering What Has Been Broken
A Lakota woman torn away from her mother spends her life looking for the connection she lost — and ends up healing others.
Path of Light
The path I walk is not always a light filled space of illuminating proportions. Sometimes, the shadows slink and push out the shine, leaving me to wonder if I will ever feel whole again. It is in those moments that I doubt almost everything in my life. I say almost everything because it is also […]
Norbert and O’Malley: A Tale of Two Drop-In Cats
Norbert and O’Malley are ginger tabby cats. They don’t live with us, but it sure seems like it some days. One belongs to the neighbours next door and the other lives across the street. If you’ve got allergies this is the closest you can come to having cats of your own.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Fairies
My daughter’s tastes are what many refer to as “tomboy.” She has never taken to playing with dolls of any sort, never cared for the colour pink and couldn’t care less what she’s wearing as long as she’s allowed to play in the mud with it. My husband and I have always chosen to just […]
The Perfectly Discombobulated Mother
A mother realizes that there are good and bad times for buying a car. This was a bad time. A really bad time.
Reasons to Give Yourself Flowers
“Who brought you those flowers?” my daughter asked as she walked into the kitchen and saw me trying to artfully arrange a bouquet of daffodils in a vase. “Yeah,” questioned my husband. “Where did they come from? I didn’t bring them to you.” My other daughter joined in and started teasing that I had a […]
Mayor of Cook Street Village Laundromat
Here’s the thing: in between success and failure, glamour and an old bathrobe, a laundry room and a laundromat, I like to think there lies in me a hard-working mom with one job, no car, a few too many debts, and a certain graceful resilience.
My Lakota Name
I am VERY proud of my name. It envelops completely my journey home and all the stepping stones that were put in place on that journey. It gave me goosebumps when I received it, because I knew what it meant, and flashed on a few specific times in my life when these events had happened, in a life so far away and so foreign from the people whose blood flowed through my veins.
Maybe a Puppy Wasn’t Such a Bad Idea After All?
Julie reconsiders the notion of a adopting a puppy after her daughter becomes attached to insects instead.