Category — Published

I met her in a farm house. Followed her through the wildflowers. Past the cross in yard — her husband’s grave I’d later learn — up the wooden stairs and through the doorway where the scent of fresh-baked bread embraced us like a hymn. We settled in the sitting room. Books, blankets, pottery — blazing raku, fresh from the kiln — scattering the windowsills, the shelves. I let my fifteen-year-old shoulders fall from the weight of holding my city-self together and kicked off my shoes.

We began to talk. She passed me the journal where here words lay stained on page. Grain. Like the Albertan butter fields clamouring all around us outside. Here, miles from Hythe, the closest one-street town, my adolescent heart held court with a real live poet.

Her name was Dymphny. A name that sings. The daughter of a potter friend of my mother’s we were visiting the summer between grades nine and ten. For 1,200 kilometres my brother and I enjoyed a private symphony from the upholstered back bench, a yellow sport walkman for each.

A steady stream of Frente!, Counting Crows, and Cranberries flooding my eardrums.

“Oh, my life is changing everyday… In every possible way”

Knees tucked uncomfortably against the grey minivan door, eyes set on foreign fields, my pen scratching instinctively along the lines of a dollar store notebook. Angst-filled love poems, prairie snapshots, fits of inspiration, filling the page.

And here, Dymphny. Her poem, a confession. Painting the starkness of afterbirth. The coolness of sheets. The blue of her dressing gown. The child aborted.

Without naming regret, painting the avalanche of devastation on a white paper page.

I took a copy of the work, creating next year’s final art project around an image of a child in womb — a black and white sketch — surrounded by a flurry of colour, children of all colours and ages flourishing around this loss child. I carefully copied Dymphny’s words on the back of the poster board. I kept that collage until well in my twenties.

Her words that day, words from a young widow, words from an artist child:

“Never stop writing.”

And the carry of her voice has never dwindled.

And two weeks ago the Literary Review of Canada notified me that my poem, days end, will be published in a future issue of this distinguished Canadian journal.

And today I am reminded that dreams can come true.

Last year I pitched a story to UPPERCASE magazine — a profile of my creative hero, artist/author Sabrina Ward Harrison. It was a thinly veiled attempt to meet Sabrina, whose work I have followed for close to ten years. As luck/fate (read: GOD) would have it, the pitch turned itself into much more than a phone interview.

I was sent to Prince Edward Island for a three-day sojourn with six other women to create alongside Sabrina at an old waterside hotel called the Highlands. (You may remember I faced a little trepidation as prepared for this trip.) The historic home and adjacent town dance hall, where we did our making, has housed royalty and the likes of Reverend Billy Graham. Each room was brimming with island minutiae and stacks of old LIFE magazines — a writer’s dream. Angela Ritchie, founder of the Whistler-based ACE Camps, and a creative mastermind in her own right, was the organizer of the retreat. I had the good fortune of interviewing her when I was back in Vancouver last week.

The fruit of the trip — Watchful Reverence, in UPPERCASE issue 10 — arrived at stockists and doorsteps days ago.

An excerpt:

“It’s the steady calm of the island air whistling through the birch trees. It’s the burst of plover, finches, and jays that begin their daylight calling at 4:30am, beckoning us to do the milking… I am sitting on the front stairs of the Highlands main house. Here four crooked trees congregate like an outer hearth. The twisting white-worn branches are the sort you’d find in the Haunted Wood of Anne of Green Gables’ imagination. The beaked chirps, caws and whistles blend into a symphony of spring. Behind me seven girls chatter on around the breakfast table: preserves, balkan yogurt, fresh-baked muffins, boiled eggs, brimming between. In the old adjacent dance hall Sabrina, dressed in a vintage polkadot dress, is readying for the day’s making.”

It was an absolute gift to meet Sabrina and a joy to work with Janine Vangool, tireless publisher/editor/designer of the magazine (not to mention mother to an on-the-run toddler.)

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If you are interested in reading the complete article you can order single copies or subscriptions to this beautiful publication at: http://shop.uppercasegallery.ca/collections/uppercase-magazine-1\. It is available in print only.

My most recent contribution to Sweetmama.ca:

Bowen Island Day Trip

A short ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay, or a water taxi from Granville Island, will land you and your little ones at the mouth of Snug Cove — the start of your day’s exploration of quaint, artsy Bowen Island.

Best Lunch Spot:  Artisan Eats Café & Fine Foods
For a nutritious and reasonably-priced kids’ menu that includes a free range mini-burger, cheesy noodles and yam fries ($5-7), head to this European-inspired market.
39 Artisan Ln.; 604-947-0190; www.artisaneats.ca

Best Shopping for All: Phoenix
Browse through books, toys and crafts at Phoenix, while tables of Playmobil entertain your children.
209 Village Sq.; 604-947-2793; www.phoenixonbowen.com

Best Splurges: Wren Boutique
From Dagg & Stacey and Granted knits, to select children’s pieces from Cielo and Hunter boots, owner Erin Norgan’s handpicked eco-offerings surpass the mainland’s best.
569 Artisan Ln.; 604-947-0050; www.wrenboutique.com

Best Treats: Cocoa West
Indulge in a luxurious hot chocolate, an “Unbelievably Good Egg” or a scoop of Mario’s Gelato at this Bowen institution.
581 Artisan Ln.; 604-947-2996; www.cocoawest.com

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Boy do they ever keep these pieces snappy. I think they cut over 50 words from my already ultra-tight submission. Either way, I’m happy to have profiled my favourite island!

While this blog has been silent for some time my writing has continued to appear in some wonderful publications. My most recent article for Comment titled “Storytelling Clothes” appeared in December.

Click here to read the article in full. Here is a short excerpt:

Clothing is a topic to which we pay little mind except, perhaps, when the conditions in poorly ventilated sweat shops make the front page news. Like us, God cares about the woman behind the serger; but He also cares what we put on our backs. We seldom remember that the first garments were made by God for Adam and Eve in the Garden.

Teresa Smed, a Vancouver-based jewelry designer shared her thoughts on God’s concern with clothing.  “I definitely think what we wear matters to God. I like to think about where everything comes from. Everything has a price. If your shoes are made by a child in a sweatshop in China — that has a cost. If I can clothe me and my kids with recycled clothing — it matters. I love fashion. I love accessories. People would call me ‘fashion forward.’ It’s about self-expression, and that’s okay. But where your treasure is your heart will be also.”

The story we’ve been telling

God never commanded us to get dressed. When he came looking for us we were crouched in Eden’s thicket hiding. We chose to cover parts of ourselves up, sin revealing impropriety.

“That’s how clothes can be,” comments designer Paul Hardy, a Christian anomaly in the world of high fashion. “It can go either way. In fashion, as in any other creative field, imagination can be used as an expression of edification or can prey on the insecurities of others.”

My second piece, a profile on my hometown neighbourhood, appears on the Sweetmama site today. You can find it here. Yum, yum.

Have a wonderful weekend, Everyone! I’ll be spending it celebrating the arrival of my new nephew (Judah, born yesterday) and enjoying one of our last weekends in Vancouver.

My most recent article appeared in the New York-based Curator last Friday. You can give it a read here.

An excerpt:

“There’s no question that technology has overrun our lives. Over the past century, the world has welcomed technological ‘progress’ with arms wide open and we’re living with the clicking, dinging, anxiety-inducing deluge of it.

But a creative backlash is underway, helping human beings cope with the avalanche of data that passes in front of most of us every day through the use of computers and cell phones.

Slow food, the back-to-the-land movement, and groups like letter writing clubs are being formed by a new subculture: the 21st century luddite, wielding fountain pen and notebook, and some checking e-mail from the public library a mere hour per week. Dolen and Fedoruk think this movement is more than a blip on the technological continuum…”

This may be my favourite article to date. I hope you enjoy it!

A few of my words appeared in ‘print’ this past week.

A poem: A Prayer in catapult’s Arms are for Hugging issue

An interview: Wax Poetic in Comment

And my first profile in Sweetmama: Overhaul the Coveralls

Also, I entered a full-length poetry manuscript into a 1st book competition on Monday. Fingers and toes crossed. 

Have a happy weekend, Everyone!

Paris, 2009

Cardus, my favourite Canadian think tank and publisher of Comment magazine, where I frequently contribute, has a new online venture called After Hours. It’s a daily blog interested in ‘issues that affect the architecture of North American public life, including economics, literature, religion, politics, social and scientific innovation (and sundry other things.)’

“Slow for Good,” my first post as a Contributing Editor, went live last Thursday. It’s a bit ‘manifesto-y,’ according to my husband. I get that way sometimes. 

Anyone is welcome to contribute to After Hours. Please, fire off an e-mail if you are interested.

My latest column exploring fashion and theology is up in Comment Magazine. Madeleine was my inspiration as I considered ‘The advent of personal style.’ Enjoy!

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Also, speaking of fashion, the following invite arrived in the ‘ol inbox this morning. Paul Hardy presents at Vancouver Fashion Week tomorrow. I can’t wait! Paul’s shows never disappoint. 

I hope to bring you back pictures…

“It began on a long wooden pew.

I grew up on The Banner, Calvinettes (now GEMS), rolls of King peppermints, and the steadfast traditions of my Christian Reformed church in suburban British Columbia.

I used to believe that at some point all Christian Reformed kids had to spread their wings, fly the CRC coop, and explore the wider world of Christianity. We’d travel like vagabonds to charismatic revivals and Pentecostal worship services—finally, finally, experiencing the omnipotent God we’d learned so much about.

The moment my last high school bell rang, I hopped a plane to New Zealand. Eventually I settled in a prominent Baptist congregation in the heart of Queenstown, where my brother and I lived.

My memories of the church are sparse. I remember my brother, in a testosterone-induced flurry, scaling the church’s roof with his bare hands. I remember the calico church cat who’d comb through the pews looking for bored churchgoers’ attention. But the memory that stands out clearest is the particularly bright Sunday morning the minister read aloud the following passage:

Now listen, you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. . . . Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:13-15).

Those words helped me, at the age of 18, first understand God’s bigger story. I could make my own plans, but ultimately God was guiding my path…”

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An excerpt of my piece in the October issue of The Banner. Read the full article here.