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“The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.”
Zadie Smith
Word with a sideward glance
There are not many ways of talking about positive ageing without sounding like you’re arguing. That’s how loud the cultural ageing narrative is. You cannot escape ageing clichés—socially, online, in the Hallmark aisle, and through jokes, songs, films and stories. It gets in everyone’s head, including children’s. Aside from a…
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Narrating Death
Elle died last week, 25 days after being told she had a month. During that time, Elle choreographed her dying with a constant flow of friends and acquaintances. Close ones came to sit with her for hours. Neighbours popped by with treats and a hug. I had good long days…
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Elle and I
My friend Elle, from two blogs ago, has less than three months of life on earth. This is Day 3. We started in the laundry room of a wilderness park. We were campers—Elle and her partner in a little trailer, I, tenting. Different sections of the park. I went to…
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The Slow and the Swift Under the Sun
It is spring and the gardens are edged. Eight years of tending them, jubilantly gouging new beds out of unwanted lawn, planting native drought-resistance giving forth in time, from buds to bushes. I only met Chat GPT online about six months ago, and I have come to rely on it.…
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The Undiscovered Country
When I was very young, on the occasion of the death of a neighbour’s pet, my clever sister declared during a family dinner: ‘We’re all dying. Every day.’ Her statement is technically correct, isn’t it. Her use of the present continuous was, and is, the most suitable tense. Dying is a…
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What Problem Was solved?
Elle and I were walking along the front road that flanks the Great Lake in a county at the end of the last mile. We ran into Anna with her dog and walked together. The wind bit hard. It was nearly April and spring was in the light but not…
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One Thing Will Never Be The Same
The duck I saw on the road today had only one foot. The footless leg dangled down from the duck’s girth like a chopstick, thin and straight. Seeing a duck along the Great Lake is not unusual, but this one was so fully aware of my presence that I became…
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Last Nights are Laden with Meaning
On my last night in London—Jan 30 2025 (I mention the date to give a snapshot of what was going on in North America and rippling across the world)—I went out for dinner with the kids: my son Gregory and partner Camila. Greg booked a restaurant he knew I loved…
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Is this Gerotranscendence?
I’m sitting on a train that is so nice it feels like first class. I’ve just left the gorgeous modern green historic city of Lyon, the food capital of France. I stayed with a close friend. She loves cooking. I’ve never thought so much about food, and with that, the…
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It happened in Cornish Anglish
I was on the illy seaboard follow. Dreckly, pized dawn started. My fingers steeved. The follow bifurcated. Pant set in with the fog. Dreckly it would be dumments. All I had was a bisky. No water left. I was chacking as hell. Izza this way or that? The hummin mud…
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A Weird and Scary Day
This children’s story is meant for a four- to eight-year-old reader. It is the only children’s story I’ve written and likely will ever write. It is based on a true and personal family story that appeared in the Simcoe Reformer in the early sixties. Victor will always be the brave…
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Err and err and err again but less and less and less
The arrow is drawn to a hair’s breadth from the cheek. Fingertips purple, feet anchored, one elbow raised, the other locked. Eyes on the target. Calculated. Still. Release The hurried walk out the back door and around the house is in the interest of time, not nostalgia for leaving. We…
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Nature has a purpose for everything
We didn’t dawdle over tea, but rather headed out in the early morning. It would be a very long day. (Despite all our efforts, we still set up in the dark that night.) Moving through the cool early morning air was like stealing time. Or like sipping rare glacial waters…
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Fire and Water
When wildfires are reported, let’s not make it sound like they are inevitable. I don’t want to use this blog as a soap box to rail about human impact on nature, wildlife, wilderness and our biosphere, but I will just say it again and then stop. When wildfires are reported.…
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Anatomy of Writing a Debut Novel
I wrote a first draft of my debut novel, For Ephiy, by chance based on a Stephen King prompt I found in his wonderful book, On Writing. The prompt was this: take the estranged-husband-beats-up-or-murders-ex-wife story and change the sexes. Make the ex-wife the stalker; the husband the victim. Don’t plan or plot—let the situation and unexpected inversion carry…
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Valerie Hickey, Writer 