How to spend money when your husband is overseas

Jun 19, 2015 | My Stories

Before my husband returns home from another overseas work trip, I’d just like him to know that I’ve pledged and spent some money. In his name. June 20 is World Refugee Day. Every minute eight people flee their homes and leave everything to escape war, persecution and...

We are all Sonny

Jun 5, 2015 | My Stories

I met Sonny on the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, the island capital of British Columbia. Sonny is 29. He works at local churches vacuuming floors, folding bulletins and any other jobs that need to be done. His teachers have described him as a social butterfly....

What it means to be an award-winning writer

May 4, 2015 | My Stories

In case you’ve missed the news from Canada, I’ve just become an award-winning essayist. I’m honoured and excited although I’m not running around the house flinging my arms in the air singing I’m the winner anymore. Not out loud. My essay Nana Technology won Canada’s...

Random conversations: close the gap

Apr 20, 2015 | My Stories

I’ve been in Sydney the last couple of days, interviewing people about belonging and taking a writing course. When I travel — and this includes going to the local library or grocery store — I like to talk to people. I’m an extrovert in the sense that I...

How an asylum seeker convinced me to become Australian

Apr 14, 2015 | My Stories

I could have applied for Australian citizenship several years ago. I’m Canadian, I’ve been living in this country since 2002, and I’m a permanent resident. My children are Australian and my husband has become an Aussie too. Something fundamental held me back. Last...

Three ways to turn the bad ”news” blues into inspiration

Apr 10, 2015 | My Stories

It doesn’t seem to matter where we are in the world, if we focus on the ”news’’, it’s easy to  despair at events and lose hope in humanity. UK philosopher Alain de Botton says the news plays with our emotions, sparking fear and anger and then ”exploits our...

What the debate about the blue/black or white/gold dress is really telling us

Mar 6, 2015 | My Stories

You’ve heard about it haven’t you? It all started with a picture of a dress. The problem with the picture is that everyone didn’t see the same colours. Yesterday a friend showed it to me. We were looking at the same picture of the same dress on the...

How catastrophe gives us a taste for belonging

Feb 13, 2015 | My Stories

Three years ago, I spent several days bent over a bucket cleaning river mud and bacteria-filled slime off Christmas tree decorations, golf clubs and the personal contents of half a house. They were not our possessions and it wasn’t our house that was flooded when the...

Chocolate truffles of belonging

Feb 12, 2015 | My Stories

Building a new website is a lot like moving house. You wander through the rooms, taking in years of living and then pick out a small closet and start sorting the clothes that no longer fit your personality. Ok I admit it. I’m not building my new website, someone else...

Belonging in Our Bodies

Feb 4, 2015 | My Stories

January is over and I’m wondering how your New Year’s resolution is coming along? Did you make one? I didn’t. I was having too much fun playing in Canada to think ahead to 2015. Lately though, as I coax my brain back towards thinking (not unlike my children who went...

How to Become Australian – Part 1

Jan 29, 2015 | My Stories

1. Be Feisty. Ok. Australians aren’t that feisty in general, but some are. And they’re the ones I admire. 2. How to be Feisty in a Non-Feisty Country. Australia Day, or Invasion Day, has come and gone. Last year I made an effort to celebrate it and while I...

Snowflakes of Hope

Jan 16, 2015 | My Stories

Voici mon secret. Il est trés simple : on ne voit bien  qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Le Petit Prince The holiday is over. Suitcases unpacked. Mounds of winter clothes lounge in the laundry with the overbearing...