My blog posts aren’t necessarily about copywriting, content, or graphic design. They are stories of my life, my every day. They show the real me, and reveal how I express myself through writing. I am a storyteller. I write about the real stuff that happens each day, week, or month.

If I tell you how to write copy or content, why then would you hire me? Leave the technical, creative, and grammatical details to me. Why burden you with terms and rules you don’t have time for, let alone think about?
I can tell your story on my own time with my skills and natural talents.

I manage my day successfully and get things done on time. An expert multi-tasker, I prioritize my work in a punctual and efficient manner. I am passionate about what I do, and will often get up very early to get the job done. I enjoy every minute of it as it brings me great pleasure.

In my blog, I write about issues of past lives and present day—memories, worries, and joys. My posts demonstrate how less words are used to include more detail with the right words at the right time.

So if you’re wondering why my posts are, well, so personal, it’s because that is who I am. I wear my emotions on my sleeve and need to tell you my stories.

In the meantime, get to know me. Read my posts with pleasure and understand my everyday dilemmas and concerns. I look forward to getting to know you as well. Enjoy!

The classroom was warm and stuffy. I stood before the gaggle of high school students in our rehearsal for the school musical, The Music Machine. My legs were shaking and my breath was shallow. I felt like I was under a magnifying glass being viewed by the sea of faces before me back lit by the pale, fluorescent lighting. This was my very first solo.

“In the still, of the niii…ght,” my voice trembled like a building above a speeding subway train.

I continued to sing as the piano music spilled into the room; my face turned red-hot and itchy. I managed to get through the song, but it really sounded like a staccato note on repeat. I could hear people whisper, “She’s so nervous!”

When the song ended, I ran from the front of the room and straight into the bathroom. As I burst into tears, my best friend Julie came in.

“I sounded awful!” I wailed. “How am I going to sing in front of a real audience?”

“This was the first rehearsal. You’ll do better the next time around!” Julie said consolingly.

She was right. The next rehearsal was in the church where the performance would take place. But this time, when I got on stage, the empty pews were darkened, and the spotlight blinded me from the all-seeing eyes. I found myself, through no will of my own, singing with clarity and confidence. The microphone seemed to give me power. I heard my voice echo throughout the sanctuary and it sounded magical. I held the hands of two little girls, my background singers.

“You were so good!” my friend Jodi told me on the school bus ride home. “Your voice didn’t shake at all!”

Then the final night came. I wore a soft-pink, flowing dress and low-heeled pumps. I felt a little nervous, but again, the people’s faces were blackened by the hot spot lights shining on me. The microphone lightened and amplified my voice, and an unknown force came into me and raised me up, giving me a strength and power I had never experienced before. I sang a song about gentleness, and that very word seemed to melt into my limbs.

I was in the zone. If you’ve seen the movie Soul, it explains the zone musicians and artists get into when they’re in it, carrying out their passion. Nothing can stop you. Something for me about being on stage, with a team of musicians, all performing music together, and the energy of the crowd who wants to listen to you. It lifts you to a place you can’t get to without all of it coming together as one. The blackness, the microphone, the spotlights, the music around you…. it all works.

I miss that feeling. It’s been 34 years since that performance. There’s been a few in between now and then. Hopefully I’ll get back to that place soon, shaky legs and all.

I awoke this morning to my son telling me the cat was about to jump out the bedroom window of our third floor apartment. I look and there he is, trying to push through the screen. I jumped up and yelled, “Memphis!” which only made him more determined to get out that way. He pushed through the screen and actually popped it out. I don’t know why he didn’t retreat the way he had originally gained access to the window sill. I had to grab him by the tail to haul him in since a giant train table stood in our way. A disaster was averted on New Year’s Day.

The year has barely started and I find myself frozen in time. I feel like I’m on pause. I can’t move forward and I certainly don’t want to look behind me. Maybe it’s all the anticipation collapsing in on me, and everyone saying 2021 will be so much better than the latter.

I can’t help but feel pessimistic. I’m not convinced that 2021 will be the ultimate year of satisfaction and progress. We are in the midst of a pandemic, only less than one year in (give or take, it’s hard to know when it officially began) with a vaccine that we don’t know is effective yet. A friend of mine posted that the Black Plague started around 1346 and didn’t officially end until 1353. That’s six years and between 75-200 million deaths. I feel we still have a long way to go despite our modern medicine and distancing techniques. People are people and we can’t always control the masses.

How can we have hope in times of despair? I mean, sure, it could be a lot worse. We still have safety at home, access to good food and entertainment, and medicine. But even medicine is not guaranteed with our overflowing ER clinics and exhausted front-line workers. People are crying out about their freedoms being oppressed and the vaccine being toxic.

But hope is everlasting, I think it’s in our nature in order to survive. Maybe it won’t be this year, maybe it will be in two or three years, but it is there, just not right now. People are expecting this to be done quickly when really it could take a long time, which is okay. Sometimes we just need to slow down, since the speed of our technological and inventive ways of life have given us much less patience. We are just waiting for the magic wand of this to be fixed by someone and done quickly so we can get back to our normal, pressurized way of doing things.

So we can’t gather in large groups like we used to. I’m okay with that, for now, although I do crave more human interaction in addition to my three-person household. But we need to suffer. Our generations passed have suffered way more than we have. We’ve had it easy. This is nothing compared to what they’ve gone through: world wars, starvation, poverty, severe economic depressions, shelterless, and purely oppressed. People complain about human rights being limited by having to socially distance or wear a mask, when we could have no rights at all.

With suffering comes healing, relief, and learning. We grow and gather knowledge from difficult times such as these, adapting and evolving to create a better life for everyone. We will get through this, it will just take time.

On Christmas Eve
We wait and see
If our dreams and wishes
Are meant to be

On Christmas Eve
We savour and share
Good food and memories
And times of care

On Christmas Eve
We imagine falling
Asleep while dreaming
Of St. Nick calling

On Christmas Eve
The candles glimmer
The fire in the hearth
Warms and simmers

On Christmas Eve
We remember
The trials and tributes
That end in December

On Christmas Eve
Let us not
Forget our friends
And family in thought

On Christmas Eve
Soft moments and pleasure
Are the prevalent things
We seek to endeavour

On Christmas Eve
Let’s come together
In spirit and soul
Despite the bad weather

A Charlie Brown Christmas plays in the background, and I am drawn to the brisk, uplifting notes. On the contrast, I am feeling discouraged and broken, but the music is gently raising my spirits. That and the thought of slipping into my galley kitchen and making calzones for dinner, the anticipation of the comforting aroma, the burst of flavour afterwards, and the gratitude it brings.

Things could be worse, but I feel that I am not permitted to really live life to its fullest at times, like there is an outside force stopping me from pursuing my dreams. I’m not sure I even know what my dreams are at this point. Even in my middle age, I am still searching, yearning for something to come true. But for now I must settle, take what’s given to me and live with the aftermath. Be thankful, my brain tells me, but I am capable of so much more, my heart screams! The battle continues.

During this confining and mercurial time, preparing good food while listening to music always helps, as I forage through my cupboards and gather savoury ingredients, blend and fold, mix and taste the creations from my hands, while humming to tunes. I am thankful, but there is always room for hope.