A pall upon the world’s a common theme Our lives are not at all as they have been A scourge has plagued the human race it seems A killer known as Covid plus nineteen We’ve hidden in our homes almost a year We’re distanced from the loved ones we hold dear We thought at first…

My son lives in Vancouver and each morning buses to the Gallery Gachet which has been relocated to Hastings Street on the Downtown Eastside. Strangely and thankfully,  amongst the addicted and mentally ill who roam and sleep upon these desolate streets, the Covid 19 virus has not appeared in proportion to the seemingly unprotected  population…

Musings from The Nineteen-eighties. [Before I Joined A Religion] I discovered these lines on yellowed scraps of paper in a bundle of musings I had typed out on an old manual typewriter back in about 1983. I had been following the writings of Charles Lindbergh, world-famous pilot, and in later years, an environmentalist. His writings…

In an earlier life, I was able to multi-task quite well. With a baby on my hip and a child or two toddling behind, I was able cook, launder and , sometimes, even hold down a job creating meals for hungry loggers and sawmill workers. Now my short term memory only permits me one thought…

Thanks to my wonderful Chinese-Canadian first cousins, I have learned much about Chinese-Canadian culture and history – which is also mine. It has only been since the end of the Second World War that our ancesters, originally from across the sea, were able to become Canadian citizens in a country where many of them were…

Those with severe mental/emotional disorders can relate to an opression similar to that of racism. Bullying by authority and others has always been rampant toward the mentally ill and those in the throes of drugs and alcohol addiction. I recall seeing a drunken indigenous person being thrown into a paddy wagon years ago. The door…

BRAIN CHEMICAL DISORDERS by Doris Ray [ this was a series of blogs several of which were published in the book “Making Noise: Northern Women, Caring & In/visible Dis/abilities” edited by Si Transken & Lynn Box of Prince George BC in 2007] On Being a Mother Sometimes I think we mothers have no control at…

[Note: the book is categorized as “Fictionalized Biography” but the following incident is from an interview I had with my uncle in 2007. His mother (my grandmother) had worked as a care aide at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria where she contacted the disease] I never met my grandmother but I like this story! “….For…

Oh my gosh! I am low on those so-called ‘single use’ plastic grocery bags! My cute cloth bag made by Elaine W for storing grocery bags is almost empty. I use grocery bags to keep lettuce, etc fresh in the fridge; to contain garbage (if the bag is leak-proof) and for umpteen other household things.…

This was posted on Facebook this morning by someone who knows about love and has experienced grief. It was written by Tim Ofield. “I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the…