Still Life With Chickadees

Still Life With Chickadees Courtesy of Mel Shaw        It’s almost four o’clock, and on this startlingly cold winter day, the sun is already sinking towards the western hills. When I carry my steaming tea, in my favourite pink mug, towards the dining room couch I am savouring simplicity. My great pleasure will be spending time with one of the five black, grey and white chickadees, likely a family, who frequent my main bird feeder. Although they are …

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Still the Same

Still the Same My dear, very old aunt Tigger, clutched both my hands and hauled herself up in her hospital bed so she could pull herself closer to scan my face. Satisfied, she whispered “Still the same,” as if that was all that needed to be said, as if it was high praise indeed. In those days I wasn’t sure how to take her words. Sameness felt stagnant, boring. But now, when there have been too many losses, too many …

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A Sense of Home

A Sense of Home My childhood home, painted by my artist father, Ken Phillips It begins with my beloved childhood home, the little, brown-shingled house which my father and grandfathers and uncles had built in the heart of a small, 3-acre woods. It was the centre of my world, and I loved it fiercely–the wind travelling, travelling through the hemlocks, and up to the nearby twin guardian pines, and ending at the white oak that pressed up against my bedroom …

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