You may think that because Canada is a northern country of long and harsh winters, our smells are only of cold, frozen earth, snow, and ice. Or maybe what comes to mind are the bland smells of a clean, safe city: the smell of a coffee shop here, the concrete mix of new construction there, the pot from your neighbours’ balcony as soon as it’s warm enough to open your living room windows.
When Sebastian and I were in our twenties, we built a boat. It was a Glen L 14: a 14-foot wood and Fiberglas blue sailboat with shiny varnished seats and bright, white sails.
Last May, annual inflation in Venezuela reached 24,600 percent. In one abstract, swift declaration, my mom’s monthly university professor salary became the equivalent of a dozen of eggs, or $2.70 US.
I grew up in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Bordered by Lake Maracaibo and the humid rainforest of the Sierra de Perijá, Maracaibo is a city of heavy smells, heavy sun, heavy heat, heavy clouds. It could not be further from the cold waters, lush and cool forests, and thunderless rain of the Pacific Northwest. Bad Endings, a short story collection by Vancouver writer Carleigh Baker, is a book set firmly in the Northwest landscape, where lead-coloured skies, chilling winter rain, and the proximity to wild and majestic nature are part of the everyday palette of sights and experiences.
Continue reading ➞ Bad Endings, Short Stories by Carleigh Baker
I sincerely believe in dedicating time to the things we love; it’s the name of this blog and the life philosophy I credit with giving me a second chance at a happy life. There is no “getting over it,” “you are too old for this,” and especially, “you are a mom, so you should not be doing x or y…” Motherhood, on the contrary, was one of the catalysts of my decision to not only never abandon the things I was passionate about—music, movies, reading, writing—but to pass these passions along to my son as the most beautiful gifts of being alive.
Continue reading ➞ The Measure of My Powers – A Memoir by Jackie Kai Ellis
In Venezuela, dreams are shared, often over coffee first thing in the morning. In a quiet voice, before the sun is up, we share our inner world, the rich lives we live at night, with our eyes closed.
I once wrote, without really believing it, that perhaps laughter is finite. I was once the chubby kid who danced in the middle of the kitchen to make her parents laugh. But I had forgotten what deep, carefree laughter sounded like, and for a while, it felt like I had used mine all up.
If I were to make a video of what it feels to listen to Phillip Phillips’ new album Collateral, it would start with a needle touching the black groves of a vinyl disc. Deeper and deeper, round and round we would go as the music would start to slowly unfold, revealing its promises and much awaited secrets.
Continue reading ➞ Phillip Phillips Reveals His True Self in Beautiful, Deep “Collateral”
Every day, women of all ages around the world look in the mirror and hate what they see. As women, our criticism of our bodies is often ruthless; our rolls, dimples, stretch marks, and cellulite are a reflection of our laziness, carelessness, and excesses. In an unending cycle, we hate, try to lose weight, become overwhelmed by the difficulty, give up and then start all over again. This hate is not innate; instead, it has been ingrained in us from an early age through a culture that measures the values of girls and women through their bodies, each pound gained and year aged, lowering that value.
Continue reading ➞ Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
I grew up on classical music and progressive rock. I also grew up in 1990s Venezuela, where musical cliques were so closed-off in their own lanes, it was almost considered treason to listen, or even to admit to like, anything that was considered to be outside the approved bands within the genre. While in later years these cliques began to open up to a more general appreciation of all that could be considered “rock,” I grew up never listening or learning anything about entire genres, from pop, to soul, to hip hop, all the way to punk
The Things We Love 