Natale.

Florence, Italy. The sky was dusky as we began our pilgrimage from Oltrarno to the Duomo. Though only a one kilometre walk, the sea of people into which we were swept up set our pace, meaning it would take us almost forty minutes to reach our destination. The street was alive with chatter in various …

A one-eyed bandit.

We had been driving for hours. Endless twisted pines, craggy rocks and sapphire lakes as we wound our way through northern Ontario, until finally we were within about a half hour of the Sleeping Giant, our destination for the night. A small liquor store came into view, and we pulled off into the dusty parking …

Fires and forests.

I had to get over the fear of touching other peoples’ dreadlocks. They always seemed so delicate to me; as if if I were to wrap my fingers around one, it could suddenly break off, leaving me with an itchy snake of hair in my hand, not knowing what to do but to stuff it …

Auntunno.

Out on the lake which slips by a deep blue full of questions beneath my canoe, I watch the hills. You can only watch something that moves. You look at something stationary. But the hills move,  though imperceptibly (in a manner that is so slight, gradual or subtle so as not to be perceived). They …

West at highway speed.

We drove for days on end. We drove until pines and lakes gave way to prairie flats. In the flats, the butterflies came. They floated, drifted, languidly, all of a sudden caught up in wind tunnels caused by highway speeds. We smiled at them, doing loopty-loops, catching themselves and flapping on as if nothing had …

Losing trains.

In the winter of 2015, I had a friend living in a very small village in the mountains of southeastern France, a short car ride from Valence. Rosie. Craving a familiar face from home, I decided to take the nine-hour train ride from Florence to Turin, from Turin to Lyon, from Lyon to Valence, to …

From a coffeeshop.

Does this train go to the airport? The guy who appeared to be sleeping across from us, slumped over his seat, opened one eye and muttered, I sure hope so, before slumping over once again. We looked at each other with worry in our eyes, then shrugged our shoulders and settled in for the ride, …

Neighbours

The ferry announces its arrival with two quick blasts of the horn. I poke my head up through the hatch in the forward cabin, see it pulling into the dock at Wolfe Island, just across the channel from the city of Kingston. The sun isn’t yet high, but leaves it’s glittering tail across the water …

In Ruins.

My first year in Florence, I remember sitting in one of my favourite grungy cafes with a friend, debating whether or not we could afford to go to Budapest for a weekend. We wanted to visit a Hungarian friend who we had met in Florence, but had since gone home. We absolutely could not afford …

I do believe in fairies.

Surely there is magic hiding everywhere we go. One must simply take the time to seek it out. Rathebeggan Lakes, summer 2014. Why don't you take the kids out to the garden? I had been a nanny for about a month now, in Dublin, Ireland. The weight of homesickness occasionally took up residence on my …