The heron family is divided

Birds of Jamaica by Frank Bernal 8 min @ Noir Coffee & Tea, TO   Kate and Robin hadn’t said a complete sentence to each other since 1995.  Quite a feat in their garrulous and extended Irish family.  Kate facilitated the arrangement by constantly being on assignment with Doctors Without Borders Read more…

Home

I am sitting at the dining table from my childhood.  It is at my sister’s house, which is much bigger than the house we grew up in.  It is a dull gray day and I am looking out the window, contemplating the meaning of ‘home’. It is one month since Read more…

purge, interrupted

After much talk and preparation – which consisted mostly of obsessing and fretting, I have begun the unenviable task of clearing out my storage space. It’s been a daily ordeal.  I show up at the storage facility, punch in the convoluted nine digit code – after ten straight visits I Read more…

why i missed this wednesday

Because I was delivering my dad’s eulogy…   Barrington Wintrose Huie. Quite a name for quite a man.  But to most he was simply Barry.  Mr. Huie to a few.  And ”Dad” to two. No man is just one thing, and my father was no different.  He was a provider, a Read more…

look again

“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.  Nobody’d move.  You could go there a hundred thousand times.. Nobody’d be different.  The only thing that would be different would be you.  Not that you’d be so much older or anything.  It wouldn’t Read more…

no hurry, no worry

I’m always worried.  I worry about all sorts of things from personal finances to the global economic crisis; from my health to the impending doom of the planet’s destruction.  I’m trying to cure myself of this habit but I’m genetically inclined.  My mother was a worrier and her mother before Read more…

GONG HAY FAT CHOY!

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year – Year of the Dragon. I am one quarter Chinese, probably more than half black but there’s a world of bloodlines in my family – including Scottish, Portuguese and Jewish, so all the measurements are suspect.  It’s always been easiest Read more…