I was in Mexico earlier this year with family, and we benefited from the regional knowledge and good humour of David, a local guide. Sure, there was one trip to a colonial city and nearby volcano that had me wishing hard that David would, please, stop talking about salt. (Seriously: that guy knew a lot about salt, and he …
I did a favour for my dad yesterday morning. It involved getting up a bit earlier than I’d like on a Sunday, and driving across the city. On that particular day, it also meant driving through a snowstorm where the flakes were coming fast and sideways. When my eyes weren’t squinting into bright white sleet, I was …
I try not to have regrets at the close of a year. It seems a good idea to go into the next year with awareness of what I learned from the hard things behind me, but beating myself up about it seems counter-productive. Unfortunately, as we finish 2022, I have some solid regrets…about something left …
I ate my first cod tongue this year. And I’m not gonna lie: it was probably my last. If you’ve never sampled a cod tongue, you can get a feel – literally – for what it’s like. Just take a moment and try chewing on your own tongue. Did you try it? Was the texture …
A tree fell on my house this weekend. It was loud...and yet somehow unsurprising. That's right, I’ve reached the point of the 2020s where a tree can fall on my house and the first thing I say is “huh”. (Following the three-letter word, there may have been a few four-letter words. But they were still …
When I started this blog and named it Maybe There’s More because of my growing belief that our experiences only give us each a small slice of knowledge, I had no idea about the range of topics to which that belief would apply. It’s unlikely to surprise any of you who have survived a terminal illness or accident — …
It’s all well and good to have the theoretical understanding that systemic racism exists, and to be enthusiastic about reading How to Be an Antiracist with your office book club. But actually dealing with race-related feedback might be a whole other thing. As a part-time university instructor, I recently received feedback from the winter semester (don’t get …
I’ve always loved words: learning them, reading them, writing them. I’m fascinated by how cultures are partially created by words, and by a realization that we can’t always understand each other because someone else may – literally – have no words to describe a particular feeling or experience. Part of the reason I started a …
I’m preparing to teach my last class of the semester tomorrow, and watching (for about the eighth time) Vanessa Reid’s talk on “conscious closure.” I find myself sitting with a familiar mix of emotions for this time of year. As recently as yesterday, I felt an urgency for the semester to be over, wondering why I …
When covid and I reached our first anniversary, I toasted the achievement – not covid’s achievement, but yours, mine, everyone’s. Prosecco in hand, I was prepared for covid and I to part ways in coming months. As usual, covid had other plans. Sigh. I’ve never been good at making a clean break. Some of my …
Maybe There's More 