If community building is important to you, why not brush up on your bystander intervention skills? So many of us are seeing the frays in the social safety net and struggling with how to help.
Give me 1 hour of your time (cameras/mics muted!) and I'll teach you 5 tangible forms of de-escalation! ⬇️
Wow, what a piece of writing, @lindsaytedds.bsky.social 🔥
'The Calgary School is not producing “maverick thinkers” who keep happening to fall into politics and happening to govern badly. It is producing a specific intellectual product with a specific political shape, and the badness is a feature of the design.' @lindsaytedds.bsky.social
WRITERS! Apply today to @banffcentre.bsky.social's new MEMOIR WRITING residency with faculty KYO MACLEAR, DIONNE BRAND, and IVAN E COYOTE!: www.banffcentre.ca/programs/lit...
Arghhh. You deserve so much better.
A groundhog relaxing outside his front door (a tunnel he dug so he can crawl underneath our backyard gazebo). He is on the lawn beside the garden. A corner of the gazebo and some patio stones are visible.
The groundhog’s “front door” tunnel. He has dug through the grass and underneath some rocks we put in place last year. He has a second tunnel at the back of the gazebo.
Some of the rocks I carried across the yard to plug the hole. (I must have carried about 50 rocks in total—enough to reinforce the existing rock fence around the gazebo.)
A new resident—a chipper sparrow—perched on the rocks beside the gazebo.
I spent an hour this afternoon heaving rocks so I could repair the stone fence that wraps around the gazebo. We go through this ritual every spring. The groundhog tries to move in under the gazebo. We try to discourage him by adding rocks to the fence. It’s basically a season-long chess match.
Ottawa Valley Community Arts is hiring a Director of Performing Arts (Part-time, Contract Position)
#RenfrewCounty #OttawaValley
ottawavalleycommunityarts.ca/available-jo...
An event description: Multisolving Moment: Investing in Community and Self-Resilience Date & Time Apr 30, 2026 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) Description How are you investing in community and self-resilience right now? This Multisolving Moment will provide an open space for attendees to discuss answers to that question and learn from the Institute and from one another what has worked for us during uncertain times. Out of respect for attendees’ privacy, this session will not be recorded.
Five reasons to join our Multisolving Moment Virtual Gathering on April 30.
1. Share your wisdom to support others - how are you nurturing individual and collective resilience?
2. Tap into the support and creativity of fellow travelers wrestling with similar challenges.
This is such a beautiful thought: that light carries memories through time. I’ll be thinking of this all evening. 💫
Loving the quiet beauty of the late-afternoon light. Golden hour indeed. (I don’t think I paid much attention to light levels when I was younger but now I am obsessed with the way the light changes over the course of the day — or even a single hour.)✨
Or from your local tool library — or the tool section in your public library’s “library of things.” 🪚🧰
Just heard a woman beg her dog to let her go home from the park because she has a meeting. Dog doesn’t appear to register the significance of such a schedule conflict
The groundhog has returned. (He’s taking full advantage of the fact that the birds aren’t exactly neat eaters.)
Please join us for the Ottawa launch of Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us: The Urgent Case for a Wealth Tax. Wed April 22, 6:30 pm. Abbotsford House, 950 Bank Street.
One of my kids once told me I was their second favourite parent! These are the moments that keep us humble, right? 😂
This, yes. And also: food may be essential, shelter, and so on. But without some allotment for pleasure and beauty, that can all become pretty meaningless pretty fast. Humans are not built to simply survive. Pleasure is not just a luxury for the rich, it's part of the fabric of human life.
Sounds like a relaxing day except for that last part! 😬 A bit of a plot twist….
I'm always really interested in the numbers on this, and happy to see writers being rewarded for leaving Substack
Thank you to the @btlbooks.com team for shouting out the work of indie bookstores in the lead up to CIBD 2026 on April 25! You can read their blog post with a full list of blurbs about bookstores their community loves here: btlbooks.com/blog/view/ca...
I have never seen a yellow spider. Love this photo.
Spent the entire day going for walks and reading books and listening to the latest episode of Sandy and Nora’s podcast and gazing at photos of my adorable one month old granddaughter. I hope you were able to find a way to nourish your soul and recharge your emotional batteries, too. 💗
Final slide from my presentation for a CBA webinar on "navigating online harms, intimate privacy & reputation" (www.cbapd.org/details_en.a...) (delivered w/ @privacylawyer.ca & Monique St. Germain @ Canadian Centre for Child Protection, mod'd by Maryna Polataiko @ Osler). Internalize that last part.
Back to share the photos that worked (after deleting half for showing “where a snake/butterfly/bird/bee was just a moment ago) and I am so glad the sun popped through the clouds a few times. It was glorious.
Photography and The Instagram Effect
I talk a bit about the "Instagram effect" and also why I delete most of the photos I take and what makes me want to save photos.
“I do like taking pictures of moments that seem particularly beautiful – I see a reason to save the ephemeral – like this one from a recent morning bike ride. This one isn’t going to happen again. I may go back to the location but the beautiful moment is to be saved.” I can really relate to this.✨
Two hooded figures with lamps approach a moonlit, isolated cottage. A woman answers the door. We have come for the child, says the hooded figure So soon? she asks It is time, says the hooded figure. The woman is distraught. We should never have got him a library card! What is done cannot be undone, says the hooded figure We couldn’t see the harm! We just wanted him to enjoy reading! For most, it ends there, says the hooded figure, turning away and walking into the wilderness Oh lord, What have I done! says the woman, the child walks past her and out into the darkness with them. Do not cry mother. I am a writer now.
my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
the first rain
in days and
the green outside
is so green
and blithe
that the eyes
can't hold it;
a poem tries
I can’t get enough of it. 💗
If the sound of moving water energizes you, please accept this invitation to be energized….
It was so great to be able to make our way through the forest and back to the creek again. There’s still a bit of ice and snow on the trails but it’s not nearly as treacherous as it was a few days ago.
In 2005, Duncan Cameron wrote a piece arguing how the NDP needs to transform itself to be a workers' party. One of the changes was to end the dual provincial/federal membership and I think he's right: its a major roadblock to success.
