"I [paddled] a map of Canada (including Lake Ontario). Oh Canada." (With thanks to Joni Mitchell and A Case of You.) The map shows my 9000km cross-Canada canoe route. I have spent a lot of time learning this country slowly - at about 5km/hour in my canoe! The picture below was taken on the international border in the spectacular paddling area known as Quetico/Boundary Waters, where the world's longest undefended border can be experienced on a portage. Canoe on my shoulders, one foot walking...

I have this thought rolling around in my head. And it is this. When I first read the last lines of Mary Oliver's poem 'The Summer Day', "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I was taken by the description more than the question. Wild and precious. Yes, life is indeed both. When I had my cancer diagnosis (in 2019), it was my first real reckoning with my mortality and Mary's words took on a different weight. But today, on my 51st birthday, it's my answer to...

I wrote this to make sense of a year (or two) that disappeared. Grief fractures time, identity, and certainty - and life still insists on being lived. If this feels familiar, I hope it offers a little company. Read gently. Today I asked Jon how long Jared had been Director of NBCCD. “A year?” he said. That’s how it felt. That’s what I had thought. Until I did the math. It had been two years. It was December 2023. I had been tired. Burnt out. I had led a college through COVID and made...