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INTERVIEW / JANUARY
I LOVE THE WAY YOU LOOK IN YOUR PHOTO. IS THAT THE REAL YOU?
Putting me under professional lighting with a
makeup artist having just "painted" me is not
the same every day me who takes one mile walks in
the park and takes sporadic offers of horseback
riding -- hair blowing every which-a-way.
DID
YOU PLAN TO BECOME A WRITER?
I think I always
wanted to be a writer and artist combo.
YOU SEEM SO CONFIDENT. HAVE YOU EVER WAIVERED AND STRUCK OFF ON AN
UNKNOWN COURSE?
My life has been a series of questions, it seems. My life writes the
answers each day I breathe. One question I asked myself in the past ten
years was: Would I be willing to move up to 2,000 miles away from my
so-called family and friends to do something I am very good at and
really love? And my answer was "YES!" And so I did.
WHAT
IS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING YOU HAVE OVERCOME IN YOUR WRITING
CAREER?
Speaking before people has always caused me a bit of difficulty, but
with practice, it grew easier. And about that time I had a bout with
writer's block. Writer's block is typically caused when I am
trying too hard. I learned to ease off of being serious too much of the
time by relaxing and playing more and learning to be myself with people.
WHAT DID YOU LIKE
BEST ABOUT TRAVELING TO PROMOTE YOURSELF?
I enjoyed the freedom of traveling here and going there—receiving a lot
of invitations, making a variety of friends, developing an appreciation
for different cultures and people. The world is a very big place,
and I feel welcome in it.
WILL YOU EVER GO BACK TO CANADA?
One day I hope to. I didn't know the world was so big. Lots to
explore.
WHAT WERE YOUR MENTORS AND FRIENDS LIKE THERE?
I was speaking to so many nationalities there, I was truly "immersed"
(as one recent conversationalist pointed out to me) in the culture and
different languages--finding that I pick them up quickly. My friends
were Greek, Italian, Jamaican, Portuguese, Hungarian, French and just
your happy-go-lucky native Canadians who were wonderful at helping me to
adapt.
My mentor was extraordinary, a people-person, well-know and loved in the
community, business owner, fellow writer/author/playwright. A very
loving man I was privileged to share life with but for a short time
until he passed away from his native Cambridge that he loved so well.
His name was Ken Rumsby.
WHAT DID YOU DO THERE?
I enjoyed ice-skating, toured famous homes, shopped the world's largest mall,
read books in the world's largest bookstore. I was there for 4 hours and
had covered only half the book shelves. I worked on short stories
and a novel, had a booksigning, was mentored in writing style (and not
always mollycoddled kindly). My mentor was very exacting and challenged
me to think outside fluffy thinking and writing style.
I
hiked, went to a hockey game in Galt. I mountain-biked, I purchased bus
tickets and learned how to ride a bus. Could have done that at home, but
don't like to be mugged or assaulted--and of course, at home, one has to
have an entré to writing society (tough cookies). I watched a sport
called "Curling" and liked being a spectator. I went to the theatre in
Cambridge. I rode in limousines -- because they cost as much as a taxi
there -- so why not? I camped out in the beautiful forests, spent a
weekend at Wasauga Beach, Ontario walking the white sands
and interacting with others who were attending the same writer's
workshop as myself.
Also learned about love there. Heartbreakingly so--what it is like to be
loved just for being no one but myself. And I left that country knowing
that some of the things others at home had taught be about myself were
complete and bold-faced lies. I became a different person--more like
what God had always intended me to be.
WHAT WAS YOUR HOUSING LIKE THERE?
I stayed with a family--the head of household invited me there to stay
in an older re-conditioned mansion. The basement was let out to someone
else. Can you imagine a basement big enough to rent out to someone else?
I stayed on the 2nd floor, which is what we call "the first floor"
here—a spread of rooms, a bedroom, a laundry, kitchenette, and cathedral
ceiling bathroom. The houses there all have basements--and most families
have play rooms in the basements or an extra living area. The homes are
built in "semi" style (pronounced simmy). Semi, meaning living area
down, bedrooms up--or sometimes it is living area up and bedrooms down.
And no one wears shoes upon entering a Canadian house.
WHAT DID YOUR TME THERE HELP YOU TO LEARN ABOUT WHAT GOD WHANTS YOU TO
BE AND THE KIND OF PERSON YOU WANT TO BE?
My ideas about God changed dramatically. I attended a wide range of
churches while there because they were all within walking distance. I
found Him again, not so much within the walls of the church, as in the
smiles and advances from the people I met, and while walking by the
Grand River.
Canadians, it would
seem, are the world's best kept secret! This is what I used to say to my
friends. And they laughed considering my first question off the plane
was, "Hey! So where are all the polar bears?
Back
home there is a facade of masks I left upon the wall. I returned
home after each trip, authentically me. I was learning to be myself for
the first time.
WHAT KIND OF PERSON DID IT TEACH YOU TO BE?
Just myself. I've met all kinds of people on-line and in person who
wanted me to pretend to be something I am not. It was nice just to be
who I am and have people respond to me. And what was nicest of all, I
got to experience what love is, and what it is not. People opened their
homes to me and their hearts in ways that I have never experienced. This
part made me very sad, that I don't have this here at home, but I am
determined to recreate what I had there, here.
My writing style opened up because my horizon had expanded. And I
learned that sometimes love is painful, but I would not have forfeited
my experience of the Canadian people and getting to know this loving man
for all the writing awards the world could give me, nor all the tea in
China.
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