Ordinary Life is my unpublished first novel about a playwright, Zoe Umlaut, a lesbian who engages in discussion with two dead sculptors, Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, as she researches and uncovers their personal and professional stories. Subsequently, Zoe discovers her own story: Great Aunt Cecily, a school teacher who may have befriended the sculptors; and, Great Uncle Adam, principal of a residential school in Lytton, B.C. Ultimately, Zoe must confront her own learned racism.
 
That description sounds so serious! Zoe has three lovers and a sense of humour so the uncovering that takes places in the novel is done in various ways to make it "wise and funny and quite believable" as writer Susan Crean said of the portions she read.
 
Two excerpts from Ordinary Life have been published in Prairie Fire (Winnipeg). One excerpt, called "Ordinary Life", was a finalist in a contest, Hot Shorts: Erotica Without Exploitation. A personal essay, "Spirit Level", received an Honourable Mention in a Prairie Fire personal journalism contest and was published in their Winter 2002 issue. The following is a previously unpublished excerpt from Ordinary Life, in the voice of Zoe:
 

I can't seem to write today. I mean I don't want to. Often I run to the table to write. I don't notice what I'm wearing. I don't eat - just make coffee. I ignore the disarray. Today I have toast with raspberry jam in the backyard. It's fairly quiet. I can hear some birds in a nearby tree. A squirrel comes close by to see if I have anything to share. I know it would be more interesting for me to have a lousy landlord; I could then participate in swapping landlord horror stories. But she's great. Shelley hires someone to cut the lawn - we don't even have to worry about that. The Adirondack chairs are new. I like them. There's a wide arm to put my coffee and notebook on. I did bring my notebook but I just want to look at the greening grass, the flower beds of daffodils and narcissus that have been planted in a haphazard manner so they look as if they're in their natural setting. Shelley has as much respect for weeds as she does for flowers. I'd like there to be a lake close by. Lake Ontario is close by - but I'd like it closer so I can hear the waves against the shore. Sometimes I do go down to the Beach south of Kew Gardens and sit on the rocks. (Kew Gardens is where Florence had a bronze sculpture of a baby stolen and then replaced with a replica by her friend, sculptor Frances Gage.) By the lakeshore, I let the waves splash against my legs and my notebook so I am writing underwater words. If I go deeper under water I may find Rebecca there but how would we relate, crab and scorpion, still with our protective shells.
 
I wonder if Elizabeth Smart wrote in her back garden or did she have access to one on Lowther? I know she went to the donut shop at Bloor and Walmer Road when she got lonely in the middle of the night. Would she have written more without George or is it because of George that she wrote? If she had so much hiding to do - her babies from her mother for instance - her unmarried status from the authorities - could she delve deep? Is it due to her concealment that she was able to express her angst? Is there any time in a writer's life for a relationship? Should it be a smooth, platonic one or can it be passionate
     bumpy
          tormented
               full of longing
                    and angst
                         and fear.
 
Inside, the notebooks and albums are scattered about, the dishes are piled in the sink, the bed isn't made. There's a message on the machine. It's Shelagh. She has a beautiful voice - gentle yet with strength behind it. Out of this calm, melodic voice can come a sudden burst of raucous laughter.
 

Shelagh has a room on Palmerston. It's not far and I consider whether to take my bike. I've left it in the front hall. I head down the alley beside the Dominion store to Harbord Street and along Harbord stop at the corner store that sells beautiful cut flowers. It's difficult to choose. Some yellow freesia I guess with baby's breath. There are some white roses - I get them too.
 
"They're exquisite" says Shelagh as she answers the front door wearing a black and white kaftan and smelling like sandalwood.
 
I feel better already. Except she's the one not feeling well. Her room is a healing room. Everywhere I look there is something that is of this world with something beyond it. Her Motherpeace tarot deck sits on a round table with shells and stones and bird feathers. Bach Flower Remedies sit on a shelf with books on aromatherapy and herbal remedies and healing the child within. Gwendolyn MacEwen's King of Egypt, King of Dreams jumps out at me as I recall another Annex writer ghost.
 
The walls are blue and the wood trim lavender. She has been burning incense recently. The bed in the corner is covered with an Indian spread and there are various pillows and cushions covered in printed fabrics that she made herself from the colourful shirts she buys at yard sales and Kensington Market vintage clothing shops. Over the bed is a little white shelf, actually a drawer, that she has put nails along the top of. Her earrings hang from there. The ones that look like peacock feathers. The silver abalone ones. The silver and amethyst. The New Mexican silver with turquoise. She told me that while others around her are buying houses in a depressed market and talking about sailing weekends and the latest CD, she buys another pair of earrings.
 
I see that it wasn't incense. It was sweet grass. The golden end of it protrudes from a ceramic dish on the mantle of the fireplace that doesn't work now but serves as her altar. She has taken pictures of friends and they sit up there amongst various treasures like bottles of scent, postcards, lace handkerchiefs, a small sculpture of the Venus of Willendorf and pieces of rose quartz, turquoise, aquamarine and a Tiger's Eye.
 
This isn't Toronto somewhere between College and Harbord. It is somewhere inside that knows no boundaries and doesn't go by rules where nurturing is a given and being is beyond the realm of the everyday. I take deep breaths here.
 
On the walls are Goddess images. I don't know them all. One is Sheela-Na-Gig with legs spread wide exposing her gaping vagina. Another is Morrigan, the Celtic triple goddess: Mother, Maiden and Crone. Shelagh's Peruvian sweater lies on the back of a wicker chair.
 
She has a high oak dresser with a mirror but there are clothes in colourful piles on shelves that she has fastened to the wall. A flying mermaid sort of creature cavorts suspended from the ceiling. Shelagh's fluffy grey and white cat Eloise sits like a tea cozy on the window sill.
 
Shelagh shares a kitchen here but she makes tea in her room on an old sideboard from a twenties kitchen. She boils the kettle and pours the water over blackberry tea bags creating a purple blue aroma in glass cups. This is a midway of sights and smells no amount of cotton candy could make up for.
 
There are sounds. A wind chime hangs from a window box outside her window. Her tape player, silent now, is surrounded by tapes of loons and sounds of the seasons.
 
"I've written a meditation for you" she tells me now as she takes her tea back to bed and sits up against her pillows.
 
"I'll just fill the hot water bottle."
 
"I'll do it" I say putting my cup down and taking the lukewarm rubber bottle from her.
 
I pour in the water left in the kettle and go down the hall to her shared bathroom to add some cool water. A three-tiered wire basket hangs from the ceiling filled with shampoos and rinses and shaving gear. I can tell which basket is Shelagh's. There's a natural sponge and sea kelp shampoo and lemon verbena soap and peppermint foot cream.
 
Shelagh puts the bottle at her back and I ask her, "How's your head?"
 
"It's better I took some White Willow Bark drops. It's an analgesic."
 
I smile. Why would I be thinking Tylenol?
 
She reads from a notebook on the bed beside her where there are various books and copies of Mother Earth, Yellow Silk and Matriart.
 
"Try to sit in a relaxed state with your arms unfolded, your feet uncrossed. Be conscious of your breathing. If it's fast, try to slow it down so that you are breathing deeply into all the places in your body that are tense. Breathe into the back of your neck. Feel the release of tension there as you breathe out as long as you can. Into your shoulders. Breathe into your lower back and your hips. Breathe into your chest. Breath into your genitals. Relax your legs and breathe down into the tips of your toes. Breathe into your arms and hands. As you continue to breathe deeply, the worries, the details, the stresses of your day are floating away. You are here. You are present. You have left your responsibilities behind. There is no one you have to please here. There are no judgments. The sounds of the city are fading. Your creative self is here to be encouraged and nurtured. Picture a place where that is possible. For you it may be in a room full of sun and colour. Or it may be in a forest with the smell of pine and the sound of birds. Or it may be beside the water where you can feel and hear the ebb and flow. It may be somewhere real or imagined. Wherever it is, the light shines on you and nourishes your creativity. It dares you to take risks and congratulates you for it. It's a place where you are fulfilled and full of joy. Keep those feelings from that creative place with you as you come back to this room. Open your eyes when you are ready and look around you. Make eye contact with someone who shares your joy in creativity."