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Copies, Originals, and the Quiet Ways We Hold Each Other Together

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 Every one Has a Mom and Dad A reflection on walking through hard days, finding comfort in books and prayer, cooking rice you don’t like for someone you love, and the strange, beautiful journey of art — how originals stay rooted while copies travel out into the world, carrying pieces of us wherever they go. Walking, Reading, Praying, and the Quiet Work of Staying Human Blog Post – by Nigel There are stretches of life where everything feels braided together — the walks, the books, the prayers, the conversations with neighbours, the hospital scares, the small kindnesses, the art we carry home. Lately my days have felt like that: threads crossing, tightening, loosening, making a pattern I’m only just beginning to see. I’ve been walking more — with Mom, with Dixie, with whoever crosses my path. On one of those walks my neighbour and I got talking about storytelling. He said all stories come from fiction. I told him I’m a non‑fiction guy through and through. I rehearse my grade‑nine ...
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A Morning Walk Full of Small Joys

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  Finding Good Energy on a Simple Five‑Kilometre Stroll with Dixie A Walk Through the Week’s Good Energy Dixie and I made our way around toward the university today, not directly through the crowd of achievers but skirting by on our usual path down University. We still caught a couple of good moments — one achiever gave us a bright “good morning,” another on our street did the same, and someone else offered a simple nod. Small gestures, but they stack up. I figured it was a great day in my books. We kept walking and I noticed an ostentatious manhole cover — the kind you could almost press a shirt onto and end up with a neat Life Bridge design. Pressure wash it afterward and you’d have a one‑of‑a‑kind print. It stood out partly because someone had painted “I love you” on the sidewalk nearby, but upside down and in black paint. Every time I pass it, I wonder how they’re going to get that off. It doesn’t look like it’s coming off easily. Maybe an up‑and‑coming artist, maybe just someo...
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Where the Road, the Weather, and Our Families Meet

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  Autumn Steps, Wedding Miles, and the Quiet Wins of August This morning started better than most — ten full hours of sleep stitched me back together in a way I didn’t realize I needed. Dixie was already marching at the door, ready for her walk before I even had my coffee. Lethbridge has slipped into autumn early this year, a strange summer giving way to a massive cold front. We even missed the Perseid meteor shower thanks to smoke and clouds. New moon overhead, full moon not until August 27. The sky has been keeping its own schedule. I ate cottage cheese for breakfast and talked with Kim about hockey season coming up. Her family cheers for the Oilers, and even though I’m a Flames fan, I can still root for Alberta teams. Proudly Canadian, proudly sober — nothing holy about it, just the simple truth that drinking isn’t part of my life anymore. My “turtle club” is walking, walking, and more walking. Running flares up my compressed back and sends me into a three‑day Motrin coma, so I ...
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When Not Winning Still Matters

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  A small moment of recognition from Alberta Views and why it feels like a step forward. The Day I Didn’t Win — And Why It Still Matters Yesterday I opened my mail and found something I wasn’t expecting: a letter from Alberta Views about the short story contest I entered with The Quiet Things That Hold Me Together . I already knew I hadn’t won — no dramatic phone call, no email with confetti — but holding that letter in my hands still landed with a kind of weight. Not disappointment, exactly. More like recognition. They thanked me for entering. They told me the stories were judged anonymously. They told me the winner — Camille Pavlenko — earned the prize with The Cure for Breathlessness , a story described as quirky, well‑paced, charming, and ending with a “breathtaking” final image. And honestly, good for her. Anyone who can pull off a story that hits all those notes deserves the spotlight. But here’s the thing I keep coming back to: I didn’t win, but I showed up . And showing u...
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Nine A.M. Smiles and Artistic Fixes

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  From the dog park to Joe’s paintings to my own pen‑driven thoughts. Morning Walks, Paintings, and Pens Nine in the morning is a better hour for the dog park — no question. Today it was Davies, Jack, and Tanner Two‑Ball holding court. A couple smiles, a few grins, and dogs behaving exactly like dogs should. The whole place felt more awake than those 5 a.m. visits where even the birds look half‑asleep. Later on I walked with Joe, and his artistic mind was running full tilt. He showed me two paintings: one with a wired scenery fence, one without. Both looked wonderful in their own way. He said if he didn’t like anything in a painting, he’d paint right over it. That’s the artistic problem‑solving I admire — realism, but with the courage to erase and rebuild. No drama, just craft. Somewhere in the afternoon I caught myself mumbling about my own hobbies. Writing, pens, notes, messages — the analog side of my brain that likes data, logs, and the physical act of putting words down. I don...
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Four days of emotional needs intelligence

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 I'm great 👍 💭 Je suis m'io du Pense  I'm a bit mental  Such is life I've been crying for four days that I've lost my own pen 🖋️ Sick of it It's just a pen 🖊️ I think it's the smoke Very smoky out Nick  Windows open took the whole day for the air filters to reset the house Very smoky out Nick  Windows open took the whole day for the air filters to reset the house Last 🌃 that and this cooled the house down And we'll it stuck to much in advance for is and after is smelly Happy I don't smoke  But it bothers me I was so tired from all the emotions that I just slept  It's is a pen Or it is the pen  Who ever got the pen I hope it is it  The sad reality is it rational or it is neither noise or mark on to graph Graph but I thought I used it one morning and now I don't think I used it that morning and I wonder where I even lost it  Usually I know or have an idea where it is  Loss of words I got no idea or or ego in it is I got me a new ...
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Post Smoker Walk, in Today

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  The smoke today sits like a punishment from old habits — twenty‑five years of cigarettes rising back up in the air around me, thick enough to taste. The dog and I walked through it anyway, her tail cutting through the haze while my lungs reminded me of every year I spent ignoring them. Windows left open, the house filled with that dull grey heaviness, the kind that numbs the tongue and steals words right out of your mouth. Tetley and coffee couldn’t cut through it. The world felt blurred, like someone smeared pastels over the edges of the day. I kept moving, one nod, one grin from a stranger, just enough to say I’m still here in all this smoke. Mama was right — this new world feels like a second layer of reality, a post‑information haze, climate change turning the air into something you walk through instead of breathe. And still, the dog needed her walk, and I went.
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