Paula Dunning Posts

Here’s a bit of self-promotion. An essay that I recorded for the CBC in December will air on the Sunday Edition this week, “at the end of the first hour”, which would be sometime just before 10am, eastern time. CBC radio one. It should stream live at cbc.ca/radio.

It’s been two weeks and I know you’ve all been eager for a shower update. All’s well. Shortly after my last post, we received a helpful message from our friend Rick who explained that on-demand systems depend on just the right amount of flow. Simply by adjusting the flow to…

We arrived at our Mexican house more than a week ago—greeted by our wonderful friends Antonio and Eloisa, who knew we were suffering from miserable colds and had prepared coffee and lunch for us. How wonderful. We found everything in order, as usual. The only problem: no hot water. The…

Driving through Louisiana and Texas today, where signs of Oil as King are everywhere—tanker trucks, barges on rivers, refineries occupying acres of land. The irony is, if predictions of sea rise due to global warming prove at all accurate, all this will all be under water by the end of…

We spent a wonderful Christmas with our Kitchener kids and grandkids, then drove off on the 27th for our final car-trek to Mexico. We drove as far as Cincinnati the first day, and made it past Nashville the second. I started writing a post yesterday on my iPad in the…

Apologies to those who’ve received this twice. Facebook problem. It’s been a full month since I’ve posted anything here, and from the beginning I promised myself I would post regularly, but not post trivia (by my own definition, of course.) The last month as been filled with the trivia of…

It’s been a full month since I’ve posted anything here, and from the beginning I promised myself I would post regularly, but not post trivia (by my own definition, of course.) The last month as been filled with the trivia of “life as usual”, and when I’ve occasionally looked for…

My facebook page this morning is filled with signs of remembrance…red poppies in fields, on lapels, against a background of faded battle photos. And one white poppy. It’s a day that troubles me every year. As a young person, I was an unconditional pacifist, a child of Quaker parents. War…

It was about twenty years ago that I attended my first yoga class. I’ve been going to yoga classes on and off ever since—lately, more off than on, though I occasionally do a few stretches on my own. I think it was at that first class that I was introduced…

I love preparing for winter, even when I know I won’t be here for it. (Jack would say especially because we won’t be here for it.) In fact, it’s my favourite season. The colours, of course, and the crisp air. But also the act of shutting down. Clearing the last…

When I began this blog back in May, it was in part to explore and share a process that I thought, at the time, would lead to a big change. It worked well until I backed away from the big change—for which I’m immeasurably glad. Misty mornings, changing leaves, flocks…

Yesterday, I rushed out to Echo Bay to pick up a few groceries at Dinelles’ General Store, in preparation for my contribution to the three-day “writing binge” that began this morning at nine. (Three days of writing with half a dozen other writers in the little town of Thessalon—I mentioned…

In her novel, A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews has her character, Nomi Nichels, say (I’m paraphrasing) “I don’t like to discuss the past with anyone else. It just introduces discrepancies.” Recently an old friend read a draft of Shifting Currents and provided me with some helpful feedback. She also set…

[Apologies to some of you who are getting this twice. I’m having trouble with the interface with facebook…] Home is where the heart is. That’s what it used to say on a neighbour’s mailbox, ornate blue letters surrounded by a pink heart, stencilled on the flap that opens and closes…

[Apologies to some of you who are getting this twice. I’m having trouble with the interface with facebook…] Home is where the heart is. That’s what it used to say on a neighbour’s mailbox, ornate blue letters surrounded by a pink heart, stencilled on the flap that opens and closes…

I am standing on the edge of the Echo River, watching it flow upstream, seemingly determined to find its way back to its beginnings, to retrace its steps and revisit where it’s been. The locals here say—with understandable pride—that this is one of only two rivers in the world to…

The time has come for the grand confession. I’ve been putting it off, embarrassed into silence. But the silence weighs on me as heavily as an untruth. And so here it is: I am the owner (okay, co-owner) of three homes. Yup. Three. Of course, there’s the  home I am…

Here’s how downsizing is working for us. We now live in an 1800 square foot house, a storey-and-a-half with a big country kitchen, a spacious living room, a bedroom, a tiny downstairs study, and a narrow “front room”—a converted sunporch that has been put to various uses over the years—currently…

I’m sitting at a table in front of my computer in someone else’s house in the little town of Thessalon, an hour and a half east of Sault Ste. Marie. It’s an unlikely place for a lively writing community, but it’s become home to a group that calls itself Stories…