Have a Good Day!!

I have depended on Transit Systems, in Victoria and now in Regina since 2017 and have appreciated all the men and women behind the wheel. Not everyone is cheerful and welcoming, but I don’t think that’s part of their job description. There are the singers, the radio listeners, the stoic quiet ones, and the cheerful ones. I don’t always know who will be behind the wheel on any given day. But I do have a favourite driver on the route I use the most often.

On my way to my appointment today, the bus was 15 minutes late. There’s lots of reasons for buses to be late, but I still get quietly annoyed. On my way home three hours later, I sat at the bus stop, hoping that the bus would be on time. I was tired with a load of groceries. I kept checking my phone for the time and the road for my bus, certain it would be late. 

My phone said I still had four minutes to wait. I looked up and there, in the distance, making the turn onto Albert street was…..you guessed it……..my bus! Early! My tiredness vanished. It had to be my favourite driver and it was. Always a big smile and a welcome. To everyone that comes on the bus....everyone. And that’s not all. Everyone that exits the bus hears her call out: "Have a Good Day!!!"

“Everyday make it a point to be the reason for someone’s smile.”

~ Trishna Damodar, author

Such a Thing

Sorting, wondering

trying to drag a story onto the page; 

all the words separate and set adrift 

after a weekend of wording and sorting

and a day of restoring my home ~ 

no longer any purchase in story or song

pausing in their flight to rest til tomorrow.

“I tell my students there is such a thing as ‘writer’s block’, 

and they should respect it. It’s blocked because 

it ought to be blocked, because you haven’t got it right now.”

~ Toni Morrison

In the Company of Writers

Yesterday, wasn’t all tea and goodies for me. After leaving Government House, I joined a writing companion at Tuppenny Coffee and Books (@tuppenycoffee) at 1433 Hamilton St. This great little coffee shop is the sister location to The Penny University Book Store on 13th Ave here in Regina. Different members of the Queen City Write Club had been at Tuppenny Coffee since 10am, spelling each other off. The event? A Write In sponsored by Tuppenny Coffee. We were there to answer questions about our little group, and to do what we do on Sunday afternoons ~ work on our various writing projects. We chatted with people interested in our group, in writing or just curious. We provided great fridge magnets that are pictured in this blog post as we visited.

That takes me up to today. The Queen City Write Club met at our usual time of 1 pm on Sundays at the Penny University Book Store on 13th Ave. We were all focussed on shaping and putting together our writing projects. A writer’s life is pretty solitary when it is just pen to page. Doing the work of corralling all those words is so much better when in the company of other like minded writers. It is too easy to be distracted by food, laundry, going outside……anything. Heads down, fingers tapping away, pauses while stray thoughts are reined in, it can get pretty silent. Doesn’t stop any of us from asking a question of the others - another benefit of working in a group setting. 

It’s been a busy weekend. Ice cream on the way home was my reward!

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

~ Ernest Hemingway