Alison DeLory's Blog

The guide, a petite Aboriginal Elder with gentle eyes, lifted a beaded blanket off the back of a chair and draped it over my shoulders. Its stitching read, “We Walk With Our Sisters.”

“Here,” she said. “Wear this as you walk through.” It was a healing blanket, intended to make anyone who was overwhelmed feel safe and protected. The blanket was heavy on my shoulders and yet it somehow also lifted a weight off my body.

Let me back this story up. I was at the MSVU Art Gallery today experiencing Walking With Our Sisters, an exhibit touring Canada and at Mount Saint Vincent University until Feb. 1. It commemorates missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit people and their families.

It’s easy to write off 2016 as a crummy year. Sure, lots of unsettling things happened in the world-at-large that challenged our values. Almost in response, many people’s personal circumstances also took a beating this year — including my own. But here I am at the end of 2016, still breathing like you, reflecting on the delights this year also contained. Yes, it was messy, amusing, frustrating, exciting, worrisome, joyful, painful, exciting, grievous, beautiful and creative. Some highlights:

Submissions regarding development in the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lake area are due by 3 p.m. today. Please write to clerks@halifax.ca. Below is my letter. You have my permission to echo it or borrow sentences when crafting your own.

Dear HRM and Councillor Russell Walker,

I am writing to urge you to protect Blue Mountain–Birch Cove as a designated wilderness area and reject proposals to develop any portion of this pristine, important, wilderness oasis in our city.

We do not need another subdivision as badly as we need the woods, lakes, and watersheds in BM-BC. I implore you to protect this biodiversity. Green infrastructure is a worthy investment. It is our access to rugged, natural landscapes that was a primary driver for my family’s move back to Halifax from Toronto nine years ago. Since then, we’ve visited BM-BC regularly as a family. Along with our children, we’ve hiked it extensively in all seasons, and swam and kayaked on its lakes in the summer.

Last summer I joined the board at the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre in Halifax.

I wanted to help Avalon continue its important advocacy work around prevention, healing and empowerment. I was ready to work hard to try and make a difference. It’s not been easy, but neither is anything worth doing.

Much has happened in these eight months.

I had an uncomfortable moment yesterday in the writing class I’m taking. I realized I am, at best, an intermediate writer. This is not false modesty. Yes, I know some things about writing. I’m published. I make a small income through my writing and people tell me they enjoy it or it makes them think. Those rewards are fantastic but they may have fooled me into thinking I know more than I actually do. There is WAY more yet to learn, and so much practice ahead.

And guess what? That’s ok.

I also know as an educator that you need to have those uncomfortable or “transformative” moments that challenge your assumptions

The world lost a wonderful woman to a dreadful disease yesterday. When it threatened to overwhelm me I did what helps me the most: went outside seeking beauty. As always, it wasn't hard to find.  

 

Seeking Beauty

 

I set out seeking beauty today,

and found it in a splash of warm sunshine on my face,

in the curiosity of a toddler examining a flower,

and in a yellow butterfly who visited right after I received word.

 

I set out seeking beauty today,

and found it in a couple walking hand-in-hand over an arched footbridge,

in notes from friends and the collective strength of neighbours,

and in a shady graveyard where families are eventually reunited.

 

I set out seeking beauty today,

and found it back at home,

in the measured chaos of a family dinner,

and in the quiet company of a soft cat.

 

An open letter to my post-secondary students

Dear learners,

It’s finally arrived. The ‘real’ new year, when you head back to campus and trade summer jobs and weekends at the beach for classrooms and trips to the library.

Am I killing your buzz? (#SorryNotSorry) I love summer too and filled up this one with copious amounts of my favourite things: travel, outside play, art and culture, books, food and drink.

But I am now ready for fall. I look forward to getting back to class mainly because I love learning. And when I’m teaching I’m learning as much or more than my students.

That’s why I’m challenging you to tweak your thinking about back to school.

Sharing is optional.

When teaching memoir writing, I challenge students to write without inhibition. The first draft is free-writing in response to a prompt. Writers shouldn’t worry about offending anybody or using proper grammar—those types of considerations are for the rewriting stages. The goal is merely to unblock and write the memory down. This can be intimidating to someone not in the habit of writing, who struggles with literacy, or who is insecure about whether their stories matter (they do).

Sometimes writers reveal private or unflattering things so I leave it up to them whether they want to read aloud or show their work to anyone. That’s why I was so delighted when I visited the OPtions Program at Saint Mary’s University this week.

This little piggy went to market. The Halifax Forum Farmers' Market to be precise. And I liked it there so much I've been back every Saturday since – first as a shopper, then as a vendor. Since May 2, 2015 the Halifax Forum Farmers' Market has been happening each Saturday from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. in Bingo Hall. And it's only getting better as more locally grown produce becomes available and the range of vendors grows. Here's why you should come:

1. Fruit and vegetables. The crisp asparagus and tangy rhubarb have been

A wonderful group of book enthusiasts helped me officially launch my new children's chapter book Scotia Sinker at the beautiful Maritime Museum of the Atlantic this past Saturday, May 9, 2015.

Fans from age four to 88 (my dad; still a kid at heart) gathered in the Days of Sail room where illustrator Joel Duggan and I greeted them and signed books on request. Snacks include thematic gummy fish and sharks.