Turning 50

For years, my office overlooked a courtyard at a Toronto college. Between meetings, emails, and deadlines, I would often find myself staring out the window, watching students move across campus. Some lived a few kilometres away. Others had travelled halfway around the world to be there. I remember being struck by the courage of it. […]

If you’ve ever closed down a restaurant, you know the feeling. The lights dim. Chairs go up. The staff starts wiping down the counter. And somehow you’re still there, laughing with the same people you came in with, long after the plates are cleared. For me, that happens a few times a year at Marcello’s, […]

If you walk into my office, your eyes will probably land on the shelves. Rows of books I’ve collected over the years sit alongside a honeybee painting, a Lego DeLorean, a vintage-style Lego typewriter, and a little flip clock my wife once found after I mentioned how much I loved it. There’s also a Made […]

In the corner of my parents’ living room sits a brown leather Lay-Z-Boy. My dad’s chair. You always knew when he was in it. The leather would sigh, the footrest would clunk, and tucked under the cushion were brochures for Dodge minivans. He never told us not to sit in it, we just didn’t. It […]

For his 50th birthday, my brother-in-law made something quietly brilliant. A playlist with one song for every year he’s been alive. But it wasn’t just a greatest hits list. He arranged it like a story. A life set to music. He and a few friends swapped their own “50 songs for 50 years” playlists, and […]