How to Make a Didukh
At the end of December, as the longest night of the year slowly seeps into the room, I light candles and make a Didukh. I weave this keeper of ancestral stories out of dry wheat stalks and distant memories of a sheaf that my grandfather brought into the house on Christmas Eve. “Didukh in the house, trouble out of the house,” he would say as he placed it under the icons framed by rushnyks, embroidered towels that decorated the walls of every room at my grandparents’ place.
Fishing
My uncle takes me fishing. I know nothing about fishing. I sit on a wooden bench and watch him set up his gear. Four rods lined up on a narrow dock, barely big enough for the two of us. Fishing lines arching across the water until they eventually disappear under the surface, the points of … Continue reading Fishing
Geometry of Meaning
Geometry of Meaning was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize 2023 and selected as the semi-finalist of Shevchenko Foundation’s 2025 Emerging Writers Short Prose Competition. Here’s the full essay along with some photos of my grandmother’s rushnyks. My grandmother’s rushnyk spreads out on the wall like wings of a colourful bird about to take flight. … Continue reading Geometry of Meaning
Sowing Magic
Every planting season starts with pots, soil and seeds scattered on my living room floor like stars strewn across the night sky. A cosmic chaos of new beginnings, an assortment of legume galaxies, constellations of leafy greens, flowery nebulas and herb clusters. Speckled beans flexing their curvy backs. Translucent gems of corn glistening in the … Continue reading Sowing Magic
Becoming Spring
Winter and spring have been playing a game of musical chairs lately. Some days winter seems to win. All that pent-up energy, unreleased during the past few months, keeps erupting in mushy clumps. They swirl toward the ground in slow motion as if trying to postpone their inevitable demise. But their fight against gravity is … Continue reading Becoming Spring
Geology of Memory
I will never be able to think of the Grand Canyon without thinking about my father. A world-famous natural wonder, a mile-deep geological record with over 40 types of rocks – layers upon layers of memories, some dating back almost two billion years. Occasional gaps – referred to as unconformities – where strata from certain … Continue reading Geology of Memory
Falling
I’m falling into fall’s softness. Its embrace, tender and tinged with sadness. Last flowers like a parting kiss. I turn my face toward the sun; its light streaming through the canopy sets the forest aglow. A soothing rhythm of seasons swirls all around me. The world is a kaleidoscope of colour, continuously rearranged by weather’s … Continue reading Falling
Foggy Morning
I turn off the alarm clock on my phone and burrow deeper into my sleeping bag. I can hear my husband do the same next to me. It’s shortly before seven on the second day of fall and we are on our impromptu canoe trip in Algonquin. After a beautiful misty sunrise paddle the previous … Continue reading Foggy Morning
Fantastic Fungi and Where to Find Them
Fantastic Fungi and Where to Find Them was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize 2020. Here’s the full essay along with some photos of fantastic fungi foraged over the years.
Continue reading “Fantastic Fungi and Where to Find Them”
Stories of Entangled Life 