Author Archives: janishaag

On a hazy October afternoon that smells faintly of fall and fires raging less than a hundred miles away I step into my back yard and take up my small-bore hose— because there’s still no rain, though we’re all praying … Continue reading →

This is my friend Lisa Morgan, the cutie in pink. Lisa and I have been buddies since our high school band days. We met as freshmen in the marching band. She was the tiniest flutist; I was the klutzy girl … Continue reading →

I no longer dive in, preferring to step lightly down the four steps into the pool, and I don’t do kick turns anymore either, just catch myself at the wall with a hand, push off with a foot, but I … Continue reading →

Canada celebrates its sesquicentennial as a country this year, and everywhere we’ve been over the past couple of weeks on Vancouver Island, the country’s most western outpost, we see Canada pride writ large. Like the illuminated sign (above) on Victoria’s … Continue reading →

Trees remind us how busy and unstable we are, and how ridiculous that is. —Rebecca Solnit Look at this for a moment and soak up the peace of this place: Imagine walking that boardwalk through all that green. This is … Continue reading →

Not the celestial kind. Not the Hollywood kind. The seashore kind: sea stars, which as a kid I called starfish. They’re not fish at all, these rugged invertebrates that live in the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest, including British … Continue reading →

So we’ve been in Canada three days, and not one person here has looked askance at us Americans. As soon as we drove off the ferry in Victoria and waited for a very short time, a smiling Canadian customs agent … Continue reading →

Last year I spent the fourth of July sleeping most of the day and night. I’m not a fireworks kind of girl—never have been. I’m like one of the dogs who scurries for cover when the loud boom-booms start. Firecrackers … Continue reading →