My dad always gifted me books on my birthday growing up. At ten, I had all the simplified versions of literary classics like Peter Pan, Treasure Island, and David Copperfield. My grandfather, a Sri Lankan postal service administrator who took to the typewriter after retirement, had his poetry published in an American publication of the…

During the first few sessions of a coaching engagement, my client and I, we try our best to get clear on their desired outcome, a subjective or objective way to measure progress towards that outcome, and the heaviest belief that’s keeping them from that desire. When we land on this heaviest belief, I might say…

I come from a meandering river of pain Bottled clouds on my mother’s face Doubled bricks on my father’s back Hushed guts of my ancestors And God knows what shrouds and droughts Before them all

I can’t swim, but I swam upstream, upbolt, upside, updown I can’t swim, but I swam away from the nice, kind, tight man towards new and exciting and grunt-worthy work I said I can’t swim, but I swam And a praise-gushing, rage-ramming swimmer I became because there was and is no other way Is there?

As winter began thinning here in Toronto, I have been going on more walks. On one of these walks on a sunny weekday afternoon, I saw a dead bird and a dead squirrel buried under the melting snow on the sidewalk. The insides of the bird were mangled by the winter cold, but the squirrel…

I first moved to Oregon, USA, in August of 2012. I was 27, technically a fully-formed adult, although on the metric of wisdom and openness, I would have scored pretty inadequate. I moved sight unseen, only aware of relatively high crime rates and rainfall. I didn’t care; anywhere would be better than where I was,…

After I was born, my mother had many, many miscarriages. I vaguely remember her being rushed to the hospital or her coming back home with a heart of gray and dark. I grew up thinking her dislike of me was due to what I took away from her when she housed me. I emptied her…

As I waited for the Toronto Courts to finalize my mutually-filed and straightforward divorce, I thought writing a novel based on my marriage was a good idea. By that time, I had done enough bad writing to know that my characters had to be three-dimensional, even the villain should have a past that garners empathy…

Last week, we got a peek into the chambers of the Beckham family palace as the oldest son, Brooklyn (I love this name, by the way), announced over Instagram that he wanted no contact with his celebrity parents. I intentionally use the word “peek” here because we have no real understanding of the intricacies of…