home – Page 4 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, An Honest House, Author Cynthia Reyes, Book Interviews, Books, Canadian life, Inspiration, PTSD

Up Close and Personal

April 26, 2016May 9, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

I have good news to share: my second book comes out this spring.

I can hardly believe it.

When a radio interviewer asked me in 2014 about a second book, I told her I’d started a sequel to A Good Home but had run away from it. In the new book I had bravely/foolishly decided to confront what it’s like to live with PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder — and it terrified me.

I embarked on a gardening book instead. After all, I love gardening. But I hate PTSD!

No-one pushed me to return to the book I’d dropped, but something happened that made me see that I had to face my monsters again — in writing.

My thanks to everyone who has encouraged and helped me along the way. In addition to family and close friends, I’ve had one doctor encouraging me to “Write!”; one therapist-researcher-writer who directly contributed to the book; two mentors, two editors, one publisher; one painter and one photographer; great beta readers and one discussion guide producer.

Book Cover AHH - Painting by S. MacKendrick — Cover painting by S. MacKendrick

I hope the book will inspire discussions – among families and friends; in book clubs and workplaces; among therapists, doctors and others. I imagine some will discuss what happens in a family when one member is seriously incapacitated; some may talk about the nature of survival and faith; therapists and doctors may discuss the treatment of PTSD and Chronic Pain and why both are so hard to accept, especially by the people afflicted with them.

And I hope all readers will reflect on love and courage. Both are recurring topics in this book. (And most of the courage isn’t mine, by the way.)

The Canada Council for the Arts recognized my writing with a small grant to pay for some of the expenses involved in writing a book like this. Thank you, Canada Council, for that vote of confidence.

Above all, this book is an up-close and personal look at a much-changed life. Some of it is painful, some parts hilarious, and some are both.

The book – An Honest House – comes out in June.

Book Cover Promo - Coming Soon

A Good Home, Family Moments, Family Stories

Mama Said…

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

Some of Mama’s sayings confused the daylights out of us children. These tended to be the old Jamaican/British proverbs or parables.

If we saw our mother looking worried about something, and asked her what was wrong, she might tell us this story:

“Little Pig said to Mama Pig: ‘Mama, why is your snout so long?'”

“Mama Pig replied: ‘Ah, m’child. You’re growing up, one day you will find out for yourself.'”

Photo Credit publicdomainpictures.net

Credit: publicdomainpictures.net

What kind of answer was that? And I didn’t like the idea of being compared to pigs. But she never explained what she meant.

In later years, I figured it out:

1: It was ‘adult business’ that was worrying her – we were too young for her to share it with us.

2: The troubles of life can make a person weary and ragged. Sometimes it’s hard for a child to understand. But, when we grew up, we would.

At least, that’s what I think she meant.

A Good Home, Childhood Memories, Family, Home, Inspiration

Mama Said….

March 1, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

Our mother raised us lovingly, on food, church and words.

Some of her words came from the Bible, of course. Many were old family sayings, old Jamaican/British proverbs, or came from sources unknown.

Photo by Hamlin Grange

If we judged another person harshly, my siblings and I would hear this one:

“There is so much good in the worst of us

And so much bad in the best of us

That it doesn’t behoove any of us

To speak evil of the rest of us.”

Just recently, I Googled the saying’s origin and found it attributed to two Americans: Edward Wallis Hoch, and Edgar Cayse both born in the 19th century. Hoch’s version ends slightly differently:

“…That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us.”

I don’t know who said it first. But as far as her children are concerned, Mama said it best!

A Good Home, Art, Artists, Arts, Canadian life, Creative Writing, Poetry

Home Is Where The Art Is

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

So — you think your dwelling is too small? Try living on a boat.

Margaret Mair and husband Richard live on their boat “Into The Blue”. Margaret also paints and writes her poetry there. And produces her blog.

Margaret's Boat

“The space is very compact, and set up for both living and sailing”, she says. “That means having to think about everything we bring on board: it must be something we need (that includes art supplies, for me) and can store securely.”

Some people have a room to create their art. Margaret has “a corner”.

Margaret's Corner on her boat

There are advantages. She and Richard have traveled widely, from Canada to the US, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.

“We can cast off our boat and move, go exploring or visiting and know that we have our own comfortable place to stay. Anyone who lives on a boat lives very close to nature. We have an intimate relationship with the weather: when the wind blows hard the boat rocks and creaks and the ropes groan; when the sun shines the water sparkles; ripples on the water gurgle against the hull of the boat.”

Margaret's Painting of Boat on Beach

Margaret’s poems and pictures often reflect her close relationship with the sea:

It calls, the sea,
To the restless boat
Uncomfortably cotched
On a sandy shore,
Longing for
Rocking waves
And cooling current
And the feel
Of wake moving
Singingly along
Her planked hull….

Acrylic on canvasboard; 20 x 16

Margaret started writing poetry as a teenager. She started painting in her forties, first learning to draw and work with colour – chalk pastels.

“I worked my way through chalk pastels to experimenting with other media until I arrived at the medium I most frequently use, acrylics.”

Margaret Mair's painting - We are Islands

“It took a friend’s introduction to SPARK in 2011 to make me think most deeply about how paintings and poetry could work together. I did not really start creating my own melding of the two until quite recently – January 2014.”

Many poems and pictures followed, as you can see on her blog.

Her pieces often evoke powerful responses.

“Everyone responds in their own way, and finds the thing or things that speak to them and their experience.

“I gave my mother a piece that hung on her wall until she died, a first iteration of my Tree of Life, much larger and more delicate. One day while I was visiting I watched a young girl stand silently in front of it for a long time, just looking. That was one of my favorite responses.”

And a few final words about home:

“I have learned that what you bring to a place is as important as the place itself. Keep it reasonably clean and relatively tidy, as cool on the hot days and as warm on the cold ones as you can (we’ve lived in some drafty places), put your favorite pictures on the wall and fill the bookshelves with your books and magazines and pieces of art, let music fill the rooms, make space to do the things that are important to you, and love the people who share it with you.”

Brava, Margaret.