Author: Melanie Chambers

09 Dec Smell is the strongest sense

If you're a woman who grew up in the 80s then any time you smell Body Shop's White Musk perfume, like me, you're taken back to your teens. I smell that stuff and I'm transported...

06 Dec What is next? Choose your own life.

When you have a family there are milestones that move you along in your life--- kids first poo, first day of school, first date, first day when they move out, first marriage (too cynical?) etc...

05 Dec My Kids

After eating at an Ethiopian restaurant with my food writing students from Western University, it was our last class, I gave a student a drive home--she lived on the way to my place. It was her last day of her undergraduate life: she had graduated. "I feel surreal," she says. "I am taking off a year, maybe two. I don't know what I want to do." This was so refreshing to hear for a few reasons. Great to those students who know what they want to do right away, you are rare, but for this girl who studied pop culture music (she also plays the fiddle on the weekends!) and writing, she wants those two years to explore, to learn, to wander.

30 Nov Winter socializing

  This past week, right after our snow day when London got over 70 cm's, I walked downtown with my camera to take pictures; I had to get out of the house after five hours of marking student papers. I recently read, somewhere, that you should treat your home as if travelling. So, become just as curious about where you live as where you travel--become just as social and energized. I am trying. God knows, I am trying. Thankfully, what I discovered was something better than a few wintery shots and 'sights.'

26 Nov Bjork Trumps Gaga

Bjork would be cool even if no one was watching. This is the difference between her and Lady Gaga. A few years ago I gave a talk about Icelandic pop culture on a cruise ship of 90-year-olds for a university alumni event. Well, they weren't all 90, but you get the idea. As a single blond looking for a seat at supper time, I was very popular. Back to Bjork. Before the swan dress at the Oscar's, but not before her first album at 11-years-old (Icelandic folk songs), the woman started an all girls punk band called Spit and Snot.  This kills me. You are too cool for words.

24 Nov Solitude seems to be a lonely word

When I was 36, I wrote a feature story for the now defunct magazine, Homemakers. My first sentence: "I am 36 and I feel disconnected." I thought of this story when I read the Globe and Mail's front page weekend story: "Life of Solitude: a loneliness crises is looming."