Keira McArthur

You look like a teacher, says the young waitress in the very loud bar the night the Tiger Cats lose the Grey Cup game. She looks like your neighbour’s odd tweenage daughter who dresses like her big brother, a closet spoken word somebody or maybe even closet hip hop but white and really short. I […]

This spring term has been spine-cracking difficult, not just because of the workload but because of what it’s transforming in me – a requirement of fulfilling what has been assigned:  Read the following ten books by next week; comment and engage in discussion online re same; define a research question and complete a lit review […]

What an intense beginning to October it has been.  It feels like I’ve been birth canal-ed – squeezed into a ‘passage through’ from that September of structural change (schedule, mental, energetic) into this October of ‘Now, GROW’.  This is the first morning of stillness after a massive storm of People and Events and I find myself […]

I went subterranean twelve weeks ago, maybe more.  Came up again two days ago, I think.  I know this because I found myself gardening yesterday. This was a tunnel of a place I’ve been in, a way into and through the deep, long list entitled Impossible-but-Necessary.  In twelve weeks strong and beautiful people died, shockingly, […]

As predicted, each painting for #Selfie has had it’s own arc of becoming.  They have all been surprises, have all taught me things I wouldn’t otherwise know. It’s been a privilege to be at the centre of this project and participate in the discovery, the shaping and polishing of each facet.  Quite a geological process […]

It’s been a week since the morning after #Selfie’s opening at Gallery de Boer.  That was such a profoundly good time, rich with love and excellence, risk and joy.  We all of us had about an inch of air beneath our feet as we walked through the space and played together on the roof afterwards.  […]

I once played a minor (non-musical) part on a Rolling Stones Tour – ‘Steel Wheels’ in the ’80s. I have a tour jacket, even, that boyfriends past have happily worn… and torn and stained. This comes up now because I wrote the blog title first. It’s still a good jacket, and I keep it to […]

One month:  Corelli to Handel to Brahms and Faure to Jensen to Patootie to sereda to Kurt Cobain via Drew Wright.  In between some work re-arranging songs by JTaylor, Norah Jones, Kris Delmhorst and other specials for cello and voice.  Or just cello, or just voice.  And thumb piano (note to self:  revive and nourish […]

Grocery store “…ya, seven car pileup in Dundalk.  I’m not going home to London looks like…” snowfort stories – there were three of us, so …  that’s when the snowbanks along the roads were 14  feet high- we used to run along the top and jump over the hydro lines…  I guess some people like winter, […]

This morning’s cold has made the rain weightless.  As I watch from my third floor window I can feel the pull and flow of ocean, save that it’s air – currents made visible by tiny crystals of frozen water.  The north wind, playing. My walk at dawn was full of the promise of this; I’m […]

So peaceful, this end of September 2013. In the growing dark of the season I can feel what is timeless and eternal – the breathing of the fall wind, the lap of waves on the breakwall of the harbour.  The summer birds have flown, but even the starlings and chickadees that remain are asleep still, […]

It’s a mighty fine tunnel we’ve just got through. A storm on Saturn in 2011. This already happened, and now we see it. Why do I find that comforting? I am later in the day after the day of find my head get to town rehearse find-a-piano rehearse perform rehearse perform perform so-grateful-for-good-friends enriched pleased […]