Ellie Kennard Ellie Kennard

1904, Montreal, Canada
A little boy walks down the streets of Montreal with his father. The child’s name is Eric and he is 8 years old. His father, Thomas holds onto his hand tightly saying little to him along the way, but Eric will remember this walk for the rest of his life…
 
The post is online with accompanying images at http://elliekennard.ca/reality-check/

Summer nights in Lapland have a peaceful, still quality lent to them by the magic of the midnight sun. The light, so bright at such a late hour alters your sense of time and place. Is it 10 am? 10 pm? It’s hard to tell.
It was 1970 and I was staying with a Lapp family in a remote cottage near the village of Ivalo, in Finnish Lapland…
The post is online with accompanying images at http://elliekennard.ca/lemmings-midnight-sun/
 

I leaned on the fence feeling utterly defeated. The factory hum of bees in the Linden blossoms, the loudest interruption of the peaceful afternoon, went completely unnoticed. I wasn’t taking in any of the pastoral beauty spread out before me, as I watched my little flock of hens in the yard, lying in the shade of the walnut trees, or under the hydrangeas. Occasionally one would stagger to her feet, and peck half-heartedly at the grain on the ground, before sinking unsteadily back onto her breast.
View the full text and images on the original post: www.elliekennard.ca/chicken-pepie/

How Telling?
Now, how do you read the title of this story? Where are you to put the emphasis? Is it telling stories (in the sense of revealing) or telling stories? A little bit of both? Well I will let you, dear reader judge for yourself.
First of all, how did I start my story telling? And when? Listen to the story …
View the full text and images on the original post: Telling Stories

Martha looked up at me as I stood by her walker and said “I know I can’t live at home just now. It’s too cold and they tell me my drive is frozen solid. I could slip on the ice and hurt myself. I have to wait for the summer before I go back.” I looked at the profusely flowering sweet smelling rose beds beside us as I walked slowly with Martha around the nursing home garden. The July heat was intense. “Of course,” I reassured her “your farm is in good hands while you’re here.” But Martha was already gone from me in that moment, looking out of a window far away in her mind….
View the full text and images on the original post: www.elliekennard.ca/martha

Cairn Island, as if strangely reversed, appears to rise like a mirage of land far out in the shimmering water of the Saint Lawrence river. I stand on the dock and find myself transported back to the last time I looked out on that scene. I was about 6 years old….
View the full text and images on the original post: www.elliekennard.ca/mirages