On the return flight from Texas, I knew I wouldn’t end up teaching Biblical Hebrew to Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Mennonites. My Canadian bones said I wouldn’t be living with my Labrador retriever in an abandoned church, wouldn’t be artfully arranging garden gnomes around the base of the pumpjack planted in the front yard. My free-spirited blood realized that I would have to hide my true self there as artfully as I’d display those gnomes. My brain didn’t want to believe it, though. It begged for the adventure, to be a small star in a different universe, to get my own drawl.
Tanya MacIntosh writes speculative fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She has lived in Toronto, Quebec City, Jerusalem, and Calgary where Gigi, her rescue dog, generously shares the house with her.