Love – Resisting Exile

07Apr 2026 by Linda Bayley No Comments

Three Hours

Last week, I submitted a piece from my novella-in-flash (NIF) to John Brantingham, poet, writer, and teacher, for his journal The Journal of Radical Wonder. He wrote back declining that piece, but asked if I'd like to meet him on Zoom the next day to talk about the NIF. As we chatted, he read the first piece of the NIF out loud, and asked if he could have that piece for the journal instead. My mind was blown. Of course I agreed! And we set a time, Tuesday morning, today, for us to meet again and talk about whether we wanted to take the NIF on a publication journey together. This morning, instead of meeting with John, I'm memorializing him. He died suddenly Sunday night. I got to spend an…

30Mar 2026 by Linda Bayley No Comments

Childlike

Love

Devil sticks. Juggling. Kite flying. Pumpkin carving. Puppet shows and petting zoos. These are all things I used to do with my dad, and when I talk about them, people assume I’m talking about my childhood. Because these are childhood activities, right? Nope. Not in my world. Dad picked up juggling with balls and devil sticks when I was in my late teens. When I was in my twenties, he designed and built styrofoam kites that spun in the air. After I was married, we went to see The Velveteen Rabbit as a puppet show at the library, and the last time I saw him, in my early thirties, we went to a petting zoo together, where we ate ice cream and fed the goats. These are such great memories.…

04Mar 2021 by Linda Bayley

Grace

Love, Musings

January 30, 2001 - JournalGrace tells me that when I was little I pulled a button clean off her muskrat-collared coat. She says we were out for a walk, and I kept tugging on her sleeve. I wanted to know, she says, what was I going to call her if she married my Grampa?I don't remember this incident. I'm not even sure when she came on the scene. First, there was Granny. After Granny died, quiet. And then there was Grace.I wasn't invited to the wedding. I don't know if any of the grandchildren were. To my childish logic, this was a rejection. I think that must be when I vowed she would never be my grandmother. Childish logic, indeed. I'm ashamed of that logic now, of course. It's the…

09Sep 2020 by Linda Bayley

Hand-me-down

Love, Musings

When I was a teenager, my Dad would hand-write lectures to me and pass them over to me before I got out of his car, back at my mother’s house. He would insist that I read them then and there; I couldn’t get out of the car until I did. He had to make sure that I received his wisdom. They were infuriating. They actually had the word LECTURE written across the top of each one, along with the sequence number. He really, truly, expected me to benefit from each one, and to save them, and to one day publish them all in a book. Naturally, I shredded each one into tiny bits as soon as I got inside, angry, futile tears falling onto my hands as they worked. I…

05May 2018 by Linda Bayley

Rescue

Action, Love

There's a new girl in my life. Her name is Daphne. She may be three years old, she may be younger. We don't know, because she was a stray. She was picked up from the streets of another city not far from mine, went through the lost and found process without being found, and eventually made her way to the SPCA branch only a half-hour's walk from where I work. I haven't written much in the last month, being paralyzed as I was with grief and uncertainty over what I should do with myself, now that Jazz is gone. For a few weeks I didn't do much of anything but struggle through the day and cry through the night. By April 7th I was starting to retch whenever I got…

09Mar 2018 by Linda Bayley

Remember this

Love, Musings

Remember this. Remember how, the first time you held her, she settled right into your arms, looked up into your eyes, and purred. Remember how it was Domino who wanted to be friends with the new cat, but she hissed and fought, until the day they called a truce and you found them on the couch, lying facing each other, nose to nose. Remember the things she taught him: how to use the scratching post (not just something to lean against), how to hurl one's entire tiny body at the bedroom door to open it (not that pathetic scratching and whining). Remember what he taught her: the cat version of ippon kumite, lunge for his neck, get batted down, get back up and try again. Always get back up and try…