My brother left home when he was 14, a gangly kid with pin-width legs,an affable smile and a shot-on-goal that could tear a bleeding hole through sheet metal.  He was a talented hockey player, and had been touted as a Future NHL Star from the time he was 6 years old. He was a semi-professional hockey player before he could drive a car. He returned home the following summer for break: suddenly taller than me, with giant arms and a steely resolve, suddenly determined to take over the world.  He needed summer work and I got him a job bussing tables at the pub where I worked as a waitress.  During those long shifts, the door would... [More]

Addiction seeps in slowly, penetrating life's surface, unnoticed at first. It sits like a puddle, pooling, waiting, benign until there's a tear in the surface.  It's then that addiction can infiltrate, fill the veins, poison the yawning void with manufactured, false brightness. *** It was a summer morning when Corey sauntered into a 7-11, intent on a slurpee to quell the thirst triggered by the pulsating music, bouncing lights and illicit substances of the night before. Sweat soaked and wearing the tattered shirt he'd slept in, he turned the slush nozzle and waited for relief.  It was the weekend and University courses and compute... [More]

Corey and I originally plotted to escape Vancouver during the winter Olympics.  We'd rent out his apartment to the highest bidder and go to surf school in Costa Rica.  Or maybe we'd take a break from our work-packed days and just lie, device free, on a pier somewhere, next to crystal green water. But Corey's apartment didn't rent and our cat needed ridiculously expensive surgery and a million other things happened to make escaping impossible.  So,we decided - we'd just have to brave the crazy traffic and swarming crowds and irritating tourist masses and hole up inside our house with our vats of egg whites and multitudes of lea... [More]

At our first Crossfit class, our trainer asked Corey and I what it meant to be fit.  I turned to Corey expectantly because he is better at talking.  There's a reason I write. Corey explained that fitness, to him, was the ability to do anything - any kind of physical activity - with ease.  Scale mountains, I thought, sprint when you're 60, race to Starbucks with your four year old, ad nauseum. Dave was nodding energetically, yes, yes.  He told us: most people provide examples of people or events when they define Fitness.  Fit is an Ironman athlete.  Fit is Michael Phelps, minus the bong.  Fit people have ri... [More]

It’s quiet except for the din of tires sluicing through rain puddles, the sound of the city going home to their husbands, their wives, to kitchens smelling of chicken pot pie and home spice, of muted TVs and Friday night anticipation. It wasn't very long ago. It could easily be me, walking past green windowed skyscrapers to meet my wife for dinner. We have a cat who kneads our laps constantly moving paws, we have an apartment with a view, promising jobs with edgy companies. We cook dinner and she watches her shows, I work furiously and hard and I know I'm cut out for something even more. We're still young and we talk about what's n... [More]