Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

#NoNewYearsResolutionsResolutions It ’ s that time of year. Over on my book to movie site, Chapter1-Take1 , I  should be making a list of my favorite screen adaptations of 2015. Ideally it should be a top ten list but five will do. I should definitely be creating a post titled the Ten Most Eagerly Awaited Film Adapations Coming in 2016 . Or s omething like that. That’s a bit clunky but you get the idea.  Here at past tense, perfect/imperfect where I’m mostly into memoir but sometimes venture into what is actually happening—or not happening—in my own life, I should be sharing my list of New Year’s Resolutions. My plans to exercise more, stick to a regular writing schedule, cook more creatively, be kinder to the people I love.  But after a lifetime of resolves that dissolve with the dwindling of the setting sun,  when it comes to resolutions I’ve learned if you don’t make ‘em, you can’t break ‘em. Instead, like Peggy Lee, “I’ll just keep danc...

I’m so used to looking back on this blog. Back on my own life. Back on my childhood, my adolescence, my multitude of careers. Back on old boyfriend ’s and long-ago  romances. Back on my mother’s life and her death, my own life as a mother. It seems I rarely look forward. Which, let ’ s be honest, can’t be an entirely good thing. It’s weird then that something from the past actually has  me looking forward.  Photo Source:  freeinfosociety.com Last Friday’s blog post about my recent discovery of my grandfather and my great-grandfather’s service in World War I has me actually planning for the future. Okay, planning is not quite right. But I am tooling around online, at least musing about a trip to both France and England. My British great-grandfather is buried in France, near to where he died at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, in September of 1916. My grandfather fought in the same historic battle. Doing the quick math makes this coming September the 100th...

Star & Garter Hospital, Richmond Hill, 1915 I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. This is  Day Ten. What was it John Lennon said,  “ Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans? ”  I ’ ve been here in an imaginary version of London, one where it never rains until after sundown and by 8am the morning fog has disappeared, taking a make believe walk  ‘ Above ground on the London Underground ’  for awhile now. I started out at Heathrow , following the Picadilly Line route, but found myself taking a detour to Richmond,  irresistibly  drawn to the house where I was born. Now,  despite my plan to get back on the Picadilly track, I find I can’t leave. Life stepped in with other plans.  The real me...

When I say Niagara Falls you probably think cheesy honeymoon destination, ‘slowly I turned’ and tourist trap. But Niagara Falls is where I grew up. Coming of age in Canada It’s daunting to move into a new house and make it yours. A never before lived in house seems more than new as it stands before you, untouched, immaculate, strangely virginal. The difference between new and brand new can be an almost empty hollow feeling. No ghosts live within those walls. No child’s smudged fingerprints have been wiped away. I was ten years old when we moved into our new house in Niagara Falls. We moved in the spring of 1963, the season of change in what would turn out to be a decade of change. In a house without history it fell to us to write the first page. Keep reading ... 

I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. This is Day Nine I’ve been off track from my imaginary walking tour of London, where I’m currently meant to be following the Picadilly line but I’m unwilling to leave Richmond with its fading green grass behind. Wasn’t it just summer? And now December’s come! One more stop before I leave; Kew Gardens with its’  famous glass Palm House, the Great Pagoda, the Ruined Arch folly and the flowers. All the flowers. Image via TheOldMapMan.com I’m here at the wrong season for flowers, of course. The earth has shifted since Virginia Woolf first wrote about Kew Gardens almost 100 years ago, her evocation of nature on a hot July day, flower stalks tipped with red, blue or yellow petals, stirring in...

12.4.2015 And now it’s official, this is being investigated as an act of terror. We usually start the day with the morning news on; half the time the sound is down, no one’s paying attention, it’s just background patter.  I’m home alone and instead of taking my usual walk I decide to do a little writing; I mute the TV, I don’t know why I don’t turn it off completely. I’m on a roll and it’s sometime shortly after 11:30 before I finally look up from my desk and see a red banner splashed on the TV screen: Active Shooter Situation in San Bernardino, California . My heart hits the floor. That’s close to home. I find the remote, un-mute the TV set in time to hear that the shooter is at a building on the corner of Orange Show and Waterman. That’s my husband’s old stomping ground, most of his large family still live and work in the area. About an hour and half from our apartment in L.A., it’s just a few minutes from his parents’ home where we gather for family birthdays and ...