Author note: Written in 1993 for a wellness conference sponsored by The Gazette, Montreal. It was one of ten winning submissions. Many people aspire to a ripe old age, but when they reach it, they spend most of their […]
Dr. Daya Ram Varma August 23, 1929 – March 22, 2015 Dr. Daya Ram Varma, died Sunday March 22, 2015, at his home in St. John’s surrounded by loving family and friends. Daya was born in a small […]
It’s Algebra Tibe! If someone only likes you 6 out of 10 you can tutor them to like you more. Sinbad Richardson is a Montreal animator and filmmaker. He has filmed numerous shorts and also directed/created music videos for many […]
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.” ― Mark Twain “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms […]
[Montreal April 6, 2015] Greece – Ελλάς or Hellas – is a place that for many people has existed only as a sunny spot visited from some monstrous cruise ship, or perhaps a mental image of a make-believe […]
The temperature had finally settled down to a mild -15 degrees in Ottawa when Louise Crandall and I sat down to discuss the new Supreme Court Ruling over Physician Assisted Suicide. Louise has worked for three health organizations including […]
About RECAA: RECAA, Resources ethnoculturelles contre l’abus envers les ainéEs; in English RECAA translates into — Respecting Elders: Communities Against Abuse. RECAA was founded in 2003 by elders from the cultural communities with a stated mission to raise […]
“Audrey, you have visitors,” the nurse says to me, looking me in the eye while pointing to the door. A man stands in the doorway; he is tall, standing with his shoulders tense. A younger woman stands slightly behind him. […]
“Don’t tell my husband I touched a white man” — our interpreter, Rajat, speedily translated the language of a woman farmer in a field in rural Rajasthan, India. She had quickly recoiled after her initial interest. It was […]
First there is nothing, then a sign there might be something comes like a sudden flinch a flash in the night an economic crash the death of a friend the bolt of a deer before […]
For as long as I can remember I have considered middle age to be fifteen years older than I am. When I was five, twenty was definitely middle-aged. At twenty, middle age clearly began at thirty-five and by the […]
American journalist and author Chris Hedges’s War is a Force that Gives us Meaning places war under three categories: war, he says, is culture, myth, and crusade all at once. He explains that war is often a tool for the […]
Rethinking AGING. Growing Old and Living Well in an Overtreated Society. Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. “The days of our years among them are seventy years and if, with special attributes of […]
That Which Drowned with Narcissus Where there was once a lake Is barren land now From there can be heard the footsteps of Narcissus Even today She has gone there Looking for flowers bees and butterflies For many other […]
En ouvrant les yeux, je vois la neige légère accumulée sur le bord de la fenêtre. Je crois qu’elle se dissiperait si je soufflais dessus, mais je n’ai pas la force de le faire. Tourner simplement la tête […]
I am tired now. I sit at a table and write cursive. Tables are something taken for granted. They live such a long life, and as a rule, aren’t discarded for disease or wear, but for fashions sake. […]
Song of the Sybil: fifth lesson The Sybil foretold the end will come. The house deserted. Broken grey barn wood fence. The family beyond Curé-Clermont Street. Mount Royal foothills. Split into layers. Perennial river grass. Parched earth. Not […]
Aging Fine lines grace your face, Your eyes, beautiful Remain so, As you age. Self-conscious, You gently turn your head. A blush, Lightens your years. I remain smitten. The nectar in your eyes Flows through, My insides. Over the […]
REFLECTION the tree that stands near the edge of the pond sees the deep blue abyss into which it would one day tip and fall without end THE SKY IS FULL OF SHINING STARS […]
In the next issue of Serai – an exclusive Serai interview with Syriza on the hopes and aspirations of the young and the old of Greece. Please check back. Image Source
[Montreal Serai received this comment from architect Michael Fish on Roger Jochym’s LOST URBANITY and Serai editors think Fish’s remarks are sufficiently pertinent to appear as an article. We hope the debate about this project will be ongoing. […]
[The Beautiful West and the Beloved of God, Michael Springate, Guernica Editions, 2014] Michael’s Springate’s first novel, The Beautiful West and the Beloved of God, is a powerful book set in Montreal and Cairo in the year 2008. Mahfouz […]
My mother hated her wedding dishes. These dishes, of fine china with a lavender floral pattern numbered E2904 from Henry Birks and Sons department store, had been given to her by her family when, at twenty years old, she had […]
[Holy Fools + 2 Stories, Marianne Ackerman, Guernica Editions, 2014] Holy Fools + 2 Stories is Marianne Ackerman’s first book of short fiction. Ackerman, who is the founder and publisher of The Rover an online magazine of art and culture […]
For several thousand years, the dominant view of the arts and literature has been that they imitate reality. Even in the 21st century, well after the normative idea of mimesis has been challenged, toppled, and made fun of – […]
[Mara Grey explains the origin of her interview, carried in this issue of Serai, with Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) the world-famous Argentinian writer of fiction, poetry, essays and translations. In Grey’s words: “I returned to Buenos Aires in 1980, after […]
Gods and Monsters is a series of paintings based on manipulated images of symmetrical trees. These trees appear somewhat hallucinatory –simultaneously commonplace and supernatural – both “tree” and “not tree”. I want the work to provoke viewers to […]
I share a room in the geriatric ward With another who can speak A language everyone understands. I feel my body shrink My mind grow in anticipation of a visit I try to hold Try to keep Try […]
To Gertrude MacFarlane, in memory Edith peers down the long shadowed nave of the church. There is only a sparse sprinkling of people seated close to the altar. She has heard that her former neighbor, Andrew McIntyre, spent […]
