journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

describing May 2-4 to Americans

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.05.23

How better to describe the Victoria Day weekend to Americans than by its nickname, "May 2-4"? I was on a call with the board I've recently left, which is for a US-based professional association. As the sound of the fireworks came rolling up from the beach, I told them what holiday it was up here. To explain the name, all you need is the proper graphic:


rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner