“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

It’s an African proverb. Every person is a library of stories, and the world is made up of our stories.

I’m Alice, and each Sunday morning I share people’s wildly authentic, heart-stoppingly real, or funny stories for you to read while you enjoy a morning coffee. Occasionally, I send out something I have written myself. I’m a slow writer, so it takes me a while. All of us of a considerable age have something to say.

I love people's stories, and I can listen to someone reminisce, if not for hours, then at least for the duration of a shared meal. Some stories take a while to tell, like a friend's story about the time in the 60s when he was sure his tennis partner was Abby Hoffman, living under a pseudonym in Montreal. Others are short, but funny, like another tale told by friend about getting on a bus to go to his first protest when he was eighteen and seeing his mother at the back handing out salami sandwiches. I finally understood he came by his left-wing anti-establishment views honestly.

My dad shared his stories over many successive conversations during the last three years of his life. His stories were the kind that took a while to tell. My own storytelling started then when I wanted to share my dad’s stories.

I love it when a story teaches me something, touches my heart or makes me laugh. I ache when shit happens to someone that's hard to deal with, and I marvel at their incredible resiliency. I'm curious about all the granular details of people's lives. Yet I consider myself a private person — or I thought I was until I started sharing my stories online with strangers.

Thank you for your support and for coming along with me every Sunday morning. It's a labour of love, and I'm so appreciative you are here, and in this crazy world, we can connect across boundaries, real and perceived. I hope you will consider sharing your stories. We have so much to learn from one another (thank you to one reader who reminded me of that).

Finally, you can read all the stories for free. A paid subscription, if it is something you can afford or want to do, is optional and a vote of confidence. It allows me to collaborate with a talented digital artist, Stella Kalaw, who creates the artwork for every story starting in February 2024, and for help from editors working with some of the writers to polish their stories.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have a story you wish to share—I’ll do my best to help you tell it, if need be. And feel free to comment about something that was published. My email is agoldbloom@videotron.ca