One of my earliest memories: I am knee height to the average-sized man. I am dressed in an outfit my mother made: a matching pink a-line dress and coat. I am dressed like a tiny Jackie O.

My father and I are embarking on an outing ("Don't tell your mother!"). He has told me we are going to the stock market. I am extremely excited. I am imagining stock: Cows and pigs and horses and goats. I love animals and can barely contain my anticipation.

When we arrive, I manage to swallow my disappointment: but only barely. There are no cows. No pigs or goats. And nothing remotely horselike. It is a big room with a lot of men and a lot of shouting. There are chalkboards on the wall and other men are rubbing out notations and putting up new ones with impossible speed. There are cigarette butts on the floor and the room is full of smoke. I hold my father's hand tightly to avoid being swallowed in a sea of wool-clad men's legs. The stock market.

As I would later learn, I was on the floor of the old Vancouver Stock Exchange which, as any Vancouverite of long standing will be able to tell you, was one of the most nefarious exchanges of all. With the way everything has turned out, I would like to be able to tell you that I was -- right there and on that day -- bitten by some odd bug that lodged itself in my brain and has carried me through my life. It did not. But that day -- and my father, for that matter -- cemented the idea of the world of securities as being accessible and exciting. Even to tiny pink-clad girls.

My father loved the stock market. Family lore has it that he lost great big wads of money on that exchange floor. A moderate man in almost all ways, the stock market was his one weakness, his one big vice. And I suppose that, for the sake of the roof over our heads, I should be glad that whatever huge clots of money he poured onto the floor of the exchange, it was money he could afford to lose. Others have not been so lucky.

My father's penchant was for securities of a somewhat romantic nature. Gold, silver, medicines that would change the world: that was the sort of thing he loved. Another fond memory -- my personal style more Carly Simon than Jackie O. by this time -- is of a wonderful camping trip we took in the British Columbia interior. Dad wanted to get a good look at the workings of a gold stock in which he'd invested. The trip turned out to be better for me than it was for him. The wonderful invention the stock promoter had been flogging -- some type of super sluice box that would produce gold practically out of dirt -- turned out to be something of a bust and dad went home feeling like he'd been had, which turned out to be not far from the truth. I still have that trip, though: the beautiful mountains and rivers of my home province, a rickety bridge and the excitement of tracking down a gold mine -- an actual gold mine -- that I, through my father, had a stake in. It was pretty exciting stuff.

I have lived in Los Angeles, California; Munich, Germany and Vancouver, British Columbia, where I was born. No matter where I go, though, Vancouver calls me back. I've come to the conclusion that some people are born in the wrong place and spend their lives trying to find the right one. And some of us -- I have to think we're the lucky ones -- get put where we're meant to be. There's something in the air there. Something in the water. I can go away, but I always have to come back.

Since 1993 I've shared my life with a very special man: the artist and photographer David Middleton. We live in a crazy house in the Gulf Islands in British Columbia where we feel lucky to be able to spend our days mainly involved in creative endeavors, only occasionally interrupted by old episodes of The Antiques Roadshow which we both love for no apparent reason.

We share our life with a black Australian Kelpie named Jett. Though she is the sweetest dog on Earth, hardly anyone besides me and David know this. She was abused before we got her and is generally afraid of people: which manifests itself in a lot of crazy barking followed by hiding. We have found that sharing our life with a formerly abused animal has given us more rewards than challenges. If you're thinking about getting a dog, I'd highly recommend a rescue. She takes so much joy in her world, every wag of her tail is like a thank you.

David and I launched the online publication,
January Magazine, in 1997. Since then it has grown to be one of the most respected book-related magazines on the Web. January continues to be a source of tremendous inspiration and an intense labor of love.

 

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