“…we lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” — Margaret Atwood

BIRTHDAYS ALWAYS make me think about random, specific moments from my life. Good, bad, and odd. Like that one time my parents forgot my 18th birthday. Yes, I got Molly Ringwalded—totally. My mom loves when I bring this up, especially at special occasion parties. [Insert sarcastic laugh here.] And if you’ve previously heard this story from me, well, here it is again.

So let me fill you in… the day I turned 18, my mom suddenly decided, out of nowhere, that we should go to the mall that afternoon. Once there, she led me straight to Baskin-Robbins, which I’d never been to before. We always went to Laura Secord in the mall. And now here I was, being told to choose my own birthday cake hours before my birthday dinner. Now, my cakes have always been homemade, which was how I liked them. Cherry Chip, with Betty Crocker Cream Cheese icing, please. So I was all, huh?

Apparently, I was now the kind of person who picked out their own birthday cake. A tradition that had never existed before (and has not existed since). And when my mom saw my less-than-impressed face, she told me she thought it would be a fun thing for me to pick out my own cake. Suuuuure… Honey, I was not buying it. You forgot. I got Sixteen Candles forgotten.

But it doesn’t end there.

I also had to pick out my own gift, again at the mall. Yes, they hadn’t gotten me anything yet, either. I was incensed (and you could say entitled, sure, but it was my 18th birthday, after all. Special, right?).
Being the gay drama queen I can be, I went to Zellers and selected as my gift—a pack of batteries. That was it. (I’m totally over this, can you tell? Love ya, Mom!)

Okay, let’s move on and talk about a more pleasant moment in my life: the first time I ever saw my name in print for something I wrote in a published book.

Back in 1998, when I was in university, I was completely obsessed with this fairly new thing called eBay. Heard of it? I bought and sold on there. One of the items I had listed was a Batman Returns movie book that was apparently hard to find outside Canada.

The winning bidder turned out to be a woman named Karen. After the auction, she introduced herself further in an email: she was a writer. She mentioned she was planning a book about Catwoman someday, which was why she bought the book, but at that moment, she was deep into another project: a history of the Woolworth’s department store. In the course of finishing up our transaction, she noticed I was from Ontario and asked if I had any memories of Woolworth’s in Canada.

You bet your ass I did. I told her about going there every week as a kid with my Nan to their downtown Guelph location. Nothing huge, just a small blurb of a memory. I mean, it’s not great writing on my part; it was never meant to be.

A little while later, she emailed me again and asked if she could include my memory in her book. Of course, I said yes.

I didn’t think much of it after that. Life moved on, as it does, until I received a letter in the mail containing a photocopy of page 105 from her upcoming Woolworths book. Tucked into the top corner was my memory alongside my name. Printed, fixed, real.

It’s a strange feeling, seeing yourself reflected back like that. I wasn’t the author, and it wasn’t my book in the traditional sense, but a part of it was still mine—a small piece of my life woven into a larger history for a wider audience to read. It feels special, in what it represents, especially now that my Nan has passed.

At the time, it felt surreal. Now, it feels quietly important.

Maybe that’s why I’m thinking about it today. Birthdays have a way of drawing a line between then and now, and reminding you of all the unexpected ways your life brushes up against the world. That a casual online auction could turn into a footnote in a published book. That a childhood memory could find its way onto a printed page for others to read and smile at.

It’s not the kind of thing you plan for. It just… happens. And somehow, those are the moments that stay with you the longest.

Remembering Woolworth’s: A Nostalgic History of the World’s Most Famous Five-and-Dime is available for purchase online at amazon.ca, amazon.com, Indigo, and Barnes & Noble.