Gayla Trail | Writer & Artist

The Brain That Changes

I was in the bathtub soaking up the warmth while listening to my special playlist. It’s comprised of songs that I like to sing along with, that for whatever reason make me happy. Some of the songs are not good and I don’t know why they carry such emotional resonance. Some of the songs used to carry a negative connotation, but don’t anymore. For example, when symptoms are unpleasant and my body is freaking out, one of the best...

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November 28, 2022

Childhood, Gardening, Places, Stories

Here, At Home, with My Kitchen Window Spider

When I was a kid we did a couple of road trips to western Ontario to visit my stepfather’s maternal relations. His family were evangelical, and that’s how I was raised. I went to Sunday school, weekly Bible club, and a hardcore Christian camp down in New York State a couple of times.

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October 13, 2022

Childhood, Places, Stories

Garden Tinctures, Infusions, & More

Here’s a few ways that I use plants from the garden that might inspire some ways for you to use yours.

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September 13, 2022

Gardening

You In Others

In the summer of 2020 I took a DNA test through Ancestry. There were a few things that I hoped to accomplish with the test: to find out which African countries were in my DNA (mostly Nigeria); to learn more about my maternal, West Indian ancestry, which has been very difficult to research; and to find my biological father. For most of my life I have known that I had another parent out there somewhere. Small, tentative attempts to...

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September 6, 2022

Childhood, Stories

Where are the Snakes?

One year ago today we spotted our first snake in the garden bed out front: an Eastern Garter (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis). I love snakes, particularly Eastern Garters. Growing up in the early 80s, I lived in a townhouse complex next to a big brownfield that was behind a Towers/Food City plaza. Those stores don’t exist anymore and neither does the brownfield — it was replaced by another townhouse complex in the 90s. That brownfield was my idea of heaven....

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August 31, 2022

Childhood, Chronic Illness

Scylla’s Potatoes

There were not many gardens in my childhood, and the few that come to mind are not exactly traditional. This fact threw me off for many of my early years as a garden writer. That I did not have a quaint story with a family farm, a vegetable patch in the yard, or an elder who passed on gardening know-how made me think I was a pariah trying to enter a party to which I was not invited.

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May 2, 2022

Childhood, Gardening, Stories

On Dependency

I am dependant. The truth is that none of us are independent. However, I am more dependant than most. This is one of the hardest parts of my illness to confront, in part because I grew up in an abusive household where any small need was a burden that was met with violence. I learned at a young age to hide and deny my human vulnerability and needs. I had to depend on myself for basic survival and also...

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April 20, 2022

Chronic Illness

Decolonize Garden Media

This morning I was reading on @decolonisethegarden an Instagram account created by Sui, about callously offensive & divisive remarks steeped in racial bias that were made by a co-chair of the UK Garden Media Guild. I also read the response from the guild, which, in my opinion came off as empty and an easy out from doing real work toward accountability and change.

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March 10, 2022

Gardening

Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day we celebrate women who inspire us, who accomplish great things. Women we look up to. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I am going to recognize the women who shaped me, for better or worse. I always qualify with those words, because so little was better; much was worse. But they are my kin. My lineage.

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March 8, 2022

Childhood, Stories

Aphantasia

Have you heard of aphantasia? It wouldn’t be surprising if you haven’t since the name was only coined in 2015. Aphantasia is the inability to create mental images in your mind. The concept has been known since 1880, but we’ve known very little about it until recently.

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March 4, 2022

On Creativity