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A Mother’s Gift.
A Mother’s Day reflection on books, memory, and the quiet ways love expands a life On Wednesdays — or whenever the mobile library came — my mother took my brother and me around the corner where a grey van full of books waited. We treated it with the seriousness of people who had somewhere important to be. An industrial grey van, it lumbered into our housing estate on the Dublin Road without ceremony, its sides emblazoned with the scarlet lettering of the North Eastern Education and Library Board. To me, it was an Aladdin’s cave of unexpected treasures. It was possibility on wheels. And my mother knew it. Long before…
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Credit to a Newsman: Letters After His Name
From a Derry girl, more or less. Once upon a time, before everything became urgent and push-notified and accompanied by a breaking-news chime, we waited. Not just for the news – but for someone we trusted to tell it to us. There was a posture to it. A kind of quiet ceremony. You sat up. You paid attention. And in my case, you learned. This week, Teacher Appreciation Week, I’ve been thinking about that kind of authority. Not the loud kind. Not the viral kind. The quieter, steadier version. The one that doesn’t announce itself as important, but becomes so over time. The kind that walks into a classroom, sits…
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What Counts and Who Does
Between Belonging and the Ballot Box In 2008, I volunteered at Obama Headquarters in Phoenix, spending a lot of time with a button maker and a headset that made me feel official. I had a big box of magic markers and made signs about hope and change. I called strangers in the evening to ask if they were registered to vote, if they had a plan, if they needed a ride. If they didn’t, I drove them to the polling place like democracy was something you could deliver. I became somebody with a clipboard and opinions about voter turnout. I was also somebody who couldn’t vote. Not yet an American…
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𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀 𝗠𝘆 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿t 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗕𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗮𝘆)
I don’t know when I fell in love with the idea of baseball. This is bothersome, because I like to know exactly when things begin so I can blame them properly later. What drew me to it? Maybe it was that unnaturally beautiful moment in “The Natural” when the beautiful Robert Redford sends the ball screaming into the stadium lights, smashing them, and then takes his victory lap in a shower of golden sparks. When I watch that scene I think, yes, I would like all my victories, no matter how small, to involve sparks. Or perhaps it was that afternoon in the Spring of 1989 at the iconic Cine…
