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Aging, Arizona, Birthdays, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Death and dying, Diagnosis, Family, Fireworks, Irish culture, Irish mammies, John Hiatt, Loss, Love, Memoir, Memory, Mother Daughter Relationship, Muriel Rukeyser, New Year, Newgrange, No Country for Old Men, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, saying goodbye, Soundtracks of our Lives, Starting over, Ted Kooser, Themes of Childhood, Time
my ‘slow turning’ ~ winter solstice 2013
It is a magic time, captured before clocks and calendars and compasses measured time and the distance between us, signifying the turn towards a new year. I’m not ready for it. I am not ready for days that stretch out even longer than each of the thirty-six that have passed since the day my husband died. Thirty-six. I cannot bring…
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Aging, Being young, Bridget Jones, Broagh, Castledawson, Diary, Family, FInal wishes, Loss, Love, Marriage, Ordinary Things, Personal Helicon, Poetry, Regrets, saying goodbye, Soundtracks of our Lives, Those Winter Sundays, Writing
the offices of love ~ what did I know?
This winter Sunday, I woke to the high-pitched scrape of steel on steel, my da sharpening my bread knife because “it wouldn’t cut butter.” I stayed in bed, allowing the long metallic strokes on each side of the blade to carry me back to the kitchen of my childhood, my father making sure the knife was sharp enough to carve…
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Aging, Antrim Guardian, Artisans, Being young, Belfast, Birthdays, Coming of age, Family, Fathers and sons, McClelland Irish Library, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Phoenix Landmarks, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood, Writing
for my dad on his 75th birthday
I write a bi-weekly column for my hometown newspaper, The Antrim Guardian. I love knowing that my parents wait to see what I’m going to write about next, so it was a treat to imagine my dad opening the paper a couple of weeks ago to find that it was all about him. Happy Birthday, Da.
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Aging, Blogging, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Depression, Health Statistics, Memoir, Mental Health, World Health Organization, World Mental Health Day 2013, Writing
the woman in the yellow wallpaper & me . . .
“Mental illness affects all of us, but there are still many myths and misconceptions about these disorders. If people are willing to talk openly about mental health, we can defeat stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses. ” ~ Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, October 10, 2013 marks the twenty first anniversary of World Mental Health Day, established by The World…
