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Belfast, Crafts, Family, Fathers and sons, Happy Father's Day, Memoir, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Themes of Childhood
inarticulate speech of the heart – on father’s day
This will not be a happy Father’s Day for my father. From far away, he will worry about my daughter and me and how we are doing on this, my daughter’s first Father’s Day without her dad. He’ll wish he could be in Phoenix, to fix things for us, to paint the laundry room or clean the windows or mix cement to…
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Antrim, Belfast, Belfast Peace Lines, bombing, British Army, Bruce Springsteen, Castledawson, Good Vibrations, IRA, Joe Strummer, La Mon House Hotel Bombing, Memoir, Mix tapes, Movies, Music, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Pop-in Records, Record Shops, Regrets, Sectarianism, Sherman Alexie, Terri Hooley, The Clash, The Miami Showband, The Troubles, The Undertones, Themes of childhood, UVF, Vinyl Records
for the record . . .
Dedicated to the legendary Terri Hooley . . . I rarely watch movies when I’m flying, but on the plane from Chicago to Dublin two Novembers ago, perusing my options for in-flight entertainment, I paused when I heard the unmistakable hiss that comes after a stylus is dropped right in the groove, and a Northern Ireland accent infused with Woodbine cigarettes: “Once upon a time in the city…
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Anne Lamotte, Arizona, Awesome Women, Belfast, Blogging, Creative Non-Fiction, Culture of breast cancer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Irish Diaspora, Joan Didion, Memoir, New widowhood, Northern Ireland Culture, Paula Meehan, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Van Morrison
me. the live tour.
Anyone who reads this blog knows I consider it a home away from home, a safe place to fall where I can put my feet up, have a beer, and listen to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers all day long if I feel like it. I don’t have to keep it clean. I don’t have to check the mail – I don’t even have…
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9/11, Belfast, Boston Marathon 2013, Damian Gorman, Facebook, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, The Troubles, The Troubles
boston 2013 . . . without warning
Until September 11th 2001, I had taken for granted the sense of security I felt as a woman who had traded in Northern Ireland for America. Foolishly, I had too quickly dropped my guard, almost forgetting anything can happen. I grew complacent and smug, confident that – unlike her mother – my American daughter would never have to look twice at…
