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Bullying, Cancer Language, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language matters, Mastectomy, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Shirley Jackson, Short Stories, Tamoxifen, Writing
breast cancer: she brought it upon herself
Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. ~ SUSAN SONTAG If you were diagnosed with breast cancer today, I can almost guarantee that within the week, you will be blamed for having done something to cause it. Just as we have heard people respond to news of a mugging, “What was he doing in that…
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Awesome Women, Family, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, Themes of childhood, Themes of Childhood, Twitter
take two poems, a shot of Skype & call me in the morning …
Social media has enriched my life in ways I never thought possible, while at the same time snuffing out a way of life for so many of us. I will always treasure the hand-written letters that also served as envelopes. Trimmed in red, white, and blue, those sky-blue single sheets, delicate as onion skin, were sturdy enough to make the journey par avion from Ireland to the other side of America. With only one sheet of thin paper, we had to be economical with our words, shaping our tidings with only the very best. In school, I filled blue jotters with words that weren’t my own, but I learned by heart…
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Arizona, Awesome Women, Family, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Memory, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Soundtracks of our Lives, Van Morrison, Wendy Cope, Writing
behind the rituals
This is an updated version of a piece of writing I started over a year ago. Today seemed as good a day as any to be thankful for all the routines and rituals that keep the little trio that is my family on solid ground. Day 22 of this month-long writing challenge asks that we write about something ordinary that inspires or drives us . . . Years ago, I had one of those very lucid and realistic dreams in which I had misplaced an important book. I was searching high up and low down for it in a dark and unfamiliar house. I awoke, frantic and unsure if it had all…
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Bullying, Feminism, Goodfellas, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Mother Daughter Relationship, Toxic Workplaces, Workplace Bullying, Workplace Mobbing
burn out, bullying, and rekindling the flame
If you’ve never been on fire, then how can you burn out? Let me count the ways. Yesterday, or the day before, I wrote about bullying in the workplace. As an aside, I am beginning to lose track of the days, which reminds me I could always play a new card – Post Cancer Cognitive Impairment (PCCI); or just admit that I have a terrible memory. In my defense, the estrogen that fueled my cancer is inextricably linked to memory. Without the former, the latter is blocked as well. This is the very last thing you need if you are also a target of workplace mobbing, a phenomenon that can leave a person feeling demoralized,…
