-
American Dream, Belfast, Friendships, Memoir, Music, Northern Ireland, Soundtracks of our Lives, summer camp, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Writing
coming to america … the reprise
I arrived in America in the summer of 1984, before my final year at Stranmillis College in Belfast. The first words spoken to me in America, “Keep on rollin’, lady,” fell impatiently from the lips of an unwelcoming security guard as I collected my rucksack and proceeded through Customs and Immigration at John F. Kennedy international airport, confirming for me that already, I was too slow for the big city, for the country I had dreamed of for years. Now I’m wondering how it would have benefited anyone in the airport that night, had I walked a little faster. I spent that first night in America, in the YMCA on Times Square…
-
and What I Wore, Art, Awesome Women, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Culture of breast cancer, Facebook, Memoir, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Nora Ephron, Soundtracks of our Lives, Theater, Writers
what I wore, a mountain of life & missing Nora Ephron . . .
Last night, my best friend and I went to see the enchanting and poignant Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Nora and Delia Ephron‘s stage-adaptation of Ilene Beckerman’s book by the same name. Like each of the five women on stage, I can peer into my wardrobe and hang on the clothes and shoes and handbags bulging from it, some of the most important moments of my life. Especially my boots. There are my favorite brown leather boots with the beautiful patina, worn with an attitude the morning I was fired by someone who might possibly have been great were it not for the misogyny that made him so small.…
-
Art, Belfast, Breast Cancer Treatment, Cancer Language, Culture of breast cancer, Damian Gorman, Damian Gorman, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Survivorship, The Troubles, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, Writing
Please don’t call me a cancer survivor . . .
“He not being busy born, is busy dying.” ~ Bob Dylan it is the first Sunday in June, a day set aside to celebrate cancer survivorship. Did you know this “treasured worldwide celebration of life” has been on the calendar for twenty-six years? I wonder would I have been any the wiser had I not been diagnosed myself. So who is a survivor, and who do I think I am? At best, I am ambivalent. According to the National Cancer Survivors Day website: … a ‘survivor’ as anyone living with a history of cancer – from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life. National Cancer Survivors Day affords…
-
Art, Artisans, Awesome Women, Cat Stevens, Crafts, Educating Rita, Field of Dreams, Fiftieth Birthday, Memoir, Mother's Day, Ordinary Things, Seamus Heaney, Willy Russell
if my books could talk to you …
While I have moved past the demise of the typewriter and the tape deck, the resurgence of the turntable reassures me that we will ever be entirely without our books. I love books. I love how they look, the way they feel and smell, and how it was that they came to be permanent fixtures on someone’s bookshelf. A minute or two spent scanning the contents of a bookcase can tell you much of what you need to know about the owner’s personality, pastimes, and passions. Sometimes, you’ll learn more than you intended, especially from those volumes bearing the tell-tale signs of wear, with dog-eared pages and chunks of underlined text…
