-
Awesome Women, Blogging, Breast Cancer Treatment, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language matters, Memory, Ordinary Things, Social Media
a day without pain or pity
A creature of habit, I count on certain rituals to know that all is well in my world. Breakfast, always the same, is a poached egg, toast, berries of some sort, an orange, and coffee from a favorite cup. When I wave goodbye to my love, in return he will blow a kiss, flash a peace sign, and watch from the window until I disappear from view. Predictably perfect. Let the day begin. Phoenix is beautiful in April with hot days and cool nights. Already, I am thinking of vacation and our annual escape to another place, where one set of routines is temporarily traded for another. Long days, devoid of…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
