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sense and sensibility … and sensible hair
“Didn’t we used to call you Crystal Tipps?” Why yes, you did. Relentlessly. It was funnier to you than it was to me. Teetering on the edge of adolescence in the early seventies, I instinctively knew that Crystal’s coiffure, a big triangular purple frizz, belonged only on the BBC, in the groovy world of cut-out animation created by Hilary Hayton. Someone, probably not a feminist, had deemed more acceptable and in my case, forever elusive, that silken sheet of hair that hung straight down the backs of other girls in standard-issue blonde, brown, black or grey. Crystal, with Alistair by her side, was not cut out for corporate. Upside down, afloat…
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the saturday shot … i’m expecting you
One of the first gifts my husband ever gave me was a silver pocket compass. While not at all useful, it is of great sentimental value. Having noted very early in our relationship my stellar capacity for getting lost and notwithstanding the fact that I was then a novice driving on the American (and wrong) side of the road my man intervened as he knew best. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that I was never one for “orienteering” or map-reading; I was more of a free-spirited “let’s-just-see-where-the-road-takes-us” kind of gal with nary a Duke of Edinburgh Expedition Award in my school career. With factory-installed GPS navigation systems now de…
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the saturday shot
As the title of my blog suggests, I am supposed to be taking time to “consider the lilies,” to engage in a stock-taking that will help me do better this evening, tomorrow, next week, next year. By its very design, vacation makes this an easy but somehow less satisfying avocation, for isn’t it within the minutiae and muddle of everyday living that the magic is often revealed? So my Saturday Shot comes from the vantage point of a bench by a bay hundreds of miles away from it all. From this spot, I took all the time I wanted to consider the lilies, to survey what lies ahead and within. In a twinkling, I…
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Awesome Women, Blogging, Breast Cancer Treatment, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language matters, Memory, Ordinary Things, Social Media
No rest for cancer. Rest in peace, Pat Steer.
I am a creature of habit. I count on routines and rituals to know that all is well in the world. Like breakfast – always the same – poached egg, toast, berries of some sort, an orange. Coffee from my favorite cup. Whenever I wave goodbye to my husband, three things always happen: he’ll blow a kiss, flash a peace sign, and watch until I disappear from sight. Predictably perfect. Let the day begin. On vacation, one set of routines is temporarily traded for another, our days devoid of hot weather and work, traffic and junkmail, air-conditioned cars and offices, of medical appointments and more to schedule. On the coast, living…
