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May you live in interesting times …
Another Boring Day in Paradise Years ago, I had one of those dreams we’ve all had, realistic and lucid. In it, I had misplaced an important book somewhere in an unfamiliar house. I awoke, a little frantic, not sure if I had only been dreaming, perturbed to have lost “The Big Book of Simple Pleasures,” half-wondering if, in reality, such a book had ever been in my possession. The notion of it appeals to me as does a day filled with simple pleasures when we take the time to consider. It is in the ordinariness of life, within commonplace conversations and overlooked moments, that we find certainty isn’t it? A…
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Day 13: taking stock of ten things I love
Day 13 of the Health Activist Writer’s Monthly Challenge, and an opportunity to write about the ten things I simply couldn’t live without. The things I have chosen may not be essential to my survival were I marooned on a desert island, but together these things are the very stuff of my life as I know it. Some are indeed the things I would rush to save were my house on fire, bringing to mind an old column by the late Erma Bombeck about what’s important to us beyond people, pets, and pictures. The telephone: not necessarily my very “smart” iPhone … an old rotary dial will do. I was telling my best…
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Day 11: “When the healing has begun”
For Day 11 of the WEGO Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge I am imagining the perfect theme song for my blog. What song would I like to hear when I open my blog page every day? Given where I’m from and the fact that I spent most of my lunch money on albums, I think my theme song could only be something by Belfast’s own Van Morrison. Perhaps something upbeat like “Brown Eyed Girl” which I sang to my green-eyed girl when she was a toddler, or the downright jaunty “Bright Side of the Road,” which always made me think of the terraced house I lived in off Sunnyside Street in Belfast during…
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For my 16 year old self …
Given what I know now, what would I say to to the girl I used to be? Would I give her advice? Comfort? Truth? Would I tell her that family matters, health matters, that she matters most? I imagine there would be some of this: Lessons for the Girl I Used to Be … It’s impossible to imagine, but you and your friends will soon go your separate ways, to different universities in different parts of the country. As you know by now, my darling girl, you’re going to decide against reading English at Stirling University in Scotland. You’ll wonder about that decision in years to come. You’ll wonder what…
