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on my mother’s birthday
Old Smoothing Iron by Seamus Heaney Often I watched her lift it from where its compact wedge rode the back of the stove like a tug at achor. To test its heat by ear she spat in its iron face or held it up next her cheek to divine the stored danger. Soft thumps on the ironing board. Her dimpled angled elbow and intent stoop as she aimed the smoothing iron like a plane into linen like the resentment of women To work, her dumb lunge says, is to move a certain mass through a certain distance, is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it. Feel…
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A Capitol Offense
No matter how much I zoom in, I barely recognize the woman in the blue suit standing in front of the nation’s Capitol. Who is she? Who was she? It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again. It turned out I wasn’t alone in that particular progression.” Anna Quindlen on approaching 60 No, as it turns out, Anna Quindlen was not alone. Once…
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Apartheid, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, Death and dying, From the Republic of Conscience, Funerals, Human Rights, Loss, Nelson Mandela, Northern Ireland, Politics, saying goodbye, Seamus Heaney, Soundtracks of our Lives, The Cure at Troy, Themes of Childhood, Writing
Dear Nelson Mandela
I believe in Nelson Mandela’s vision. I believe in a vision shared by Gandhi and King and Abraham Lincoln. I believe in a vision of equality, justice, freedom and multi-racial democracy, built on the premise that all people are created equal. - Barack Obama
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Dolly Parton, Ireland, Jeannie C. Riley, Movies, Nell McCafferty, Northern Ireland, Sexism, The Troubles
The Supreme Court . . . the Harper Valley PTA
Most Americans believe the decision to have a child is one of the most sacred decisions there is, and that such decisions should remain between patients and their doctors. Today’s Supreme Court opinion will live in infamy as a step backward for women’s rights and human rights. ~ Hillary Clinton, June 24 2022 The headline in newspapers around the world today – including The Irish Times – is some version of this: Roe v Wade: “US supreme court strikes down abortion rights – Biden says decision to overturn 1973 ruling ‘taking the country back 150 years.” Four years ago, the Irish national paper was focused on a different story, when…
