-
9/11, Anything can Happen, Being young, Belfast, bombing, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Heartbreak Beat, Northern Ireland, Paris Attack, Sectarianism, Soundtracks of our Lives, The Psychedelic Furs, The Troubles, War
Paris – Heartbreak Beat.
“They stopped France when its guard was down,” announces the BBC reporter from a TV in the corner of my house so far away from Paris. Of course they did. I should know by now that a popular concert venue in Paris on a Friday night is not an unexpected place, that there are some for whom Paris is “a legitimate target.” I should know by now not to be shocked that a gunman would fire indiscriminately into one restaurant at the intersection of Rue de Charonne and Rue Faidherbe. And then another. Learning that two explosions were heard outside the Stade de France during the friendly football match between France and Germany, I am reminded of…
-
Breast Cancer Awareness, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Enniskillen, Remembrance Sunday 2015, Wilfred Owen
For Granda on Remembrance Day
My grandfather died on June 22, 1977, a decade before the Enniskillen bombing. Had he been alive, he would have been wearing his suit, with medals and poppy attached to the lapels, not unlike those pensioners gathered respectfully at the Cenotaph where at 10:43am, with chilling choreography, an IRA bomb exploded, killing eleven and wounding 68. Granda never forgot the wars. He made sure I remembered too. Because of Granda, I have always known that “the war to end all wars” ended in 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. He told me so many times on our walks down the Moss Road. At just…
-
After death of a spouse, Being a Widow, Dirty Boulevard, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Lou Reed, magic and loss
Lou Reed and My Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart.
For as long as I can remember, I have known that Holly came from Miami, FLA and hitch-hiked her way across the USA; that little Joe never gave it away; and, that Jackie thought she was James Dean for a day. As young as I was when I first heard Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” I cannot possibly have known what the hustle here and the hustle there was all about. Had I known, I probably wouldn’t have been singing it within earshot of my parents – after all, this was the early 1970s in provincial Northern Ireland. Remembering Lou Reed reminds me of a story Neil Gaiman tells about how he…
-
Blogging, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Treatment, Breast Reconstruction, Cancer Language, Culture of breast cancer, Diagnosis, Early Detection, Language of Cancer, Mammograms, Mastectomy, Pink Ribbon Culture, Pink Ribbons, Sexism, Shopping, Susan G Komen Foundation
a pink ribbon made a blogger out of me
It is October 2015 and we are in the throes of breast cancer awareness. Again. #NoBraDay confirms for me that it is still acceptable to sanitize and sexualize a deadly disease, to glamorize and trivialize it in ways that confound me. Once upon a time – if I’m honest – I probably would have participated in the latest breast cancer awareness gimmick, but then breast cancer got me and sent me searching for answers. I keep coming up empty. Here’s the first thing I wrote about it before my diagnosis four years ago: “My New Pink Ribbon” Nov. 9, 2011 I have shown only a little restraint in not searching every corner…
