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After death of a spouse, Animals, Arizona Humane Society, Best friends, Dog Rescue, Dogs, Friendship, Love, Mary Oliver, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Rites of passage, Themes of Childhood, Van Morrison
dog days ~ an emotional rescue
Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when I am contemplating all that has happened in the past couple of years, I find myself wanting to be reassured that as his fragile heart stopped working, Ken's last interaction on this earth was tender, with three pounds of unconditional love curled up like a comma on his chest.
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Act Two, Castledawson, Family, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Mother's Day, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Poetry, Rites of passage, Rituals, Seamus Heaney
a mother’s day dance
This Mother’s Day weekend in America finds me thinking about my mother back in Castledawson, County Derry, a great armful of sheets rescued from the clothes-line before the rain begins to fall. Then, the folding, a precise ritual, my father her partner in a dance handed down from one generation to the next. My daughter learned those same moves not by the ironing board in my mother’s kitchen, but on the sandy edges of California before the fog rolled in on an August evening. Facing each other, a blue blanket stretched between us, she stepped towards me, intent on matching her corners to mine, my edge to hers. In the middle we met to make…
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favorite teacher, Frank O'Connor, Great teachers, Memoir, Mr. Jones, Music, Short Stories, Teacher Appreciation Week, Teaching, Themes of childhood
dear teacher . . .
There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher. This week, I know I will not be the only one to invoke Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides. All over America, during Teacher Appreciation Week, we honor teachers and their craft with public fanfare and more personal gestures as well. It’s the time of year when some teachers are counting down the days until school’s out for summer, while others are figuring out how to make every instructional minute matter until the final bell…
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Anne Lamotte, Arizona, Awesome Women, Belfast, Blogging, Creative Non-Fiction, Culture of breast cancer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Irish Diaspora, Joan Didion, Memoir, New widowhood, Northern Ireland Culture, Paula Meehan, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Van Morrison
me. the live tour.
Anyone who reads this blog knows I consider it a home away from home, a safe place to fall where I can put my feet up, have a beer, and listen to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers all day long if I feel like it. I don’t have to keep it clean. I don’t have to check the mail – I don’t even have to open the mail. If I don’t feel like company, I don’t have to answer the door. If I want to throw a party, I can invite people from all over the world. If I want to be alone with deep, angsty thoughts the way I did a million years ago,…
