Category: Thoughts
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Digging in heaven
Twice this week, I have had an extraordinarily happy time doing something very ordinary. During those two times, I have remembered people who aren’t here any more, and felt closer to them. What was I doing that created this magic? I was gardening. Earlier this week, my mum, my daughter and I dug in potatoes. …
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The visit (Saiorse cont.)
Saiorse stood and waited to be buzzed in through the clanking metal gates. It was the first time she was old enough to go in herself, and as nobody had ever bothered to take her, it was the first time she had ever been. She smoothed her hair down, checked her clothes, and then thought…
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A torrent of words
As the years go on, and the more self-aware I become, I’m realising that I often give more information than I need to. There comes a point in my accounts of experiences when I should stop, see the glazed look on the listener’s face, and shut up. One sentence too many turns an interesting conversation…
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Fields, Vienetta and moon bases
How can there possibly be a link, I hear you ask. Well, the thing they have in common is a lack of vision. Mine, that is. So, we’re having people round for a Chinese. What to make for dessert, I wonder. Why not Vienetta, my husband asks. First, I shoot the suggestion down in flames,…
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Make it your ambition
Your ambition to what? To be at the top? To have an impressive answer to the question, ‘what do you do?’. The end of the original sentence was a surprise to me, but also a relief. ‘Make it your ambition’, Paul tells me, ‘to lead a quiet life.’ (1st Thessalonians). Not a lazy life,…
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If
If I wasn’t so tired, I would piece all these bits of writing together, and make a novel. If I wasn’t so tired, I would dig over the garden, and plant interesting things. If I wasn’t so tired, I would offer my help to struggling people – make dinners, look after children, visit the house-bound.…
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The cottage
Winter is baring its teeth now. I’m sitting in front of my small turf fire, watching the flames in their feeble fight against a furious wind pushing down the chimney, screaming through the thatch, squeezing under the door. Storms in this part of Ireland are not to be trifled with. It is always a surprise…
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Nothing to fear
It wasn’t just the different language, or the different accent in the different language. Or even the different colour of skin. I still don’t know what started first: my uneasiness, or the way they approached me. They must have seen I was different too – a look of uncertainty, loneliness maybe. It happened a lot…
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The roses are gone.
You can hear her before you see her, which is funny because she’s so deaf now she can barely hear a thing. Work-men come, knock on her door, think she’s out, and leave again. Sometimes a helpful neighbour tells them to knock louder, and then, slowly, the door opens, and a little face peers out. …
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My monster
They say, if you name your fear, you can defeat it. Not sure it’s that easy, and I do wish I was in the “they” all-knowing group, but at this point, I’ll try anything. My monster used to be invisible, dormant, easy to ignore. First, it was because I didn’t know it even existed. I…
Ruth Writes 