Category: Thoughts
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Pink shoe, pygmy shrew
My first memory of it was when I was 7 or 8. Some time before the conversation, I had discovered a little pink shoe washed up on the shore, and thought it was something worth telling people about. One evening, I was listening to my cousins chatting about their discovery of what I thought was…
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Behind the door at no.56
It was an ordinary thing, something they used to do every summer, except for last year. Last year, there was no spring, or summer, or any season at all in fact. Last year, it was all cold and grey, even though the sun shined for everybody else. Nothing shone for them. The days all clumped…
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Alien in the playground
“Hi.” She looks at me, a rabbit caught in headlights, and shakes her head. “Sorry, my English-” “That’s ok. Can you understand – my name is Ruth, what is your name?” I smile, trying not to look as terrifying as she obviously finds me. “Anna. My name is Anna.” After this barrier has been crossed,…
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A sticky situation
So, I think I’ve told you before that, thanks to a neurological flaw, my legs don’t work as they should. I can say this here, I can tell a select few, but my fear of being defined by one humiliating thing mostly stops me from revealing it. Which brings me to my dilemma. Every time…
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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.…
