Ruth Writes

A room of one’s own

Get these posts by email. Sign up here

  • Disability, or defeat.

    Something has happened to me over the past few months.  I seem to have gone from living in denial about having MS, to letting it cloud everything that I do.  I remember distinctly the day I was told I had it.  I stood at the front door about to put the key in the lock,…

  • Coming to terms with mortality

    Reading a superficial article the other day, I came across a surprisingly th0ught-provoking comment.  It was an interview with Julieanne Moore, and in it she claimed the reason that she was so at ease with getting older was because she had accepted that one day she was going to die.  I find that comment nigh…

  • Leave no trace.

    I’m a terrible one for prematurely tidying  away things.  Sadly ‘tidying away’ can often mean throwing out.  There have been times when I’ve been practically head-first in the recycle bin retrieving something I just realised was actually important.   The worst one by far was my ill-judged decision to wipe out the entire written record of…

  • Writing the bad, reaping the good.

    I have a stone sitting on my kitchen window-sill with my name on it.  Most days I don’t even to stop to recognise it, and I suppose most days I forget that it tells me who I am – I am more than ‘mummy’, I am more than a weary housewife or a guilt-ridden family…

  • Little heroes

    I first realised the capacity for heroism in children when I was nine years old.  After years of terrorist threats to his and his family’s life, my dad was forced to take us all away from our home to a safe and secret place.  All of a sudden what was known and certain crumbled, and…

  • Another seasonal challenge

    I can’t believe that after all my spouting about new pencil cases back in September, it’s taken the new year to bring me back here.  I wonder how many people have dreams of writing as I do and then are too uncertain to begin.  It’s all about putting something, anything down, but if you’ve got…

  • Brand new pencil-case

    It’s that time of year – school’s back, leaves are falling, wasps are frantic and the sun has grudgingly decided it’s time to come out.  Going to get my wee boy’s first pair of shoes yesterday gave me that September feeling, and just like I used to get a new pencil-case every year for school,…