“Basically you’ve run away.” The words slipped out, loosened by the Burns Night whisky; I called it Talisker-tongue. I immediately feared that branding her a runaway may not have been the most sensitive thing to say, but S. didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, she giggled delightedly. “Yes, I suppose you could say that, … Continue reading Runaway
Wrap your hand around the pen, put your pen on the paper, begin to make marks on the page, and keep on going. Lace up your trainers, walk out the door, put one foot in front of the other, and keep moving. One helps me figure; the other helps my figure. Suffice to say that … Continue reading Night Running
To pursue whatever you set your mind to with the joy of a six year-old child: that’s said to be how we should seek to live. This supposes that every six-year old child embraces all of life joyfully, which they probably don’t, as personality and nature come into play. Largely, though, small children do seem … Continue reading Innocence
It was either Elsa or Anna (I should know which) who implored us to, ‘Let it go’, as she belted her message out, Disney style. And why not take advice from a cartoon character when the conventional leadership and global governance of the day plays out like a poorly scripted soap opera? We may take … Continue reading The Year Is Going, Let Him Go
He had a coffee; I had Earl Grey. His was frothy and a bit cold, he told me; mine was too hot, so I blew on it, not that it made a whit of difference. “From England? You’re walking the whole way from the North of England to Santiago?” “Yes. The one in Spain, … Continue reading There’s a Hole in my Bucket
Choice: it is, perhaps, the single, most important determinant in how our lives turn out; in how we plough a furrow through this world. Yes, some people, often through fate of birth, are born to a life of enhanced opportunity with an array of choices before them, whilst others are born into a ready-made obstacle … Continue reading I May, I Might, I Must
I am of the generation where we ‘backed’ our books at the start of each new school year. Dog-eared and a bit tattered from use the year before (in fact, use over multiple years), a growing pile would be distributed by the teacher in September, leaning like the Tower of Pisa, in preparation for ten … Continue reading Change
“When we lose that sense of the possible, we lose it fast.” Joan Didion, Blue Nights. I understand what she’s saying. For me it’s like the tide coming in on a sandcastle: one minute it is standing firm and the next its foundations have been eaten away and down it goes in one a lurching collapse. … Continue reading Possibility
No matter how much I cull my packing when I go on holiday, I always bring too much. I’m getting better, but I am slow to learn that three weeks away does not mean three times the clothes; really it doesn’t (emphasis for my own sake). And, since I’ve been abroad, not once have I thought, … Continue reading Attachment
The first immigrant to enter the United States through Ellis Island was Annie Moore in 1892. She was from Ireland and she was 15 years old. Imagine it: sailing into the unknown from the rural simplicity, safety, familiarity and poverty of Ireland, and arriving to the sight of that enormous symbol of hope and freedom: the … Continue reading Annie Moore
