Is yours the skin of a rhinoceros through which no harsh words can penetrate? Are you clad in waterproof feathers, the ones that adorn a duck’s back, so that criticism rolls from you, leaving you unaffected, rather than disaffected? Do you have a certain kinship with that thin film of Teflon on my frying pan, … Continue reading Sticks and Stones
When I am on my own for too long, I crave company. Then, when I get to spend time with people, I sometimes want to sit quietly and not talk too much. Companionable silence isn't to everyone’s taste, but it’s worth giving pause, mid-conversation, to check oneself and to assess, as my friend N. used … Continue reading The Mad Ones
My husband used to say, “we are all ethnic somewhere.” It is a true and wise leveller. Another favourite line of his, in response to someone asking him, “Where is that accent from?” was to bounce back in his soft, mellifluous Canadian tones, “What accent? I don't have an accent, you’re the one with the … Continue reading Everyone Has An Accent
“It was Christmas Eve babe In the drunk tank An old man said to me, won't see another one And then he sang a song The Rare Old Mountain Dew I turned my face away And dreamed about you” (Fairytale of New York, The Pogues) “Is anyone going to help me peel this bottomless bag … Continue reading Can’t Make It All Alone
Auden, Barrett-Browning, Cope, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, Gallagher, Heaney, Ibsen, Jamie, Kinnell, Larkin, Mahon, Neruda, Owen, Plath, Qabbani, Rossetti, St Vincent Millay, Thomas, Updike, Vaughan, Wordsworth, Xenokleides, Yeats, Zephaniah. Who is your favourite? Feel free to reach beyond the 26 I’ve offered you; I was just playing the alphabet game, and, in doing so, left out … Continue reading Advent
The things you learn at school set hard like concrete. You don't know they’re buried deep in your brain, until something is said and all of a sudden - pow! - like cracking through the earth and tapping the well, out pour words or songs or facts; pure springs of knowledge you’d forgotten you knew. So … Continue reading Let Me Count The Ways
I’ve just come across an online reference to a conference that took place in Glasgow a few months ago. It was called ‘Everyday Compassion: Supportive responses to dying and bereavement by schools, neighbourhoods and workplaces.’ I didn’t read much more, but I was interested in the fact that there had been such a conference as … Continue reading Everyday Compassion
The desk at which W.S. Graham wrote his poems has found a home in Edinburgh’s Poetry Library. His chair too, though the seat has been put away somewhere, “for the time being,”the man told me. More suitably described, I think, as a table, it looks like something from a farmyard kitchen as opposed to a study. It’s … Continue reading Wheesht
“I just don't get it. Never did. Does nothing for me. Can’t read it, can't write it, can't understand it.” J. and I were out on the dock with his guitar, singing; exchanging songs, old and new, and in between times we’d chat about this and that. ‘This’ was why I liked to write, and … Continue reading Lyrics of Life
It’s year two of living alone, for the first time in 10 years or so. I had no nervousness about it. Not from the point of view of feeling vulnerable, or frightened by things that go bump in the night. Being on my own in a house has never bothered me. The main thing that … Continue reading Linked Together
My Edinburgh Press 