I am just back from a brave week of open water swimming in the waters of the La Maddalena Archipelago, off the north-east coast of Sardinia. Brave because it’s the end of summer – indeed early autumn (we had three days of wind & rain, and four days of decent – albeit windy sunshine) Brave […]
Long Live Live Music
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash One of the phrases that I hear, and that I use myself, in my still new, post-loss world, is “this life of after”. It’s a phrase that gets used a lot in the COVID context too. “After COVID…” or “When COVID is over…” And of course, some people are […]
From “What’s wrong?” to “What’s possible?”
Image by Leonardo Santamaria for NPR Confession: I have no idea where this piece of writing will go. Another confession: That happens quite often with these blogposts, though for sure much of my writing comes from a specific incident that has stood out during my week. Other times I latch onto a song, a poem, […]
Sliced and Diced and Cored
Main Photo by Nikolai Chernichenko on Unsplash I have written quite a bit about my challenging relationship with Death Admin. That I despise it. That it’s painful. That it takes too much time and energy and money. That it is prone to make me cry bitter, angry and hurting tears. And that most of all, […]
Life, After
Images from internet searches for Netflix’s “After Life” Sometime after Mike died – perhaps a matter of months – Megan came to me and said, “Muuuuum – my Netflix account isn’t working”. It’s possible that I said, “What’s Netflix?”, but I don’t think I was living under a rock to quite that degree. But I […]
Dying to Live or Living to Die?
Photo by Juliana Malta on Unsplash This is my 53rd piece for Soaring Spirits which means I have been writing for a year. My gentlest year in five years. I wanted so much to be able to write that there had not been another death in my close entourage, by which I mean, the death […]
Love Threading Through My Week
Today’s – no – this week’s – topic is Love. As I sit and reflect on what to write about, as with last week, there seems to be lots of different topics. All interesting at some level, but not “enough” to make a blog post out of. So my next question is, “what connects them?” […]
A Week’s Ramblings
Featured photo my own – Metro sign in Paris 17 August 2020 I could write about five or more different topics this morning. Or none. The five feel valid but somewhat anecdotal. A bit light. And yet they are not. Not a lot is light in my life. Which is okay. And there is lightness. […]
A letter of encouragement to my Widbuds
All photos my own, taken this week in the French Pyrenees I could write tons of letters of encouragement to my Widbuds, or indeed Grieflings of any fragrance or flavour. Whether it’s about putting one foot in front of the other; trusting that one heartbeat or breath will follow another; finding the wherewithal to write […]
Nice enough. Just not “right”
View of “Le Canigou” – the Pyrenees’ highest mountain – from my parents’ house, after a summer storm 3 August 2020 We have been on holiday now for a “fat” week. “We” is Megan, Ben, Medjool and me. A “fat” week is 10 days. The first 7 days were spent in the Camargue, a beautifully […]
Let me see where Mike is at
On Friday, a couple of days ago, some dear friends, Trisha, Angus & Isobel from London, came to stay for he evening/night before heading into the Swiss Alps for some summer holiday mountain respite. Dear friends to me, to Mike, and to each of our kids, all of whom were born after our friendship began […]
Grief Maths
Main ArtWork by Angela Franklin, Grief Will Teach You Math, When You Subtract One (2019) https://demifgallery.com/artworks/9478-angela-franklin-grief-will-teach-you-math-when-you-subtract-2019/ I am no mathematician. I was pretty weak at maths at school, and given the option of having 7 or 8 hours of maths a week vs 3 or 4 hours in my final two years, it was […]