I’ve read some great books lately, and they haven’t been for grown-ups. Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon, about a teenage girl with a life-threatening illness cosseted away from the world by her grieving mother; The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas – I couldn’t put it down – about a young girl who witnessed a […]
Play
I tried something different the other day and went to a mosaic class. It’s an art form that had never been on my radar before; or so I thought. Now I see that I’m always looking at pretty patterns and tiles, and so have been appreciating mosaics all along. Anyway – another lesson on creativity […]
Gloop
I’m stuck in a tornado of foul weather at the moment. Wexford is sunny, mostly, the eucalyptus trees still sway jauntily beside the wooden deck where I have my coffee every morning. The flowers are still in full bloom, their vibrant colour a solid example of how beautiful the world can be. But boy do […]
Relationship advice
When I was in my twenties and early thirties I put a lot of pressure on every relationship I had. Through the fogginess of dodgy mental health and a sense of direction that twisted to the rhythm of whims which came thick and fast, often with no sense and a bewildering plurality of intent (neuroscientist, […]
Lines
I’ve written here before that I try to modulate my turn of phrase with my children, as per parenting advice of the day – or really, just common sense if I want to keep my kids out of therapy when they are older. So, if the situation calls for it, I say ‘that’s naughty behaviour’ […]
Reading aloud
I was talking to my sister last night. We were both voracious readers as children, my sister to the point she used to rob books from the library. She’s shaking her head now as I tell her I’m writing this – why would she steal books from a library? We can’t remember. She feels terrible […]
Russian dolls
Walking up the hill from the beach this morning, negotiating with the three tiny terrorists about whether or not they would be allowed to ever buy another toy at Lawlor’s and whether or not I would ever be allowed to buy a toy at Lawlor’s because everybody had tantrums again this morning, including me, I […]
Everyone else is already taken
Another outcome of meditating regularly is that it makes it impossible to be anyone else but yourself. Or it’s getting older. I concede it could be either. I find it to be an enormous relief anyway, because I’ve spent much of my life attempting to be someone else. Someone light-hearted, outgoing. Up for a laugh. […]
Recommitment
Lately I’ve been disliking meditation intensely. I’ve been doing it anyway, but I’ve developed a feeling that there is no point to it. No endgame. I’ve been putting off doing it in the morning, trying to squeeze it in later in the day. Come evening, a glass of wine has been far more alluring than […]
The X-files
Today I came across the term ‘emotional bandwidth’. Jessica Grose wrote a piece in the New York Times parenting magazine about why she is resisting having a third child. She has reached her limits with two. Everyone, she posits, has a different emotional bandwidth when it comes to raising children. How she puts it: In […]