Darkness, damp nature, gnarled old trees. I'm no witch, but looking into this leafy pool, I fall under its spell. Then down onto the woody undergrowth with me. And the power of the place, the magic! The more I travel with no agenda, the more the lens captures what I'm feeling and living through. Freedom, unfailing resistance, and the . . .
Ripening
Six weeks have passed and I am still fairly house bound. At this stage I am crawling the four walls, that common form of cabin fever, but I think I am finally on the mend. Over the last few months I have had a stash of ripening seeds under my desk. They are not for planting but for . . .
The grace of the world
Amidst the bizarreness of the current world, I went off as happy as you like to replace my ten year driving licence which had finally expired. It's a funny experience, the Driving Licence Centre, like a cross between going to the doctor and being in custody . You sit in a small booth with a curtain between yourself and the rest of the . . .
Older, bolder and happier
For so many reasons this week I’m feeling grateful for the small things. The new generation of robins in the garden, the golden glow of an Irish autumn day, the roof over my head. Apparently practicing gratitude is fantastic for our mood and older people are especially good at it. In every study on happiness it is older people who come out on . . .
Where the light gets in
In our house, it was common enough to find girls lying down in dark rooms listening to poetry sung by an older, Canadian man. My own battered copy of Songs of Leonard Cohen, with the sad face on the front, would throb away, the soundtrack to my homework, so annoying to my father. Leonard Moan he called him We girls hid our records and . . .
Late bloomer
There's an exquisite late blooming iris outside my window. It catches the precious dewey light and as everything around it is dying back, grabs the spotlight at any time of day. It's a quiet reminder that not only is it never too late, but later might even be better. It is food for the soul of any late . . .
Resilience
Everyone has their place in the family. Mother, father, child. It all starts there. Our memories, our emotions and our dreams are formed early on and whether we were basking in love or surviving trauma, these days of our lives stay with us forever. One of the joys of my life was growing up the eldest of 4 girls. I still remember each of my . . .
Girls
"I think of when I was in high school in the 1940s: the white girls got their hair crinkled up by chemicals and heat so it would curl, and the black girls got their hair mashed flat by chemicals and heat so it wouldn’t curl. Home perms hadn’t been invented yet, and a lot of kids couldn’t afford these expensive treatments, so they were . . .
The Sea Horse
"As a conscious act, we document our inner and outer selves, meticulously curating the facets of our existence, both the painful and the triumphant, that we wish to leave behind in the world. And from these archives we hope that others can learn – to look inside themselves, to reconsider their stereotypes of those around them, to remind . . .
Pushing up daisies
Old graveyards can be places of great wild beauty. This one, St. Mary's Church of Ireland in Dungarvan, County Waterford, fronts onto the shoreline and is blanketed in wildflowers. Did some one with an eye for eco-design create such a beautiful tranquil meadow? Over time the graves here have become one duvet of daisies. Modern . . .
