The Power of Writing and Dreaming in Giving a Voice to the Unspoken Self

With the other side almost in reach I approach carefully hoping to sneak them out. But what if instead I toss my words over the border, or what if I shout them out for everyone to hear. What would those words be, what message do I have that is so important, so urgent, so necessary and so powerful that I would risk my life for it. Do I have anything THAT important to say.

Fear, writing and chocolate

I hear a murmuring of internal angst. A rumbling and grumbling within me. I feel a bit shirty and annoyed. I want chocolate, surely that will help, or maybe a glass of wine, or even better, both. But why, what is wrong and what is really happening. I stop for a moment and I see. …

Coming Clean About My Relationship with Self-Help Books

I walked into a bookshop a few weeks ago and headed towards the self-help section. I didn’t go straight there, even though from the outset that was my intention. I guess I still feel a little awkward about it, about this urge I have to read self-help books. By browsing through the self-help section I …

My Mum’s Death: An excerpt from my manuscript

Last week was the fifth anniversary of my mum’s death. And to mark it I submitted my manuscript, Sitting By my Mother's Bedside, to a publisher. (I also cried a bit, bought some flowers and lit a candle and ate some chocolate. But this post is about my manuscript, not the other stuff.) I was …

The date slipped by without my noticing

I knew it was coming up, after all it's a date I know so well. But I realised today it had passed me by without my noticing. Quietly without outward acknowledgement or comment. The date of my mum’s stroke  five years ago. The 13th  of August. How did I miss it. As soon as I realise I come up with excuses, I’ve had a cold, I didn’t write the date- but even yesterday on the 14th, I did write the date, and it still did not occur to me. So is this date losing significance, I am not sure about that, I hope not. Did my body remember, perhaps, the episode I had on Sunday was debilitating and left me on the couch for hours. It’s a date I remember, a day very clear. On the 13th of August 2012 I had the last phone conversation ever with my mum. I spoke to her in the morning with no idea that by midnight she would be in hospital. So the date also marks for me the last time I felt free from grief. For me this date marks of the start of a mourning process I go through each year. A period of firsts and lasts, of loss and grief, of hope and sorrow. The time from my Mum's stroke to her death two months later. This year, this time also coincides with the completion of my manuscript which is on this very topic, across this very time frame. Continued...