Category: 52and40
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52and40/40 No Brief Candle
Burning out and burning bright, my family’s in a Change Rocket, hurtling through spacetime, much outside too blurred to see. I’ve known for years that when the kids started talking futures I’d have to already be in my next chapter, lest I helicopter-parent or self-destruct. I’ve also seen as the kids mature they need, more than…
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52and40/39 Method in the Madness
I’ve been unitasking. I like that this sounds like unicycling but actually involves zero circus fuckery. Unitasking’s simply doing one thing at a time. I can multitask but I make mistakes, get stressed and then there’s frustration about rushing or being a bitch to myself or some poor bystander along the way. So, no more…
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52and40/38 Habit Forming
I read thirteen books this year. I’m happy about re-establishing reading after years of total drought. Some say it takes twenty-one days to form a habit. It’s taken me nearer twenty one months. At first my concentration was so poor I had to read every paragraph repeatedly, forcing myself to put down my phone for twenty…
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52and40/37 White Noise
I love the odd day in Glasgow. As familiarity grows, I’m beginning to link the city up with maps, memories, family folklore and reference points in the past, present and future. I like the break from Edinburgh’s tourism too, when I’m off west. Interactions with people and the pavement feel markedly more real and more easily…
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52and40/36 ‘Tis The Season
My mental health’s gone off kilter recently. As a health-conscious veteran of PMDD, postnatal and antenatal depressions, I know when my neurochemistry’s recalibrated in an unhelpful direction. I’m lucky SSRIs work well for me and I feel positive, mainly, about medical interventions. I like my life in full, balanced colour. So, while the palette reloads, I’m taking…
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52and40/34 Passing Place
My nephew moved in with us a few months ago, all the way from a Pyrenean idyll in the south of France. It’s really interesting seeing someone discover Edinburgh, it reminds me of all the compromises we’ve made along the way as well as the rewards of the move. It’s also interesting living with a…
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52and40/33 Feel The Burn
How is it October? And 2017? And, bloody hell, I’m 41. Anxiety’s a tide inside my flesh. What if I don’t have time to do it all, whatever else ‘it’ might be? Then, eight hours later, zen. My five nights on Raasay were wonderful. Even the fall into a wide burn as if it were…
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52and40/32 The Unforgivable
Combine science with a down-home accent, first class storytelling and an appetite for progress and I’m more invested than a Tory parent at an Oxbridge open day. Professor Brene’ Brown has captivated me in recent years with her research and analysis of human experience and how we might use it better for health, relationships and global…
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52and40/31 On The Fringes
I loved this year’s Edinburgh Festival & Fringe. It felt like mine as well as everyone else’s, for the first time. My annual bout of imposter syndrome somehow didn’t arrive. As my kids start to think of futures outside the city I’ve grown in mindfulness of what we have while we’re here because, as an…
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52and40/30 True Colours
I’ve found so much in the Pentlands since moving to Edinburgh. Beauty and calm, mostly. Birds. Space to walk and run out problems, too. Places to be with the kids, to eat and talk. The city’s wonderful but if I didn’t have something opposite to frame it, I’d appreciate it much less. One 2016 day…
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