Tag: love
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Unparenting
What if they don’t live? Do the safety briefing. Let them go. I wrote those words just there back in 2016. It was the first time myself, friends and my husband were really discussing the questions and logistics around a bigger question; What if I give my kid a freedom/responsibility – because they’re growing up…
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Skip Ad (Nauseam)
My recent free-spree from social media had been going really well right up until yesterday when I tried to pat myself on the back for dealing with my Twitter addiction then realised I couldn’t because my hands were gripping my phone, facilitating my new addiction to YouTube. In my defence, can I bring your attention…
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Picture It
It’s my son’s nineteenth birthday today. We sat on the sofa last night as he opened presents, one of which was a book of routes up Scottish mountains, and he said he’d recently stood in Glasgow bus station and felt the west coast wind rush at him, willing him to get on the waiting bus…
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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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52and40/26 Out of the Blue
My daughter tells me she learned at school there hasn’t been a May as dry as this in Scotland since before I was born in 1976. It seems we picked a lucky time for digging a new border in the garden and moving plants around to fill it up. It’s become habit, to go out between…
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52and40/23 The Selfsame Well
A friend died recently. She was my writing teacher first (and my first writing teacher). I can trace roads from everything I’ve had published in the last two years to Helen, her guidance at every way-marker. Even with this map I’m disorientated; floundering in comprehending such a special woman being gone. In grief, all roads lead inevitably to my Mum.…
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52and40/14 Benediction
We saw Collateral Beauty. The film whisked me back ten years to a hell of a week. Mum had been admitted to hospital in Aberdeen with a DVT. My son had his sixth birthday party. I hadn’t organised a thing for Halloween. The morning after cobbled together trick or treating, Mum called from hospital and gently explained…