Happy Mother’s Day

Posted on 03/04/2011 by inktuition

Happy Mother's Day.

I was woken far too early this morning by my bouncy seven-year old daughter, desperate for me to open my Mother’s Day cards and presents. While I wanted a lie-in, it felt exquisite to feel so loved and remembered. I felt special.

A couple of days before, I had debated whether to send my own mother a card; debated, because she has dementia and denies ever having had children, and wouldn’t know who the card was from anyway.

My daughter said to me: “Will she remember us?” I said: “No, but Continue reading →

The beauty of book club

Posted on 18/03/2011 by inktuition

It’s taken me years to find a Book Club: through lack of time or opportunity, I’d always listened wistfully to friends who were reading a book specifically to discuss with their avid-reader friends. For me, it’s a total pleasure to read a book for fun, and discuss it with gusto, rather than have to analyse its narrative arc, the effectiveness of the dialogue, or the nuances of tone, structure or symbolic architecture.

While I do enjoy the detailed and technical analysis of a novel (I’m studying for a creative writing MA, after all), there’s a freedom, purity and bliss in just discussing what I liked and didn’t like about a book. Looking too closely at a book can show the seams, whereas tonight I’ll be enjoying the entire garment.

The listening way to tie up loose ends

Posted on 15/03/2011 by inktuition

Can we ever tie up loose ends?

I had my first ending last night.

I’m no good at sewing. But I like my ends sewn up. Which is why I’ve been intrigued by my inability to tie up loose ends, and my simultaneous detestation of them. Yet those ends tend to dangle in my life.

I’ve lost my dad to cancer, my mother to dementia, and my sister to fraud. Hey, I could win hands-down the Derby of Suffering, and the Grand National of Loss.

But I have never properly or consciously managed an ending. Until today. Continue reading →

Finding synchronicity in a singing stuffed toy

Posted on 10/03/2011 by inktuition

I found synchronicity in a singing teddy bear yesterday.

Bear with me (if you’ll pardon the pun!) One of my daughter’s teddies fell out of bed yesterday morning and set off his inner melody, singing some unrecognisable but cute ditty. Anyway, this teddy must have fallen awkwardly onto his foot (where the music mechanism is activated) and the singing just wouldn’t stop. He was still singing after breakfast… after we got dressed and brushed our teeth… after I’d come home after dropping her off at school. The singing turned into whining, but Continue reading →

Happy Festa della Donna

Posted on 08/03/2011 by inktuition

My memories of International Women’s Day – in Italy 20 years ago – were of a huge party for every woman in the country, from the youngest to the oldest. Restaurants were packed with generations of women, and nightclubs had ladies-only nights (though the romeos, typically, managed to sneak in, as it was too good an opportunity to miss).

Mimosa symbolises strength and femininity.

Everyone gave each other Mimosa – which, for me, symbolises freshness, Spring, hope and vibrancy – and celebrated female company. While I appreciate that International Women’s Day is a reminder of how far we’ve come – and how far women have to go, in terms of beating sexism in the workplace and in their personal lives, and in closing the gender pay gap – for today, here’s to a happy Festa della Donna.

The benefits of a meaningful spring clean

Posted on 06/03/2011 by inktuition

I’ve spent most of the weekend spring cleaning my house. To the unfamiliar eye, my house probably looks no different. But with the dust busted, the cobwebs cleared, the limescale zapped, and the clutter either recycled or allocated a new, meaningful slot, the house feels friendly, fresh, free.

My pristine worktops shine with pride. The kitchen sink, scrubbed and steely, harbours no more stuck little secrets. My upstairs windows stayed open all day, even with a temperature of six degrees outside, and the breaths of benign wind have Continue reading →

Why are some school mums so sweetly spiteful?

Posted on 04/03/2011 by inktuition

There’s a mum at my daughter’s primary school who went to the very same school when she was a little girl. She swaggers across the playground as if she owns it, and acts as though she’s the arbiter of everything and anyone who is right and proper at the school.

In the beginning, I was beguiled: she acted as a confidante, looked after my daughter after school, on occasion, invited me round for hot chocolate at her house, and shared her own little marriage challenges. It took me a while to realise that Continue reading →

Why I’m joining the Post A Day 2011 challenge

Posted on 03/03/2011 by inktuition

There are three reasons why I’ve joined WordPress Post A Day 2011. And gone public with it.

1. To conquer ambivalence

A few years ago, before the economy got into trouble, I was having trouble selling my house. People were coming round to visit it, but not with any enthusiasm or conviction (aside from the oohs and aahs over my lovely original painting hanging in the hallway that I seriously didn’t want anyone touching – least of all househunting strangers with greasy fingertips). I couldn’t understand why no-one was biting. Then a friend of mine told me to Continue reading →

Listen with your eyes

Posted on 21/10/2010 by inktuition

A photographer caught my soul today – even without his camera lens.

Listen with your eyes (istockphoto)

I had arrived at a breakfast meeting this morning feeling out of sorts. Much as I’d like to blame London Transport for not putting on enough Tubes, the source of my unease had been an unwelcome and unwieldy, claustrophobically uncomfortable hatred of other people. Hatred may be a strong word, but it’s certainly in context when it comes to considering the insidious anxiety that fills the commuter-me: the angry individual whose boundaries have been invaded by too little space, too little time, and too little patience

What is it about the London Underground that triggers an uber-survival urge to oust any object that gets in its way (human, animal, vegetable or mineral?) There is something about a closing Tube door that symbolizes rejection, frustration, abandonment: being too late; being too uptight; not being good enough. Continue reading →

Who cares what people think?

Posted on 24/02/2010 by inktuition

For years, I have carried a motivating phrase with me. I put it in the opening page of my diary – so I had to look at it every day – but I’ve never truly understood what it meant, or known whether I could ever live and breathe it. It was an ideal that ‘one day’ I though I would reach.

The quote is from Anne Dickson, author of the fabulous book A Woman in Your Own Right, and it comes from a mini manual, A Book of Your Own, that gives thoughts and inspiration for every day of the year

She wrote: “It is impossible to be creative with your life and worry about Continue reading →

inktuition

writing my life and soul

Category Archives: authentic self