Debunking the Glorification of Leaving and the Fallacy of a 'Before' and 'After' Narrative So many of you read and reached out to a piece I wrote while in hotel quarantine about why I made the decision to quit a “good” job in a pandemic and move my life without any sort of flotation device… Continue reading In Praise of Staying
For more pieces like this one, sign up to my weekly newsletter, The Earnest Spoon, here. I am dancing to Alex Cameron in my once-pristine hotel room. It is still clean – I am not a gremlin – but the floor, once vacuumed to the point of appearing more leather than carpet, bears witness to… Continue reading I am dancing to Alex Cameron in my once-pristine hotel room
UPDATED, SEPTEMBER 16th: Following yesterday's announcement, I've attached a new letter to send to TDs and relevant ministers about the government's decision to take in a grand total of FOUR unaccompanied minors. FOUR. COpy and paste from below to show that IRELAND WELCOMES REFUGEES. Subject: Unacceptable Response to Lesvos Crisis - Ireland Must Welcome Refugees… Continue reading Further love letters to MEPs and TDs about deteriorating crisis on Lesvos/Calais
The desolate car park of the BP gas station on the outskirts of Calais is almost unrecognisable. What once was a place for refugees to gather to avail of the NGO services operating in the area has, overnight and thanks to the latest police eviction, become a new refugee settlement; yet another fragmented spin-off of… Continue reading Fed up and Frustrated: What the “migrant crisis” really looks like in Calais
Back to the clunk of a keyboard once again, frenetic tapping, pregnant pauses of navel-gazing, middle-distance staring. Back to trying to write myself out - or perhaps write myself in. Rue Darnel, Calais, Wednesday, 18:19. Sirens. Sitting out the window, legs dangling. Skin crunchy with sea-swim, sweat, an unfaltering failure on my part to moisturise.… Continue reading 18:19 on Rue Darnel.
Dear Reader, I'm going to endeavour to keep this short because it's Christmas and most reading this are too hungover, frazzled, and marinated in mulled wine and the repressed wrath only once-a-year family reunions can ignite to read more than is absolutely necessary. I assure you, this is absolutely necessary. Christmas is, in my opinion,… Continue reading Writing for rights and writing wrongs this December
Sometimes I am so sickened by the sound of my voice I never want to write, speak, glass-shatteringly sing another word again. Other times I send 16 minute voice messages with only the tiniest shred of self-respect shaming me into a quick 'ok sorry for the spiel - byeeeeee'. Right now, I am in the… Continue reading A whine on opining from yet another white girl with a blog and entitlement
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the more your life crumbles around you, the more amusing it is to the wider populus. Due to some interest in an Instagram story documenting a pasta-induced delirium, exacerbated by an inflated ego, I have decided my first new post should not be the insightful, considerate, thought-provoking, earnest… Continue reading Ordeals and Are You For Reals: Sponsored by Aircoach Customer Service
In the midst of bleak January, five adult children and their two childlike parents packed themselves into two cars, packed all of their belongings into one suitcase and seven bursting ‘knapsacks’* and jetted off for some sunny R&R. Here’s a relatively accurate account of our travels, filled with artistic licence and a flair for the satirical.
The waves tumble forward - as waves tend to do - the rocks roll back then root themselves in sunken grandeur they are the splendour of the sand lineaments of lineage forgotten yet remembered in the imprint of our footprints. Press, sink, root, rise rhythm of these tides and tied-up feet interlaced I watch the… Continue reading Long Strand
