The first gun was leveled at us as soon as we crossed the border. It was 1986, and although the country was yet to be declared a failed state, Somalia was no backpackers’ paradise.

So much of our lives depends on choices of character, faith, and tradition made by people who happen to be nearby when we need them. This story tells what I learned about death, specifically my own.

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It’s the winter solstice and I’m high on Scottish moors, transfixed by the ever-changing light on this stormy day. It’s the weather of alerts and advisories, the season for unsettled conditions and wide-ranging disruption.

This story includes a poem called For Light, by John O’Donohue. You can find it in his collected works, To Bless the Space Between Us.

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This story begins with a picture I took at a Copenhagen art gallery last week. The fire alarm had gone off, and the Sunday crowd had evacuated in a rush leaving the white cupboard doors of the locker room randomly ajar.

The numbers on the doors, the keys in the locks made me think about the years I've lived through, and those still to come.

The story references my post The Genius of Bold Beginnings, so click the link to check that out. And while you're there -- sign up to become a free or paid subscriber so you don’t miss out future stories!

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I’m back in Copenhagen, a city of varied and famous walking opportunities. One of my favorites is a hidden gem close to where I stay when I’m here.

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I haven’t been able to write for the past couple of weeks. There has been an explosion, and I find myself in a landscape that makes no sense, surrounded by fragments that feel familiar yet I can’t see how to fit them back together.

I seem to have lost access to my words.

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Working extra shifts as a young hospital nurse, I was making beds with an older nurse whose Jamaican-South London accent identified her as a first-generation immigrant.

She asked where I was from. I described my father’s Kenyan origins and my mother’s roots in Scotland where I was born and raised. The nurse spat, “Tssh—so, you don’ belong to nobody!”

It’s been forty years, yet I remember it, sharp as the slip of a knife.

A story about race, migration, and belonging.

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I picked the last of the late summer blooms just before the first frost. Plump-cheeked dahlias and frilly, lace-cap hydrangeas. The late afternoon sun shone through them, amber and rose.

The fennel flowers have lost their yellow brightness and droop dramatically next to sprigs of lavender that retain their calm composure. I try to catch their scent as I listen to the silence whispering its way under a deep, deep ocean.

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My son is taking an extended trip and the weeks before he left were a logistical whirlwind. Parents of newly-fledged adults can probably relate except my son isn’t taking a vacation. Mac is a U.S. Marine and this is his first deployment.

His brother is also a Marine, and he’s stationed thousands of miles away too. It’s not what I expected from my life as an artsy, peace-loving, British transplant. What happened to make my sweet babies aspire to be like the gun-toting, camo-clad meatheads of the movies?

This essay is dedicated to all the Military Moms:

Wherever you are, I know whose side you’re on and I send you love. May your gods bless you kindly. 🕊️

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It was Halloween this week, and I’m glad I’m away from town and have missed it. My biggest issue with modern Halloween is the fake suffering and over-blown gore sold as entertainment.

If Halloween was once a festival to ward off evil spirits, it has become a horror show where we join the cast and revel in the unholy mayhem. When did it all become so blood-thirsty?

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It has been a tough week. I’ve been attempting to buy a cheap car with enough oomph in the engine, and enough miles left on the clock, to get me around Scotland for the next year or so.

It doesn’t have to be pretty as long as it’s reliable and easy to fix. As an older woman shopping alone, I wish the same for the buying process.

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