Life is hard...and amazingly wonderful, so keep an open mind

 I must admit that it feels strange to be back after all this time. I've been going through a 'Dark Night of the Soul' When I left this blog a few months ago my life was in the process of changing dramatically. I anticipated these unwanted changes to be inhibiting my ability to write and so it has been. Many writers find that the location they find themselves in not only influences how they write it also influences what they write. In my case, I moved from a place where I'd been happy and content with my life to a place I truly do not like. The town in which I currently reside is not a place where I want to live or grow old and it is certainly not the place where I want to die. It is however the place where I am for the time being. For the last few months, I've been blaming 'the wheelchair' for my current situation. After all, so a part of me reasoned these past few months, if I had been 'able-bodied', I'd have a real, paying job and I'd be a...

I am very much a person of extremes. I either love something or I hate it. There is seldom an in-between for me, it is all or nothing. This was especially true when I was younger. At age 25 I had chosen my beliefs, both politically and spiritually. I was genuinely convinced that those beliefs would never change and moreover that they should not change. In my utter naivety, I thought I had found the ultimate and unchangeable truth. Looking back now I marvel at the strange mixture of innocence and arrogance. I loved to learn, but only about those things I already knew or believed. In fact, I was so fastidious about guarding my 'boundaries'  that a few years ago when a friend gifted me with a book by theologian Timothy Keller I first contacted my good friend, Rudi, to enquire if he knew the author's work and whether it was alright for me to read.  Looking back now I realize what I was really asking was: "Will this book unsettle me? Will this author tell me something I do ...

As I sit down to write this, it is somewhat of a shock to realize that I have been a practicing Celtic Christian for just shy of five years now. Before finding Celtic Christianity I searched far and wide for a Spiritual Home and it wasn't until I discovered this ancient branch of Christianity that I truly felt at home in the religion I was born into. Five years ago I was Spiritually tired. I can think of no other way to describe it, the dogma, the doctrine, all of it just left me tired and drained to the very depths of my soul and in the darkest corner of my heart, the fear was growing, fear that in the end there may not be a place for me in the Christian House-hold... I don't have the words to describe the absolute relief I felt when I discovered Celtic Christianity. It felt like belonging, like coming home. The more holistic approach, respecting nature as God's creation and getting to know a Jesus who holds the universe in his hand and yet is present in a very real way in...

I had a blog planned for this week, dealing with Corona and the lockdown, but honestly, when it came right down to it I just didn't have the stomach for it. I'm fast approaching Corona and lockdown saturation and maybe some of you reading this are too. So instead I'm going to tell you about a delightful little movie that is helping to keep me upbeat during these strange times. I think most of you who read this blog know what a big Jane Austen fan I am. I also love period movies in general. But when I heard that Jane Austen's romantic comedy Emma was getting a remake in 2020 I was skeptical, to say the least. There have been many very good adaptions of   Emma in my lifetime and I wondered if one more version was really needed. I finally got to see this movie just before the lockdown and I found it...very pretty, but as I told a good friend at the time I found the story on the slight side. Since then I've watched this movie twice more and discovered that this version...

Walking a Spiral is a form of walking meditation. As such it is not a meditation I am physically capable of doing, nevertheless, it was required of me this week as part of the art as meditation course I've been taking for the past eight weeks. So what to do? Well, I used a little trick I learned from Carl Jung. It is called active imagination and I've been using it since I was a child. Of course, back then I had no idea what I was doing or where it comes from. I was simply doing what seemed to come naturally to me. And so this week I went into a moonlit forest and laid out a spiral path with smooth white pebbles that glistened in the moonlight and I walked that path, but I did so with a heavy heart and a dark question lurking around the edges. The poem below came from that 'walk' in the spiral. WALKING THE SPIRAL A spiral laid out in my mind smooth pebbles white in the new moon's light. the spiral clockwise turning  Love holds you fast Smooth pebb...

I'm an avid reader, I love books and I read every chance I get. There have been several books over the years that shaped me and changed my life, literally.  Back in 2007 one such a book was published. It was a little book called THE SHACK by William P. Young. This year as part of our practice during Lent my mom and I decided to revisit The Shack. I've seen the movie of course, but it has been 13 years since I last read the book. I wondered whether it would pack the same punch the second time around as it did the first. In 2007 I was spiritually in a very different place. I had always seen things differently, even as a child. I can't recall exactly how The Shack first came to me but looking back now it came along in a nick of time. Now, this book has been very polarizing in the Christian community. Some loved it, some hated it. I loved it! This book blew my mind in the very best way. I found that I could relate to the lead character Mack's deep distrust of God. I...

 I've learned a lot about myself in these past months and in the process I also learned a lot about my writing process. I had somewhat of an existential crisis at the end of last year when after a two-year struggle I finally produced a rough draft for my novel Selkie's Magick, the draft sucked, no false humility, no fishing for compliments, just plain unvarnished truth. Seriously it was hideous.  It was lazy and rushed (after two full years of struggling, really what have I been doing?) The next two drafts were not much better, it pains me to say it but it is true. Like Amy March in Little Women, I was forced to face the cold, hard reality that, while I may have some talent I'm unlikely to ever be great. So now what? As I saw it I had two choices. I could quit and oh that was tempting, so very, very tempting or, and this was the much less appealing option, I could go back to the manuscript and see if anything could be salvaged at all.  But first I had to have a fran...

Last night I had a nightmare. I dreamt I had cancer. It was so vivid, so real that I woke with a rapidly beating heart and a huge sense of relief when I realized it was, in fact, just a dream. The big C has been a huge fear of mine ever since I was a very young child. In my late teens, I watched my dad succumb to the dreaded disease and later still it claimed my aunt as well as the youngest of my half-sisters. Once I was ready to tackle the day I googled what dreaming of cancer might mean, I read the first explanation: A part of you is dying... Oookay then. The next explanation popped up and seemed to leap off the screen at me: Dreaming of cancer often denotes the end of one life-cycle and the beginning of another... An unwilling smile tugged at my lips as I looked at the computer screen. Of course, I thought wryly, of course... Have I mentioned that it is less than a fortnight until my 45th Birthday? That puts me firmly in the middle-age bracket. How strange when in my...

I've been building worlds in my head for as long as I can remember. As a child, it was a way to cope with life in a wheelchair. As an adult, it made sense to try and put these worlds to paper. When I began writing seriously I did it simply because I enjoyed it. I had no real expectation at the time, except maybe to share this inner-world with others who might enjoy it. Then came the expectations, my own to be sure, and little by little the joy seeped out of the craft. I looked at my stories and they seemed too simple somehow. My stories, the ones I love to write, those stories which seem to flow most naturally from me, are simple stories. Stories about a tiny hamlet and it's everyday people with everyday lives. The 'magic' in this story is natural, simple magic. The love story at the heart of this series is equally simple. I looked at it and thought of the 'market', feeling my little, simple story quite inadequate. So I tried to make it more complic...

It seems the differently-able are rolling out of the shadows and right into pop-culture, and for the most part, I'm thrilled. Barbie Fashionista's Differently-Abled Doll Barbie gets a wheelchair. Now let me start off by saying when I first heard this I had mixed feelings ranging from 'Oh I'd have loved something like this as a kid' to, 'I wonder how badly this will bomb?' I never realized this but apparently,  Mattel originally released a  Barbie in a wheelchair  in the 90s, but later discontinued the product because the doll didn't fit in her dollhouse. Understandably, one person asked whether this issue had now been resolved. 'Does she fit through the doors in B arbie's  play house?' It's somewhat ironic that fitting through doors, or under tables in restaurants or offices is also an issue for us ordinary differently-able folk, accessibility is very much something we deal with on a daily basis. Wheelchair Barbie is also made ...

Okay, so here we are at part two of my romantic misadventures. I hope all of you had a great Valentine's Day.  So...I thought long and hard about how to approach this post. This blog is about my life and about giving you a window into my life, as such I try to be brutally honest here. I present myself to you warts and all. But I don't mean to embarrass anyone. Embarrassing myself is fine, but there is a guy in this next story, a kind, caring, decent, generous guy who is, I think, still blissfully unaware that 10 years ago I had a major crush on him. He was at the time unmarried and a few years younger than me. He never shared my feelings, I never expected him to, but he was then and remains to this day, a good friend. This crush lasted about two years, but was mercifully, long over by the time he met the woman who is now his wife. The only reason I will speak about this crush here is because of what it taught me. Here then is the anatomy of a crush in your 30's. ...

It can happen It can happen Jenny and John are living proof that the differently-abled can find love, romantic love, that is. I wish I did not have to phrase it like that, that it could be accepted as a normal fact of life, like 'Yes, of course, differently-abled people fall in love, of course, they do! They're human so it's kind of a given, right?' Well... Jenny was somewhat of a legend amongst her circle of friends, she was feisty, irreverent and she refused to be defined by her wheelchair, but her legendary status sprung from the fact that she bucked convention. How? She did something really daring. Can you guess? She fell in love with a young man who worked at the care facility where she lived and he fell in love with her. He was 26, she was 25 and they started dating, as two young people in love do. So far nothing too scandalous right? Just two consenting adults enjoying one another's company. Then the relationship turned physical. By the time t...

Feelings. It is one of human beings' most distinctive features, the ability to feel and be aware that we feel. Being human, I also feel, a wide range of feelings covering the full spectrum of human emotion. I feel joy and sadness, love, lust, frustration, anger and everything in between. I am extremely lucky to be able to express these emotions, through my words, actions and yes, even through this blog you are now reading. I am aware that some who are differently-abled are not so lucky. But even those of us who cannot express ourselves, still feel. So why am I telling you this? Well, maybe it's because it seems there are some emotions which the differently-abled are not encouraged to express. Friendly, optimistic politeness is fine (some might even call it 'inspirational') but anger, well anger seems to make people uncomfortable. Just this past week I've found myself sitting opposite a man I've known and respected for years. He knows me, at least I th...

''You never complain, you're always smiling,'' a lady told me on Christmas day 2019. She meant it as a compliment and I took it as such. The truth is I have a pretty great life, family who loves me despite my many faults, a mother who spoils me and friends that support me unflinchingly, often above and beyond. I have a roof over my head, food in my tummy and two dedicated carers who wash me and dress me come rain or shine. I have a good life, a life I'm very thankful for and so most of the time, that smile that you see on my face it's genuine just as it was this past Christmas day. But, full disclosure,  there are also times, however, few and far between, when my smile is a way to hide and deflect. Times like these my smile is a way to say: "All's fine move along now, there's nothing to see here." I learned, very, very early on that people are more willing to help you when you smile and say 'please' and 'thank you' a...