I don’t know what to do with my hands
October 20, 2025 No Comments14 September 2019 Writing Prompt from Megan Devine’s Writing Your Grief course, simply beginning with “I don’t know what to do with my hands” I don’t know what to do with my hands Or my arms, which hang, droopily by my side I pluck up the courage to go into my office Through which you […]
Read MoreMy Forest has Changed
October 20, 2025 No Comments13 September 2019 Writing prompt from Megan Devine’s Writing Your Grief Course: How do you live in a landscape so vastly changed? I was living in the forestA wild and scary forestI couldn’t see the wood for the treesI couldn’t see the light for the darkness I’d trip over rootsGet slashed by branchesLurch into tree […]
Read MoreWhat You May Not Know
October 20, 2025 No Comments12 September 2019 Featured image is the Full moon through Melancholy, Geneva If you could tell people something, tell them what is true, what is true about grief and love and loss, something they do not know, or can’t know, what would it be? If you could address them, what would be said? Part of […]
Read MoreThe Girl with No Name
October 20, 2025 No Comments11 September 2019 “I don’t have a name. I don’t know what to do. I am not the person I used to be…” (part of a prompt from Megan Devine’s Writing Your Grief course) Featured image courtesy of Sarah Treanor (streanor.com) Actually, I do have a name, and it’s Emma. It’s the same name that […]
Read MoreIn The Past 24 Hours….
October 20, 2025 No Comments7 September 2019 A day in the life of a serial griever… In the past 24 hours… …I collected my youngest daughter’s “personal effects” from the clinic she’d been attending …I was told that her death by suicide most probably wasn’t pre-meditated, but an “on the spur of the moment” action …I learned that my […]
Read MoreProjection
October 20, 2025 1 Comment8 September 2019 I am often stunned by how much projection there is around, even though, as a mere mortal, I engage in it all the time myself. Of course there is projection! The world is complex and messy. It’s all we can do to put meaning on it by interpreting it through our eyes, […]
Read MoreLa Rentrée
October 20, 2025 No Comments2 September 2019 First posted on Soaring Spirits, Widow’s Voice Blog.https://www.soaringspirits.org/la_rentr_e In France, where I live, early September, with its “back to school and back to work” is known as “la rentrée”. This week is “la rentrée”. Schools go back. Three-year olds begin pre-school, known here as “Maternelle”. Six-year olds begin primary/”Primaire”. Eleven-year olds begin […]
Read MoreClutching onto Solo-Parenting
October 20, 2025 No Comments29 August 2019 First posted on Soaring Spirits, Widow’s Voicehttps://www.soaringspirits.org/clutching_on_to_solo_parenting These last few days have been a mad rush. I accompanied my “now youngest” daughter Megan, who is 18, to start university in the middle of the UK. We live in France, so it’s a bit of a schlep, and since we take a flight, […]
Read MoreSo What if the Plane Goes Down?
October 20, 2025 1 CommentPosted on 2 September 2019. Recorded in the middle of the night of 23-24 August 2019. 1h01 in the morning, on the 24th of August. Just woken from having the most frightening dream, where I was in some kind of a ship or else massive plane. I woke up really cold in the dream. I […]
Read MoreShattered and Fragile, Though Not Completely Destroyed
October 20, 2025 6 Comments28 August 2019 I had one of those experiences today that remind me of the fragility, the tenuous-ness of my well-being, my composure and stability. The experience made me cry, and cry hard. Sometimes I think I don’t cry enough. I probably don’t. I’ve never been much of a crier. I know how and when […]
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