Breathing Just a Little

On Fridays, I plan to refresh a post from one of my older blogs that still seems material or relevant. I'm calling it "Everything Old is New Again Fridays", because why not? These reviews were published on my old blog, Too Fond of Books, on 19 September 2017, and address two books that I still think are excellent and well worth a read. Lincoln in the Bardo is a strange, strange book. Its central conceit is a relatively simple one - it's a journey into the fact, and consequences, of the death of Abraham Lincoln's third son (and favourite child), Willie, at the age of 11 in the early years of the Civil War. However, straight historical fiction this ain't - in fact it isn't straight anything. It's one of the twistiest books I've read for a long while. This is a book that takes place, largely, in the bardo - that Buddhism-based limbo-like place between life and death where souls are trapped who are too attached to the things of earth to move on to the ...

On Fridays, I plan to refresh a post from one of my older blogs that still seems material or relevant. I'm calling it "Everything Old is New Again Fridays", because why not? This post is from 27 September 2017 on my blog Too Fond of Books, written while sitting on the sand while my children and my friends' kids played in the water.  -------------------------------------------------------------------- Here, the spring is warm and full with blue-gold sun; The sea stretches, white-tipped, to the line of sky. Children dragooned into scenic walks plunge into the water, finally unfettered, like slick otters dancing. On the sand, toddlers dig and build, and a sarong-clad woman's phone plays Hallelujah. The afternoon wears on to Hallelujah threading silvered notes against the sun. The toddlers seem to know just what to build Above, cumulus wavers in the powder sky If you close your eyes you might see angels dancing bemused by joy, before the salty water. The purity of col...

On Fridays, I plan to refresh a post from one of my older blogs that still seems material or relevant. I'm calling it "Everything Old is New Again Fridays", because why not? This post is from 18 November 2018 on my blog Too Fond of Books, and reading it now fills me with a deep, powerful sense of saudade (the read-aloud days are well past now), but also delight at the memories of all those journeys my girls and I took together through stories. Of all my parenting decisions, making reading a central part of how I raised my kids is the one I am both proudest of and made the most enduringly happy by. ---------------------------------------------------- Having finished Dianna Wynne Jones' classic The Power of Three, my 9 year old and I have started on now started on Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men for bedtime reading. I am going to profoundly miss it when she decides she is too old for shared reading. Reading to, and with, my girls has been hands down my favourite part...

On Fridays, I plan to refresh a post from one of my older blogs that still seems material or relevant. I'm calling it "Everything Old is New Again Fridays", because why not? This piece appeared on my blog Too Fond of Books on 18 June 2015. It's as true now as it was then. Living with Generalised Anxiety Disorder is not always a barrel of laughs, but it is doable (for me) thanks to these kinds of approaches. ----------------------------- If there is a thing that you are afraid of ... No, wait. First principles. If you an anxious person, there is always at least one, and usually many more than one, thing that you are worried about, or actively afraid of, at any given time. How dominant this worry or fear is depends on a lot of things, including, but not limited to, your state of physical health, the presence or absence of other life stressors, how much sleep you are getting, how diligently you are practising whatever combination of CBT / mindfulness / distraction / medi...

On Fridays, I plan to refresh a post from one of my older blogs that still seems material or relevant. I'm calling it "Everything Old is New Again Fridays", because why not? This piece appeared on my blog Too Fond of Books in December 2015 (nine long years ago now). Although my circumstances have radically changed since then, I stand by the ideas. ---------------------------------- The Guardian is re-running links to some of its more popular pieces from 2015 as the year wends to an end. They've just relinked one about working mothers, which I remember well as it was published on my very last day of salaried employment - the very day, some would argue, that I ceased to be a role model of working motherhood to my three girls. As luck would have it, I have been able to build up a good freelance clientele since then and am close to fully employed (I average 4 days a week) in my own business. I didn't know that this would happen when I left my job, though, and I took t...