THE POWER OF A VOICE

Voice is quite important, right? Both your inner voice and the sound of your voice. It’s important. It’s part of who you are and what makes you, you. I’ve always been quite partial to a good voice, like say Alan Rickman’s or Eddie Vedder’s. Or my Mum’s deep timbre. And my Dad’s laughter and forever dad voice. Except that it wasn’t forever. My Dad lost his voices. His inner voice is lost inside him, at times struggling to come out, more often than not just hiding there where we cannot see it, powerful in its absence, oh so very powerful…

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CRUMBLING LIKE A HOUSE OF CARDS

It’s the people. It’s always the people. I was fine, really. That fine that comes from not thinking and just getting on with all the practical things that need doing. The type of fine that you’ll realise years later was not fine at all, just broken pieces of you glued together by denial and practicalities. Until. Until someone in the lift asks you how your Dad is doing, the kindness in their voice, and the words get stuck in your mouth as you try to decide what to say that is both true and non-committal to his future self when…

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ACCEPTANCE

I don’t like a word for the year. There’s a story to this, of course. I chose words of the year before, in previous years (2012, 2013, and 2016 to be precise), and they have jinxed me. I don’t believe in jinxing, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened! So now I don’t like having a word for the year. This year, there were a few things I wanted to change and others I wanted to invest in, and as I was thinking about it all I realised there was a common thread that would hold my sanity in place…

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