Once upon a time in December (last week) I walked up to the local shops with my daughter and granddaughter. We ordered our takeaways and went outside to sit in the softness of the summer evening. All was well in the world as we idly chatted and people watched. Then I noticed an attractive woman of a […]

I was recently interviewed for a piece on using alcohol as a means of soothing anxiety. They were interested in how I used it and where it took me. I am in long term recovery from addiction and haven’t had a drink for 30 years so it was a bit of a stretch and besides, […]

I’ve been through a dark time recently. So, I ask myself, do I write about it? The darkness? The vulnerability? It seems deeply personal somehow. A secret. Not in good taste to share this part of me with you dear readers. I want to be seen as well and on to it. My representative representing. […]

I’ve been thinking about a relationship I’m in. It’s complicated. And I’ve been here before. This time it’s with an iPhone. Just as the quick hit of nicotine distanced me from any uncomfortable (all of them were) feelings in danger of surfacing, these stylish and expensive white and silver devices give me swift and efficient […]

I’ve been thinking lately of my experience with pain. Physical pain. I spent many years running from pain of any sort with the help of a combo of substances. I’ve spent much of my recovery from drug addiction observing emotional pain, learning how to recognise it and not be afraid, practicing the 12 steps, going […]

The morning: So we’re in the car, me and John, driving West to Kellyville Ridge to meet my brother. My brother whom I haven’t seen for fifty plus years. Separated by adoption and circumstance. I’m doing it. There’s a blue and white Sydney sky above and those spindly dark Australian trees along both sides of […]

“I have no mother no father No sister no brother I am an orphan girl” (Gillian Welch) I’ve always known I was ‘adopted’. Before I even knew what the word meant, I knew the word. And that it applied to me. And not to other members of my family. I was special. Different. It was […]

  “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”                                                                               […]

Emotional anniversaries like Christmas can be a risky business because they open the portal to memories, conscious and/or unconscious. The sadness’s and losses and loves that are an inevitable part of life, and which I have spent a large chunk of my life avoiding, begin lining up at the opening and jostling for attention. My […]

“There’s a river of love that runs through all times There’s a river of grief that floods through our lives It starts when a heart is broken in two By the thief of belief in anything that’s true But there’s a river of love that runs through all time”              […]