You can’t drink the ‘best’ tea everyday. Or it becomes the everyday tea. (Not to mention it’s expensive!) But this morning, after a friend sent me the New Yorker excerpt of Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography (My Last Day as a Surgeon), I immersed myself in the process of my ‘everyday’ tea. The fragrance of the steam rising…

Sometimes when I’m cranky (or blue, or irritable, or maudlin…or just out of sorts), I realise: I’m really none of the above. I’m hungry. Or thirsty. Or tired. Or hot. In other words, it’s not a mental/emotional/even spiritual problem. It’s this rag & bone body of mine that’s the issue. When working well, the body…

Grief knows no timetable. And it’s a sneaky devil: it will creep up on you in an otherwise nice day, and lay you flat out. You won’t know what hit you. I mean it: formerly rosy days will grey, wilt around the edges, and it may take weeks before you remember…Oh! Mom’s gone. That would…

There’s something incredibly poignant about packing away the Christmas tree. Pulling off the ornaments — some so very old & fragile the one I made with my mother when I was 6, the one I made w/ my younger son when he was 6. Wrapping them snugly in their tissue cocoons so they can be ready for…

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