Five Years a Writer

Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins Baltimore, MD: Apprentice House Nov. 7 2023 Posted to Amazon It seems crass to say I enjoyed this memoir-in-essays, given that it’s about how Eileen Vorbach Collins finds her way back into — and keeps herself in — the land of the living following her daughter Lydia’s death by suicide. But I did, and there is much to appreciate: the award-winning writing; the unvarnished truth about the bone-deep grief she continues to feel; and the grounding of her experience in the everyday. Vorbach Collins’ essays make clear that being present to the quotidian — mothering her younger son, Daniel; returning to work; finding her way into support groups; continuing to breathe even while screaming her anguish at unexpected moments — is the challenge after her cataclysmic loss. Vorbach Collins uses writing as a way to process her grief and her experience of living with that grief, still, more than twenty years after the death of her daughter. I am grateful s...

Bread and roses, bread and roses...   Advice for a woman wanting to live free in 2024 Learn independence early, for it is addictive. Live in the gaps between the stories. Don’t take NO for an answer. Dance in the face of your fear. The only real freedom is freedom from fear. There is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of your mind. Then & now I spent my 'gap' year  between high school and university working as a nanny  in Grenoble, France. One time, returning from a weekend away, I walked home  from the train station after midnight. It was not fun, but walking was the only option. It wasn’t far to the flat; my host family was not responsible for picking me up; and, for some reason, I couldn’t or wouldn’t take a taxi. I made it home without incident and climbed the ancient stone stairs at the back of the building and into the safety of my room and my bed. I was young, just turned 18, and I was fine. I am considerably older ...

Amanda ( in blue jacket ), way back in her sporty days, possibly in Switzerland, circa 1965 When I was about five or six maybe, it was time for me to stop sucking my thumb. My clever mother induced me to change my behaviour by making me a star chart: Every day of not sticking my thumb into my mouth (sounds horrid to me now, but I remember vividly the sense of comfort I derived from it — paired with my super soft blankie rubbing against my cheek ….mmmmmmm, so lovely) — every day of not engaging in that particular form of soothing behaviour would earn me a small gold star. A full week of such grown-up behaviour would earn me a BIG gold star at the end of the line. And a full month got me… something, I don’t remember what, maybe a set of roller skates or a pack of gum. The big payoff, I think, was not as important to me as those daily and weekly gold stars. Small shiny things that marked my daily progress in a visually accountable way. The method worked. I stopped sucking my thumb. And...