This is the one question that I get more than any other. And fair enough. The question is a curious and natural question to be asked by friends and family who care. An absolutely well-meaning question :) When the question recently came up, this image popped into my head. A splay of four playing cards fanned out in my right hand.
A big old brown sofa and a best buddy and a fire and a buttery Irish whiskey. All holed up in a cabin sixteen hundred feet high above the Central Californian coastline. You feel this quiet – and lightly guilty – privilege to be able to spend a weekend on Hollister Ranch with its uncrowded waves off eight miles of
My Aunt Marian wrote the other week, and a sentence captivated me. Marian’s mood was full of optimism. And so I was relieved. Marian and Mum were close, so that mattered. This one sentence I read twice, because it painted an elaborate picture in my head. "Going to sit under the night sky for a few moments now before bed. Stars are out and it's dry.” My mind was flown from a computer under my fingers in San Francisco to a patio in Dingle, Co. Kerry in Ireland.
There's one beautiful behavior of surfers in their waking moments of the day. Feeling the direction of the breeze. Soon after waking up, open your back door or front door. And, haul in a deep breath. A slug of air that fills every corner of your lungs. And close your eyes and feel the gentlest morning breeze on your face. It might be that you can feel a gentle breeze nestling into the tiniest hairs on your face. Or that you can hardly feel anything, other than feeling asleep still. Or that there is a clear direction of wind. But tune in to how the world is already working. Ask what way the wind is blowing. Look for a tree,…
Think of arriving at your doorstep, back home after a trip. You turn the key and open the front door. And turn on the hallway light. There is a rush of the smells of home. And you see everything there in front of you just as you left it. Even the air feels the same. But you know that you’re a slightly different person for the few days away. Do you ever get that? I love that feeling. Because it reminds us that every day we are adjusting and changing and evolving. Just like when we were seven, and a grandmother comments on how much we’ve grown, and we didn’t even notice a millimeter of new height. Even in the…
You can see this review on my Good Reads page. Haldane is a deeply researched biography written to bring light to the philosophy, character and extraordinary diligence and stamina of a ‘forgotten’ British statesman – Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane of Cloan. During his lifetime from 1856 – 1928 Haldane was instrumental in creating enduring British institutions across education, the
5 February 2021. I was chatting to Keara. We feel confused, sad and a little isolated in a sense, with the deteriorating news of Nana’s condition over in Donegal in Ireland. It’s not just the distance of isolation, which we’re used to overcoming. It’s the era we’re in today. Not being able to join Dad and his brothers and sisters - our big, very big family reunited en masse - not happening thanks to a virus from a bat in a corner of China. Life is odd all over again, in a different way to our last Donegal days together in Mum’s fading days in October 2019. If God was a software programmer, I’m quite certain that one of the…
Do you remember those early days of lockdown? The feeling that everything had changed. The edge of emergency. Not knowing what you could touch or how often it can be practical to wash your hands. Uncertainty, confinement. The worry of ending up on a ventilator — and what that would feel like, if you were unlucky. Did you observe, too, how much you missed the energy that comes from the little shifts and changes and transitions that we rush would through, back in “everyday life.” Moving from home to the bus stop, or the short bike commute to work. The small refreshing gaps we’d take for granted, usually feeling pressed for time. Or, just heading outside for coffee with a…
Written with thanks to Pierre LeLeannec, for the gift! (And this review is on my Good Reads page). "Exercised" was a meaningful gift for me. Pierre, who exercises a lot knew I would tear through this book because I exercise a lot. And think about exercise a lot. He was not wrong. Lieberman takes a refreshing approach to the oceans of health and fitness advice in which the (developed) world swims. On that note, the book opens in Pemja, Kenya. And with a treadmill in tow. "Exercised" searches wide and deep in its review of why we exercise, how we have exercised since time began and whether we should bother (is exercise effective?). And, of course, the author then has…
A poem flowed out of me in ten minutes on the morning of Mother’s Day 2020, first published on Instagram on 5 May 2020. — Mum, where are you now? So often, I’ll feel your essence In some little way. And wonder. When I’m handwriting. Or, see your letters poking out on the mantelpiece. Or, when I turn the pot
The Ferrissophere “The What?” “The Ferrissosphere.” “What?” I was referring to the self-help blogger-author-podcaster Tim Ferriss, and how the internet has blown-up circles pyramids of connection in the last ten years. “Tim Ferriss, you know, the writer, podcaster, angel investor…You’ve heard of Tim Ferriss? “No” “He’s been called the Oprah of audio...and that’s probably true for guys more so than gals”. “The Ferrissophere” was first coined by me while at dinner one night with Ritesh Lal and a few friends. I was talking about where I’d heard about something or somebody. And I realized that so many of the people and businesses I have learnt from or enjoyed learning about over the last ten years all root back to intriguing…
A posse of friends - 'the international crew' as I call these guys - huddled together the other night for a “virtual” dinner party. A colleague at work suggested sharing thoughts and tips… With these odd weeks we're all living in, this proved a lot of fun, and way easier to host than a full day of cooking and dinner table setting…Only P.S. is that my NorCal margarita was so good that my after dinner sipping tequila turned into a quarter-bottle of consumption (I noticed the next morning...). Just as IRL, pretty hard to get everyone smile-time perfect… What really made our little gathering great was seeing no change to the way we all get excited to show up, to…