New Chapters
Hello, and welcome to my refreshed website.
If you are one of my former blog friends, you might know I’ve been quiet for a while.
The last couple of years have been a ride. Ups and downs, personal happiness and painful losses, framed by the pandemic that affected us all in so many different ways. I think my silence was driven by the need to withdraw for a little while – to heal, to explore, to live … and to write.
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post that went viral and was published in the mainstream media. It was a post, in part, about a mantra that helped me through the worst time of my life.
This is a moment of pain. Pain is a part of life. I wish myself peace.
This mantra has stayed with me, comforted me through the death of my younger brother in 2021 from an aggressive cancer, helped me through the sadness of losing my maternal grandmother mid-way through the pandemic, and enabled me to stay present, true and accepting in the face of life’s most difficult days. I’d hoped we were done with loss for a little while, but it seemed life had other plans.
I’m happy to share that it hasn’t all been sadness. Before the pandemic hit, I went on a lunch date with a man – a man whose warmth, kindness and humour were apparent almost as soon as I took the chair opposite him. We shared one of those instant connections that makes your heart beat faster and your skin tingle as you drive the wrong way home afterwards, giddy and excited about the possibility ahead. We fell for each other hard and fast. After so much darkness, finding each other felt like a miracle.
Between us now we have five children, a hectic dog and a ridiculously fluffy cat. We tied the knot earlier this year in a small Cotswolds wedding with close family and friends. We are a pretty rowdy bunch when we are all together. Life does not look at all how I imagined it might a decade ago, when I lived a different life in a different country, but I wake in the mornings knowing I am happy … and lucky. I recognise the hard road the kids and I have travelled, and I cherish this place where we now find ourselves. Our house holds more warmth, laughter and kids than I thought possible – and my heart has expanded to embrace it all. These days, I feel as if I should add a new mantra to my emotional toolkit, one that acknowledges those sweeter moments that offset the pain.
This is a moment of love. Love is a part of life. I am grateful for it all.
Amidst all of this living, I am delighted to say that there has been writing too. A lot of writing. Recently I pressed ‘send’ on a new manuscript to my agent. It’s a story about the darker side of friendship, about facing not only the wildness of our surroundings but the wildness that can rise up in all of us in extreme circumstances … and it’s all set in beautiful, rugged north Cornwall, a place I was happy to escape to in my mind when confined physically to my house. It’s proved to be a story that wouldn’t let me go, that nudged me while in bed or standing in the shower, told me to keep going. I was full of trepidation to send it to my agent, Sarah, but I received her response just two days later … the sort of email an author dreams of receiving from their agent, full of superlatives and exclamation marks.
Will a publisher want my new manuscript? Will I wake tomorrow to face a new, unforeseen challenge? Will my heart continue to expand, to hold it all? The truth is, I don’t know what will happen next, neither in my personal life or in my career. I’ve learned how so much of what we strive for in life – personally and professionally – is way beyond our control. And just when you think you’re nailing it, a curve ball comes along to flatten your landscape or send you in a new direction. So these days, instead, I try to appreciate the small pleasures; the moments of community, connection, creativity, love; the wins when they come. It’s all we really have.
Wherever you are, whatever your small pleasures today or the challenges you might face, I thank you for finding my blog post, for connecting with me in this one small way. I’m grateful you are here. I wish you peace ... and love.
April 2022