We often understand the depth of a gift long after the moment when we could have thanked the giver. I’ve heard it said that the soul of a country lives in its music. Yesterday, as I looked through old photographs, lost in thought, while Peter played Finnish folk songs at the piano, I felt how…
Category: Childhood
Through Every Season
We cannot expect our younger selves to have understood what only a lifetime of experience could teach us. I have often heard it said that the year before a major milestone becomes a reflective one. A year of looking backwards as much as forwards. Of taking stock. Of remembering who you were, who you became,…
Wrapped in Wonder
Perhaps one of the loveliest things about genuine happiness is that it makes us want others to experience it too. A few weeks ago, Peter and I stepped out of the crisp Southern Highlands cold and into the historic Robertson Hotel, a place filled with grand Gatsby-era elegance. What waited inside made me stop and…
More Myself
Perhaps growing older is not so much about becoming someone different, but about rediscovering who we have always been. I used to think growing older meant moving further away from the girl I once was, but in many ways it has brought me back to her. Getting older has not made me less myself, but…
Books and Roses
Perhaps the most meaningful way to challenge expectations is not through rebellion, but through the quiet confidence of being ourselves. My two grandfathers were not exactly what you would call traditional men, even though both were born in the early 1900s. My father’s father loved cooking, baking, and cleaning. Domestic work came naturally to him….
Dad’s Fading Light
Perhaps some of life’s deepest sorrows are inseparable from its greatest blessings. My 90-year-old dad is slowly slipping away. Day by day, the flame in his candle grows dimmer, and I find myself watching that light with a grief too deep for words. There is something so heartbreaking about loving someone for your whole life…
The Stories We Keep
The stories we hear again and again often become the ones we carry long after the storyteller has fallen silent. There is something about the smell of cardamom and cinnamon in the kitchen, and the feel of flour on the bench, that seems to loosen old stories and bring them back to the surface. When…
Stay, I Pray You
Perhaps one of the most meaningful gifts of being loved is discovering that someone who never shared our experiences has come to understand just how deeply they shaped us. Last night I went to the theatre to see a live production of Anastasia, and from the moment it began, I felt myself being drawn into…
The Silent Clock
As we grow older, the years behind us do not disappear; they become part of who we are. Where do the years go? They slip through our hands so quietly, and yet they do not disappear. They live on within us, just beneath the surface, waiting for the smallest thing to bring them back. A…
Skip with me, nanna!
Growing older teaches us that giving between generations was never one-way. We were just walking, hand in hand, the way grandmothers and little granddaughters do. The day was mild, the sky wide and blue, and her tiny fingers wrapped around mine with the kind of trust that softens your soul. “Nanna,” she said, looking up…
