NEW LIGHTNING MOON

As I write this, dramatic lighting storms pale the sunrise, and thunder booms through the Peedie Sea Scheme—the development where I live, named after the ‘little sea’ nearby. This post has been written beforehand, scheduled to go up while I am away presenting at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It’s the New Moon— smack dab in the middle of a month with two full moons. The last moon, the Blue, will bring with it the publication of the paperback of Ashes and Stones in the UK.

This will be a first for me since the pandemic began—to be out in public, masked at a massively crowded event talking about my book which is a book of history—both societal and personal—and a memoir of trauma. Save a thought for me today, friends, as I am vulnerable, risking perhaps too much, but to not do it would fill me with regret. 

I’ve thought a lot about vulnerability—what it means to be real, even about illness, especially mental illness. Since Shuhada Sinead O’Connor died in July, a few days after my birthday, I have been processing this loss, how in interviews she was always trying to get away from the stupid questions people asked her about her mental health and her spiritual realities. In the end she could only sing in order to be heard over the din of deliberate misunderstandings, the false sympathy, the hypocrisy she hated so much. 

This culture can’t hold its visionaries, can neither see nor hear them without devouring them first to see what they taste like.