Writer, Filmmaker, Mother, Grandmother
Grief is a monster. A parasite as heavy as sin that clings brutally to the emptiness that loss exhumes. It steals your breath, shocking your body at every turn, luring your soul into the slow tide of darkness. A bleak and endless eruption of eerie silence it rises methodically to the surface, piercing any hint of… Continue reading Grief is an emotional amputation.
Hidden in the urban setting, behind the houses across the narrow street from my city home, there's a mud-stained lane that serves as a tiny reminder of my rural life. Along with my dog and cats, I hobble there in the mornings, my joints like steel, my footsteps like fire, my imposter of a body carrying me into… Continue reading If you listen carefully enough you can hear the pain of pro-creation.
I'm at my island home. There's a storm outside. The wind is strong and vocal, its intensity tossing the sea into a sky kneeling so low it is swallowing salty water hungrily; head back, gaping throat open, the effervescent foam gushing down its impossibly long neck. The peat is burning, its heavy hue hitching an easy ride on the fertile surf that… Continue reading Today the world lost a friend and the island mourns.
It has been a long time since I've made it home to Mullindress, my wee house up the hill on Rathlin Island. Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. The light has altered, and continues to do so daily. The sun rises and falls from a new perspective; this morning barely climbing beyond the horizon,… Continue reading A winter tale.
It's Hogmanay! Or for those of you reading this outside of Scotland it's New Year's Eve. Traditionally, in oor wee bonnie country, the last day of the year is spent preparing to say goodbye to the year past by welcoming in the next with a variety of cultural nuances that have regional variances but fundamentally deliver on the same… Continue reading Hogmanay & Handselling. Only in Scotland.
Whilst I am a character in this story, it's not entirely my story to share. Consequently, I'll keep the most intimate details out of the written narrative. The story? My beautiful, strong and determined daughter Siobhán gave birth to her gorgeous son, Ruairí Daniel Connolly at 18:19pm on the 7th of July. I was with Siobhán and… Continue reading I witnessed a miracle.
Sadly, my maternal grandparents died before I was born. I never had the opportunity to meet them or to feel their presence. I look at photographs of people I have never met and softly touch their faces, wondering how we would have connected, what our memories would have been had they ever existed. My paternal… Continue reading Our digital lives, post life. How do we want to remember?
I'm at Mullindress, my house on Rathlin Island. Foils of wind are picking up pace, their song setting sail to the clouds, galloping tresses chasing something in the distance, an epiphany or a fallen star, its intensity close and all the same far beyond my reach. My daughter is with me, her as yet unborn son sharing the view… Continue reading Stepping off the edge of life with the gift of life.
Margot McCuaig 