Sunday Blog 141 – 23rd June 2024 Every time I walk a labyrinth, I think this time I will fully understand its elaborate geometry, its pattern of winding paths. It’s not a maze, it’s a single curved path into the centre, and out again. I walk around it as if I’m following the curves and …
Author Archives: pipbrennan
Re-reading Jane Austen
Sunday Blog 140 – 16th June 2024 I’m guessing the very first time I read Pride and Prejudice (P&P) I was 16, when the excellent 1981 TV series first aired. I remember the copy we had in our family library. Our shelves were stuffed with classic fiction, poetry, and history. How I loved the small, …
Turning 59
Sunday blog 139 – 9th June 2024 It’s actually been a couple of weeks since my birthday, and I didn’t properly thank everyone who posted lovely messages on my birthday. Thank you. I love all that internet love, it’s the one day of the year when Facebook makes sense to me. The photo above is …
Reconciliation Week Reflections
Sunday Blog 138 – 2nd June 2024 This Reconciliation Week got me thinking about a conversation I had a few years ago. “I’ve experienced positive discrimination.” I said to an Aboriginal colleague. Positive discrimination, the white, middle-class privileged water that I swim in, and so often forget. I was thinking about a few times when …
What if we called it Elder Care?
Sunday Blog 137 – 26th May 2024 After a couple of false starts, I find the right café to have breakfast before I visit Mum. It’s a charming old-style café in Guildford, and unusually I am the only woman. Perhaps it’s the early hour. I set up the laptop and order breakfast, toggling my need …
Golden Hours at KSP Writers’ Centre
Sunday Blog 136 – 18th May 2024 I’ve got one more glorious week ahead of me at KSP Writers’ Centre, after an entire week immersed in this beautiful place. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) was an Australian writer and co-founder of the Australian Communist Party. …
Mother’s Day Melange
Sunday Blog 135 – 12th May 2024 Today was Mum’s first Mother’s Day since she moved into a residential aged care facility. How we had wanted to keep her in her own home, but it was not to be. So we did what we could to create a home-like morning tea. “I wish I could …
Laziness does not exist
Sunday Blog 134 – 5th May 2024 As someone who listens to Tara Brach regularly, the first time I heard her quote Trappist monk Thomas Merton about the violence of activism and over-work, I was shocked. Like she’d thrown a bucket of cold water over me in her comforting voice. Surely this could not be …
Pro-Social, not Anti-Science
Sunday Blog 133 – 28th April 2024 In readiness for the forthcoming Health Consumers’ Council Book Club event with Susannah Fox, I’ve been reading Rebel Health, a Field Guide to Patient-led Revolution in Medical Care. My biggest take away so far is the importance of this distinction as a patient advocate – I am not …
Change
Sunday Blog 132 – 21st April 2024 It would seem that I’m leaning towards Ghandi’s misquoted wisdom of being the change you want to see in the world. Actually, he didn’t exactly say that. The full quote is as below, but I’ve edited it so it includes women: “We but mirror the world. All the …