Travelling shrine

Sunday Blog 154 – 30 Sep 2024 Graduation photo From the night before she died, I started making shrines for my mother. It began with a candle and a photo nestled alongside the fragrant bouquets I’d received from kind friends and family. I burned candles all night long, without stopping, in the days between her …

Early steps on the valedictory tour

Sunday Blog 153 – 22nd September 2024 One of the absolute wonders of travel to me is that I can be me, but somewhere far from home, if I just travel enough miles. And since Wednesday, I’ve travelled 17,000 kms/ 10,563 miles. The I, the Me that is housed in my body can find itself …

No funeral without laughter

Sunday Blog 152 – 15th September 2024 Perhaps you noticed there was no Sunday blog last week. It was half a conscious decision to pause, have a minute’s, or rather a week’s silence. The other half was the exhaustion of washing up on the Sunday between my mother’s death and her funeral, with the clock …

Goodbye darling Mum

Sunday Blog 151 – 1 September 2024 Almost to the very end of her long life, my mother, Bet, remained who she was, of sound mind. Funny, spunky, unpredictable. In the emergency department last week where she was being treated for her broken hip, she was next to a man who had imbibed a little …

None of my Favourite Things

Sunday Blog 150 – 25th August 2024 Of all the careers to fall into, like Alice down the rabbit hole, museums would surely have been the least likely one for me. Long before Marie Kondo, I understood all too well the dull sheen items get over time when they no longer spark joy. One of …

Through a mirror darkly

Sunday Blog 148 – 11th August 2024 This time last week I was poised on the precipice of three days of conference presentations, already reeling from the impact of trying to process insights from a pre-conference research symposium day. At the time, I was intensely curious about the possibilities of “researching what we implement, and …

Converging Threads

Sunday Blog 147 – 4th August 2024 I’m sitting here on the 23rd floor of my Brisbane Hotel, here for the Health Innovation Community conference. It’s only the pre-conference day and already my thoughts are broiling with ideas and inspiration. Today was all about early career researchers breaking into the digital health space. As one …

Colourful in Quairading

Sunday Blog 145 – 21st July 2024 There’s nothing like hitting the open road, leaving the city behind. After much longer than I’d planned, I was back in the Q. Quairading. The previous visit was May 2022 when I managed to jag World Labyrinth Day. Did I mention Quairading has a labyrinth? Were you already …