She’s been interviewed on Oprah and is a wise woman! I received her beautiful words in an Omega Institute newsletter and I have been given permission to include them in this blog. I have posted them on the website before…they are not ‘new’ and were written the year President Obama was elected. However they are so wise they seemed worth sharing again.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!

Love and sparkles,

Grace

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY by ELIZABETH LESSER

Before you continue reading this, do me a favor. Put down what you’re holding (in your hand or your head),”your shopping lists, your third cup of coffee, your date book, the phone call you should be making”and sit quietly for just 60 seconds. Take in a full breath, let it pool gently in the bottom of your lungs, and then release it slowly. Inhale deeply again, and exhale with an audible sigh. If you’re at work, don’t worry what your colleagues might think ”this time of year everyone would love to sigh deeply, and often. Inhale again; exhale with a long “aaahh”. With each exhalation, let your shoulders drop and your jaw relax. Do this a couple of times, with your eyes closed. Let the “aaahh” sound emerge from your belly, move up into your heart, and drift out into space as you exhale, slowly, smoothly, steadily. Now, open your eyes, and continue reading.

Helloooo?? Anyone there? It felt good to escape for a minute, didn’t it? But come on back ”it’s that time of year again: the modern miracle known as The Holidays, when into the dark little month of December, we squeeze Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and a myriad of other celebrations, from ancient solstice rituals to the more contemporary rites of school plays, office parties, and community gatherings. Throw into that mix a generous dose of unrealistic expectations, budget-busting shopping, dysfunctional family feasts, airplane flights, darker days, colder weather, excessive eating and drinking, and no wonder that along with “peace on earth, goodwill toward men,” we get really stressed out.

But this year you can do something to spin your stress into the gold that is the promise of the season. Here are three ways to light up your holidays:

1. Believe that things can change. Look what happened this year in America! What would have been impossible just 40 years ago ”an African-American president elected by a wide majority ”is now reality. If a whole society can change its heart and habits, then so too can each of us. This holiday season, make Gandhi’s motto your spiritual practice: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Slow down for a few minutes every day and sit in silence. Perhaps down at the bottom of the quiet well of your heart, you will discover some questions brewing in the fertile darkness: Is there someone I need to forgive? Is there something I must say to a family member or a friend? Is my full aliveness being dulled by the fear of change, an old wound, addictive behavior? In the true spirit of the holidays, let the darkness show you what wants to change. The truth will lead you back up to the light, and when the New Year rolls around, your resolution will be tinged with authenticity and power.

2. Recognize that there is no such thing as a normal holiday. Let’s start with the word “normal.” I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Normal is someone you don’t know very well.” This is a good thing to keep in mind always, but especially now, when we assume that the normal people are all having happier, healthier, and more harmonious holidays than we are. We imagine their mailboxes stuffed with Christmas cards and party invitations, their homes decorated in Martha Stewart splendor, and their intact and idyllic families primed for five full weeks of good cheer. I don’t know these people, do you? The most effective thing you can do to reduce holiday angst is to wipe the word “normal” from your vocabulary. In my work at Omega, I have met tens of thousands of people from all walks of life. I have yet to meet a normal one, if normal means consistently sane, contented, and capable. And yet most of us hold ourselves up to an unattainable standard of human perfection. The 13th-century poet Rumi called this phenomenon, the “Open Secret.” He said each one of us is trying to hide the same secret from each other”not some racy or evil secret, but rather the mere fact of our flawed humanness. We expend so much energy trying to conceal our ordinary bewilderment at being human, or our loneliness in the crowd, or that nagging sense that everyone else has it more together than we do, that we miss out on the chance to really connect, which is what we ultimately long for. Especially during the holidays.

So, here’s something you can do this holiday season: Open up your Open Secret. Overcome your embarrassment at being human. Tell a friend that you didn’t get one party invitation. Who knows? Maybe she didn’t either! Or maybe she did, and she’ll bring you along and you’ll meet new people ”the ultimate Christmas gift. Or maybe together you can go to your local homeless shelter and help the kids decorate the tree”the real spirit of the holidays….Or how about this? Don’t just say “Fine!” when a colleague asks how you are at the office party. Say, “Sometimes all this ho-ho-ho makes me feel lonely.” You’ll be surprised by the response. Suddenly a mere acquaintance will open up his secrets to you, and soon you’ll feel more connected, not only to him, but to the real meaning of the holidays.

3. Be aware that the holidays are about awakening joy in times of darkness. All of the religious parables at the heart of the holidays are about this mystery: how hope can be born out of hopelessness; how home can be found in exile; how celebration can come after grief. Joy is the gold we mine on the spiritual path, but that path traverses all sorts of uncertain and difficult terrains. For guidance along this path, turn to the spiritual teachings of Hanukkah, Christmas, winter solstice, and the lesser-known December holidays. You probably didn’t know that December 8 is Rohatsu, which commemorates the day in 566 BCE when the Buddha attained enlightenment. Like Mary and Joseph who found no welcome at the inn, and birthed the baby Jesus in a manger, and like the Maccabees who reclaimed the desecrated temple and lit the miraculous light of Hanukkah, the Buddha awakened his joy after a long struggle, under the Bodhi tree, alone and hungry. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Father writes, “Truth and goodness are not always found at the top, but often on the edge and at the bottom. Not in the center of empire, but in the backwaters of Bethlehem.” Let the stories of the season help you find friendship, sanctuary, and light in the darkest month of the year.

If all this sounds somewhat mysterious you’re right. It is. But I do know that Jasmine arrived in my life because, on some level, I felt ready to be more courageous with my writing. I wanted to share the details, warts and all, just like she did. If I summed it up in a sentence I would say I wanted to write the kind of book I longed to read. I have always loved books with highly intimate details that feel like friends. ‘Ordinary Miracles’ was informed by my own disappointments and questions and longings. It also contained a number of my bewilderments and my love of a good giggle. It seemed a case of ‘write what you know’ and ‘write what you want to know’. “I work on a picture and then it guides me” Fellini once remarked. The same can happen with a book.

I didn’t even think about publication and what others would make of it. I simply wanted it to feel true. Now, when I give writing workshops, I sometimes encourage participants to recall what it is like to listen to a song they love. How they are not just listening to it but somehow ‘in’ it too…aware of its shape, its tone, its ‘character’. They can know these same things about their own stories, but only if they are truly ‘in’ them as they are writing. To do this they need to bypass the inner critic who will have many opinions about every sentence. The inner critic is frightened that we may appear foolish, but is open to negotiation and can be an ally. I advise students to tell it can take “a nice break” during the first draft, but that it is very welcome to come and offer its expertise during editing.

Here’s a great quote:

‘There is only one trait that writers have in common….They watch for the extraordinary magic that lies in the everyday….Not willing inspiration but just being open to the world. This quiet looking and thinking is the imagination. It’s letting in ideas. It’s trying, I suppose, to make some sense of things.’ Joseph O’Connor

I hope to give some workshops at the lovely Irish Writers’ Centre in the autumn. They are called ‘The Writing Process’ and I gave similar workshops at the Centre some years ago. You can read more about them by clicking the ‘Workshops’ icon at the top of this page.

Warm wishes,

Grace

Catalogues for sheds now frequently refer to them as ‘garden buildings’ and some offer special features to make them a home from home. Naturally the subject of shed security has become an issue as more men install DVD players and computers into their favoured refuge. Many insurers now remind homeowners to lock their sheds and some shed aficionados, such as comedian Ross Noble, have installed complex security systems. I discovered this when I met Ross some years ago. We were both waiting in reception in BBC Broadcasting House and I asked him if he had a shed…I was doing some research into the topic at the time. As a conversational opener it sounds like his own often surreal humour. But it turned out he did indeed have a shed and he was very fond of it.

I was alerted to the importance of garden sheds when Jim, a character in my novel ‘Ready Or Not?’, decided he was going to move into his. I hadn’t expected him to do this but he was absolutely firm on the matter. He said he needed some space to himself and it was pointless remonstrating with him. People in novels can sometimes be very stubborn. His wife, Ava, was naturally almost overcome with curiosity about what he was getting up to. Because men do sometimes get up to very strange things in those innocent looking wooden buildings. It is part of the whole shed mystique.

An Australian documentary called Men And Their Sheds claims to have “uncovered the extraordinary world of sheds, from which the four main characters have been drawn”. Apparently one man spends loads of time in the shed with his beloved antique phone collection, while another “finds salvation from depression through creating a nativity display for his front yard at Christmas”. Then there’s the former teacher who “finds inspiration in sculpting gothic clay figurines spouting shed philosophy”. Ultimately “it’s a film about solitude, masculinity and creativity” the film’s producers conclude.

The book ‘Men And Sheds’ contains photos of ‘sheddists’ involved in a vast range of activities including collecting milk bottles, inventing the clockwork radio and breeding pythons. ‘Some men are obsessed with the unusual items they put in their sheds’ explains author Gordon Thorburn. ‘Some have made their sheds their social hub, inviting the like-minded inside to share that certain whatever-it-is…For many, though, it’s the escape thing. They admit it. A hobby might be the raison d’etre on the surface.’

Paul Gilbert, a psychologist, believes the potent lure of the garden shed is “about control and space. Generally speaking men like space and privacy. Men are more likely to go off on their own hunting, for example. And the concept of being a hermit seems to be more appealing to men. Women are more involved in kinship and networks.” But there are probably many women who like sheds too! Would rather like one myself!

Though I don’t have a shed in my wee patio garden there is a large honeysuckle bush and it is attracting lots of bumble bees now that it’s in flower. That hum is such a lovely summery sound.

Warm wishes,

Grace

The kitchen was also home to an enormous radio which sat on the fridge. When I was very little I liked to believe that musicians, actors, presenters and a whole array of colourful folk lived in it. It was a small world in itself. The gramophone sat on top of the radio. Given today’s sleek stereo standards it was very basic but it happily played the first single I ever purchased ‘Morningtown Ride’ by The Seekers and also tunefully blasted songs by The Beach Boys, James Taylor and others around the kitchen cocoon.

These days we often toss out old appliances and replace them with a startling lack of sentimentality. So I’m glad that my childhood memories include recollections of cherished objects with whims and inconveniences and eccentricities all their own.

Warm wishes,

Grace

“I was the biggest failure I knew.” However, she added: “Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”

This is an extract from an article I wrote a while ago and it contains advice that may be particularly helpful to anyone who is worried about exams etc.

The full article is available here.

Warm wishes,

Grace

Though the Royal family seems like a very distant dynasty to me it is nice to be able to ‘name drop’ that I once sat near Captain Mark Phillips at dinner. I was a little girl and was staying with a friend who was from a respected ‘horsey’ family. (It was before he married Princess Anne.) He was in Ireland for some horse related activity and I was somewhat in awe of his equestrian prowess.

Did a bit of Googling recently and discovered that my Great Grandfather (by adoption) was Honorary Chaplain to Queen Victoria and was later Chaplain in ordinary to King Edward VII . (Yipes. Really should have known more about this before and it seems sort of improbable to me since I live in a small terraced house, buy charity shop clothes and love getting ‘sell by date’ bargains in supermarkets.) His name was Handley Carr Glyn Moule and he was the Bishop of Durham…the Bishop of Durham is also one of the ‘Sovereign’s Escorts’ during a Coronation. Thomas Hardy was a close friend of one of Handley’s brothers and the Moule family when they originally lived in Dorset. Handley took Mum in when she was a baby (she was known as ‘Castle Baby’) and she lived in Auckland Castle until she was unofficially adopted by his daughter Isobel de Vere and her husband who brought her to Ireland. Would love to know who her birth Mum and Dad were. No wonder I love the programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Family genealogy is fascinating.

Warm wishes,

Grace

On a more soulful theme…

When I was a very little girl I remember sitting in bed and singing the hymn ‘There Is A Green Hill Far Away’ because it was Easter. It is a poignant hymn and it made me cry. Poor Jesus. I felt so sorry for him. I wasn’t a particularly religious kid. But that night the crucifixion really got to me somehow. Mum arrived in the bedroom and found me sobbing about Jesus. And still managing to sing. Tears streaming down my face. My Dad was a clergyman. On Sunday he spoke eloquently about the Resurrection. I hope that I listened. However I was also thinking quite a bit about chocolate. And somehow I didn’t think Jesus would mind.

Happy Easter!

Warm wishes,

Grace

Yesterday attended a very interesting workshop for people involved or interested in the film biz. Met some very talented directors and writers and during workshop I sat on nice big armchair. I am a great fan of comfy furniture. Boarding school was devoid of sofas etc. Feel very grateful towards nice sofas and armchairs. Bought two bargain cushions recently (half price). Very pretty. Creamy yellow with nice pink roses. Am also very fond of a cushion covering I brought in Greece some years ago. The social significance of soft furnishings should not be underestimated!

If you are in the mood for some quirky intimate humour there’s a podcast of me reading from ‘Ordinary Miracles’ on podcasts.ie.

Warm wishes,

Grace

Someone once said it was a bit like ‘Victoria Wood meets Shirley Valentine’. I have received numerous heartfelt comments from readers about it. It was lovely to read them and I am very grateful. The theme of getting older and sometimes feeling a bit lost seems to have struck a chord with many. There’s an adorable pig in it called Rosie and a wise and soulful man called Charlie. The main character Jasmine feels that she should wear L plates! People seem to like the mixture of poignancy and giggles.

I never feel entirely comfortable ‘talking up’ one of my novels but it is something us authors are expected to do these days with this wizzy Internet stuff to use and all that kind of thing. Somehow I rarely really know what to say on Twitter unless it is for some cause I really believe in or something. I think my first tweet was ‘I have just eaten a croissant’. However the Internet is fab in many ways and I like blogging. Kindle is wonderful for non mega selling authors like myself whose books seem to inspire deep affection in the folk who identify with the characters. Loads of people borrow my novels from libraries but they were published a while ago and so are not in many bookshops because new titles, naturally, get priority. Thank goodness for Amazon.

Enjoy the podcast if you feel like being read to!

Warm wishes and sparkles,

Grace

In the interview I talk about my novels and the writing process. The interview took place by a cosy fire on a wintry day and it was great to meet Jho and Sinead and chat over tea. Also did some readings from my novels. And munched some digestive biscuits. Hope you enjoy the chat. There is lots of talk about love and relationships and the importance of a good giggle! And how, as a writer, I love to get underneath the masks that people wear.

Was given a book called ‘Horse Heaven’ by Jane Smiley years ago and it sat on a bookshelf looking plump and intriguing. I love horses and their exquisite vigour and sensitivity. However this book is about horse racing and I prefer a gentle trot through the countryside and little chats with my equine pals. Came across the book the other day while doing some dusting. It’s great! Jane has created a wonderful cast of characters and the horses are characters too. She writes about them with great insight and affection. And she describes their vulnerability, strength and beauty with thoroughbred skill and encourages us humans to show them more respect. My first love was a pony called Merrylegs. I know Jane would understand that.

Lots of love,

Grace

‘If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.’ The Dalai Lama

Lots of love,

Grace

It is partly a book about words and what we seek from them. And the places where we can leave words behind. There are also many sentences about pain and the prostate. This doesn’t sound particularly appealing. But the transformative journey Parks embarks upon is fascinating.

The words by Will Self on the back of the jacket ring true. He writes: ‘In a world dominated by cheap self-revelation and quack self-help I suspect that ‘Teach Us To Sit Still’ may be the real thing. A work of genuine consolation that shows the way out of the dark wood in which everyone, at some time or another, will inevitably find themselves lost.’ The book is also darkly funny is many places. Thank you Tim Parks. It is a brave book. Gritty and often both stark and tender.

Warm wishes,

Grace

Did some decluttering yesterday, which felt nice, though of course it was a bit boring to trawl through various papers and wonder if I should keep them. For example I doubt if I need aged utility bill receipts. Of course I also found some things I’d forgotten about and that might come in useful.

Went through my wardrobe the other day with a friend. There were a number of items in there that felt like ‘discoveries’. For example I have a number of fairly swanky jackets. Should wear them more often. And I have a large collection of scarves. Also found a nice pink top that seemed like a newcomer. I think I last wore it when I was an extra on a TV programme and was sitting with a very handsome French man in a makey uppy restaurant.

As I’ve mentioned before in my blogs I love animals. I adored a pony called Merrylegs when I was younger. Was also very fond a poodle called Tinkie, a pug called Zoe and a Yorkshire terrier called Scut. Animals often feature in my novels.

I really miss having a cat and here are some jottings about a wonderful feline called Puddy.

Puddy

Puddy was black and white and opinionated. He was brave too. Sometimes howls rang out in the night when he encountered a mean streets tom. There were evenings when he sat for a full five minutes before leaping through the cat flap like a feline action hero. He knew how to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. Though he was neutered he had not lost his va va voom.

He once returned home with a large fish. Where had he got it? Unanswered questions such as these were part of his mystique. He was a big cat. I admired his strength. The heavy, surrendered weight of him on my lap…the deep vibrating purrs. . We sometimes snoozed together. It is extraordinarily therapeutic to have a cat nuzzled into your armpit. He had strong preferences about food, its brands and flavours. He was his own cat. I lloved that about him too.

At first this love was most inconvenient and completely unsought, or so it seemed. I felt I didn’t need this kind of anthropomorphic sentimentality. Puddy’s mother, a stray, brought him and his small siblings to my patio garden. The other cats eventually wandered away but Puddy stayed and, gradually, I began to learn why cats can inspire such devotion.

Hemingway, for example, shared his Key West Home with more than 30 cats. Dr. Samuel Johnson had a pet cat named Hodge whom he fed oysters to and other treats. Mark Twain revealed “I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one.” And who would ever have guessed that the august Sir Isaac Newton is often credited with the invention of the cat flap. He cut a hole in his study door so that his pet puss could come and go.

Someone once remarked that “having a dog is like a marriage, but having a cat is like having an affair”. Maybe that’s why ads for cat food sometimes resemble Mills & Boon novels as glamorous career women embrace their purrfect partners.

“As we see animals more as equals we like the fact that cats see us as inferior” one cat lover told me. “I find it rather funny that my cats order me around.” A psychologist who has studied feline charisma added that the human-cat relationship is quite an egalitarian one that may appeal to feminist instincts. Thankfully Puddy was only haughty when he felt the situation required it. But he never quite forgot forgot his wildcat roots. Strangers made him dart for cover,

“There is a time for departure even when there is no certain place to go” Mark Twain once wrote. When I left Ireland for some years I had to rehome Puddy. I wish I could have brought him with me, but his new home in the countryside was wonderful. He could roam freely without fear of bullying toms and his new human companion showered him with care and affection. After a bewildered while he settled. I received photos of him looking extremely contented.

Quite a while ago I bought a bag of catnip and sprinkled it in a corner of the kitchen. Puddy passed away before I returned to Ireland. I wanted him to know that even though I cannot see him he is welcome to wander through these rooms. The cat flap is still in the kitchen door. Sometimes a gust of wind makes it sound as though he has popped through it. Dropping in for a while before setting out on bigger and more satisfying adventures. Bravely exploring his great elsewhere and sleekly slipping into its mysteries.

Lots of love,

Grace

I interviewed Jane Brocket a while ago. She is the author of ‘The Gentle Art of Domesticity’ and she believes that we should ignore dust in favour of expressing ourselves creatively in our homes. “My quilts make me happy,” she declares. The article was published in The Irish Times.

Was intrigued by something Nate Berkus said on Oprah. He suggested that we should ‘shop in our homes’ and I think it’s a clever tip. He’s a wonderful interior designer and he says many people have furniture etc that might benefit from being moved to another part of the house. For example a pretty table might be languishing in the spare room and it has the wow factor and looks ‘new’ when moved to the kitchen. Obviously we have to shop in ordinary shops sometimes! But it’s fun to appreciate what we already have.

Lots of love,

Grace