2 days agoMember-only1962 The Year of FagiiltyA Magdalene Laundry Tale. In 1962, My grandfather, that looming figure of authority, suffered a stroke, an unraveling of his neural circuitry that left him a man reduced to outbursts of profanity. Tourette’s, the doctor speculated, but what did it matter what we called it? …11 min read11 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyFinding ProportionI was merely six yet already an impassive witness to a life that had proceeded as if I were merely part of the scenery. The credo I imbibed was bleak and clear: to be visible but not vocal, and often not even the former. It was under the strict supervision…5 min read5 min read
4 days agoIn The Name of The FatherA Magdalene Laundry Tale. In that dim sanctum of enforced divinity, morning comes like an act of aggression, a jarring interruption to the inertia hanging heavily in the dormitory air. The rote and ritualistic words flutter in the air like a battle flag: “In the name of the Father, and…5 min read5 min read
5 days agoMember-onlyShackled by the laws of ‘Marks’A Magdalene Laundry Tale. In the cold hallways of Mount Saint Canice, we lived amidst a morass of coded rites, a lexicon of rules that evoked their own obscure logic, even as they contradicted all sensibility. …4 min read4 min read
6 days agoMember-onlyBurlap Cloth and Shaved HeadsBurlap Cloth and Shaved Heads As everyone in Mount Saint Canice knew, I knew that the institution we inhabited existed in the liminal space between salvation and subjugation. …6 min read6 min read
Sep 15Member-onlyMarks and ParlorA Magdalene Laundry Tale The composition of Mount Saint Canice was intricate, a chaotic blending of lifetimes — elderly women incarcerated for years, young women tethered to the mundane rituals of the convent farm. A voluntary contingent, their existence further complicating the mechanics of the institution. …4 min read4 min read
Sep 13Member-onlyIn Praise of Parallel UniversesA Magdalen Laundy Tale — Families. In that arresting blur between reality and fiction, in that dimly lit space where every experience seeps into the marrow of your bones, there I was a witness to the derelictions of others, shaped but not defined by the pervasive inattention and indiscretions that…8 min read8 min read
Sep 12Member-onlyA Very Troubled ChildOnce is never enough. The rituals take shape in the rooms where we live out our unguarded hours, a mixture of yearning and dread. They were devised to save us, or so we believe. I was eight when I first sensed the unease, a nebulous contagion that tinged the edges…2 min read2 min read
Sep 12Member-onlyMount Saint CaniceA reflection Mount Saint Canice undoubtedly became a part of my story — an unwanted chapter, perhaps, but one that unquestionably shapes the arc of my life narrative in ways I can neither fully understand nor entirely escape. In a landscape of uniform bleakness, Mount Saint Canice stood like a…4 min read4 min read
Sep 10Member-onlyA Posy For My DaughterA Posy For My Daughter. In the hushed light of a Sunday, held close by the afterglow of a full-blue moon. I find myself treading the sanctuary of my late-summer garden. Life is a study in contrast — a meadow of contradictions, teeming with vitality even as it skirts the…2 min read2 min read
