Forgive me for the three-month long hiatus from this little writing nook of mine - it’s a good excuse, I promise. I’ve been getting acquainted with a lovely new set of lungs. Lungs that breathe without assistance, with unscarred airways that deliver all that precious oxygen to where it’s needed. And most importantly, allows me to independently walk to my favourite coffee shop on Walnut & Cornwall for a flat white every morning (as a result, my bank balance was probably in better shape when I was very, very sick).

I’ve been balancing on the fine line between life and death for a year and a half now - first it was a particularly aggressive kind of leukaemia, and then as an unfortunate side effect from a stem cell transplant, a type of lung disease that progressed so quickly there was no other option other than a double lung transplant, and fast. A real-life rollercoaster, as you can imagine. But on April 13^th after only ten days on the urgent transplant list, I received THE call.

I had spent thirty-four years with those old lungs of mine; they carried me up mountains, through heartache, across oceans, inhaled breath so as not to wake their newborn niece, exhaled when they finally met their person.

I was so scared that I would have to learn to breathe again with a new set of lungs, and even more scared that they would feel out of place and never quite part of me, inheriting the memory of someone else’s important breaths as my own were ripped from me. But as soon as they took the intubation tube out after surgery and I took the first inhale on my own, they just felt…like mine. And I knew exactly what to do. Turns out the body, this body, is pretty magic.

And now, although I have been desperately trying, the season of recovery I find myself in is definitely not the one of creativity, or wellness, or spirituality; it is practicality. Practical steps that keep me alive everyday; pain management, making up pill boxes, monitoring vitals, attending daily-weekly-monthly appointments for bloods-x-rays-infusions-physio-more tests, you name it. Managing my dwindling energy while simultaneously trying to build up any form of muscle in my body again. Keeping my lungs moving, when all I want to do is sleep.

It’s been a lot. But I want to be very careful not to sound ungrateful because the reality is I am here. I get to do all this mundane, painful, tiring shit because someone left behind a piece of themselves for me. It’s the oddest feeling in the world to know you’re only on this earth because someone else left it - and that’s the reality for most people on the receiving end of an organ donation. A simultaneous why me, and thank the universe it was me. Feeling overwhelmed and dismayed at what your life looks like now and forevermore; daily drugs and a body not quite working at full throttle. But also, the gratefulness that you’ve even been given this chance at all. ‘Don’t waste it’ running in circles around your head, as you fight the urge to take yet another day in bed to heal your body. Two things can be true at once, I try to remember when both feel so at odds with one another. Something I have preached as advice to loved ones many a time, now returned to thrower on the blade of a boomerang.

All that is to say that the art of creating, the thing that once brought me so much fulfilment, has not been finding me easily lately. It’s as if when they switched my new lungs on, they flicked my brain firmly off. I haven’t been able to write anything cohesive other than this (hopefully). I can’t paint, the drugs i’m on causing tremors that make it frustrating to even try. I’ve managed a couple of books, a couple of shows (mostly reality, unsure this counts) but nothing is resonating as more than mildly entertaining noise.

That isn’t to say I’m not finding enjoyment in life - I absolutely am! Life remains hard, but it’s buckets easier than when I couldn’t breathe. Picking up coffee, going on walks with friends, brunches and date nights with my husband, ice creams on the beach - it’s wonderful, and beyond what I ever thought I would be able to do again. But although part of my brain feels completely shut down to making art, there is another small part starting to wake up and think, like really think, about everything that has happened to my body over the last year and a half. It’s not pretty. I’m bracing for the impact of when I finally feel capable to process it - what it’s given, and what it’s taken. The life I thought I would be living vs. the life I find myself in. And so I stay tucked in my cocoon, not ready to emerge yet to what feels like will either be total devastation, or the start of something beautiful. Or maybe, both?

But as with everything we go through - we take it day by day. So a check-in to say hello, i’m alive and breathing! I’m both thankful and grieving! I really hope you’ll be hearing more from me soon!

Until then - if you haven’t donated blood recently, please consider it. Sign up to be a stem cell donor, and make sure your loved ones know if you’d like to be an organ donor should the unthinkable ever happen.

xoxo

Kara (and my ever growing body of kindness / recycled parts)

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Things that have been keeping me going:

• Friends, and their patience and understanding

• Love Island, both old and new

• The Pitt - watching a medical drama? Not as triggering as I thought, and oddly…comforting

• Pain au chocolat - actually, any chocolate or pastry treat

• Skincare goodies from Sephora (oops)

• Lena Dunham’s ‘Famesick’ memoir

• Daily Spirometer checks, to calm my anxiety

• Flowers on the balcony, right in my eyesight everyday (thank you, Paul)

• Friends doing cool shit - graduating! having babies! doing triathlons! work trips to Seoul!

• Crystals

• Pretty shoes that i’ll never wear but have to buy

• Calm’s sleeping app

• Ondansetron

• Cycling indoors at a snail’s pace while watching Tour de France

• Pinterest

• Re-listening to old albums

• My parents being nearby (thank you for doing all the laundry)

• News of any new archaeological dig findings (niche, perhaps a future Obsessions)

• Paul, always Paul.

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Like everyone else, I have been glued to the extra-terrestrial journey of the Artemis II crew this past week and a bit. It felt like something we all collectively needed at this exact moment in time, a reminder that we are but a moment in time on a beautiful floating rock, there is more out there; people are smart and competent at their jobs; we can make history for good things too; real love exists, and there’s a bright spot on the moon called Carroll that proves it.

And there’s something else that I took from all of this as well; the dark side of the moon is not really dark.

Maybe I’m getting all philosophical here, but it’s been a reminder to me that just because we can’t see things, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Just because we don’t see kindness, and empathy, and love every day, doesn’t mean it’s not taking place the world over, the universe over. Just because the light doesn’t reach us, doesn’t mean the light doesn’t exist.

So, this week I’m sharing something a little different. I’m not going to talk about space travel or all the things that are worthy of obsessing over after watching this journey play out (don’t rule it out for future, though). Instead I’m going to share a little poem I wrote that filled up the dark space in me for a while.

xoxo

The dark side of the moon

We keep calling it the dark side of the moon
Not because it lacks light
But because it hides from the human eye
So what do we call love?
What do we call empathy?
What do we call kindness?
The sides of us we don’t always see
When we’re pulled down by gravity,
and hate and fear
But look closely – here’s the lesson
They are always there
Always in existence
Sometimes, 
It just takes a few brave souls to go looking for it. 

                        Even when you can’t see it
                        The good will always find us
                        The light is always there. 

Happy obsessions day! You might have noticed I took a couple of weeks off – and in doing so have decided to drop the ‘weekly’ from this, for now. I wrote in my ‘breathing’ substack a couple of weeks ago that issues with my lungs are taking over much of daily life at the moment, and some days I can’t think about much else other than fighting to get my next breath…so I’m giving myself grace and taking off any pressure to get this out weekly (the pressure is all from me, I know – it’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me as the great Taylor Swift said).

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Anyway, back to business. I’m obsessed with girl code this week!!!!!

If you’re not a reality tv lover and Summer House watcher like me, then the reasoning behind this obsession won’t register with you at all – but for me, it’s all I can think about and it’s all that’s showing up on my feed. Let me introduce you to the Ciara-Amanda-West drama. Here’s how it goes: Ciara and Amanda are best friends. Ciara was in a relationship with West; he broke her heart. Amanda recently broke up with her husband, and now she’s dating West. It’s a mess. And the internet agrees; Amanda has officially and unequivocally broken girl code.

It’s really got me thinking - why is it that women so often prize a romantic relationship over friendship? Why is one the goal, the emotional climax to our lives, and the other…optional? Something that can be easily shed, discarded when offered the chance at the former. I realise I say this as a happily married woman and so I get it could be grating of me to pass judgement, but I treasure my female friendships above all else and quite frankly, I wouldn’t be the woman my husband fell in love with without them.

We’d all like to think we would never violate the code in the way Amanda has, and of course any time spent in the sanctity of girlhood growing up would’ve taught us not to, but is it fair to say we’ve also been raised in a society that has fed us the narrative that romantic love is the main storyline? We’ve got the fairytales we were raised on, the romcoms we grew up with, the books we cherished as we aged, all telling us to find our prince charming. So is it then fair to blame the girl who puts that above all else?

If it sounds like I am Team Amanda, I would like to make it really clear, I’m not. Team Ciara all the way – but part of what this place offers (this place being a body of kindness) is the ability to take a view of different truths. So, while I am trying to do that, I cannot help but come up against the thing that feels truest to me; The guy isn’t always worth it, the girl is. And if you can cast aside a friendship as collateral damage to ‘get the guy’, well, you’ve ultimately done that friendship a favour by breaking it.

Listen, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been young and dumb and I’m sure broken girl code a time or two in the throes of my teenage years, but that happens when you’re figuring out boundaries and what you value. I’ve also been the victim of it in some form; I introduced a best friend (girl) to a best friend (boy) and dealt with the fallout of insecurity and marking of territory. Girl code was not upheld; I was cast aside in favour of a boy. All these things add up and at some point we learn, and our mistakes become more conscious.

So, I suppose what I am trying to say is – two things can be true. And it feels like a yet again impossible task given to us women. Find the guy and your happy ending at all costs, but also, don’t let that cost be your female friendship. I suppose at some point you just choose what feels more right for you, and I’m sad in this case Amanda picked the guy. But as the internet continues to pile on, let’s remember what she did was bad, but it doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. Girl code takes, and girl code gives – so let’s remember to also lift the women up that come to realise and take accountability for their mistakes. THAT should also be in our rule book.

xoxo

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This week I’m also obsessed with:

Accessibility: Wheeling about! I have been so stubborn about not needing a wheelchair, but alas, the time finally came for me to give in and admit I needed the help. I keep reminding myself it’s not forever! But my goodness, how lovely it’s been to get out and about and enjoy the lovely spring sunshine, with some good friends for company.

Eating: Chocolate. Because it’s Easter, duh! What else should we be doing? Big shoutout to my wonderful friend who sent me my favourite bar of Tony’s Chocolonely from the UK.

Watching: The Night Of. Very much enjoyed this crime series we watched on Crave. Lots of suspense and twists.

Drinking: Coffee. Another date with Paul, this time, at the new coffee place in Kitsilano called Nomad. Overall good coffee – very fancy!

I was struggling to think of what to write about this week, if I’m honest. Most of life right now is taken up by hospital appointments. And when I’m not at the hospital, I’m sitting at home on the couch, struggling to breathe.

I realised I therefore have very little space in my brain to obsess over anything, because I am constantly fighting for every inhale and exhale. So this week I bring you, an obsession with breathing. Nothing could be truer. It’s funny how something that so many of us take for granted, can suddenly take up your mind completely when you can’t do it. ‘As simple as breathing’ they say – wouldn’t that be nice?

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Here’s the crux of it for me: my small airways are being obliterated. Literally. That’s the name of the disease I have – Bronchiolitis Obliterans. When I was diagnosed in November my lung capacity was down at around fifty per cent – now that I’m sitting at just above twenty, that sounds pretty dreamy. It was a scary diagnosis to be handed, but naively at that time I was confident I could breathe my way back to health. I discovered the book ‘Breath’ by James Nestor and read it cover to cover within a week. I was confident in my newfound research that I just had to breathe properly, and then this disease that was irreversible would be reversed and I would be some sort of medical marvel. But my lung function kept steadily dropping and soon I needed supplementary oxygen to leave the house, and then for small periods at home, and then 24/7.

But just because my newfound interest in breathing hasn’t helped me to repair my lungs, that doesn’t mean it should stop you from trying to perfect it. Because here’s the thing: you’re doing it all wrong.

First off, if you aren’t breathing through your nose, you’re committing a cardinal sin. Turns out, our nose is our bodies built in life-support-system. Yes, really. It’s quite miraculous really - it filters and traps nasty germs, produces nitric oxide which helps oxygen move from your lungs into your blood, warms the air before it reaches our lungs, and supports proper airway development. Overall, the air we get when we breathe in through our noses? Much more efficient than the air we breathe in through our mouths. And it’s the way we were always meant to breathe. Pre-industrial skulls tell us a very different story to the skulls we boast today. It’s an interesting case in evolution; instead of developing for the better, we’re under-developing for the worse. A softer, more processed diet has meant we chew less and so there’s less motivation for the jaw to grow to its full potential. The result? Smaller jaws, narrower palates—and crucially, smaller airways.

And here’s where it gets cyclical. The roof of the mouth doubles as the floor of the nasal cavity. When the palate narrows, so do the airways above it, making nasal breathing more difficult. So, we switch, often unconsciously, to mouth breathing.

But mouth breathing, especially in childhood, can subtly reshape the face over time: longer, narrower, less able to support easy nasal airflow. So, a loop forms - the harder it is to breathe through the nose, the less we do it. The less we do it, the harder it becomes. And over time we lose all the lovely benefits that nasal breathing brings.

That’s one piece of the puzzle (albeit a very big one). If you read the book, you will discover lots more about breathing exclusively through your nose and I urge (almost insist!) that you do. It’s fascinating. There’s also a lot of research about how certain breathing techniques (slower, faster etc.) can optimise our entire nervous system, benefit our immune system, improve our lung capacity and be a HUGE contributing factor in combatting other lung diseases that aren’t quite as stubborn as mine.

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All this is to say that ‘MOUTH BREATHER!’ has now become a horrible insult in our house. To the point that Paul invested in some mouth tape for sleeping so that I would stop waking him up to remind him to ‘breathe through your nose!’ When he comes in from nightshifts, black tape across his mouth, sometimes I think I’ve found myself inside one of my favourite true crime podcasts.

Let me leave you with one more thing I learnt this week; grief is held in the lungs, according to traditional Chinese medicine. It got me to thinking if perhaps I still have a way to go with processing everything I’ve lost over the past year, and everything it means I’ll lose in the future. Very classic of me, trying to find some control and reason in an uncontrollable situation. Something to think about, I guess (or speak to my therapist about…)

Until then, I’m dreaming of the day I can freely walk outside and feel the coolness of fresh air hitting my lungs. In, out, in, out – without barely a thought or a struggle (and all through my nose of course.) For a time when I can obsess over how miraculous lung transplants are, after I’ve been lucky enough to have one. Fingers crossed!

xoxo

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This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Breakfast rolls! The obsession continues, but I am moving on to pastures new. This week, in between appointments we snuck out to Nemesis to sample theirs, and dare I say it might be one of the best ones yet? The smokey bacon was the star of the show.

Celebrating: Turning 1! I mentioned last week I was celebrating my first ‘re-birthday’ on Friday 13^th, marking one whole year since my stem cell transplant. We celebrated with a few friends, and Paul surprised me with the yummiest chocolate cake. It’s odd to celebrate when this journey has so recently taken such a spectacular turn for the worse, but life goes on, and we gotta find the joy.

Watching: The Dinosaurs. Loving this new show on Netflix – admittedly, not the dinosaurs biggest fan. That is to say, never been much of an interest of mine but I am finding this series fascinating. And also, some of them are quite cute. Perhaps, a future obsessions.

Wearing: New pyjamas. If I’m going to spend all day lounging around, I may as well look cute doing so. I treated myself to some new pj’s from Gap after a dear friend of mine confirmed a) they were made of good quality material and b) sent me money towards them so I would have no other choice but to purchase. She called it ‘buying an arm’. I call it twisting mine (thank you, Alicia)

Ah Friday 13^th – considered the unluckiest day of the calendar in the western hemisphere. I’ve always be quite intrigued by this, how it came to be that one single day, a certain number, could be considered so astronomically unlucky as to render people terrified to build a 13^th floor, have the 13^th seat on a plane, even celebrate an occasion on the day itself…

Well, not for me. For me, it’s the luckiest day of the year. For starters, it’s the day I was born into the world (can’t get much luckier than that), and this upcoming one (March 13^th) marks one year since my stem cell transplant, otherwise known as a ‘rebirthday’. One whole bonus year!

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As the second Friday 13^th of the year draws closer this very week (fun fact, you can only get three in a year – the next one is November), I’ve become obsessed with knowing the superstitious reasoning behind it. Why is a day that I consider to be so lucky, considered so UNlucky for others?

There’s a lot of different explanations, but I think it’s important to start off with the fact that this is a very westernised belief. Other cultures and countries have their own combinations of unlucky days and numbers. In Spain and Greece, for example, Tuesday 13^th is a day to avoid major decisions. And in China and Japan, 4 is the number to be avoided at all costs. So why do us westerners hate Friday 13^th SO much?

Well, Friday already had a pretty bad reputation in medieval Christian Europe (the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on ‘Good Friday’ and all that jazz), add in the infamous 13^th dinner guest (hello, Judas) and we’ve got a recipe for disaster. But there was another explanation that I found fascinating, and it’s all to do with women. Or rather the fear of women as is so often the cause.

For centuries we’ve been fed a diet of old bible stories and latterly, horror books and movies that positioned this day on the calendar as something to dread. Believe it or not, people even have ACTUAL phobias of the date (paraskevidekatriaphobia). But look back far enough, before Christianity took hold of European continent in the Middle Ages, and you’ll find that the date was a day dedicated to the ‘divine feminism’. It was a day for women to be celebrated, revered and marvelled at just for being, well, women.

In all my research (reddit, social media, Substack etc.) I discovered that 13, that oh so unlucky number, actually has a long historical association with the moon and women’s bodies. You see, there are roughly 13 lunar cycles in a solar year, and the average menstrual cycle roughly mirrors the 28-day lunar month. Because of this, some ancient traditions (mainly paganism) treated 13 as a fertile or feminine number, representing life and renewal. In that framework, 13 wasn’t unlucky at all.

And then comes the Friday association. ‘Friday’ itself comes from the Norse goddess Freya (also known as Frigg), a female deity associated with love, fertility, magic, and wisdom. In Old English the day was Frīgedæg — literally Freya day, and was treated as a day to honour the divine feminism of Ms. F.

Legendary pagan folklore goes on to tell us that on the sacred day of Friday, Freya would come down from her resting place in the mountains to join a sacred gathering of women. But then, Freya was recast as a ‘witch’ by Christian standards – a witch who met with her coven of 12 (making 13 witches total) on Fridays to do untold evil spells…a possible origin story for why the church sought to mark Friday 13^th as SO unlucky, vs. a celebration?

This is of course just one interpretation, and one based on myth and folklore. But it cannot be argued that early pagan symbols – especially female power, fertility rites, and moon symbolism - were often linked with witchcraft or sin. Within that context, the combination of Friday and 13 could have easily shifted from sacred to suspicious, and it’s a rhetoric that is growing in popularity online as my favourite social media witches fight to take control back of the day. I’m on board.

Goodness, females just have been beaten down for centuries, haven’t they? I hadn’t planned to turn this obsession in to (yet another) display of my staunch feminism, but somehow society just keeps serving up these examples on a platter. What’s a girl to do, except call it out?

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In latter day, there’s a much bigger cultural lore around Friday 13^th due to representation in media that we cannot ignore. Think the 1907 novel ‘Friday 13^th’ which cemented it as a disastrous for many at the time, or the movie franchise by the same name with the terrifying hockey-masked killer that haunted my childhood.

Either way, I’m happy to go against the grain of naming this an unlucky day, regardless of superstition, folklore, or popular culture. It marks my birth, and first ‘rebirth’ so forevermore it will be a day to be celebrated in this household. So, all that is to say that this Friday, I hope you find something to do that celebrates the divine feminism. Or you know, watch a scary movie. Or just think of me being alive…whatever takes your fancy.

xoxo

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This week I’m also obsessed with:

Listening: Emeli Sande. I found my way into a bunch of my old playlists this week and have had the 2012 album ‘Our Version of Events’ on repeat – it’s SO GOOD. Rediscovering music you used to love brings about so much nostalgia.

Watching: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. LOVING this show – I wasn’t a Game of Thrones person so I didn’t know if this would be my thing, but it’s giving us such giggles in our house. Short episodes, good story, minimal medieval violence that you’d usually expect from something like this. 10/10. (EDIT just watched episode 5 - lots of violence)

Writing: In my new notebook! I am banned from buying notebooks – and quite rightly so because it is an addiction and there’s only so many I can stock in this little one bed apartment with no storage. HOWEVER, a lovely friend sent me this one as a gift so that doesn’t count. Maybe that’s the workaround? Just paying my friends to send me them as ‘gifts’? (Paul if you are reading I’m joking, obviously…)

Wearing: 90s hair clips. As my hair grows back, I’m having to find lots of ways to tame the unruly mullet. I ordered some cute little hair clips that let me shape it in to somewhat of a style and it’s been my go-to look all week.

Drinking: Coffee dates cont. with Paul. We’re in an ocean of hospital appointments right now which is EXHAUSTING, so this is still very much the highlight of the week. This week, it was Their There. Had to then sample their donuts and tater tots of course (would have been rude not to).

Hello reader!

Let me tell you a story about when Paul and I, innocent as we were, first arrived in Vancouver. We hadn’t long started our new jobs: me, back at a Public Relations agency and working from home in a small, dark, temporary basement apartment. Paul: a lumberjack.

I was sitting one morning minding my own business when my phone started blaring with an emergency alert – sure, it noted it was a test, but it completely freaked me out. A test for what? We’d never experienced a system like it in the UK, and what followed was me catapulting myself headfirst into the potential disasters facing us in our new home. The main one being, the BIG ONE.

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Turns out, Paul and I hadn’t done much research in to our new home besides knowing we could hike and ski (because what else matters?) But it transpired we were now living above a 1,1000km crack in the seafloor running from Vancouver Island to the tip of California, capable of producing a 9.0 ‘mega-thrust’ earthquake. Fantastic. When I’m planning a ski trip, I’ll read up on avalanches. Hiking – I want to know about potential fires or rockslides in the area. When we took a trip to Tofino on Vancouver Island, I made sure I knew the tsunami evacuation route. Which of course does beg the question why I hadn’t thought to check up on the hazards faced in and around this beautiful Canadian city when we first set up home here.

I’ve always had a weird obsession with natural disasters - for as long as I can remember I have gobbled up any information I could find on them. Perhaps it all started with the great Edinburgh floods of the year 2000 when I was 8 years old, and the thrill of me and my sister being moved to our grandparents house in the middle of the night as water started to creep in to our backyard (I’m sure our parents didn’t find it so thrilling). Maybe it was on an early school trip to Dynamic Earth? I could have happily stayed in the volcanic zone for the whole day experiencing the tremors from the earthquake experience. Or on a day trip to the Natural History Museum in London (arguably one of my favourite places on Earth) where it recreated a quake happening in a grocery store in Japan. Whatever it was that first rooted the obsession in me, upon discovering that I now lived in a zone that threatened to shake us all with the next big one, the fascination grew.

So, what exactly is ‘the big one?’ Well, it’s not just unique to us in the Pacific Northwest – California and Japan both have their own versions and essentially, it’s an earthquake prone area that has the threat of an 8.0 or higher looming over them. But what makes our one on the Cascadia subduction zone so wondrously eerie is how rarely it happens. Although scientists identified said subduction zone in the 1960s, they didn’t realize it could produce massive magnitude 9.0 earthquakes until the 1990s, when researchers discovered ‘ghost forests’ and tsunami sand deposits along the coast, all signifying some pretty monumental land shifts in its history. Then, the ultimate breakthrough came when Japanese records of a mysterious 1700 ‘orphan tsunami’ were linked to a giant Cascadia quake also in 1700. Thus, the cities along the Pacific Northwest were built without ever knowing the true risk of the land beneath them, because no one had experienced it in their lifetimes.

And now it’s a when, not an if, it will happen again. Scientists predict in the past it’s happened every 300-600 years, with the last full rupture being 326 years ago. But unlike some other natural disasters, earthquakes love to run entirely on their own timeline without any way to truly predict - so really who’s to say when it next decides to arrive?

Speaking to friends that have lived here their whole lives, I was fascinated to learn how earthquake drills were just part of the school curriculum – while all we had to worry about in Scotland were midges and the occasional flood. The expectation that the ground beneath them could give way at any point is something they brush off, accepting it’s a part of living here, but maybe never truly believing it will happen in their lifetime. Most of them laugh when I ask if they have an emergency bag ready to go – I was gifted one by a group of friends a few birthdays back and it remains one of my favourite presents I’ve ever received.

This week, the obsession surfaced again as I was prepping a hospital to-go bag for some visits in my near future. It made me dust off the earthquake one under my bed and take stock of my supplies, and that got me thinking just how royally screwed I would be if it was to hit right now. Like, more than usual. I’m not running anywhere with these lungs, especially up the massive hill that leads to higher ground from where our apartment sits at the beach (gorgeous location, other than the tsunami threat). I’m immunocompromised, and on enough daily tablets that people can probably hear me rattling a mile off. If it’s survival of the fittest, I’m a goner.

In the threat of an earthquake, rather as in life, we have no idea when something big will hit. We can plan, sure, but we can’t predict. When you take a step back it’s actually quite baffling to understand how people can set up their lives in such a place – but also, what a lesson for living, eh? Nature can take away what she gives in a single breath, but still, we keep forging ahead. Because what else is there to do except be along for the ride?

But at the very least, consider having a go-bag ready and packed. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail and all that.

xoxo

ps. if this subject interests you, I would highlight recommend the CBC podcast, Fault Lines!

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This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Fancy chocolates. Some friends came over to watch a film at the weekend and brought me a delightful little box of treats from BETA5, they are like little works of art! I’ve been LOVING treating myself to one every day.

Watching: Industry. I’ve just discovered this show after a recco from a friend, and gosh it really is bringing back memories of working in London! Now, I’m not saying working in marketing was anywhere near as toxic or similar to the banking and trading industry…but the client dinners, late nights and early mornings, getting a font wrong in a presentation being the end of the world etc. is certainly a blast from the past.

Reading: The Winter Witch. I finished this book this week – it’s an interesting history lesson in what life was like for those arriving in 17^th century Quebec, set against the backdrop of witchy superstition. An easy going, but informative read.

Listening: Shameless Podcast’s take on GoFundMe’s. Like many others, I’ve got opinions on the cash fundraising for celebs that has taken place recently. I really enjoyed listening to this discussion on it.

I have been thinking a lot about ageing this past year. I suppose that’s what happens when all of a sudden you are posed with the very real reality that you might not get to. Only then do you realise how much of a privilege it is, and one afforded to so few of us. We assume we will get to look in the mirror one day and see an old face staring back at us – not thinking twice about how lucky we will be if that happens.

But I’ve been thinking about it even more this week, unfortunately on the back of the sad realisation that I think many women are having right now; that we’ve been groomed by society to believe we should look younger as we grow older based on beauty standards that are actually a lot more sinister than we thought (hint: The Epstein files, or do we also call them the Trump files at this point?)

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Since time immemorial we have tried to look younger than our years, literally. The Ancient Egyptians were doing it with honey and milk, the Victorians with rosewater and egg whites. But in all my reading it seems to be more tied to the pursuit of vitality and fertility, vs. ‘looking young’. Old age was revered, respected, and not seen as a failure – especially given average life expectancy at the times. To be old was indeed to carry wisdom and perspective, but somewhere along the way we lost that at the turn of the 20^th century.

We set about denying ageing as a natural process as faces were frozen in time through photography and film. ‘Anti-ageing’ became a billion-dollar industry as wrinkles were positioned as a problem to fix, vs. an accolade of time. Victoria’s Secret brought out its PINK range in 2002 aimed at ‘junior girls’ (children), telling us in no uncertain terms if we didn’t wear a thong, we weren’t cool. We watched on as Britney Spears was paraded as a sex symbol in a school uniform. And now, we scroll through timelines of perfect, ‘snatched’ faces and wonder why our drug store creams aren’t giving us the same result.

The switch up from seeking vitality and health to simply looking young has been a calculated media campaign that ensures our beauty standards are aligned with those of a child, and not of a woman with years and perspective behind her. I’ve known this, we’ve all known this. But I don’t think I gave much thought to the who driving it all until the past few weeks. It’s very easy to laud this as a societal problem, and it is. But what it is also, is a lot of rich white men feeding off our insecurities and driving their own perverse pleasures. I think it’s very important to acknowledge that if we are to break free of the pursuit of youth.

And it’s not just women who are victimised in all of this, men are too as per this Substack from Jameela Jamil:

“What’s so impressive, is that our culture has almost implied over the years, that men who like grown women are the freaks and perverts. If you like an older man, you have sophisticated taste, if you like an older woman… you’re into COUGARS, you are a GRAVE ROBBER, you are a granny chaser. Men actually shame other men over who they are attracted to.”

All of this; the guilt placed on woman, the guilt placed on men, creates a hamster wheel of impossibility.

I have been grappling with two feelings this past week; embarrassment that I too have ran on the wheel throughout my 34 years, and sadness that I ever saw ageing as a failure. Because it feels like through dictating that we should be, and only be attracted to ageless, hairless, curveless bodies, we cannot see the joy in growing old. To have that stolen from us is a travesty – and to have men and women told that is not desirable is tragic.

I want to be very clear – I bear no judgement to those trying to look younger. I have tried Botox before. I too have looked shiny and perfect for a little while. If that is what you want, GO FOR IT. But I think we need to be really clear and consider what we want, and what *they* want us to look like.

I want to look good; I want to look glowy. But I don’t care about that going hand in hand with ‘younger’ anymore. Just…healthy.

What an honour, what a gift it will be to hopefully look in the mirror one day and meet an older version of myself - wrinkles, grey hair and all. To know I made it and carried my laughter lines with me.

To know me as ‘old’. I can’t wait to meet her.

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Provisions breakfast rolls. Anyone who knows me, knows I basically should have shares in this place by this point. I can’t get enough! I enjoyed (plus tater tots, obviously) with some girlfriends this past weekend – apologies to them for the sheer number of times I’ve dragged them there.

Watching: Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Emmmm, wow. Where do I start? I feel sad for all the girls and women who were involved in this, and I feel sad for our generation that watched this and thought it was normal. Also, Tyra, you need a better PR person and some revised talking points stat.

Receiving: Packages from home! This week our Christmas package arrived from my sister (not Canada Post’s fault, just very her lol). Amongst all the delightful gifts including lots of Cadbury’s chocolate were my favourite things to receive, artwork from my magical niece and nephew.

Buying: Hummingbird feeder. I’m spending most of my time on the couch right now watching life out the window while these lungs decide if they want to help me out with breathing or not. So! I invested in a hummingbird feeder – we see them occasionally from our balcony, so I thought I’d give them a wee place to hang out. I, of course, then had to purchase hummingbird food (sugared water) with added electrolytes to make sure they are the fittest birds around, much to Paul’s dismay.

I often make the mistake of assuming everyone else is consuming the same content as me. That what my algorithm is feeding me, is also feeding you – so forgive me for thinking everyone knows we’ve entered the Year of the Fire Horse. Did you? Did you feel the switch up yesterday? Or was it just a normal (pancake filled) Tuesday for you?

Either way, I’ve been pondering why so many people are obsessed with the incoming of the new lunar year right now, myself included. On the surface, it seems pretty simple: we’re leaving the snake year (a so-called year of shedding) and entering the Year of the Fire Horse (a symbol of vitality, bold leaps, and good fortune). That one follows the other is supposedly the universe telling us: the Snake cleared your path, now the Horse will move you forward. And apparently, the harder the snake year was for you the better this one will be. I’m expecting sunshine, glitter, gold, and all the good things then please.

But I am also acutely aware that I have never paid much heed to the Chinese New Year or its zodiac system before. To be diving right in now feels like, dare I say, cultural appropriation? Is it fair that we celebrate the Year of the Fire Horse because the narrative now suits us? So, this week while obsessing about shedding off the snakey year that was 2025 and galloping off into the sunset I set the intention to do some learning, to show up to the celebration with the respect and acknowledgement it deserves. The wisdom of the East is unmatched, in my opinion, and the Chinese zodiac is no different - a centuries old system where each year corresponds with one of 12 animals, and one of five elements. Each animal is said to represent specific traits and characteristics and has been used for thousands of years to predict compatibility and personality (I’m a metal goat – dreamy with an artist’s soul in case you were wondering).

I have come to believe that there is truth in longevity – if something has been around for long enough there is usually some gravitas to it, even if blurred and lost to myth and folklore over the passing of time. Horse and Fire only pair every 60 years, so this is a once in our lifetime alignment – and it’s worth mentioning with my newfound astrology interests that this day was bigger than just our four-legged friend. Falling under unusually crowded skies, this Lunar New Year also falls on the same day as a solar eclipse, the beginning of Ramadan, and the rushing in of Lent. Three of the world’s most significant spiritual traditions that all signify a reset; a release; a rebirth, converging at the same time in a moment that hasn’t been seen since 1863. A fleeting overlap of faith, time, and sky that feels too big to ignore.

Ultimately, we all attach ourselves to the things that suit our own narrative. But does that make it not true? Or is it that the things we need to be aware of are somehow brought into our consciousness at the exact time we need it in an act of divine timing?

Letting go has never been my strong point. I’m a type A personality; a planner, an organiser, a controller. Perhaps that’s why I’m finding comfort in these things that seem so much bigger than me. I’m handing over the reins to that horse and letting it run wherever the winds of the universe blow. So much has been out of my control this past year – perhaps now is time to trust in something bigger?

Let’s saddle up, I guess.

xoxo

(ps. I learnt in my research that during the last Fire Horse year, there was a dip in birth rates across Japan and China because women born during were said to be ‘independent, strong-willed, passionate, rebellious, and difficult to control’ ultimately leading to ‘instability in the home.’ Sounds like reason enough to me to start *quickly* trying for a baby this year if you’ve been thinking about it…)

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Celebrating: Galentine’s. Look, I’m not sure exactly why but I have always had a super strong aversion to all things Valentine’s. But a chance to celebrate the women in my life? I’m all for it (sorry Paul). I had some of my closest friends round for pizza and chats on Friday, and it served as a reminder of just how much I adore being surrounded by smart, funny, whimsical women (who I am lucky enough to call best friends!)

Watching: Hillside Strangler. I am one of those strange people who adores true crime and will watch it to relax – I knew lots about this case, but this new Prime documentary gives some new perspectives and potential alibi’s for the man who was ultimately convicted (imo all bullshit, and he did it)

Drinking: Coffee with my husband! I have always been an avid coffee drinker but since treatment, my usual order of an espresso or black Americano is far too bitter for my tender little taste buds. So, it’s a flat white now, and as much as getting out the house is a bit of an ordeal right now (breathless Brenda over here), we try and make the time every week to get out and have one together. This week, it was the Flourist in East Van – didn’t disappoint!

Wearing: Year of the Horse necklace. I’ve been very open about my current late-night shopping habits, and while I did impose a January spending ban (which was for the most part effective), I was cheeky and got this in before the Dec 31^st cut-off date last year. I was only cheating my own bank balance (make it make sense) but I told myself this was a real treat and that I couldn’t wear it until Feb 17^th. Anyway, it’s cute and I love it and it feels free because I bought it so long ago.

I have learnt the unfortunate truth that I think a lot of people forced to face their own mortality learn; death is not scary. What is scary, is thinking of your loved ones left behind in a world without you in it. The thought of fading into the ether can at times be oddly comforting when looking down the barrel of pain and mounting bad news, but it is completely outweighed by the terror you feel for everyone around you as you consider what they will go through, what they will have to face. What the rest of their lives will look like when you are gone.

I was admitted to hospital on a Friday afternoon. By that evening, I was in the Leukemia ward having what was to be the first of MANY emergency blood transfusions. I’ve never felt so giddy in my life – the cocktail of drugs, the bag of red seeping into my body (I’d come to know it as liquid gold), the knowledge that I had been believed, I hadn’t been written off. I knew something was wrong in my body and finally, finally, here was the proof and the action. If I had known the road that lay ahead, maybe I wouldn’t have felt quite so relieved.

The bone marrow biopsy came on the Tuesday. The results came back on the Wednesday – Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The worst kind.

I started in-patient ‘Induction’ chemotherapy on the Thursday. I didn’t have time to freeze my eggs; to tell all our family and friends what was happening; to process the diagnosis. I lay in a hospital bed trying to reassure the love of my life I was going to survive as he recovered from his own surgery treating testicular cancer.

What the fuck was going on? How had things changed so quickly, so dramatically? Was this even real? In less than a week, life as we knew it had ceased to exist.

Here’s the thing about leukemia – it’s a full body disease. It’s in your marrow, your blood, attacking your immune system. It travels everywhere and my god, the chemotherapy designed to kill it really is no joke. When I was told to pack for a month in hospital I don’t think I really appreciated that I wouldn’t be able to leave. And not only could I not leave, but I was trapped – truly trapped. I couldn’t even crack open a window to feel the fresh air of the outside world on my face; the risk of infection was too high. Visitors had to be kept to a minimum, and if they were allowed in, they were in full masks and protective gear. I didn’t see another person’s full face for the entire 72 days I ended up staying in hospital the first-time round.

This sounds awful to say, but I found myself becoming jealous of the other types of cancer, the types they could cut out. The types where you could have chemo and then recover at home until the next one. But I had no white blood cells to fight infection, no platelets to prevent me bleeding out at any given moment, no red blood cells to carry oxygen around my body. I was hooked up to some sort of medicine or transfusion 24/7 to keep me alive long enough for the chemo to do its job.

But the chemo didn’t do its job. Despite the strength of it (of which I think I experienced horrific side effects in every part of my body), the doctors came in to tell us after the second bone marrow biopsy that the leukemia was still there. Maybe it was naive of us, but it hadn’t even occurred to any of us that induction chemo wouldn’t work. It was so intense and brutal on my body, how could it not? But the kicker was they had discovered in my second biopsy that I had an extremely rare genetic fusion driving the cancer cells to grow faster and be more resistant to treatment. Fantastic! For a risk-averse girl, not my best moment to find myself sitting comfortably in the high-risk category.

But it wasn’t all bad news. My sister was a match for stem-cell donation – my only chance at lasting remission. We’d been told it was a ¼ chance, so we hadn’t even dared to consider it an option until then. But to get a stem-cell transplant, you must be in initial remission from the chemo first. It felt like a lifeline being dangled just out of reach.

So, that four week stay turned into ten weeks as I moved on to ‘salvage chemo’ – really? Can they not come up with a better name for it? I felt like a piece of trash, a bag of bones being salvaged from the rubbish pile.

There were always silver linings though, daily glimmers that kept me smiling and laughing. The nurses for one; angels on earth. Warm blankets and apple juice (that said angels brought to me at the press of a button). The feeling of seeing your loved ones faces at the door after a hard night (even if it was only their eyes). People sending gorgeous cards and uplifting messages of support – I stuck them up all over my walls and one doctor commented that I had the nicest room in the whole hospital. I have always loved making a house a home. Delirious thoughts typed in to my note’s app, that might one day turn into a poem. Like this one, written at 2am on the highs of morphine:

Passing

Like emerging from the concert of your favourite artist

Warm rain and a cool breeze kissing your skin

That’s what I imagine passing will be like

An exhale after the most magical rollercoaster,

And all life’s joy and heartbreak, and love and loss

That brought me right back to the start

Where I’ll be waiting for you –

In this lifetime and the next.

My birthday passed, Christmas passed, New Year passed, and we got the news the salvage chemo had failed too. But I was to be sent home at last, albeit a shell of a human returning to no man’s land, where I would try a new, last-chance chemo drug that would require daily visits back to the hospital. The nurses were all crying as they said their goodbyes and it’s only recently I’ve realised they probably thought they were sending me off to die. I know now it’s not often someone fights their way into remission after that amount of failed chemo, and with a cancer as aggressive as mine. I felt it at the time too; that I was surely going to die.

But never underestimate the will of a girl to live who has spent the last two years with Invisalign in – one of my proudest achievements is that I can count on one hand how many times I went to sleep without my braces in when going through chemo. If that doesn’t tell you how much I wanted to live, I don’t know what will. I would survive, and I’d do it with a Hollywood smile.

I’m here writing this – so you’ll probably be able to guess that last-chance new chemo drug DID work. After the bone marrow biopsy and agonising wait, my doctor practically skipped into the room to tell me I was in remission. I could get the lifesaving stem-cell transplant from my sister.

It all sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it? Sometimes I think back and have to remind myself that it was real, I really lived through it. I don’t know yet if I feel proud, or heartbroken about that yet.

Through it all, here’s what I have learnt: Your brain is not built to handle that much bad news. You will never feel, or think, or exist the same way ever again. But you can handle an insurmountable amount of physical pain, you will bounce back and forget how bad that was. The emotional side of it all, now that’s a different story. You will need help, and it’s ok to ask for it.

Because dying is not the hardest part. There’s an acceptance to death when you come so close to it. Living after you’ve survived it; that’s the hardest part.

I’d love to say that was it, it was over. But this was all just the beginning. One day soon I’ll feel ready to write about what the transplant was like (hell!), the journey to longer-lasting remission, and the complications and PTSD that still follow me to this day. But for now – let me leave you with my lessons in dying that I hope will stick with me for the rest of my borrowed time here:

• Stop caring what your body looks like. I have always had a tummy that I have worked desperately to get rid of – but guess what? At under 7 stone, I STILL had a tummy. That’s just my body, and it is miraculous (admittedly I am still having trouble accepting my puffy steroid face)

• You can find joy anywhere. Even trapped in a hospital for ten weeks. Be present in the moment, you’ll find it. Our greatest gift as humans is the ability to always see the silver linings.

• Please, make a will. You never think you’ll need it, until you do.

• Don’t overthink reaching out. Little messages (be it cards, texts, on social media) can make someone’s day, even if they don’t reply.

• Nurses deserve every bit of respect, and to be paid more.

• Appreciate the small things. It sounds cliché, I know. But god, is it ever so true. Fresh air, being able to walk to your favourite coffee shop, the strength to get out of bed each morning. Those are actually the big things.

• The capacity to bounce back, the ability to start over, refusing to give in (all may be called stubbornness) are fantastic character traits, nurture them.

• Cry when you must. Show your emotions, but don’t dwell on it. The time for that will come later. You cannot process or make sense of something as you are going through it.

• You WILL forget the physical pain, and you can get through it. Your body can handle more than you think.

• When you make it through, you will need help with your mental health.

• Tell the people around you what you need – for me it was positive attitudes and the belief everything would work out. I needed to believe it, and I needed them to believe it.

• Sick people are human beings – sometimes they forget that and feel like only skin and bones. Remind them you see them, that they’re still the person you know and love.

• When you are sick, there are two realities: yours, and the one your loved one is going through. Honor each other’s feelings, they are all valid.

• Health IS wealth. But getting sick is, unfortunately, expensive. Accept help when it is offered.

The other morning, I was lying awake at 4am, my mind racing. I heard Paul stir and get up to go to the bathroom – when he came back to bed, I turned to him and said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about the Epstein files.’

Not what he was expecting, of course. And in his bewildered half-asleep state he attempted to listen to me voice everything it was I couldn’t stop thinking about until sleep had well and truly escaped us both.

Listen, I’m not here to go into every fact and accusation in those files – I think half the battle is none of us can given the sheer amount we’ve been drip fed over an accumulation of years (and this is on purpose, I presume). Most of what I know is from social media – I’m almost too scared to dive further into it, because what I have seen and read is playing on my mind on a loop. But I think we can all agree on is that what we have seen is disgusting, probably not even close to the worst of it, and the men are going completely unchecked.

Where is the justice? Have we reached a point in society where these crimes against women and children are just normalised and accepted? Because that’s what it feels like to me, and so I can’t even begin to imagine how it feels like for every survivor who has bravely spoken out in those files…only for them to be reminded of that women-centric fear, that those in power don’t really care.

I was already feeling exceptionally mad this week after asking Paul what he thought of the Steven Bartlett / Diary of a CEO controversy around the ‘birth rate crisis’. He had no idea what I was talking about. It wasn’t something registering on his algorithm. I was so consumed by rage – you mean to tell me men are kicking off this conversation, and then they don’t even know we are outraged about it?

If you’ve also managed to escape it, in a nutshell the podcaster Steven Bartlett has come under fire for a number of his episodes (featuring former love islander, Chris Williamson, and psychiatrist, Alok Kanojia) seemingly blaming only women for declining birth rates, and questioning if ‘systems’ should be put in place to ensure men meet partners so that their amazing genes don’t die out. Handmaids Tale, much? At no point is the conversation steered towards this being a humanity as a whole problem, vs. a women’s only one. Nor does the real question arise as to why women AND men are choosing not to have children in a world where perhaps systems do not support it as a feasible choice anymore. Nope, women just aren’t letting the men get any.

Gosh, it is just all so dystopian, and rage inducing.

AND THEN, I went down the rabbit hole of the ‘normalizing of anti-male messaging’ in marketing all because of a sweatshirt at Target featuring the tagline ‘Dump him’. As women, we have only had autonomy over our decisions, our finances, our jobs, OUR BODIES for such a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Let us have a little fun with it (also, Britney wore this in 2002).

Overall, it feels like a very heavy and dangerous time for women right now. These issues aren’t directly linked (of course I am not comparing the controversy around a sweater, with the crimes detailed in the Epstein files) yet they are all somewhat connected. It feels like collectively we are being punished for daring to own our independence in a multitude of different ways. From being denied justice, to being told what we can and cannot wear. Why is the volume on our voices being turned down to low, again?

Here’s what I hope: weak men are realising they cannot control us anymore. What we are seeing is fear masked as ‘power’. Never before have we had such autonomy and the means by which to make our own decisions about what our lives look like, so I guess it makes sense that it would scare them. But as the famous saying goes, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and scorned we have all been.

Women are not playthings. Women are not vessels for your ‘genes’. ‘Underage women’ are children. Let’s say it louder for the people in the back.

Kindest,

An angry female.

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Watching: The Bad Bunny Bowl. We had some friends round for the game, aka the halftime performance. It was so joyful! I’d like to think anyone else that watched it would be just as obsessed. How could they not be?

Reading: Horoscopes. I’m a subscriber to The Cosmiq Collective and I love her weekly roadmaps. This is a big week for basically everyone as Venus enters Pisces, and I’m so enjoying exploring what it all means (as a previous astrology non-believer).

Wearing: An ‘Analog’ watch. A friend very kindly gifted me a gorgeous Coach watch which was perfect timing (no pun intended), because I’ve had to retire my Garmin. The stats were stressing me out too much – I know I’m not in prime health; I don’t need the reminder! But I do need to know the time.

Eating: Meatballs. Not my normal choice, I grant you that, but we served them up at the super bowl celebration and I couldn’t get enough.

This week I’ve been losing myself in the history and meaning of an ancient Gaelic celebration – Imbolc. Falling on the 1^{st of} February, it marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. It is the promise that Spring is just around the corner, that the light is returning. The days are starting to get longer. Green shoots are starting to peek through from their earthly slumber. The sweet sound of bird song hits earlier than the morning before. We’re ever, ever so slowly starting to wake up.

You might remember from my wintering obsessions a couple of weeks ago that I was vehemently opposed to the notion that the new year started on January 1^st; that we should be springing into action when nature was still calling for rest and recovery. So naturally, this celebration feels right up my street.

When I say ancient, I mean ancient. Originating in pre-Christian Ireland (around 2,000 years ago) the pagan sabbat of Imbolc is thought to be based on the old Irish word ‘Imbolg’ – meaning when sheep bring forth milk. Rooted in the sparks of Spring, people would start to emerge from their wintering to see who, and what, had survived the frost. With preserves running low they rejoiced in fresh meat and dairy, in seeing old friends, in remembering those who didn’t make it.

It was also time to honour the Celtic Goddess, Brigid – the goddess of inspiration, and healing with associations to fire, the hearth and poetry. Perhaps that’s why I also feel more of a connection to this celebration in Brigid’s name, because of my own Irish Nana being a Bridget. Candles were lit in the goddesses name, which remains an important part of this celebration today.

When the Christians moved in, Brigid slowly became known to all as St. Bridget, and the day became mixed with another celebration known as Candlemas. But whatever the beliefs and roots of the celebrations are, it remains connected to the theme of darkness bringing forth light, and the ritualistic act of candle lighting.

It got me to thinking that everything we celebrate is rooted in a time we don’t even remember. We don’t know why we do it, but we’ve commercialised it, made it overly religious, a cultural moment. But when we strip that all away the roots are so pure, so simple, so in step with nature. They make complete sense.

This celebration is a gentle reminder we are still in winter. But as the thaw begins, here is the time for planting seeds of intention for the months ahead. For softly tending to them with the quiet flame of Imbolc until they are ready to be fanned and brought to fruition in Spring.

For me it’s a seed of healing, and an intention of being patient. I have spent this whole winter thus far struggling to breathe, literally. Complications from my stem cell transplant have left me with a very rare, very progressive form of lung disease and it feels like my days are spent fighting for air right now. But with my little oxygen backpack by my side, a candle burning bright for Brigid, and the planting of hope as the season starts to turn, I believe I’m on the path to proving all the doctors wrong and getting these lungs fighting fit again. It’ll just take time.

Modern medicine continues to save me from dying, but the ways of old are teaching me how to live again. Instead of seconds, it’s heartbeats. Sunrises, instead of days. Moon phases, instead of months. Swapping quarters for seasons. The return of Springs, instead of years.

Happy Imbolc, everyone. I hope this year’s light returns to the space you need it most.

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Watching: This week I had the pleasure of watching on for Fairy Tales by Caroline’s Inaugural Tale Tellers Writing Club via zoom. What a pleasure to be a part of her writing community on this platform – if you haven’t read any of her pieces I would strongly urge you to do so, this one was one of my absolute favourites.

Reading: From the Ashes. I finished this memoir by Jesse Thistle this week - it was such a raw tale of resilience, but also such a bleak look at the realities of homelessness and the journey that brings you to that point.

Wearing: Stripey tops. So simple, so easy, so versatile (I’m also SO influenced by social media on this one). It’s been my latest shopping addiction, and of course I had to buy in multiple colours – why did I ever stop wearing them? IMO, they make putting together an outfit very easy.

Celebrating: Bad Bunny’s Grammy wins. What a time for the first ever all Spanish-language album to take home Album of the Year. Also, ICE out.

Furnishing: Tiffany lamps!!! My Mum and Dad arrived for a visit in Vancouver this week, and VERY kindly brought over these Tiffany lamps that used to live in my Auntie and Uncle’s flat in London. Growing up I adored them (both the lamps and my Auntie and Uncle!) and so it feels very special that they’ve now found their home in Paul and I’s apartment.

There’s something about looking to the magic of nature when times are tough that makes me realise how insignificant we all are, in the best way. This week I’ve got to losing myself in reading all about Greenland Sharks and taking comfort in this strange (and scary) looking being that has seen the past 500 years on earth.

500 years. Let that sink in. These oceans, this earth? It belongs to them. And the reason for the obsession this week is that new research showed up on my feed that revealed they’ve maybe seen even more than we think. Little is really known about them – partly because of their remote location, and because we just haven’t had the deep-sea technology to observe and study them, but for as long as they have been studied, scientists have believed them to be blind. Newsflash – they’re not!

A new research study published in Nature Communications details that after a team studied eye tissue from 10 Greenland Sharks, they discovered they actually can see in the deep sea’s dim light. All this time it was thought they had a keen sense of smell, but no, we’ve been fooled. And not only that, but their eyes are in pretty good shape, as are their hearts, escaping the usual cell death and tissue degeneration you’d expect to see in an ageing animal. Someone needs to stop Bryan Johnson, aka the ‘billionaire trying to live forever’ from finding this out because here’s betting he’d be on the first boat to try and capture one and drink its blood or something.

Isn’t it lovely to find out we still have some mystery in this world? But of course, how slowly these sharks mature also means their ability to recover, especially in the precarious climates we find ourselves in, isn’t fantastic. But I have faith that after all they have endured, all their bodies are capable of, they’re going to continue to outlive us all.

Here’s some things they’ve lived through that absolutely blows my mind:

- The life and works of William Shakespeare

- The Mayflower setting sail

- The rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire and Persian dynasties

- The French Revolution

- Napoleon’s wars sweeping across Europe, including the Battle of Waterloo

- World Wars 1 & 2

Now, granted they’ve been roaming about the deep seas of Greenland, so I doubt they were revelling in Shakespeare’s work. BUT STILL. It makes me realise how we are such a small part of this earth’s history – and look at what we are doing to it. But also, there’s something akin to hope buried in there. Hopefully we are just a blemish and after we’re gone this magical place that we have called home for the past few hundred years returns to a place of beauty, of gentler climates, of kindness. Of course, if we are lucky we will see some of that in our lifetime. Either way – it’s a comforting thought to sink myself in to when the news cycle, my health, the world in general just feels all too much. I think ahead to a time when we’re no longer here and the Greenland Sharks are still swimming about, thinking to themselves: remember that time a silly, old, very orange man laid claim to OUR waters?

We’re obsessed with the now, while nature is playing the long game – bypassing our chaos and slowly surviving ice ages, climate shifts, mass fishings, and entire human eras. Reminds you a bit of the tortoise and the hare, doesn’t it? The Greenland Shark: a lesson in endurance.

So, from the Beckhams to the oldest living vertebrae on the planet – there’s no knowing what my mind will sink it’s claws in to on a weekly basis, but I hope I’m keeping it interesting for you all. Until next Wednesday!

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Celebrating: Burns Night. We hosted a small Burns supper for friends on Sunday (aka Rabbie Burns Day) and it was so lovely to introduce them to some Scottish traditions! Everyone was surprised to enjoy the haggis, and Paul’s ‘address’ to it.

Eating: Millionaire Shortbread. We also made some of our *favourite* Scottish treats for the above celebration and I forgot just how good it is – I could happily eat this everyday but sadly, it disappeared pretty quickly.

Listening: The Pitcairn Trials. I just finished this podcast and I’m still processing. I actually knew nothing about this island, so just to hear about it was crazy enough, but then to discover the historic abuse faced by children, and women there? And the lawlessness? Madness.

Watching: What’s happening in Minnesota and the US as a whole. I can’t believe it – but also I can. As I have seen in many commentaries, it’s a system working exactly as it’s designed. I’m terrified for all my friends in the US, and for the rest of the world if truth be told.

Wearing: Hair accessories!!!!!! BIG NEWS this week; after losing all my hair (thank you, chemo) it’s finally long enough to wear a little hair clip.

First of all, an apology. I took my own advice from my Wintering obsessions a couple of weeks ago and momentarily turned this in to a bi-weekly post in favour of rest. In my defence, I was also back in hospital last week so it would have been pretty unreasonable to be writing at the same time, but still I made a commitment (to myself, and you) and so here I am, back again!

I’m acting as if everyone is sitting by their phones every week waiting for this to drop – which I know is not true, but it keeps me on a schedule and ensures my brain is working as I navigate my way through this healing (wintering) phase of life. So, let’s try and keep it weekly, shall we!

But enough about me – on to the obsessions. Up until Monday I had a few contenders for the week but then, along with the rest of the world, I got HOOKED on the gossip, the scandal, the DRAMA that is the Beckham feud. My god, what a feast for our eyes.

Part of me feels guilty for how invested I have become in this, another family’s heartbreak. The bigger part is thankful for the pure escapism and meme joy it has given me from the comfort of my couch.

I have many opinions on the whole situation, but my biggest opinion is that I shouldn’t have one. Somewhere in all of this is the truth and at the end of the day we do not know these people, we do not know the nuances, and we most likely never will. I think what we are seeing is two parties who have been hurt and believe fully in their side of the story. But we aren’t concerned with the truth here, are we? We just want to be entertained. Ultimately, I think we are all obsessed because we can duck in and out of this, and it has no effect on our lives. People aren’t dying, our neighbours aren’t being captured, and we can collectively enjoy the situation without feeling like we are part of the nightmare. It’s Drama Tourism – a holiday from a world on fire, where we can consume content without consequence. And how nice to feel like we are on that trip together, in a time where we are constantly tearing each other apart.

Case and point: let’s have a look at what else has been going on in and around the globe since the now infamous statement dropped on Monday – Israel destroyed the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in occupied East Jerusalem (which has been around since 1949) in complete defiance of international law. The US and Iran continued to fire threats against each other. Trump threatened to economically destroy EIGHT allied countries unless Denmark agreed to ‘hand over’ Greenland to him and his cronies (amongst other batshit, unintelligible, crazy remarks made at the Davos forum), and ICE prepared to ramp up its ‘immigration enforcement’ in Maine.

Is it any wonder we need some light-hearted relief? Gossip has been a self-regulation tool for humans since the beginning of time. It of course has negative connotations, but it’s also something that we reach for when our nervous systems need soothing. It allows us to discuss and make sense of the world, to feel part of something (often from a distance) and to feel informed and in control. I’m not saying the Beckham feud isn’t celeb worthy news, but I question if we would have had quite this reaction if it not for the collapse of sanity around us.

It is akin to a holiday to be sharing dancing jokes about Victoria in the group chat – and though I do recognise there are very real people at the heart of all this, it is, at the end of the day, just family drama played out on the big screen. I wish them healing on whatever the next step in the journey is, and I recognise my privilege in being able to take the trip and escape from my everyday life to their drama-filled one.

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Avocado toast – sometimes, you just have to come back to a trusty old favourite. Avo toast formed the bulk of my diet in 2016, and in the last week I think I’ve had it for breakfast or lunch every single day. There’s something comforting about returning to something you know and love when everything else feels a little out of control.

Finding: 2016 pics. Thoroughly enjoying seeing everyone’s blasts from the past. It was the year I moved to London and made the best group of girlfriends I could ever hope for - we’ve been having great hilarity sharing them on our group chat (even 10 years on, most still can’t be shared on social media)

Watching: His & Hers. Talk about there always being two sides to the story! I felt reluctant watching this at first, and had guessed the first twist pretty early on, but I didn’t see the end twist coming. Worth a watch.

Baking: Scones! The perfect mid-day treat, and Paul is enjoying this obsession just as much as I am. I’ve taken to also giving them as gift for friends – hopefully they also appreciate, even though the recipe is still a little bit crumbly for my liking. Working on it!

Wearing: New specs. I went from having one pair of VERY scratched glasses, to having three pairs of shiny new ones. Now I can pick a pair each day to go with my outfit – new levels of styling unlocked.

‘Rebirth’ does not begin in January. Look around you – outside of your phone, outside of your gym, outside of the suggested resolutions barrelled your way from every which way, do you see any evidence of it? Of the world outside your window starting over?

No, you do not. Because we are deep in winter, readers. Contrary to what society now dictates, January 1^st does not need to be the day your new life begins, and I am obsessed with hunkering down this week (/ month! / season!) and embracing ‘Wintering’.

Wintering: The act of withdrawing from the world to focus on one’s inner world; active acceptance of dark and cold times; a form of calm resilience.

You might be familiar with this term if you’ve read Katherine May’s memoir of the same title – in which she explores the ways we care for ourselves when life knocks us down. And I guess, in many ways, that is the season of life I find myself in right now. But I’m also looking at Wintering in the literal sense, casting my eyes to the world around me and taking note of how nature is unfurling and following suit. This time of year can feel like you’re stuck in a pressure cooker – the lid pops and it’s all GO GO GO! As soon as that clock chimes twelve on the 31^st December, there is an expectation that we will be reborn for the year ahead and embrace a new version of ourselves. There’s no wonder January is the most depressing month of the year, home to the calendar date of ‘Blue Monday’. We are setting ourselves up for failure in a month where we should still be resting.

This notion wasn’t just borne out of nowhere, of course. As usual with any idiotic scheme, there’s a man behind it (just kidding – kind of). Ultimately the calendar we follow today is about…administration. Let’s go back in time to the rule of Julius Caesar in 45 BCE. He wanted a stable, predictable calendar instead of the lunar-based one followed by many, if not all. Instead of following the sun, the moon, stars, plants and animals for our cues, there was a new 365 timeline to follow, and Rome moved the ‘new year’ to January to align with consuls taking office. For its time it’s fair to say it was radically precise and simple, and it stuck because, well, bureaucracy. Eventually it failed because the true solar year is ever so slightly shorter than the 365 timeline, and so in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar thereby known as ‘The Gregorian Calendar’ which we still follow today.

From an organisational standpoint, all of this was a triumph. There’s no arguing the benefit it introduced to the world in terms of us all being on the same global timeline – it did what it set out to do and gave us the predictability we needed to progress into a modern world. But my argument is that from nature’s perspective, it is deeply discombobulating.

Winter tells us; rest, regenerate, restock. The calendar tells us; reinvent yourself. Starting afresh in the depths of winter, when our bodies are tired feels counterintuitive, because it is. Mammals are hibernating, birds are migrating, reptiles are brumating, and humans are being asked to…speed up?

Not this year, thank you very much. I used to very much be the person that would be setting goals, resolutions, signing up for races and ‘getting back on track’ but if the last year has taught me anything it’s to listen to your body. There’s a gorgeous Scottish phrase that I’m particularly fond of; hurkle durkle. It means to ‘linger in bed, cozy and awake, long after you should have gotten up, enjoying the comfort and a slow, mindful start to the day rather than rushing’. THAT feels like something I’d like to be embracing right now, while I rest and recuperate from the rollercoaster that was 2025.

And perhaps I’ll emerge on the Spring Equinox in March like a wee dormouse burrowing out of its nest, or perhaps I’ll emerge as the same old me. But it will be in time with the seasons with no pressure cooker in sight, just as nature intended. All when I’m good and ready.

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Persian food. I stumbled upon a fab Instagram account this week, The Iranian Vegan, and have made two of her recipes so far; Shir Khorma (Date, Walnut & Ginger Milk), and Bademjan Kababi (Walnut & Pomegranate Stuffed Aubergine). DELICIOUS!

Reading: God of the Woods. Yes, I was influenced by the Swifties. No, that’s not the only reason I like it.

Watching: Heated Rivals. Ummmmm, where do I start?! I binged it after being told to by many friends and they were 100% right, I was hooked. What a joy to see representation like this on our screens. I almost feel like this deserves an Obsession take of its own at some point.

Cuddling: Hot water bottles (it took me ages to figure out how to get this in, ‘cuddling’ was all I could come up with, lol). My Mum sent me the most beautiful one from The White Company in the UK and it’s been my favourite thing to have beside me this week. A perfect accessory for Wintering…

Wearing: Reformation boots!!! They were such an investment, even with the Black Friday discounts. But I absolutely adore them, and they make every outfit just that little bit better (case and point below).

My algorithm is full of witches right now. I say that like your algorithm is something that just ‘happens’ to you – it doesn’t, I know that. I am consuming the content; I am liking it. But my goodness, the platforms are serving me it by the plateful and I can’t seem to escape the magic taking over my feed.

And do you know what, I’m not sure I want it to stop. I’m really enjoying the learning of it all, the folklore, the traditions that do indeed feel like you are partaking in a craft much bigger than oneself. One of those is the ritual of Rauhnächte, a German or Celtic tradition (the internet says both) where you set thirteen (the internet also sometimes says twelve) intentions, write them down and burn them for the twelve nights between Winter Solstice and January 2^nd. The idea is that whatever intention you are left with, is yours for the year. The rest are sent out to the universe. It signifies a time for reflection, for cleansing, for thinking about what you want the new year to bring in.

So, on December 21, the day of the Winter Solstice I wrote mines down and have dutifully burned them every night since. Between the general smokiness and worrying what my neighbours think I’m up to, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. The sun sets and I have a moment to myself out on our little apartment balcony, and what a way to let go of the burdens of your almighty intentions than by burning them and letting someone else worry about it for a while?

The truth is, I think I’ve always believed in witches. Or at least, I have always believed in women. And if you take the time to look back in history, is the persecution of both not one and the same? Is it just that as a gender we are more in touch with our intuition, with nature, and some might say with the skill of persuasion and thus we of course must be some magical, mystical being put here to coerce our male counterparts? It’s a nuanced, complicated argument, I know. But a journey of research that I am starting to embark on, and so apologies must be sent to my husband who is watching on quietly as books on witchcraft start filling our shelves. But at the end of the day, the term ‘witch’ was used as a label against women who didn’t conform, who were independent. I’d bet a certain president would use it as a slur alongside ‘piggy’, and that tells you everything you need to know.

It’s no secret that participation in organised religion is slumping, but interestingly spirituality is on the up. Is that just because Buffy and Charmed are gracing our screens again? Because we’ve been promised a Practical Magic 2? Maybe, but I think it’s more that we want to be part of something. And in a society and political atmosphere that overall feels like women are on the back foot AGAIN (we only barely caught up), is it any wonder we are trying to reclaim our power as our ancestors once did? Historically, the periods of time in which witchcraft were most prevalent coincide with periods of oppression, with economic downturns, with a crisis for control. Sounds like 2025, right?

And here we have witchcraft, which offers personal authority, direct access to ‘power’ (no presidents, priests or gatekeepers here, thank you), and perhaps a sense of that control we need in uncertain times. I would argue it doesn’t matter if you believe in the ‘magic’ or not – you can’t argue with the ritualistic benefits and emotional comfort it brings.

Now where you can be concerned is the monetisation of it. 60% of gen-z said they would count themselves as spiritual, not religious. As well as 50% of them engaging with astrology content online, 44% believing crystals have spiritual power, and 18% using manifesting as a ritual practice. So, like with any trend we must be on the watch out for those looking to only make a quick buck from it. I’m talking about the paid readings, the spell kits, the ‘abundance coaching’ that if they don’t work, can all be explained away with ‘spiritual misalignment’ – as well as a misalignment on your financials.

Yes, WitchTok is an exciting place to be right now. It offers comfort and a path back to our shared history that is rich in story and tradition. But let’s not use the algorithm as our altar. Perhaps this collective spiritual awakening is just the crisis of control we find ourselves in.

Either way, I will take the win of discovering new rituals that add meaning and calm to my day, and the path to exploring a topic so rich in history and culture it’s almost unending – but I’m approaching it with my eyes wide open.

Until next week – stay witchy!

xoxo

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Sardines – I can’t stop eating them. Paul HATES it. My current fix is having them as part of a lunchtime salad, and gosh there’s just so many ones to pick from; smoked, lemony, spicy, you name it, there’s one to find with nice fancy packaging (perhaps that’s the appeal?)

Reading: I really enjoyed this essay from Fairytales by Caroline (one of my FAVOURITE Substacks!) – The Case for a Single New Year’s Resolution. Let’s not overthink 2026 before it even gets started shall we? I, for one, am sorted. Whatever my last intention that isn’t burned is will be my goal for the year!

Watching: Honestly? It’s not been a great week for watching things. I had to have an unexpected trip to hospital this week, let’s call it a ‘spa visit’ for my lungs. I’m writing this from the comfort of my VGH room on the 15th floor, but I do have an incredible view to watch, so that counts. Silver linings.

Listening: December playlist; featuring Nina Nesbitt, Olivia Dean, Maisie Peters and Kelsea Ballerini. I would highly recommend creating a new playlist for every month! I’ve had it on repeat for the past four weeks and though I’ll be sad to put it to rest soon, I already have a fresh new one ready for January.

Wearing: Face masks people!!! If you’re sick, please don’t go out. But if you must, wear a mask. Us immunocompromised bunch who live in perpetual fear during flu season send our eternal thanks.

Hello, curious reader. I have a niche one for you this week – well, not for me because I have lived it for the past year – but for the average person, you’re probably not thinking all that much about stem cell transplants. As it should be, why would you?

This week I really considered not having this as the focus of Obsessions – would people even want to read about this? But then I remembered that’s the whole point. It’s weird, and it’s random, and it’s everything that is in my head. So here it is, landing in your inbox.

Perhaps it’s the holiday magic in the air that is making me obsess over my very own transplant nine months ago. Transplants, especially the kind of one I had, cannot exist without others. Others giving up their time, their headspace, their cells to make another person whole again – isn’t that beautiful? It’s what makes me a literal body of kindness (along with all that blood, thank you strangers!)

But the truth is, it isn’t all magic. The obsessing I have been doing as the dark nights, and festive feels draw in isn’t just about the joy of it all, it’s also the wackiness of the side effects and outcomes that sit alongside borrowing and resetting an entire immune system. We had friends over for brunch this past weekend and we got to talking about some of them and they couldn’t believe some of the weird, terrible and wonderful things I had experienced as a result.

The first successful stem cell transplant (at that time called a bone marrow transplant, in theory it’s the same thing just the way the cells are sourced differ) * was in 1968 by a wonderful man called Dr. Robert A. Good and colleagues in the US. I owe a lot to that medical team! The patient (a 5-month-old baby) had severe immunodeficiency and as a result of the transplant, developed a functioning immune system and went on to live a long life. It took a little longer for them to have consistent success in leukemia patients and it didn’t become an accepted form of treatment until 1975. Now it is the only chance at remission most leukemia sufferers have, and around 90,000-100,000 are performed globally each year.

It remains one of the most extraordinary medical achievements of the past century, yet the average person has no idea what they actually are. I mean, it literally replaces and rebuilds an entire immune system like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, yet no one is really talking about it, unless affected by it.

I’ve had friends ask me how the ‘operation’ was – I’m here to break it to you that the procedure itself is entirely anti-climactic. I sat in my hospital bed (after months of chemo) and watched as the cells they took from my sister the day before dripped through a plastic tube and right into me. I was awake, I was listening to Taylor Swift, and I was pretty bored.

Now, if I am making it sound like it was a walk in the park, it wasn’t. It took three rounds of intense in-patient chemo to get me into the required remission status to get the transplant. And then one more round of ‘myeloablative chemo’ which literally takes you to the brink of death, and without that shiny new immune system swooping in, would kill you. It was not fun. AND THEN as if that hadn’t all been enough, engraftment comes along. The process of waiting for the cells to start doing their magic which typically takes around 11-28 days. That waiting phase is called ‘the basement period’ and all I will say about that for now is, thank the universe for morphine.

From there, it’s a waiting game. Waiting for your blood counts to go up. Waiting for cells you can’t see deciding to work in their new home. Waiting for proof that something inside you has chosen to stay, and work in harmony with what remains after all that chemo. Otherwise, you’re at the risk of ‘graft vs host disease’, or worst case for many, relapse.

Thankfully, although with a nasty case of lung disease (didn’t escape that gvhd, did I?), my sister’s cells are working their magic, and I am beyond grateful for that every single day. Especially as we celebrate this season, my favourite season. And in celebration of that here’s the wackadoodle personal discoveries of a stem-cell transplant worth obsessing over:

• I joke when I call it a factory reset, but ultimately that’s what is it. Any sort of immune defences you had built up before? Gone. Good, I guess, because those defences turned out to be pretty shitty, but it means that every vaccine you’ve ever had is wiped out. That’s right! You get to start from scratch; you’re effectively a newborn baby. Having had six re-vaccinations done already, this is a not so fun part.

• Before all of this, I was gluten-free. I hesitate to say I had coeliac disease, but effectively they couldn’t test for it because I physically could not eat it from around the age of 20 without throwing up and having a horrible reaction to it. So the load was always too low in my body to check for any real immune response. I just didn’t eat it – but then of course, I got a new immune system and was told I could cautiously try. And what do you know, no reactions (so far). Cautiously optimistic about all the pizza, donuts, and pasta in my future.

• My blood type changed. Yes, really. This blows my mind – I went from my own blood type to my sisters (who was my donor).

• And with that, so did my DNA. Technically, if you were to test me, I would look like the mother of my wonderful niece and nephew. On their good days, I would consider kidnapping and really, what’s anyone going to do about it when i’m a parent on paper? But seriously, there is a GREAT crime novel in this. A cold case and a perpetrator that has different DNA years later after a secret stem cell transplant? I’ll be waiting by my phone for the book deal.

• I say the actual transplant was anticlimactic, and it’s true. But during it, the palms of my hands started burning. They felt and looked like they were on fire. At that point I had suffered through so much that it really didn’t bother me that much. I just held on to some ice and then watched in bemusement as they started peeling over the next few days. It wasn’t until I got home from the hospital a few weeks later and tried to get into my laptop that I realised my touch ID wasn’t working – my fingerprints had all burned right off. Now, I don’t know if this is a common thing for other transplantees, but I did have a minor panic when I thought I was locked out of everything for evermore (I wasn’t, but I did have to reset with all new prints)

There you have it – it’s wacky, its science, it’s magic. And it saved my life, so I think it’s worth obsessing over. I am always happy to have chats on it, or answer any questions so please feel free to ask away – and in the meantime, Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

xoxo

*I am not a medical professional, just a gal with a story and google so please excuse me if my explanations are not entirely correct

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Gluten – that’s it, that’s the obsession. You mean to tell me this is what I’ve been missing out on all these years? I had forgotten just how good carbs could be. This week some of our favourite people gifted us a voucher to a fab brunch spot, famous for their waffles which I can now eat! It was heavenly – Paul is still coming to terms with the fact he must now share with me.

Watching: Sinners – what a weird, wonderful film. If you had read me the actual blurb of what happens before I watched it, well I wouldn’t have watched it. It shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does. Not that scary, just very surprising if like me you were expecting some sort of period drama. Hint: includes Vampires.

Listening: Sea of Lies – I’m deep into this podcast this week. Is there anything better than a true crime podcast? Truth be told I tried to get into it when it first came out in January of this year and couldn’t. But I’ve seen it on many ‘best podcast’ lists as the year draws to a close so I decided to give it another go and I’m hooked. Murder? Deception? Manipulation? Stolen Identities? I’m in.

Wearing: Our magic necklace – the necklace both me and my sister have that marks each of our birth months, and the ‘re-birth’ month of when she donated her stem cells to me. I wear it every day and it almost feels like it has become part of me, a bit like she has.

I mentioned in last week’s Obsessions that insomnia is playing a big part in my life right now – it’s just some new medications I’m on and it won’t be forever so I am trying my best to be stress-free about it and lean in to all the extra time I now seem to have between the hours of 12pm and 6am.

The main way I have been killing all that time? Snacking and becoming hooked on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Those ladies in Utah have been keeping me entertained for three whole seasons and I’m feeling a little lost now that it’s come to an end – but it also has me ruminating on the lessons it’s shown us, and its cultural relevance. Most importantly, its depiction of the best and worst of female friendship.

I started watching season one when it first aired in September 2024 and honestly, I bowed out pretty sharpish. I saw too much ‘mean girl’ energy, it was very unrelatable to my life, and I stopped watching after a couple of episodes. But alas, the diary of a recovering cancer girly is never quite full and so a return to every reality show under the sun this past year has been on my calling card and with the third season of this show I’d first hated coming out last month, I decided to give it another go. So I started re-watching right from the very beginning. All the way through.

Maybe it’s the new outlook I have right now (I’m alive, people are good, life is interesting, etc. etc.), but gosh I really got pulled into it and it got me thinking about all thing’s girlhood – the good, the bad and the ugly.

I am a girl’s girl through and through. I admire women, I support women, I am always rooting for women. My whole life I have cherished and craved female friendship groups, but I have also had my fair share of heartbreak and bullying as a result. They can be the best – lifting you up when you need it and providing you (in my opinion) with absolutely everything you need from an emotional standpoint. But they can also be the worst – the competitiveness, the bitchiness, the gossiping. Why are we the way we are?

I guess with anything in life we do have to take the good and the bad. But female friendship REALLY takes the biscuit when it comes to mending and breaking hearts. I think it’s fair to say that what we’re watching on Mormon Wives isn’t happening in a vacuum – it’s not just this group of women, with their set of problems. It’s an important insight in to how women react to a system that pits them against each other.

From a young age we’re taught some important lessons as women; attention is scarce (but very important), your worth is comparative to your peers (who is skinnier, prettier, smarter etc.), and there is not room for everyone to be winners. These lessons are not true – but we are made to think they are, and then we wade through a society that amplifies them constantly. And then we have MomTok – if we boil it down what’s most of the drama based around? Who gets the public’s favour (attention), who is the best wife and mother (comparison), who monetised their involvement with the show most successfully (the winner). When women are measured constantly, friction is inevitable. Reality TV relies on that particular friction more than anything else, but I guess I never saw it so clearly before this show.

On the other hand, the same society that we see encouraging these lessons are also, ironically, what causes us to turn to each other, to uplift each other. When institutions fail us, when partners can’t provide emotionally for us, when we need empathy and understanding – there (if we’re lucky) we find our female friends. I felt that so strongly watching S3: E10 during the ‘testimony meeting’ (lol). There was so much acknowledgment of rights and wrongs with such understanding and grace – men could never.

Can we also just take a moment for how much therapy they’ve gone through! Those are some well-adjusted Mormons in my opinion.

They’re not perfect, none of us are. But I appreciated the nuanced look at female friendship that ultimately led to the realisation that women are not just catty, or supportive. We are both, and we are a product of our environment – navigating a world that forces us to compete but at the same time demands we pretend that we aren’t. So you may call them fake, mean, shallow, ridiculous – but I call them real, messy, kind, and human. You do just have to look past some of the scripted, and unscripted drama, I’ll give you that.

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Eating: Peacasa chips – Mi peacasa et su peacasa. Except that’s not true and if Paul touches them, I scream bloody murder because they are my special snack. As with everything else, I am obsessing over these to the point of chomping on them every day – and I know in a few weeks I won’t ever be able to look at them again.

Watching: After the Hunt – what an interesting film. I remember reading reactions after initial viewings and Julia Roberts said the goal was to spark conversations, not make statements. I completely felt that when watching. The blurring of lines, the power struggles, the questions it posed on guilt. My opinion chopped and changed the whole way through – I really enjoyed it.

Reading: A Battle With My Blood – This essay from Tatiana Schlossberg in The New Yorker was such an important, poignant read. Obviously, I am someone who can relate A LOT to the subject matter, but I would encourage anyone to give it your full attention. The link between the care she needed, and the damage her cousin Robert F. Kennedy was (and is) imposing on the US healthcare system is insane. It made me very thankful for the care I have received and continue to receive here in Canada.

Wearing: Poshmark finds! Trying to channel my 2am shops into cheaper buys; enter Poshmark and a cute little pinafore dress that I loooove! A friend said it looked like a Scottish heritage piece ha (It’s from Simons, and was $12…).

Celebrating: Birthdays. I turned 34 this week which feels like something to be truly, truly grateful for after not knowing if I would make it to the end of the year twelve months ago. Normally I find my birthday so stressful and hate the pressure of having to plan things, but this year I had some lovely things organised with Paul and friends and just had the nicest time. Yay for friends and family that celebrate you, but also taking the time to celebrate yourself.

There’s been a lot of chat about soft furnishings lately in our household – it’s the festive season after all so I am of the opinion the home needs an overhaul to match the magic and joy that is in the air. The tree comes out, we swap over to Christmas cushions, it’s candles galore and tiny Santa ornaments decorate the mantelpiece. I don’t make the rules.

The other day Paul came home from work and commented on how cosy the apartment was looking. THANK YOU! Was my remark back to him – I felt so proud of my Christmasification for about a minute and then I got to thinking, how much had all of this cost me?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to spend the money because it makes me happy, but that’s the thing I realised, it’s my money. I had been out with a friend the other day and picked up a new candle and ornament for the tree and actually remember thinking ‘oh that wouldn’t be fair to take from the joint account’ – but why? We were both going to benefit from it in our home, right?

I don’t want anyone’s takeaway to be that Paul controls the purse strings in our relationship because that is not the case – for us, we have a joint account for groceries, and a Splitwise for ‘fun things’ – we pop in here what we spend on meals out and anything miscellaneous that feels more like a ‘treat’. So, shouldn’t that cover what we’ll both enjoy in the apartment we jointly pay rent on?

I guess here is my conundrum – if you pick it, do you buy it? But if so (and I realise I am generalising here) what man is going out picking cushions and candles in the quest of making a house a home? So therefore, is it fair the financial burden falls on the woman?

This is what I have been obsessing about all week. I’m calling it the cushion tax and I’m over it.

A survey in 2008 from Harvard Business Review (I know, it’s old but I think still worth mentioning) showed that 94% of women drove the decisions in small furnishing purchases, meanwhile a 2024 consumer-survey summary found that among women who shop, home décor ranked second in frequency (just below jewellery and personalised gifts). Us women love a ‘spruce-up item’, and we’re paying for it.

But are we choosing to? I mean if you boil it down the answer is of course, yes. We are creatures of free will. Historically though, we are seen as the ‘nesters’. It has been the female domain to create and decorate and so are we simply falling in to yet another trapdoor of society as we continue to burden the additional cost of something (that I would argue) doesn’t even register on the male agenda until it’s plonked down in front of them on their sofa? We choose it, they enjoy it.

So, in an act of rebellion I’ve started adding all my lovely buys to Paul and I’s Splitwise and staring him down if he dares to question it. And yes, we are married and still get petty over who adds what. But at the end of the day, I am beneficiary to his cooshty pension and apartment in the UK while he gets some moderate savings from a girl on disability right now – who’s really winning?

The answer: him because he gets to live in an apartment I have made exceedingly lovely. The candles and the cushions will be paid for jointly from now on, societal pressure / guilt reflex be damned. He’s wisely keeping his mouth shut.

This week I’m also obsessed with:

Watching: All Her Fault - It’s literally all on her! I binged it in two days, there’s a nice link in all of this isn’t there – not that I’m comparing a missing child to paying for a cushion.

Reading: The Cosmiq Collective’s Substack, I adore her weekly roadmaps. I haven’t been interested in astrology before, but a lot of it is ringing very true for me right now and she’s 100% piqued my interest.

Eating: Pickled cucumber – I pickled it myself and I’ve never been prouder. I’m having it on, with, and alongside everything.

Wearing: Oui oui! Bonjour! Au revoir! A little red scarf that I ordered at 2am in the morning and forgot about. I’m on medication right now post stem-cell transplant that means there’s a lot of insomnia, and therefore insomnia-fuelled purchases right now – so much so that it feels like little presents are always getting delivered for me from a magic elf (my credit card is the elf).

Buying: It feels only right I include a note on this in this week’s newsletter – I visited the Aquarium with a friend this week and they were practically giving away the cutest walrus salt and pepper shakers, $4 for both!!!!!

Storytime, folks – get ready for this one it’s a bit of a crazy journey. I haven’t even quite figured out yet how to capture this all into one story. When I’ve tried, the reaction from people has pretty much been a deer in the headlights, ‘oh shit’ situation. Disbelief, and I don’t blame them. It’s also weird to call this a ‘story’ when it’s been my life for the past year. I remind myself I lived through this, this really happened and honestly? It almost makes me giggle it’s just all so absurd.

Because I feel like I shouldn’t be standing here today. Well, sitting really. Cooried up in a blanket at 2am in the morning, a cup of my tea in my hand, pushing my thoughts out on a page because they feel too big to live in my head anymore, they need to be shared.

I don’t know if there’s any way to be succinct or smart with this – so I’m just going to lay it out as it happened. Let’s call it a listicle as it were, but instead of crowd-pleasers to visit this week, or shows to keep you entertained, it’s the list of how the stars aligned to keep me on this earth.

1. I completed an Olympic distance triathlon in September 2025; bet you weren’t expecting me to start there were you? Gosh I was SO proud of myself. Me and my partner moved to Vancouver, Canada in 2020 and to say we embraced the lifestyle is a bit of an understatement. We spent our summers hiking and cycling, our winters skiing - and all the outdoor activities in between. I grew up in the capital of Scotland and then moved to London for a few years straight from university so as much as I loved a gym class and staying active, it wasn’t a huge part of my life up until the post-pandemic Canadian years. Then we got into triathlons (yes, so sorry we were THAT couple in our 30s, please don’t hate me), my partner had completed a half Ironman the year prior, and I’d set my challenge to do a full distance triathlon that Fall. Truly a challenge because I had a life-long fear of open water and the event involved a lake swim. I look back now and wonder what I was trying to prove – was it for myself or to show others I could do it? Either way, I was in the best shape of my life ahead of being hit with a shock, over-night diagnosis that left me needing to be hospitalised immediately a mere 7 weeks later.

2. I’d decided my next challenge was trekking to Everest Base Camp. You’ll find out from my obsessions series that I tend to fixate on things, and I have been OBSESSED with Mount Everest since my early 20s. A close friend introduced me to the book ‘Into Thin Air’ by Jon Krakauer and we went on to put Nepalese prayer flags at the bottom of the very steep stairs in our very pokey, very mould-infested London apartment (just two girls trying to romanticise a living situation) and I have consumed so much content about its majestic beauty and dangerous attempts to summit ever since. Said friend had planned to come with me but had to pull out, and so I’d decided to take the plunge and go on my own – it had been on my bucket-list for so long and I’d spent a summer training for another event that meant I was more than fit enough to take it on, plus me and my other half had no responsibilities other than each other at that moment so why not just DO IT! I booked the trip, and quickly started collecting all the equipment I would need (mainly Merino Wool and lots of snacks).

3. Ah that thing that always seems to scupper the plans, work. In my case it continued to work in my favour. I had a business trip planned to Japan in October, and since I would already be halfway to my destination I had taken my annual leave straight off from there and all my onward flights were booked from Tokyo to Kathmandu. Sorted, I felt like I had massively lucked out. Then a couple of weeks before we were meant to go, the trip was cancelled out of the blue. I still remember my boss calling me on Teams to tell me. Now, I like to think I can hold it together in a professional environment, but I was PISSED. I had planned everything to leave from Japan to get to my dream destination and now I was left with flights leaving from a country I had no business being in anymore. I like to think of this as the first neon sign flashing in my face from the universe, ‘don’t go’ blinking in red right in front of me. I didn’t listen of course, I swallowed it up and booked new flights (yes, they were extortionate, but I was a woman on a mission).

4. I started to feel a little unwell – nothing major, I just kept picking up really weird infections. First, it was a wasp sting from a little fucker on a hike that ended up getting infected. How unlucky, I thought as I popped my antibiotics and forget about it. And then it was a wrist injury that just would not heal, the physio assuming it was just a bad case of random tendonitis and some steroid injections did the trick. I developed the most annoying pulsatile tinnitus (hearing your blood rushing in your ear). To anyone that has suffered from this, my heart goes out to you. It’s horrible, it’s annoying, it’s all consuming. I went to the doctor multiple times, got my ears checked – nothing. They didn’t take it seriously at all so honestly, neither did I other than being very ticked off by it. Then it was a skin infection on my face (more antibiotics), morning headaches that just wouldn’t ease up, and finally a lovely mouth infection that blew up and left me astounded when my dentist said it looked like ‘trench mouth’. That’s right, a disease from the trenches in WW1 was festering in my mouth and they couldn’t figure out why. Cue more antibiotics and me telling myself ‘I’m just run down, I need that break to Nepal, it will fix everything’

You would think the fact that I could only sip on liquids might have deterred me from my Everest Base Camp trek, but I have been afflicted with the lifelong condition of stubbornness. My dentist told me I shouldn’t go, I didn’t listen. I even paid a visit to the Emergency Room a few days before my flight left to get the pulsatile tinnitus and headaches checked out (they were excruciating at this point, and still I pushed on) – they did a CT and sent me on my way with the all clear to fly. A quick sidebar here to say how massively let down I was by the fact they didn’t run bloods on me at that visit, and they absolutely should have. It would have glaringly shown what was going on in my body.

5. I don’t know how to explain it other than I had this strong feeling I was going to die on my trip to Nepal. Or be reborn. But something life changing was going to happen, and I couldn’t shake the feeling I wasn’t going to come back. I voiced it to my partner, and he reassured me I was just nervous – this was a big thing I had wanted to do for a long time, and I was doing it on my own. It was ok to be scared! But it was something deeper – it was my gut instinct. And it was right, I would have died if I went, I may not even have survived the flight as the doctor told me when it all finally came to a head. I remember going to my acupuncturist a couple of weeks before leaving (looking back, I really was trying everything to be well) and she said my blood felt ‘sticky’. ‘Try Nattokinase’ she said, a Japanese enzyme used to improve blood circulation. I faithfully bought it and popped the tablets – it baffles me how she knew my body was telling me something none of us could yet even comprehend.

6. Here’s the big one – it had been humming away in the background this whole time. My partner had found a lump in his testicle. I think we both know immediately it was cancer, but we were in denial, though worrying ourselves sick (also a reason I thought all my symptoms were stress related). I immediately said I wanted to cancel the trip, the work part in Japan had just been cancelled after all so I could do this all another time, but he insisted I go. As everything started to build (our fear, anxiety, my health woes) It just felt more and more off – what was I doing? But that stubbornness of mine was leading the charge, plus my partner had always been my BIGGEST cheerleader and I know he couldn’t bear the thought of his unknown affecting this trip I had been dreaming of for years.

7. The date came through for my partner’s surgery much quicker than we thought and it was due to be on the very day I would reach Everest Base Camp at 5140m above sea level. I would be taking in awe-inspiring views of the Himalayas, glorious glaciers, lakes, caves, and the notorious Everest Ice Fall that flows from the Western Cwm. All without any phone signal, all while the love of my life had surgery to remove and officially diagnose testicular cancer. It didn’t just not feel right, it felt absurd. So, the day before I was meant to fly out, I cancelled the trip with the help of a note from my dentist (trench mouth came in handy for insurance purposes).

8. Here’s the thing, I was starting to guess there was something more going on in my body. Like as soon as I cancelled the trip, it just gave in. It wasn’t having to gear itself up for what would have been an impossible task, and my stubbornness could recede a little to feel what was really going on. And I felt terrible. I was so tired, these little infections I had been getting just kept coming back, my mouth was so sore, my gums were bleeding, but I was still functioning. It’s insane what the human body can manage when it’s literally dying. I still took that time off work as annual leave, and filled it with some small hikes, yoga, a few 5ks. Insanity. But I did manage to get an appointment at our family doctors a couple of days before my partner’s surgery to stress I really needed to get some answers about what was up with my body.

9. I had the appointment, she listened to my concerns, she sent me for blood tests. I got the tests on the Thursday morning, the day before my partner’s surgery. She called me at 4.43pm that evening – it was dark outside and I was home alone, just about to go out and meet our friends for some drinks to celebrate Paul’s last night with two balls. She told me (rather bluntly) I had Acute Myeloid Leukemia. My blood tests were atrocious, I would need emergency blood transfusions, my platelets were so low I could bleed out at any time, and all the cells that make up my immune system were basically non-existent - so a cold could kill me. And then she was gone, telling me I would get a phone call from the hospital soon with more details. I was left sitting on my own, reeling.

10. I drove Paul to his surgery the next morning – we were both in denial. We had decided by then you couldn’t just get news like that over the phone and it had been a mistake, they’d messed up my bloods, it was the wrong person’s results. I came back to our apartment and called my sister back in Scotland – she’s a doctor, she could tell me this all wasn’t true. I watched her face on the screen as she opened the blood results to view them, and I knew then it wasn’t a mistake.

11. I got a call to say the surgery had gone well, they’d got the full lump – yes, they were 99% sure it was cancerous, but it was small, margins were clear and he was groggy from the anaesthetic but able to be picked up in the next hour. A friend went to go and get him, and I’ll never forget his face when he first walked back in the apartment and saw me. He just burst in to tears, like he knew this was really happening – the fact our apartment was now full of a few close friends who we had told what was going on made it all feel more real. We had about an hour together and then I had a phone call from the Leukemia ward at the hospital: ‘Pack for at least a month’ they said.

There’s a lot more to say about this story - this was only chapter one and so much has happened since but my goodness, if that didn’t make me believe in divine timing then I don’t know what will. I’m not a religious person, but there was something looking out for us, I truly believe that. I joke to my partner that he sacrificed his ball so that I would live – we have a giggle about it but oh how true it is. I would have pushed on, persevered, and died either on my way to Nepal or in my attempt to get to Everest Base Camp, there’s no doubt about it. I ignored multiple warning signs, my gut feeling, until the universe placed something in front of us that said this is not your time, this is not your journey. I physically couldn’t ignore it.

So, it’s been a very, very different sort of journey from what I first expected when I booked that bucket-list trip. And there’s lots more to tell – but for now I’ll end it there. I do promise everything I write won’t be about cancer, but this whole journey is now at the very root of who I am, who I am becoming and how I see the world today, so it feels only right that I share it with you as a starting point for Body of Kindness.