Whole Stories Shortly Podcast

The first gun was leveled at us as soon as we crossed the border. It was 1986, and although the country was yet to be declared a failed state, Somalia was no backpackers’ paradise. So much of our lives depends on choices of character, faith, and tradition made by people who happen to be nearby when we need them. This story tells what I learned about death, specifically my own. B ecome a subscriber...

It’s the winter solstice and I’m high on Scottish moors, transfixed by the ever-changing light on this stormy day. It’s the weather of alerts and advisories, the season for unsettled conditions and wide-ranging disruption. This story includes a poem called For Light, by John O’Donohue. You can find it in his collected works, To Bless the Space Between Us . Become a Whoole Stories Shortly subscribe...

Subscribe to Whole Stories Shortly for reads that are short and substantive, uncommon yet relatable—a reliable escape from the daily grind. (Unless the grind is for your coffee. The stories here are perfect for a beverage break.) This story begins with a picture I took at a Copenhagen art gallery last week. The fire alarm had gone off, and the Sunday crowd had evacuated in a rush leaving the white...

Dear Listener: This story has many photos so be sure to check it out at WholeStories Shortly on Substack! Subscribe while you're there! I’m back in Copenhagen, a city of varied and famous walking opportunities. One of my favorites is a hidden gem close to where I stay when I’m here. Enjoying Whole Stories Shortly? Become a subscriber and show your support! A weekly story that’s short enough to fit...

I haven’t been able to write for the past couple of weeks. There has been an explosion, and I find myself in a landscape that makes no sense, surrounded by fragments that feel familiar yet I can’t see how to fit them back together. I seem to have lost access to my words. I Enjoying Whole Stories Shortly? Visit Whole Stories Shortly and become a subscriber to show your support! Receive a weekly sto...

Working extra shifts as a young hospital nurse, I was making beds with an older nurse whose Jamaican-South London accent identified her as a first-generation immigrant. She asked where I was from. I described my father’s Kenyan origins and my mother’s roots in Scotland where I was born and raised. The nurse spat, “Tssh—so, you don’ belong to nobody!” It’s been forty years, yet I remember it, sharp...

I picked the last of the late summer blooms just before the first frost. Plump-cheeked dahlias and frilly, lace-cap hydrangeas. The late afternoon sun shone through them, amber and rose. The fennel flowers have lost their yellow brightness and droop dramatically next to sprigs of lavender that retain their calm composure. I try to catch their scent as I listen to the silence whispering its way und...

My son is taking an extended trip and the weeks before he left were a logistical whirlwind. Parents of newly-fledged adults can probably relate except my son isn’t taking a vacation. Mac is a U.S. Marine and this is his first deployment. His brother is also a Marine, and he’s stationed thousands of miles away too. It’s not what I expected from my life as an artsy, peace-loving, British transplant....

It was Halloween this week, and I’m glad I’m away from town and have missed it. My biggest issue with modern Halloween is the fake suffering and over-blown gore sold as entertainment. If Halloween was once a festival to ward off evil spirits, it has become a horror show where we join the cast and revel in the unholy mayhem. When did it all become so blood-thirsty? Enjoying Whole Stories Shortly? B...

It has been a tough week. I’ve been attempting to buy a cheap car with enough oomph in the engine, and enough miles left on the clock, to get me around Scotland for the next year or so. It doesn’t have to be pretty as long as it’s reliable and easy to fix. As an older woman shopping alone, I wish the same for the buying process. Enjoying Whole Stories Shortly? Visit the Substack to become a subscr...

I met Jens only once, a couple of weeks before he died. I was in the States, wading through the quagmire of divorce, and a mutual friend had called me on Skype to see how I was doing. I wasn’t doing well. I had told my kids they were going to have two bedrooms, two homes, and the neverending love of one pair of parents. Meanwhile, word had spread among friends and colleagues, so on top of the pain...

I spent last week dealing with the officialdoms needed to transition from resident of the United States to resident of Britain. It was a long list of tasks ranging from the brain-numbing to the furiously frustrating and it left me longing for peace and beauty. I took a drive up the northeast coast of Scotland, and thought of films and writings that evoked its beauty for me. Listen to the pod then...

Scottish accents come in many varieties and when I feel threatened, mine defaults to the one I learned as a child, one that sounds nothing like how I learned to speak at home. My industrial-grade Scots accent wasn’t always helpful in tricky situations, sometimes I needed a more nuanced approach to making friends. Visit the Whole Stories Shortly substack and subscribe to receive a weekly story that...

The huge Mercedes truck wallowed in the muddy pool like a drowsy hippo. My traveling companion and I looked on from dry land, wearily waiting to see what would happen next. Jane and I had been in Somalia for three weeks and this was the latest in a long series of unwelcome adventures. There had been the usual hazards of traveling while female, also bandits and spilled blood in the north, and the r...

The haar, a cold fog that rolls in from the sea and flattens everything to a muted dove gray, has finally lifted and I rethink experiences of racism and other othernesses. Visit Whole Stories Shortly to see the photos that accompany this story and, while you're there, subscribe to encourage my writing and follow my travels. Whole Stories Shortly is delivered to you every Sunday! This is a public e...

Leaving genteel Inverness behind with the waters of the Moray Firth lapping quietly at its feet, the coach chugs up into the Cairngorms . This is Britain’s largest National Park, though the mountains that rear up on either side seem to admonish the idea that they need anyone’s protection. Wind-worn, heathered slopes rise toward boulder-strewn plateaus and high, rocky outcrops—like the granite pulp...

Coming home is a ‘you never step in the same river twice’ experience. You’ve changed, the river has changed — there may not even be a river where you thought one had been. I haven’t lived in Scotland since I was 17, it’s even longer since I lived in the Highlands, yet I receive that as new information every time I look back on my biography. How I experience myself today is deeply rooted in memorie...

Exactly two years ago, my son enlisted in the US Marine Corps and went off to Recruit Training. I expected boot camp to be life-changing for my son but for me? Not so much. This is the story of how I became a military mom. Visit this post at Whole Stories Shortly to see some photos from Mac's Marine Corps journey Whole Stories Shortly is supported by readers like you. Please subscribe to join the...

I have been told lately—a lot- that I’m brave. It’s because I quit my job and decided to be a writer. Because, instead of taking up painting or pickleball when I became an empty nester, I put the family nest up for rent and set off across the ocean with no particular destination in mind. ‘Brave’ can mean a lot of things but what most people seem to mean is that I am being plucky, or reckless—fooli...

Preparing my home to be rented while I spend a year writing and traveling was a heavy lift, yet here I am. It will take a few days for my body to recover and longer to reorder my brain after the high-octane stress of urgency and weighty decisions. But I am in Denmark and it’s summer and the weather is perfect. The house is in a haveforening —a Danish-style of community that dates back to the Indus...

An unexpected rewiring project upended my packing strategy. I had to reorganize the attic, shifting around the boxes I keep stashed away up there -- a collection of ghosts, mostly. Spending time with them leaves me wistful about some of the choices I’ve made but there are no regrets hidden in the cobwebbed eaves. That's not to say I haven’t done things I’m not proud of. As I head to the airport, I...

As I set off on a new series of travel adventures, the spirit that drives me is curiosity, a desire to experience the world and taste all the flavors it has to offer. For me, food and travel are so deeply intertwined that it’s impossible to separate them. I keep a list of my Top 10 best-ever meals in the part of my brain where my tastebuds tingle. Some are fancy restaurant classics, others have mo...

At the age of 15, my son told me, “Nothing lasts, Mom, not even the good stuff”. It’s a wise observation but then Scout, as I call him in my writing, has been my masterclass in Stoicism. When he got his first tattoo, I wasn’t in favor. How could he commit to some passing fancy to wear on permanent display for the rest of his life? Whenever I caught sight of it, it was like finding scribbles in the...

The overwhelm of preparing to travel and write in Europe for a year comes in waves. When I take a pause from the practical tasks, anxiety drowns my sense of adventure and washes away my optimism that my plans will work out fine in the end. Everywhere I look, there is uncertainty. Will my house be okay? Will I find a tenant who will respect my belongings, and pay the rent on time so I can pay my mo...

I expected packing up the kitchen to be easy—a room of hard surfaces dedicated to functionality, no handmade Mother’s Day gifts to deal with. Yet the room was filled with something else, as if the layers of time spent all around this house had gathered here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bethriunguwrites.su...