Where the light gets in
The first and last
Funny how people don’t change and yet change a lot. And I don’t mean the hair. Naturally curly but when I want to dress up I straighten it. It’s inside.
I still can’t hear the outside world on my left ear. It makes the inside louder, doesn’t it? Anyway… I like my last selfie of the year.
By the way, this was the first post of 2025:
Have a good 2026. Be less hard on yourselves. You are doing better than you think.
Lots of love from me to you
On the Outside
It’s December 29th. The sun is out but it is freezing cold. I am inside. Trapped. Not trapped inside but trapped in my head. Not mentally. But physically. On the morning of Christmas day, I lost my voice. It’s not back yet. Being silent or near silent for 4 days, that’s not like me. A couple of days ago, my ears got infected too. And although I was in a lot of pain during one particular night, there is no pain now. Just stuffed. I hear, but not well. It’s as if my head is filled with cotton. At least this morning my sense of smell is back.
I haven’t listened to any music. It makes me nervous not hearing it right and also if there are other sounds or noises, I cannot distinguish them and it all turns into an uncomfortable blur.
Four weeks ago I had the flu. Apparently,this is a flare-up after the adrenaline of work fell away. Two weeks of Christmas holidays and I have been sick for most of it.
It weighs heavy on me to be put on hold by my own body. And of course it is also a constant source of joy and jokes for my loved ones. They don’t mean any harm. But I think, for once I need to be held instead of being the one who holds.
I feel trapped without my voice. And I feel trapped not really hearing what is going on around me. I know it will get better. Of course it will, but right now, I am in the audience of my own life. Quietly trying to understand what the ones around me are whispering.
In words
This felt better said out loud than written down.
✨🎄✨
Mark Hole: a voice worth discovering
I didn’t realise Mark Hole was still making music until I stumbled across his Instagram profile a couple of weeks ago. Part of that is probably down to me no longer being on many platforms. Artists have a way of slipping out of sight when your digital habits change. But there he was. Still active. Still sharing songs. Still very much present. Theholeofmark.
What caught my attention wasn’t just the fact that he was releasing music, but the sense of continuity. Mark has been open about becoming sober and about holding himself accountable, often through poetry and songwriting. That openness doesn’t dominate the music, but it gives it depth. It made me listen more closely again.
According to Spotify, Mark released five EPs in 2025 alone. Five releases in a single year suggest commitment and momentum, a need to stay close to the music rather than stepping away from it. I’m currently listening to the most recent EP, released on November 25th, and what stands out immediately is the amount of soul it carries. This is music that feels lived rather than constructed.
His songs are danceable, driven by rhythm and groove, but they don’t stop at the surface. The lyrics tell stories taken from life. They feel observant, sometimes playful, sometimes reflective, always grounded.
One aspect of his work that feels particularly interesting is the way he revisits his own songs. He shares then and now versions side by side, allowing listeners to hear what time, experience and persistence do to a voice and a song. It’s not about correcting the past or polishing it into something else. It’s simply about letting evolution be audible.
And then there is the voice. Distinctive, expressive, emotionally alert. A voice you don’t easily forget or confuse with another. It carries warmth and honesty and holds intensity without forcing it.
If you’re curious where to begin, here are three songs that offer a way in:
I’m Not Dancing For You
Will you love again?
Dirty Base
If you want to follow what Mark is currently working on, he shares music and thoughts on Instagram under theholeofmark, and his catalogue, including the recent EPs and the then & now versions, can be found on Spotify.
I hope you enjoy discovering this artist as much as I do.
https://www.instagram.com/theholeofmark?igsh=MXM1Z2V2cXViN3N6cA==
Goodbye Chris Rea
I read the news that Chris Rea died today.
I didn’t sit with it. I put his music on almost immediately. That felt automatic. And once the record was playing, I opened a blank page and started writing this.
Chris Rea was my mother’s favourite artist. I grew up with his music, but not in a way that involved choosing or discovering it. It was just there. Part of the house. Something that existed alongside everything else.
My mother has been wheelchair bound for as long as I can remember. Because of that, there are no deep stories attached to his songs for me. But his music lived indoors, in her bedroom. On vinyl and on CD. Often enough that it stopped standing out and just became a memory attached to my mother.
When I later received my mother’s old record collection, that familiarity turned into ownership. Her vinyl became mine. All of it. Including her Chris Rea albums. That’s how my own collection grew. Not by seeking things out, but by inheriting what was already known. (Amongst it was Dire Straits, Chris Norman, Marillion, T-Rex… and of course Chris Rea)
I put on Fool (If You Think It’s Over) from Whatever Happened to Benny Santini (1978). I didn’t think about why. It was just the song that came, that I had to listen first. I changed albums and am listening to a different record now. Wired to the Moon (1984).
Chris Rea has passed away. It feels, and this may be a very weird or unrelatable thought, that something that attached me to my mother fell away today. I am not sad per se, but I feel it in my chest somehow.
The record is still playing as I finish this.
Underneath, I will add a couple of songs I really like.
RIP Chris Rea 1951-2025
https://open.qobuz.com/track/44667844
December 21st. Happy 13th blog anniversary.
December 21st, 2012 was supposed to be the end of everything. That’s what people said back then, anyway. The end of the world, the end of a cycle, something final. I remember the mood around it, that strange mix of unease and freedom. And I remember thinking that if everything really was about to end, then I didn’t have much to lose. That was the thought that led me to start this blog on that exact day.
I didn’t know what it would become. I didn’t even know what I wanted from it. I just knew I needed a place. Somewhere words could land without being rushed. Somewhere I could return to, again and again, without having to explain myself.
Over the years I tried other platforms. Some I left because they got too loud, some because they stopped feeling right, some because I simply lost interest. This one stayed. I never really questioned that. It feels strange to even write it now, but it’s true.
I was curious today. I always loo at the stats on the anniversary of the blog. And what stood out was music. Song reviews, album notes, listening posts. Those were the things that surfaced first this year.
(If you’re curious: Antimatter, Sivert Høyem, Weather Systems.)
That sent me back to the beginning. Because it started like that. Mostly music. Things I listened to obsessively. Notes written quickly, without much distance. Those early posts aren’t here anymore, but the rhythm is. Music first. Words following.
There is a lot of poetry on this blog now. Probably more than anything else. It almost overfills the place at times. But the music is scattered. Tucked in between. And that still seems to be how people arrive. They come for a song, an album, a listening note, and then sometimes they wander off somewhere else. Or they stay. I don’t always know which, and I don’t mind not knowing. That’s a lie, I would love to know, but as I said yesterday, the blog doesn’t invite comments or thoughts, not by design or desire, but because the posts don’t demand anything from the readers. I consider myself to be a poet, a writer if you will. The fact that not one poem appears in the top 10 most read posts this year feels weird, at the same time it tells me that what I share about music is just as valuable if not more, than the poems, the opinions or the short stories. And there are also the pages people keep opening every year, discreetly. I notice that. I like noticing that.
(about me • books)
And somehow, all of the above keeps circling back to the day it began on. Going back to the start.
December 21st is the shortest day of the year. Winter solstice. The darkest day. And the turning point. Nothing changes visibly, and yet from here on, the light comes back. Slowly. I never noticed how true it is for me too. I don’t believe in coincidences. It had to be this way.
The blog changed. I changed. The voice shifted, the urgency softened. The staying didn’t. Thirteen years is a long time to keep showing up to the same place. I only really notice that when I stop showing up or when I question myself too much.
Thank you for reading, for finding this space, for following a song or a sentence and letting it lead you somewhere else.
For we are all listening to the sun.
When poems turn into books
My year was essentially a good year. Not many extraordinary things happened, but I feel settled, serene and mostly content with where I am and with who I am. I have a beautiful family with amazing young people to share their world views with me. I have a husband who I love. And I have friends. Not many, two or three, but I cherish them. I love my job and I got to listen to a lot of amazing music this year. And I wrote. A lot. It was one of my most productive years ever. And that’s what this post will be about. Writing and my publications. You see, this year I published my tenth book. It’s a milestone. And although it may sound conceited not many independent poets reach that milestone. What will follow is a small recap of the books I wrote and published since 2018. That’s right, I have been publishing my own poems for 7 years now. Not because I think it is the best poetry out there, but because I needed it for myself. I wanted and needed to hold my poetry in a printed book. And in doing so, it became available for everyone else too.
Once I let go of the poems and put them into books, they become yours to read, to hold, to experience.
They never need my explanation or interpretation, because we all live and read poetry with different eyes, with a different heart.
My only hope is that some of my words reach the people who need to read them.
There is another post on my blog where I wrote about these books from a different angle and shared some of the feedback I received. It’s worth taking a look, I think. I don’t receive much feedback. My poetry isn’t loud. It asks for silence and for room to breathe. But when people do share their thoughts, it matters. A lot. Or, as someone recently said to me when I praised their work: “It means the world. You never know how these things are going to land.”
If you ever consider buying a copy of one of my books, you can purchase them through me
http://paypal.me/micqu. Right now they are all pay what you want. And they will be sent out in January 2026. They are also available on Amazon for those who don’t want to wait.
I would also mention again that a couple of my poems can be heard on SoundCloud. Either narrated by me or by Daniel Cavanagh (founder, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentiste in Weather Systems).
I don’t know exactly what the new year will bring, but I know I will keep writing. And 11th book is taking form and the 12th too.
All these words were mine for a long time. Now they are yours.
Broken promises (April 2016)
I came across this poem per chance today. It was written almost 10 years ago. I noticed that my writing is a lot more contained, restraint even than it was all those years ago. Maybe it is age, maybe it is circumstances. I don’t think I will analyse it deeply. And yet… It is an unusually strong poem for that time. In French and English, something that was unique and never reproduced.
Here it is, Broken Promises:
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise)
And I broke it
Ton coeur fragile (your fragile heart)
I couldn’t keep it together.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise)
But I never stood a chance
Ton dernier sourire (your last smile)
Forever in my soul.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise)
I wasn’t there
Tes yeux pâles (your pale eyes)
Haunting my dreams.
J’ai fait une promesse (I made a promise)
Bitter tears of goodbye
Ton âme disparu (your soul disappeared)
Forever alone.
If Michael Jackson had made rock songs
This is one of those thoughts that shows up and then refuses to leave.
Ayron Jones sounds the way Michael Jackson might have sounded if he had made rock songs.
Not pop with a rock edge.
Real rock. Loud guitars. No shine.
Ayron Jones isn’t very well known, which is strange, because he should be. He’s from Seattle. He grew up around blues and rock, and you can hear that straight away. His voice isn’t smooth or careful. It sounds lived in.
What keeps pulling me in is how he uses his voice.
It sits high and it moves a lot.
He slides between notes instead of landing cleanly on them. Sometimes it sounds fragile, sometimes sharp. Often both at the same time. It never feels planned. And then there’s the way some words come out. Almost spat. Pushed forward. Said with anger or frustration.
That’s where the Michael Jackson comparison really clicks for me. MJ did that too, especially in Give In to Me. Words tightened in his mouth. Consonants sharpened. The voice wasn’t trying to sound pretty. It sounded like something had to get out. With Slash on guitar, that tension is right there on the surface. Ayron Jones does the same thing in his own way. Different music, same instinct. The feeling hits first. The voice follows.
If Michael Jackson had grown up with blues records and loud guitars instead of Motown rules and pop polish, I can imagine his voice ending up somewhere close to this.
I’m going to share Take Me Away.
Listen to it next to Give In to Me.
It’s not the same sound. But that moment where the words are almost thrown out in anger? That’s where they meet.
And once you hear it, you don’t really unhear it. Or at least I couldn’t. This is the way I listen to music. I don’t know. Maybe you can hear it too.
Otis Redding: he was only twenty-six
Today marks the anniversary of Otis Redding’s death. He was only twenty-six. He didn’t even make it to the so-called Club 27, the age we’ve come to associate with musicians who die young.
That number never really sits right with me. Because his voice doesn’t sound young. It sounds lived-in. Worn. Like someone who already knew too much about love, longing, devotion, and loss.
I don’t remember the exact moment I first heard Otis. I think it was after Etta James. I adore her. And once you fall for a voice like that, you start listening differently. You start searching without quite knowing you’re searching. And then Otis appears. And that’s it. You don’t really go back.
A lot of people don’t know this, but Respect was his song first. His version isn’t an anthem. It’s quieter, almost vulnerable. A man asking to be seen, asking for something simple. When Aretha Franklin took it, she turned it into power. I love that both versions exist. They speak to each other.
His first and only number one hit came after he was already gone. (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay. He recorded it just days before the plane crash. You can hear something shifting in it. More space. Less urgency. That unfinished whistling at the end, because the lyrics weren’t done yet. It sounds like someone pausing, looking out, already half elsewhere.
And then there are the songs that stay with you because they hurt in the right way.
These Arms of Mine.
Try a Little Tenderness.
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now).
Pain in My Heart.
I’ve Got Dreams to Remember.
My Girl.
That voice. The grain. The ache. It gives me actual frisson.
People are often surprised when I talk about Otis. Because when I talk about music, it’s usually prog rock or prog metal. Long songs. Complex structures. Dark atmospheres. Music that builds slowly and then overwhelms you. That’s what people expect from me. But this is just as much me. The soul, the passion.
Last August, we were on holiday in the Netherlands. I walked into a record shop, which I rarely do. I know myself too well. I see too many albums I want and don’t need. And on family holidays, I don’t like spending money on myself. But they insisted. The teenagers. My husband.
So I went in. Focused. Almost stern. Looking for something and nothing. And everything too.
The first record was obvious: Jeff Buckley – Grace. A classic. A given. If I had found Tim Buckley, I would have taken that too.
Then I saw Otis. No hesitation. No doubt.
Just this quiet certainty: I have to have this. This belongs with me.
I added Dire Straits – Love Over Gold and stopped there. I could have found many more. But this had to do.
Once we were home, Otis went on the turntable.
Loud. The way his music deserves to be played.
There’s pain in his voice, but there’s also warmth. Humanity. Nothing clever for the sake of being clever. Nothing hidden. Just truth.
He was only twenty-six. And he left behind music that still feels painfully alive.
If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere. Put on Dock of the Bay. Then I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. Let it build. Let it take its time.
You should listen to him.
Thank you Matthew Rhys; or how I became a writer
I am not even sure if this memory is entirely accurate, but it is the one that stayed with me. I was watching German daytime TV sometime in 2012, half-distracted, not looking for anything in particular. Then an episode of Brothers and Sisters came on. I stayed on it at first because I recognised Sally Field. I had always liked her. And Balthazar Getty was in the scene too. Familiar names. Familiar faces. So I kept watching.
Only later did I learn that German television had not even aired the full show. Apparently only a couple of seasons made it onto daytime programming. What I saw that day was just a fragment, a small section of a larger story. Yet somehow that incomplete broadcast was enough to pull me in. By the end of the episode I was curious in a way I rarely am. I wanted more. I ordered the entire box set before I even understood why.
Something about the tone of the show lingered. And something about the way Matthew Rhys played Kevin Walker caught me by surprise. Sharp. Funny. Open. A little lost. A little too honest for his own good. He made me pay attention without trying. That is where the real shift began.
Back then IMDb still had discussion boards. It feels ancient now, like early internet archaeology. Tangled threads. Strange usernames. People gathering in messy little corners to talk about characters they cared about. In one of those corners someone had posted a link to a Kevin and Scotty fanfiction. I clicked it without expecting anything. I read it. And something inside me reacted, softly but unmistakably.
I realised that people were expanding stories that spoke to them. They were writing into emotional gaps. They were giving characters more space than television ever could. I had never seen anything like it so up close. And somehow, almost without intention, I slipped into that community. I commented. I read. I showed up. They welcomed me as if I had always been part of the group.
I read everything the writers there created. Every missing scene. Every imagined moment. Every alternative storyline. Their talent humbled me. It also inspired me. One night I had an idea for a story and wrote a short summary. I posted it, hoping someone else would turn it into something real. I was too unsure of myself to even imagine writing it.
The community had other plans.
They told me to do it myself.
If the idea had come to me, then I should be the one to develop it.
So I wrote it. Clumsily. Hesitantly. Nothing great. But it existed. That was the important part. That was the real beginning. Once I wrote the first piece, something inside me opened. The early 2010s were full of creative energy and I was suddenly part of it. LiveJournal became my home for a while, a place where writing was natural and constant and shared without fear.
Later I moved to Wattpad and shifted to original stories. I built new friendships there. One of them became my best friend. There were dramas of course because online communities are never simple. But there was also belonging. Meaningful conversations. Encouragement. When my best friend died in 2015 something in that world dimmed. I no longer felt the same connection to the platform. I slowly drifted away from it.
Eventually the blog became my only creative home. Quiet. Steady. Entirely mine. A place without noise or performance. A place where I could write because writing was part of my daily rhythm, not because anyone expected it.
Sometimes I hesitate to admit that I started with fanfiction. There is still a strange stigma attached to it. People assume it is not real writing. They are wrong. Some of the most powerful, emotional, well-crafted pieces I have ever read came from anonymous writers in those communities. That is where I learned voice, rhythm, confidence and the ability to write for the sake of creation itself.
And the truth is simple. My writing life began with one random episode on German TV. I stayed because of Sally Field and Balthazar Getty. I kept watching because something in the show hooked me. I ordered the box set because Matthew Rhys’s Kevin Walker felt too real to ignore. I found a community because I clicked on a single link in an old IMDb forum. I wrote my first story because kind strangers told me I could.
Everything since then grew from that quiet, accidental moment in 2012.
Bittersweet. Unexpected. Entirely mine. And thanks to Matthew Rhys.
remembrance
I came across your blog today. It’s frozen in time. Your last post was published Nov. 27th 2020. A few short weeks later you left us forever. I clicked the link because I longed for your voice. It was always like a warm hug, even when you were terminally ill. There was humour and sarcasm and not everyone got it. Some people are easily offended. You always knew that I wasn’t one of them. That’s why I got to read your mature pieces too.
You were my mentor. I don’t easily attribute that role to anyone, but for you it was true. When I was ready to disappear and give everything up in 2018, you hunted me down and found me on FB. You convinced me to keep writing, to persevere. You helped me find my voice and be okay with sitting in my niche. I don’t write modern poetry, never did. I write from the soul and you understood that before I did. I remember how I tried to fight it and to tell you that I was just another young bored housewife, but you didn’t allow me to celebrate my pity party. You stood up for me, for my voice when I couldn’t. I could never forget that and I will be grateful. Always and forever.
I’d like to believe that you are proud of me, of my writing, but also of the woman I became. You once said you love every inch of me. It was not meant to be suggestive, not really. What you meant was that you liked my mind, my way of thinking, even when I was overthinking. And I loved you back just as much.
I came across your blog today because I wanted to see how many are inactive. Too many to count. I unsubscribed from them all. But I cannot and will not unsubscribe from yours. I was wrapped in a blacket of grief that was completely unexpected. I think about you often, always with a smile. The smile is there now too, but so is the hole you left that will never be filled. No one was and no one will ever be like you Robert. Next week you will be gone for 5 years.
Thank you Batman
gather around (new poem)
Gather around
See the clown weeping
A willow of sorrows
Windows filled with tomorrows
Gather around
Taste the silence in their kisses
A well to drown in
Eternal love grows within
Gather around
Judge and stare at the unknown
Could it be that we are blind?
Could it be there’s more for us to find?
Gather around
Witness the old, witness the new
Be the one to take care
Be the one who is there
Gather around
Hear the soft night breathing
Of stories untold
Of hearts left out in the cold
Gather around
Let the veil shine like stars
Feel the breaking and the mending
Feel the beginning and the ending
Gather around
And see it all
Rich is the one who can hold
All the truths and nothingness
For they carry the keys
That open the path to peace.
just an educator
Sometimes I hear people speak about my job as if it were something easy. As if my days were made of coffee, crafts and a bit of chatting with colleagues. As if anyone could walk into a room full of small children and simply manage. As if what we do grows on trees.
I smile at these comments, not because they are true but because they reveal how little people see. They have never stepped into my world for longer than a school visit. They do not feel the weight of twenty tiny emotions shifting in the same room. They do not notice how much of ourselves we give. They do not understand that early childhood education is not babysitting. It is the beginning of everything.
I work with children in the years that shape them most. Years where language grows and emotions take form. Years where confidence is built or broken. Years where a child learns what safety feels like. Years where small hands learn to trust their own strength. We accompany future doctors and future artists. Future mechanics and future judges. We are the ground they stand on before they even know what standing means.
And still, we are often treated as if we chose something small. Something anyone could do. The old line that every Hausfrau could be an Educator still shows up from time to time. I smile at it because the people who say this would not last two hours in my group. It is easy to underestimate what you do not understand.
I am an educator, a pre-school teacher.
But I am also a nurse, a referee, a psychologist and an observer.
I am a storyteller and a translator of emotions.
I am a coach for small bodies and a guide for growing minds.
I am a mediator when conflicts appear out of nothing.
I am a safe place when the world feels too loud.
I am a detective who notices the details others miss.
I am a gardener who tends to patience and curiosity.
I am a builder of trust, a calmer of storms and a quiet anchor when a child is overwhelmed.
I am a mirror that helps them recognise themselves.
I am structure and softness in the same breath.
And with the parents I become something else again.
I am a partner in their child’s growth.
I am a source of reassurance on difficult mornings.
I am the one who explains what their child cannot yet put into words.
I am someone they confide in, sometimes more than they planned.
I am the calm voice when their own worry rises.
I am the bridge between home and school, between how a child feels and how a child behaves.
I am a witness to their child’s milestones and their struggles and I carry both with care.
I understand that parents are learning too.
And the day is never done when the children go home.
There is planning and preparing.
There is organising the next week.
There is evaluating what worked and what did not.
There is supporting trainees, guiding them, holding space for their questions and insecurities.
There is paperwork, meetings, messages from parents and colleagues.
There is the constant mental list of what needs to happen tomorrow.
My job does not end at the door. I am available at all hours, every day of the year.
Yes, I have a lot of vacation, but I need it to recover.
My mind needs time to empty itself.
My body needs to heal from the daily parade of germs and exhaustion.
And sometimes, like last week, the body shuts down earlier. There are days where I am spat on, coughed on, covered in snot and other bodily fluids before it is even ten in the morning. There are days where I give more than I have. There are days where my strength runs thin.
But I still show up. I show up because it matters. Because these years matter. Because children deserve adults who see them and hear them and hold space for them.
I love my job. I am passionate about it. And while I wrote this, I realised something simple and unshakeable. I cannot imagine doing anything else. I would not survive a world filled with numbers and spreadsheets. My mind does not work that way and it never has. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Mine were meant for children, for presence, for patience, for the quiet, steady work of guiding small humans through their first years in the world. This is where I belong.
reflections of an unquiet mind 