Write About It

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft With Anya and the pine trees #grateful #forest #motherhood I was six years old the night I learnt that miracles take patience. I couldn't sleep. I knew Dziadek was still up – I could see the light under the kitchen door from my bedroom. So I crept down the hallway in my pyjamas, barefoot on cold floorboards, curious about what he was doing so late. I stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, trying to look invisible. He had a cardboard box on the k

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft A couple of weeks ago was Easter. This Saturday is ANZAC Day. Between them sits something I've been trying to understand my whole life: what it costs to dye an egg in safety. Let me explain. # I was seven years old, sitting at my Babcia's kitchen table in Poland, watching her hands move carefully as she arranged brown onion skins in a pot of boiling water. She placed the eggs inside gently, one by one, the way you hold something precious. "Why

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft Anya with all the pums, ready to learn how to bake the plum cake #plumcake #plums #autumn #baking #lovebaking I was six years old, standing on a Polish beach, watching the Baltic Sea stretch endlessly. My mother stood beside me, quiet. The wind whipped our hair. Salt spray touched my face. "What's on the other side?" I asked. "Sweden," she said. "And beyond that, the whole world." I didn't know what Sweden looked like. Didn't know what "the whole worl

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft I want to tell you about something that happened a couple of weeks ago. Anya and I made cupcakes. Not the first time, but this time it was special. She wore her pink chef's hat – the one that's slightly too big and keeps sliding over her eyes – and took her job very seriously. Measuring flour. Cracking eggs. Filling each tin with exactly the right amount of batter because she'd decided that if even one cupcake was smaller than the others, the whole ba

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft Thursday last week marked three years since my Babcia left us. I was walking through a shopping centre on an ordinary Sunday when I felt it. A heat wave, sudden and complete, moving through my whole body. Not a hot flush. Not a dizzy spell. Something else entirely—a warmth that felt like arms around me, like someone pressing their cheek to mine the way she always had. I remember thinking: this is not a good day for shopping. I'll go home.

by Agnieszka Wolsoncroft --- For 365 days, I posted daily gratitude photos with Anya—Project Grateful, practicing the #TAG Method in real time with all of you. Day 361: my father died. Day 362: grateful for Anya holding my hand through thirty hours of travel. Day 363: grateful for snow—her first time seeing it, purple lips and wonder. Day 364: grateful for friends and family who drove through ice to say goodbye. Day 365: grateful for endings and beginnings—this photo of M