About Me, Lucinda Cook

I am a Bendjesserit, which means I had a peripatetic international childhood, and had no choice in the matter; since I was four years old, I could not wait to grow up and settle down.

You can read more about my childhood and being transnational here:

When I was nineteen, I dropped out of American college, moved to Europe, and have supported myself ever since (till I became disabled at 44). The deal with my father was that he never gave my mother or their four children one penny after the divorce. The deal with my step-father was that he paid for us growing up, and for his (seven) children’s education, and after that, we were completely on our own financially. They would not even lend me, nor any of my siblings, money. When I turned 21, they gave me $21. Many friends found this hard to understand, as the image I painted of my family life was one of unimaginable privilege. Nevertheless, I am no dilettante, nor ever was one.

In college, I worked as a student rep, a teacher’s assistant, a summer camp for inner city kids assistant, and a home help.

In Europe, on a student visa, I worked factory jobs, under the table — packing plastic combs, packing plastic jewellery, vacuum-packing olives and feta cheese, packing Indian snacks; serving in builder's canteens, doing quality checks on buttons by washing them hundreds of times, putting them in the dryer hundreds of times, and noting any breakages.

Then I got an Australian exchange work permit in England, and landed two permanent jobs, which saved me from getting kicked out of England, and lasted eight years: The first was with Camden Council, during all the school term breaks, on a daily 9–5 playscheme for severely disabled kids. Four of my eight co-workers lived in the same licensed squat as I did, — very handy as we had to pick the children up in the van, and drop them off home again, but that also meant that we inevitably brought ‘work’ home with us, and it was intense.

My job during term times was manager of the Student Union Supply Shop for the Institute of Education, which I turned into a successful venture that also employed two other workers by the time I left.

During those eight years, I was also in a women's band, The Touch, playing bass, singing, writing songs, practicing, performing, recording, and touring England and Europe.

Then all that finished, I went back to college across the road from the Institute of Ed, at SOAS, to get my BA degree in Indonesian Studies and Music. At school five days a week, nights and weekends I worked for an Agency as a residential social worker, all over London wherever the gig took me, plus my permanent gig, doing three waking nights a week at a children’s care home.

After three years of that, I was exhausted but got my BA. The house my partner and I got a mortgage for was repossessed though, as our repayments had soon gone up from £200 to £600 per month, and ultimately it was impossible to keep up. Thousands of others were in the same boat — the subprime crash, whatever they called it. (Our downpayment was £10,000 on a £66,000 2-bed house, which was then repossessed and sold at auction for £49,000. Twenty years later, it was worth over a million pounds, and likely by now it is worth over two million.)

Britain was still part of the EU, and I had applied to naturalize as a British Citizen.

British/EU citizenship got, BA got, house repossessed, girlfriend and I split up, and I emigrated to Ireland.

When I was seven, (in Australia, with two Irish-Australian grandmothers), I had a premonition or a determination that I would live in Ireland when I grew up. Beguiled by Irish traditional music and the Irish pipes as a twenty-something, I had many Irish women friends; when I was 31, Mary Robinson was the newly elected President of Ireland, a house and job in Kerry fell in my lap, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. I hired a van and four Irish Lesbian friends drove me to Kerry. They all soon moved back to Ireland themselves, rightfully hopeful that Mary would legislate much-needed change.

In Ireland, I ran the house I rented as a women’s hostel, which turned out to be unpaid — in fact, I ended up paying the rent, paying the electricity bill run up by the guests, handing over their payments to the landlady, — including my own friends’ who I was not allowed to have in the house unless they paid as guests! I earned not one penny from that job, but I counted myself lucky to have had a house to move to.

You can read more about that time here:

After that, it was 9. a.m. till 2. a.m, 7 days a week, seasonal work in restaurants. My only day off was the first day of my period —which always brought excruciating pain and vomiting.

I apprenticed myself to a pipes-maker, unpaid, off-season. I also had a musical partner for some years, playing gigs at pubs for the tourists during the season, hosting trad sessions, where anyone with a few tunes can join in and play.

I was roped into a budding theatre company, The Beehive Theatre, and eventually, we got funded, and acting turned from voluntary to, at first, a part-time job, then a full-time job. I performed major roles in about 20 productions. I was also approached twice by Ireland’s casting company director and told that my talent was prodigious.

But, when I was 44, my life changed completely when I caught the flu and never recovered. I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, otherwise known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Unable to work, barely able to look after me, — let alone socialize or play my pipes, I had many very dark years where I was just waiting to get my life back.

You can read more about that and what my life consisted of, before Medium, here:

Then I finally got serious about writing my quantum crochet book. I learned computer skills, got a laptop, and joined Medium, all in December 2022, with the idea to use it as a platform to serialize my crochet book, The Mobicorikon.

You can read the introduction to The Mobicorikon: Understanding Quantum Physics Through Crochet here:

Well, you all know how Medium can change your life. I registered as a business solo trader (in artistic creations), joined the Partner Program on Medium, and quickly found that I had plenty of other stories to tell and that my writing is amusing, appreciated, and even earns me the most rewarding pin money I have ever made. My family and friends have been so amazingly supportive, they have my undying gratitude. I found an ever-bountiful community of writers to read and engage with, learn from, and laugh with, and at the age of 63, I am excited about my new lease on life. My light is shining.

There is nothing like Medium except Medium, and so Medium: I LOVE YOU!