Title: Drystone
Subtitle: A Life Rebuilt
Description: Kristie De Garis spent years running – from places, people and parts of herself. But chaos always followed.
When she moved to rural Scotland, she hoped to find peace. Instead, in the space and silence, she was forced to confront everything she had tried to escape: racism, trauma, undiagnosed ADHD, addiction and the stark realities of motherhood.
Then, in the land around her – and in the slow, stubborn craft of drystone walling – she began to see a different life. One that was quiet, deliberate, and her own.
*Drystone: A Life Rebuilt* is unflinchingly honest and unexpectedly funny. A story about the weight of the past, resilience and the hard work of living on your own terms.
Some things may never change. What matters is the life you build anyway.
Subjects: Personal memoirs, Rural women, Racism, Psychic trauma, ADHD, Drug addiction, Motherhood, Mothers, Drystone walling, Drystone, Walling, Crafts, Self-actualization (psychology), Self-realization, Alcoholism, Rape, sexual assault, Family violence, Intimate partner violence, Racially mixed people, Ethnic identity, Pakistanis, great britain, Abortion, Scottish wildlife, Bullying in school, intergenerational trauma
Places: Scotland
Time periods: 1990s, 2000s