I am having a very difficult time in my French conversation class and it is not so much because I don’t speak French that well, but rather because frequently the conversation turns to politics and/or news items. I am not up on either. Continue reading
Life As I See It
HE-LLOOO?
You don’t have to be awesome.
You aren’t being asked for that.
You don’t have to be flawless.
You don’t have to hide your imperfections.
You don’t have to do a better job than anyone else.
You don’t have to solve every problem. Continue reading
HANDS
I fell into fascination with hands from a very young age, five or six or perhaps before. I fell in love with my father’s hands first. I liked the way they were brown with the sun and rough from the work he did on the land weekends. Continue reading
THE MIND
I was walking through my living room one day about eight years ago and I suddenly noticed that my mind was still. That was all. I noticed. This was not a small thing: my mind had never been quiet before. Continue reading
DESTINY
Do we forge it, or are we carried forth like a leaf over rushing waters? Does it actually matter? Perhaps it is the same. We are shaping our destiny by the decisions we take, but we take them really without the least idea where they will eventually lead us. And then there are the things that we apparently don’t choose. Excluding suicide, the way we are finally to die, for instance. Continue reading
MOMENTS OF KNOWING
There are moments of knowing. You never know when one is going to happen until it does, usually when it is least expected. You have doubted, you have thought, you have gone beyond thought and just given up and then suddenly you know. Continue reading
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Sometimes living with the name you are given, first name or family name, is not easy. There are names that are difficult to pronounce, names that are ‘weighty’, names that tag you as foreign. Mine, both of mine, were all three. Continue reading
MEN FRIENDS
I am delightfully finding that I can actually have men friends. This, for me, is exciting. Apart from one dear, dear friend from many years ago who is gay and therefore never been interested in having sex with me, I have seldom –before now- felt comfortable in the company of a man. Continue reading
WHAT IF…
Have you noticed how something unpleasant almost always follows that phrase? It’s like “What if everything goes wrong”, or “What if s/he doesn’t like me?”, or “What if I oversleep, miss my appointment, get there late, mess up the sale, fail the exam, get that lousy teacher that hates everyone, or die young?” Continue reading
BEGINNINGS
What better time to write a piece on beginnings than the 1st of January. On this day, we begin a lot of things (apparently). We throw out the old calendar and set up the new one or peg it to the wall. Continue reading
Writing a life 