For Conchita
During a workshop some years ago a woman in her mid forties seemed distracted until I said, in answer to a question posed by another participant, that today we are faced with the belief that we ‘cause’ all our illnesses, that dis-ease is something we ‘do’ to ourselves. Continue reading
Who would you be if you could not think the thought “I am unhappy” ever again? How would you live your life if you could no longer believe that lie? What would your life be like if you knew you could never be unhappy ever again? (Mark Andrew Frey, Facebook)
There are mornings when it is good to remember that without a thought there is no such thing as “unhappiness”. Continue reading
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
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
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
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
Two months ago today I drove to Salies to make my home here. Sixty two days. In those nine weeks I have furnished my small apartment, made new friends, established a routine, Continue reading
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
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
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
Writing a life 