Particular and Universal And you, who are listening to, or reading this, you whose lives are so particular, so unique, so personal to yourselves, at this moment you are linked to me by your attention, and I will enter your world when I listen to or read your words. . .
The Writing Competition “What do you think, Ma?” asks the child. “Och, lass, I cannot even read and write, you know that. But if I could, I would tell people what it is really like to live like us poor folk. I don’t think those people who own books and fine things have any inkling of how it is for us. . ."
THE APOLOGY As she dives into the warm Mediterranean sea, the water splashes and glitters in the hot sun. Here with her sister, the two teenage girls are enjoying themselves. They are both in their element, having learned to swim when toddlers. . .
On being in an unfamiliar situation She cannot recall those awful moments of disorientation. Like all traumatic memories they are buried deep. Or put behind a solid wall where consciousness cannot penetrate. The rising panic. She can remember that. . .
DREAM There is a landscape that reoccurs in my dreams from time to time, that represents a place I yearn to visit. It used to be New Zealand, but now I have been there. . .
MY FATHER Of course this will have to be about my Dad, in response to the stimulus we read out. And of course I won’t do justice to the subject in just one hour.
Home A Chinese man is poling his sampan, yellow, across a green sea. A pagoda with a brown roof floating below classically drawn stereotypical Chinese mountains. Repeated again and again across the wallpaper of my room.
