The woman he was born from speaks without waiting for a cue. I can’t tell you how amazing the trip was and special and all these wonderful people we met like this one lady who was sick but maybe not really sick and anyway we took her to the hospital there but they didn’t find […]
moreA man feels a negative force is holding him back. His marriage recently ended. His career has reached a dead-end. He feels he is getting older than his age would merit. His son is suddenly asthmatic. In a dream it comes to him: it is the wood carving from Kenya on his wall. The one […]
moreI met a man. His wife has cancer. I knew this but we weren’t friends so I never discussed it. One day, I told him about my divorce. It made him sad, the way his wife’s cancer makes me sad. We became friends. Soon, I find myself in the waiting room of the hospital. My […]
moreDear friend. What do we make of the passing of time? How do we survive the years in which we remain unchanged? Affected, yes. But unchanged. You sent me a photo of you. I haven’t see you for over eight years. We tried so hard to be in touch. You were in Nigeria, I was […]
moreThere he is again. Not a man but his shadow. Fading by the passing of time. Winter or Summer, he always wears the same coat. It is a deep red and it must be wool as it hasn’t worn down, not in twenty years. His beard hasn’t either. It is grey now, when it was […]
moreThere’s a benefit to moving house: you discover things you’d already long forgotten. An essay you had once written about bridal burnings in India. Wow, you think. Wow. Did I write that? I also found a book. It’s called: “About consolation and sadness.” I remembered there was something special about that book. I opened it […]
moreMy son wanted to paint something, so I put a piece of paper on the table, squirted some blotches of paint onto a plate. My son changed his mind and played with something else instead. This blank page and paint just sat there on the table for a while. Somehow, it felt wrong to throw […]
moreDramatically speaking, confronting your main character with a choice between “the lesser of two evils” is a powerful tool. We all remember Sophie’s Choice. The other day, I asked my haptonomist whether I’d made the right choice by separating from my husband. I had expected him to embark on some abstract theory about the concept […]
moreTwo drug addicts – a man and a woman, mid forties – hollered at me from across the street. “Hey you!” said the woman. She was wearing a black cap, black bomber jacket, black jeans and various gold necklaces. Skinny legs, bright red lipstick, a super-sized beer. How did I know they were drug addicts? […]
moreI was putting books in my cupboard and trying to organize them in some way. The problem being: my books are hard to organize. I read books the way I watch films, in no particular order and with no specific aim. I can enjoy Cunningham as much as Coetzee, and no that doesn’t mean I’ve […]
more