So I finally decided to muster all the courage I got and opened this word document. Yes, neither did I open the once beloved notebook whose pages have turned yellow while it waited for its indifferent owner. Nor I could find that blunt pencil from the once gifted pencil box. Those days are long gone. I … Continued
2015 with a splash in Strangford Sharon Charity The man beside me on the slipway is jumping from foot to foot in his blue board shorts, silver hair and goose-pimpled suntan. ‘At last, a real woman,’ he says as I look down at the green, soupy water of Strangford Lough. I’m wondering if the New … Continued
As the result of a devastating brain injury sustained as a teenager, I am fortunate to still be alive. However, this ultra rare anomaly did so much damage that I was essentially written off, told that I would never accomplish any of my many dreams or even take a step under my own power. … Continued
Life in the Deep Freeze in Sweden My vision of hell has often been snowy and icy. It’s not a conventional vision of hell as visions of hell go, but it’s mine. The only possible thing that could make it worse, in my imagination, would be to be trapped in snow and ice, and for … Continued
Singapore musing: Singapore in Rain and my village Wow! At last I am in Singapore, the fabled city. Seating comfortably in my hotel room and looking at the Singapore skyline with a warm cuppa of tea. As I am looking out a nice drizzle of rain engulfs the city .I am looking out fascinated by … Continued
Sometimes it is the thought of imminent fear, not fear itself, that stops us in our tracks. To think of this possibility is one thing, to experience it is another. Two hundred and seventy five stairs didn’t seem bad , I wanted to take a chance. The guide lady had said fitness was required to climb … Continued
Just before we boarded the ship of the Silja Line on Midsummer’s Eve, a blonde girl in her early teens, dressed in white with meadow flowers in her braided hair, passed us with her family and friends. Together they were a living symbol of fruitfulness and joy of the season. Now on the white, … Continued
The moment I saw Roopa*—beautiful, dimpled and dusky—it was clear that playing mother to her son was her sole vocation in life. Sitting in the verandah in the mild winter sun, unravelling a sweater, she didn’t once avert her gaze from him as he, unmindful of her, doodled in a notebook. “Keechu kheye ne (eat … Continued
As the result of a devastating brain injury sustained as a teenager, I am fortunate to still be alive. However, this ultra rare anomoly did so much damage that I was essentially written off, told that I would never accomplish any of my many dreams or even take a step under my own power. … Continued
The Replaced Roses: Belarus by Klaudyna Szewczyk I stood far high up above the ground. At least higher than I previously thought. The distance from the last step off the train to the grass in the ditch below appeared to be at least 3 feet. When the train slowed down, I jumped and suddenly everything … Continued