These Foolish Things Remind Me Of You

My little brother died in 2011, but I think of him every day. One of the reasons for that is because a strange, and, sometimes, seemingly random range of commonplace items can remind me of him, out of the blue. Here are some of them: A pair of boots I own - because he was with me when...

A short play for two people

Scene: a kitchen. Two elderly people - we'll call these characters Mum and Dad, are seated at the kitchen bench looking through a pile of photos from their son's recent wedding. A third person, looking to be in her forties, is drying dishes nearby. We'll call her Daughter. Mum: (squinting as she peers closely at a...

Into the air

Today I noticed: the sky. The light.  Sharp shadows in the late afternoon. Cold air, warm patches in the sunlight, the last month of Autumn. The shapes of buildings. Dates on old buildings: 1878. 1926.   Today I noticed how easy it is to forget an idea that flits through your head.   An idea for...

Some idea that I’ve forgotten

Oh, the wondrous passages you would all be reading, dear readers, if only my memory could store an idea for more than a few seconds. There's a phrase, I'm sure you've heard it, "in one ear and out the other." Well, "in one ear and out the other" could aptly describe the traverse of ideas for new posts I've...

Is that coffee?

I was early for my train yesterday morning, so, unusually, I decided to go and buy a coffee. Actually, that's not entirely true. Let me start again. Yesterday morning I was running late for my train, so of course I hit every traffic light between my house and the train station, missed the train by 3 minutes and thus...

These Precious Things

Every time I wash my kitchen windows, a memory comes back to me, of an unhappy, self-conscious 13 year old girl, washing windows in a classroom. Of course that teenage girl was me, and the window-washing in question took place decades ago.   At the all-girls Catholic secondary college I attended, the well-worn tradition of dividing students up into "Houses"...

Worlds above and worlds below

Is it just me, or does everyone, visiting a town they have not been in for, say, 11 years, walk around town recalling moments from their previous visit with a slight sense of melancholy? Does everyone - or just me - walk past a park in the middle of the CBD and spend a little too...