clinging to the wreckage

  I began the year in South Africa, having been there for Christmas and New Year, spending a few weeks on the beautiful South Eastern Coast where the beaches are often relatively wild, and free from excessive commercial tourism. It’s a wonderful place to witness nature and wildlife. From dolphins playing and whales breaching not far out from the beach to monkeys and birds rocking the trees and bushes. On the way to and from South Africa, I spent a couple of days in Dubai. Dubai is not my cup of tea, but it is an interesting place to spend a few days to witness the development there. In February, I travelled to Santa Monica, California. It’s become something of a ‘go-to’ spot for me in recent years simply as a place to get away and enjoy the ocean and the life in the area. I stay close to Santa Monica pier, and love to go to Bubba Gump on the pier for drinks and food. Big Dean’s Ocean Café is another of my favourite places to go for a drink at the pier. I walked to the museum of art...

  There was a photo of her the night that I had left the country. She was out with her friends, drunk, and she looked so sad. Her eyes had shed tears. It tore at my heart. The night before, our last night together, we had gone for dinner and then to a festival in the park next to my apartment. Everything had been removed from my apartment, she was there with me when that happened, except for my bed. We spent the night together… it was the best sex we’d had. In the morning the taxi came to drive me to the airport and as it drove down that Spanish street, I saw her walking behind us, she looked devastated. I felt heartbroken for her and for me. When I landed in the USA the next morning I told my taxi driver about her and he said ‘oh, man, you should have married her and brought her with you, you can’t let a Spanish lady like that go.’               That was seven years ago. We are still friends and hope to see each other aga...

  Christmas morning was silent… punctuated occasionally by sirens, which made me wonder if people were sick, injured, or setting their houses on fire. Or was it something else? Fighting? Shooting? Domestic violence? My mother had passed away on the 15th of December in her time zone, the 14th of December in mine… this made Christmas additionally silent. I looked through my photos from ‘on this day [through the years]’. Last year I was with my parents for the first time at Christmas in many years. There was a photo I had taken in the morning whilst I was helping my mother prepare vegetables to cook. My mother was sitting in front of me looking into a bowl and my father was standing in the distance, wearing a Josie Records sweater that I had bought for him in Dallas just before I flew over. I bought the same sweater for my mother, too, but I only ever saw her wearing it once, many months later, on a Skype call. Life is an inevitable cycle and I often think that people expect too much ...