clinging to the wreckage

  The sun drains towards 0% as we sit on the dock over the lake and wait for an orange haze to fill the sky. Each day dies into a blossoming night, but here the temperature doesn’t drop very much. There are days I am desperate to leave, and others that I am in love. This, I suppose, is the human condition… we are prone to ups and downs. Often violent. Violent joy. Violent despair. What a turbulent existence for a turbulent species racing at high-speed towards its own extinction. The flies hover beside us cautiously, for they sense the spider webs for which I am grateful. I see a tiny spider dancing excitedly upon its carefully crafted web as it waits for food to land. They serve as a metaphor for a role reversal in human society. The spider might be the big bad boss awaiting the talented, educated, ambitious individual to land and be trapped in the web. A gondola sails by with the pilot singing a sunset song. A couple on the boat sip wine as they are serenaded… and a couple to my r...

  It’s been five months since my mother passed away and I feel like I miss her more now than ever. I see and think so many things each day that I want to share with her. And I think of her life and how it had good and happy moments, but it had a lot of pain and sadness… it could have been much better. It also could have been worse, I suppose. And today is Mother’s Day… it’s one of contemplation. I think back to, and through, the times that she walked me to school in England and in South Africa. How she had shared in my triumphs and turmoils; every moment from receiving a semester or year-end report card to the moments I was anxious about an exam or a speech or a school play. In some way, it turns on a brighter light of introspection and moments from the past come back in vivid clarity. I can almost feel the atmosphere of the moment, smell the air, recall the exact brightness, capture the feeling… something that happened 30 years ago, in some cases. It also makes one more aware of t...