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 ...

  ‘Twas a weekend in San Diego… and, as always, my heart was captured by the place. From the bay to North Park, Little Italy to the Gaslamp quarter, Ocean Beach and back to the bay, beauty abounds, and the cultural and market diversity is astounding. Arriving on Thursday night, I took a $2.50 bus from the airport to my hotel in the bay, it was about a 10-minute ride, and I spent this time talking to a construction security officer from the airport who had just finished work. After check-in, as I was walking to my room, which was down a long and relatively dark corridor, I sensed someone walking behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the silhouette of a lady with long hair wearing what appeared to be a horse-riding outfit. Without being able to see her face, I smiled and continued walking towards my destination. ‘How are you?’ asked a silky female voice with an Eastern European accent. It was the silhouette behind me. ‘I am well, thank you, how are you?’ I replied. ‘I am great...

  There has always been a conflict between two existences. I have always loved punk rock, a lack of convention, alcohol, anarchy, and chaos. And yet, at the same time, I love academia, order, art, poetry, beauty, and places of serenity. I am lying on the couch and watching a documentary on YouTube called ‘We’re The Weakerthans, we come from Winnipeg’ and it is such a beautiful thing. It makes me think of this conflict… there are the scenes of dirty venues and tiring road trips on tour, and then there are the moments in which there are performances at centres of art and culture and the whole thing, all of the work, is done in the name of culture and enlightenment. It’s the lyrics and music of individuals such as John K Samson, the vocalist of the Weakerthans, that inspire me to create… they go beyond that though, they make me want to survive. They make me happy to be alive.               In two days’ time, I travel to San D...

  The first morning in my old home, Madrid, I woke up early and, forgetting that I had breakfast included with the hotel, went for a walk to find breakfast. I found a scruffy little café somewhere close to Mercado San Idelfonso and went in for orange juice, coffee, and pan de chocolate (not something I would usually eat for breakfast but, when in Europe…). It reminded me of the times just before I left Madrid and my girlfriend at the time would often wake up in my apartment and disappear for a while only to reappear with coffee and brown paper bags filled with delicious pastries from some unknown local bakery or café. I walked on in search of a few required items such as soap, ear buds, and some nail clippers, which I eventually found in a little pharmacy in which the lady helping me had to climb up some ladders to pick the clippers off a top shelf. After spending some time back at my hotel, I took a long walk and eventually sauntered into a bar called El Diario (The Diary). It was...

  Room 8 at Hotel Brunnenhof was home for four days in the Kinzig Valley, a scenic river valley that runs through Hanau, Germany. I was there from the 9 th   of August through to the 13 th   for a wedding and several meetings with old friends from Germany and England. It was a fantastic time. Then, on the 13 th , I took a train from Steinem to Frankfurt and then a second train to Paris where I now sit in bed, at 06:16 (having been awake since 4am), in room 216 at the Hotel & Spa Royal Madeleine. The room is tiny but beautiful and I sit here sipping a coffee contemplating life and loves long lost… loves which now lay silent, in death, and will not resurrect even though there are those that I long for. This is my first visit to Paris and my initial impression is that it is similar in architecture and flow to Madrid, where I lived for three years. I am sure there are many French and Spanish individuals who would take my head off for such a comparison, but it is merely mi...