clinging to the wreckage

The COVID pandemic saved me. If it were not for that, I would be homeless or in a mental institution now. Let me explain. In 2008, I suggested that my team work one or two days a week from home as we had the technology and no requirement whatsoever to commute large distances to the office. The office was a tremendous distraction, there was no ability to focus, people simply walking around chatting and interrupting. Remote work was not allowed. In 2012, I I started to work some weekends and agreed to do it only if I could do those days from home to avoid driving to an empty office to do everything I could do from home. This was granted and, in 2012, finally, remote work became a small part of my life.   In 2013, I moved to Madrid and led the team responsible for delivery and support of laptops and iPhones… I became very popular. It was impossible to focus on anything. As a result, I started to work one day a week from home, with an agreement that I would walk to the office immediate...

  One of life’s struggles can be that of trying to balance between the positive and negative and, if possible, to focus on the positive. Life can be wonderful, filled with awe and wonder for nature, full of rich friendships and conversations, study and work that help us to feel a sense of purpose and value, as well as romance, passion, excitement, travel, exploration and growth. However, it is also frequently filled with conflict, sickness, death, the awareness of cruelty and suffering… a feeling of hopelessness.                     Morrissey’s My love, I’d do anything for you plays as I lie on the couch and contemplate life. ‘Who am I? Every night of my life always missing someone’ he sings, accompanied by a dance-like rhythm. The album, Low in High School , is one of the greatest, in my opinion.  Full of Morrissey’s classic self-deprecating lyrics, which are funny but also absolutely a...

  Red rose, white rose … a beautiful tale… a traditional male and a flirtatious married female. A tale that seems written for me, and one that was found by pure luck. I’d ordered a book by Eileen Chang simply because I remembered enjoying the one that was on my shelf, Love in a fallen city , one that I had read as a part of my studies. Whilst waiting for the new book to arrive, I picked up the older one and discovered there was one short story at the end that I had not read. My bookmark, a ticket from Sorolla House museum in Madrid, was in the book at the beginning of the story. I started to read it and fell in love with every poetic, rebellious, unconventional word and line. I have also fallen in love with the character, Jiaorui. It has really whet my appetite for the new book that has arrived, Half a lifelong romance .  I did feel sad at the end for Wangli and her daughter. People deserve better from their relationships than neglect.       ...

  I’m a materialist. Not like Madonna, the material girl living in a material world, I simply believe in physical matter and not the spiritual realm. However, in recent times, there have been moments that I have felt my mother has been trying to communicate with me from beyond. Firstly, a sequence of books that I read in a row in which the protagonist dealt with the relationship with their mother (or children) causing me to revisit my own relationship with my mother and reassess many events and conversations. Then, last night, locked in a fever dream, hearing my mother call out ‘I know you are Michael, and I just want to see if I can help you in any way.’ But, even in the dream, I was too sick to respond. Finally, I regained strength and called out to her. I entered from outside into a kitchen (one from my teenage home) and she was calling back ‘where are you?’ When I walked into the living room, I saw her sitting on the couch close to the balcony door. I was standing in front of h...

  The balcony is calm and beautiful, but the sound of gun shots from the nearby shooting range is consistent. Intermittently reading and writing I receive a message from a former lover in Taiwan to say that she recently had a baby. We exchange a few lines and have a laugh at a memory of her rolling her eyes. It was one of her idiosyncrasies. It was cute. Now the gun shots somehow remind me just how far away everyone is. Family and friends. Even here… there is no one at the pool, there is no one on their balcony, there is just me and if it were not for the gunshots, I’d feel like I was the last survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. As I continue to read, I realise that sensitive scenes in films and books hurt me so much these days. When I was younger it simply seemed like fiction, but I know the suffering is real.                     Now I sit at The Ginger Man pub and sip a beer. The weather i...

  On this day, one year ago, I was in Salt Lake City for the first time. The 2 nd of august was the day of the Bad Religion concert that I used as an excuse to travel. It was an interesting time because the city is beautiful, it is well connected to the airport with a clean, efficient, and cheap train, it has a beautiful natural history museum and great bars and restaurants… but I found the people to be a little bit strange. They seemed to be either hippies who appeared to have come down from the mountains or they were extremely conservative religious types. There was no in between. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful trip and I have fond memories of riding on the bus up into the hills to visit the Natural History Museum. I also recall riding Lime Scooters around and even riding one to a sushi restaurant close to the music venue before riding the scooter to the venue to watch Bad Religion. I rode the same scooter from the concert to my hotel later that night.     ...

  The tiki social… a beer after a bike ride in the deathly heat. Is a fascinating social study. I feel like I could earn a PhD in anthropology from sitting at this bar. There is not a single man wearing a shirt. The women are all on video calls at the bar. What a world. I pay and hop onto my bicycle to venture to the next bar. Familiar people and a beautiful manager dancing through the day. A frozen margarita washes away the day’s heat and a few hours are spent in blissful retreat.     Looking around it is more apparent than ever… some people are lost. Engulfed in a world wave of tradition and trying to keep up with the neighbours. A taste of freedom at the bar turns them into a wild storm. A grin the size of the sun appears as a beer is placed before them. For a few moments, they forget that they have a spouse and a child and debt and so many responsibilities.   The day has been a wild one. Alcohol has been flowing. A pub crawl by bicycle. Some things concern me, su...