seeing the humanity and joy in our everyday
After a year of daily lunchbox packing, there followed a blissful break when my 2 older children were in ‘infants’ – that part of schooling when you benefit from free meals. My 3rd child, a baby, finally rejoiced some undivided attention and maybe a few more elaborate meals.
September last year I found myself back on the lunchbox wagon. Continue reading “On Lunchboxes”
‘So I’m supposed to tell you my story, no guidelines… That’s going to be hard! I do not know where to start.
My father passed away when I was ten years old and I was brought up by my mum and my two older sisters. They moved out of home and I went into boarding school for a while. My father had been my best friend. Continue reading “On the artist”
This story was kindly told by *Andrew.
‘One thing that did happen, I once inherited a guy, who wasn’t very well, he got Parkinson’s. His family lived far, so I used to pop up and chat with him in the evenings. And then… he passed away.
I love mixing and matching and living in an a-temporal fashion gap. I sometimes receive compliments on my clothes… and sometimes I don’t.
One of the most surprising items to ever receive compliments on has been a cardigan. A green-grey, hand knitted, larger than average cardigan that got out of the wardrobe and onto my shoulders through pure luck, one random, chilly Tuesday morning. Continue reading “The Cardigan”
‘There was also a young kid there, sleeping rough, like me. I remember he was about sixteen, seventeen.
And we hung out together and I was just nineteen, twenty at that stage, and what I did was I took him to the Tate Modern and we spent two days. And then because of my art background, I shared like, I wanted to show him Rothko and you know, explained it all to him, and actually he started saying to me he wanted to become an artist and get off the streets. Continue reading “On Art”
She was fifty years old, she had the bluest eyes and thick short hair. We never spoke much. Back then, we each spoke different languages. She liked to sit in her chair by the window, in the tiny kitchen, with a permanent coffee in her hand and sometimes a cigarette. I often stayed in the kitchen with her. I would take pictures and listen. Sometimes I would wash up. Ania loved to cook but hated washing up. Continue reading “On Love”
We tell stories to explain ourselves to others. We tell stories to elicit answers, to start conversations, to remember loved ones. We tell stories to our children. They can be bedtime stories, or moralising ones, or both.
We tell stories to our husbands and wives. They may show us in a better light! Or they may help us share those important, wonder-filled moments of our childhood.
Our stories are of joy, of loss, of denial, of belonging. Continue reading “On Storytelling”