“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” — Virginia Woolf
Enjoying a visit by a poet so very much. Our conversations prompt me to remember my own formation as a writer and a woman. This is one of those unexpectedly powerful transitional moments that occur when we retire. You find yourself thinking about possible futures and then your past arrives as a lesson to guide you.
I wanted to put presence into absence. I was very frustrated that black British women weren’t visible in literature. I whittled it down to 12 characters – I wanted them to span from a teenager to someone in their 90s, and see their trajectory from birth, though not linear. There are many ways in which… Continue reading “to put presence into absence”: on the occasion of the 2019 Booker Prize Awarded to Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo
A terrible pain. A dinner with friends. A shiatsu massage. An adoring poodle. Not to mention Cuban salsa dancing. And avoiding the political scandals for the moment - the avoidance a temporary measure. And still the plot lines of White Supremacy leak into the narrative - a terrible commentary on our times.
Wherein a woman walks and muses. The shape of the woods sounds like birds. Writers abound. The stories cross oceans and wave. All this to try to stem the tide in her head of climate catastrophe and the rise of authoritarian regimes here there & everywhere. Keeping a world on self-destruct at bay.
What days - feasts of friendship, feminism and this. Sunday, 25 August It began with a brunch ...chez Sheena with her loving extended family. Xander grins when we stand back to back: Ha! surpassed the height of this petite doting auntie. After Ajay’s crispy bottomed eggs, (a specialty, observes Shanda,) and other treats, we visit… Continue reading 48 hours in a life unfold – a long read
I'm thinking of a trending metaphor. After half a lifetime of labour, retirement feels like pitching yourself over the sticky glow of the honey-dew event horizon into the oblivion of a black hole. Edging closer, you peer into a black as deep as your own cornea. Up close, you witness your existential erasure in the maw of an absent nothing. What astrophysicists call the "singularity." Then it becomes more complicated and you hear Steven Hawking's hunch that black holes sport an exit.
No Gate No Lock 