Nov 27, 2014 | My Stories
One of my journalist friends here pointed out that November marks the beginning of Silly Season. Australian culture — with it Aboriginal and Anglo-Saxon roots — is actually quite Mediterranean. Lunch break shopping trips gets longer, the days are hotter...
Nov 20, 2014 | My Stories
Last weekend, I went to a children’s performance held in a church and had a momentary wobble of claustrophobia. The modern church where the show was held had no windows. No view to outside. No opening to the horizon, to the sky, to the world beyond the beige concrete...
Nov 13, 2014 | My Stories
While I was running under the mauve of the jacarandas and through their leafy puddles, I realized that although I admire the spirit of some Australians and the beauty of the landscape and the peculiarity of the wildlife, right now I do not like the message that...
Nov 11, 2014 | My Stories
It is, of course, Remembrance Day and I have found myself thinking once again, had it been me, would I have been found lacking? Would I have had the courage to fight in the resistance like Bertie Albrecht who was executed in 1943? I’d like to think I would have...
Nov 11, 2014 | My Stories
I’m feeling like Anne Tyler. You know, the Anne Tyler who wrote Breathing Lessons and The Accidental Tourist ? Yes her, I feel like her. But not the Pulitzer prize-winning prose powerhouse her. No, not the author of 19 novels her. No more like the other her. The Anne...
Oct 30, 2014 | My Stories
A couple of weeks ago, a friend organized a last minute drawing course for us. Had I read the email more closely I would have been intimidated by the ”life drawing” prefix to the course and probably not gone. As it was I skimmed over the email, gathered my...
Oct 27, 2014 | My Stories
Last week was a doozy. The Belonging Blog website and email subscription service wasn’t working properly and then Sunday, I broke a veneered front tooth in half, on a piece of bacon. Aside from the largely unknown fact that Australian bacon is dangerous,...
Oct 19, 2014 | My Stories
There’s lots of slang in Australia and lots that I don’t understand, like ”shirt-front”. Shirt-fronting (sporting reference): to charge at a rival and hit him so he falls to the ground, or to grab a rival by the lapels or the front of the shirt and...
Aug 22, 2014 | My Stories
I had a moment of clarity yesterday in my search for belonging. Walking across the polished hoop pine floor boards from our dining room to our entry way an answer arrived in my head. It’s a question I’ve been pondering for months. Can I get a sense of belonging from...
Aug 11, 2014 | My Stories
Yesterday I phoned my uncle who’s in hospital in Canada. We talked for about five minutes before I could hear exhaustion creeping into his voice. He laughed at my silly jokes and he was genuinely happy that my father’s back pain had subsided even though there...
Jul 30, 2014 | My Stories
Yesterday I took the train back from a meeting in the city. The suburbs that I usually drive through looked different from the higher position of the train. The train weaves behind the suburban scenes yellowed by winter leaves. I mused about how I see this city anew...
Jul 21, 2014 | My Stories
”There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.” Jodi Picoult Vanishing Acts There are few thoughts about belonging in my head today and, frankly, writing about belonging after 298 innocent adults and...
