Talking to Melissa can be a very rich experience. Depends on what you bring to it. Depends on how well you can listen. I was talking to Melissa whilst we were watching some dross on her television in her room at the care home. Of course the dross was passionately interesting because it was very …
Author archives: pasdelasbas
Back gardens
So the spring has arrived finally. After one of the coldest early springs I can remember it’s finally warmed up. That’s coincided with what might well be some sort of biological need for spring cleaning. In particular I’m thinking at the moment about the drive I’ve got to clear my lovely back garden. I remember …
Gadjo Dilo
A friend of mine, Miroslav, just the other day posted a link to a short scene from a film titled “Gadjo Dilo”. It was a couple of minutes of footage of some Romanian Roma musicians playing and singing in a cafe, a young woman dancing whilst a young man recorded an audio tape of the …
missing the bus
“It’s some thing connected to meaning. An oblique waking up. Or a guilty secret. An automatic self disgust. There are whole sets of impulses that have pushed me. Chemically induced ones. Natural body exuberances and later self-inflicted. I just can’t capture anything about this in words. It’s about meaning. A really joyful sitting with, walking …
pushy puritans
I was at a Church of England service today. Two services in fact, the first a “traditional” service culminating in communion, the second a “family” service. Both had a sermon at their heart. The readings for the day upon which the sermons reflected were taken from Isaiah 40, 1-11 and from Mark 1, 1-8. The …
How right was Jan!
A pint of Bitter please Buddy
I am aware that I am experiencing myself as increasingly bitter. Two evenings ago I vented my frustration and bitterness about Saskia’s parents. This I did in front of her cousins, Hilary and Jake, the latter someone who had been given great hospitality as a child, love and warmth, by Patrick and Diane, when his …
broken hips
A typical news item might read as follows: Today in a town somewhere a man deliberately drove a vehicle into a crowd of bystanders. Two people were injured and the man was arrested. This event is not thought to be terrorism related. There is a necessity to draw attention to the difference between an individual …
today’s lesson
So there are two important stories that I want to put down here. Maybe one day Jack and Lottie will read them and remember quite how many times I repeated these stories to them. So for years and years now our family has struggled to carry an emotional cauldron. The source of heat has been …
telling stories
So it appears that I tell stories. When my children ask me a question I say, if I’m in a good mood, do you want the short answer? The medium one or the proper one? And the good ones are always narratives. I get surprised when people point out to me that I’ve gone off …