Category: Little Epiphanies

At the smorgasbord restaurant, in the banal flatlands where gangs and throaty V8s roared like the cleavage of the girls on the corner and the only swath of green was the cemetery behind its high gates — high because everyone was clamouring to get in — we stood in line for custard. Because it was…

Some writers talk about the creative process using bucolic images of springs welling up in wooded glades, but for me it is a foul black sludge that I must constantly pump out of me. Beyond me, out in the world, the black sludge turns into a beautiful child that I can admire, but locked within…

I was not born but sacrificed into the world. Like the rest of us, I gave up something secret and essential when I came here, something I could not afford to lose but did.

So I play the blues like I write the blues. It is my nature. It is what comes out when I open my mouth. I can never forget what awaits me, so every moment between now and then is invested with the exquisite, bittersweet perfume that is the scent of life itself… Breathe deeply.

By some curious fluke of my internal clock, I was up before dawn. Indeed, I was up so well before dawn that I had plenty of time to fiddle around (my favourite pastime). I fiddled with the mate, then I fiddled with the camera, then I fiddled with the tripod and eventually I fiddled with…

These days, what excites me is music. It is almost the only thing I care about. Making it. Listening to it. Living through it.

We accumulate scars. Where once I fretted about losing my innocence, I now cherish the wounds and how they transfigure me. Each scar is a battle faced squarely, engaged and survived. I am still here. I have not run. In our scars I can trace our journey.

In the lonely apartment, where I sometimes take refuge, there is solace if you know where to look for it. It is not to be found in the emptiness, of course. It is to be found in the fullness that becomes evident when one listens.

I listen to other peoples’ stories and imperceptibly they become mine. It is as if I were compiling an encyclopedia of stories. I settle into a seat at the corner café, open a newspaper or begin a conversation with a stranger and their stories – whether I want them to or not – become a…