Our lives are full of shoulds. For women, these shoulds act as the hands that form and shape a lump of clay. Like clay being formed into something suddenly respected as art, we are pressed into behaviours that see usRead more…
Social media and Joan Didion’s California
“Was there ever in anyone’s life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a point when choice was any more than sum of all the choices gone before?” ― Joan Didion, Run, River I point the phone in front ofRead more…
Clothing and self-objectification
These days, picking clothes from my wardrobe has become an activity fraught with symbolism and memories. Daily I stand in front of my wardrobe and finger the various fabrics, the silks and the lace, lined neatly in rows form navyRead more…
On death and grief
I have noticed while straddling two cultures – my family’s and my birthplace’s – that the universality of death and grief ends there. How we approach it, the means by which we acknowledge it and the language surrounding it areRead more…
Remembering and forgetting in Eastern Europe
I joked that my recent holiday itinerary read like Hitler’s ‘To Do’ list. Poland. Ukraine. Germany. I didn’t intend to spend half my holiday kneeling at sites of tragedy, but when you find yourself in the vicinity of places thatRead more…