A few years ago I was having drinks with my second wife and some friends of ours, Paul and Sue Knight. It was a good period of my life. Rae and I were in love, but not in that starry eyed way that sometimes happens; more in a tentative, grateful way. It’s hard to explain [...]
Entries from August 2008
August 26, 2008
By the way
Without any warning, the dentist in my little town got religious indigestion; overnight he shed his tatty cloak of atheism for the snug jacket of God. The speed of the dentist’s transformation was second only to his new found zeal for the conversion of our town’s somewhat generous supply of lost souls. It was not that he [...]
August 18, 2008
Tide
After John died, I started to take the books from the shelves of his study and pack them into boxes. I didn’t know him that well but it made me sad somehow to touch the things he’d left behind, to start the process of emptying the world of another life. It got me thinking about [...]
August 10, 2008
Want
When I was still just a boy, I learned that to want is a weakness and to want too much is to give power to others. Now I know that this is the history of the world but back then it was just another hot Saturday afternoon as I pushed my bike across the bed [...]
August 4, 2008
In which I discover I have sired a prodigy and then am cruelly disabused of same
Early in parenthood, each of us has the secret and smug suspicion that our child is, in fact, a prodigy. This seemed to be confirmed for me one day as I was snapped out of my driving reverie by my 4 year old daughter’s voice from the backseat of the car. “Dad, will you tell [...]
