Notes on My Life

excerpts from notes on my life

  • Night Watch

    I’m taking a minute to check in with myself before heading to a 10pm meeting. I realised today that I’m six months alcohol-free. Not sober – I’m stoned right now. I don’t mind it, it’s softening everything, which I need right now. I don’t fly off the handle, but instead can talk through arguments. My… Read more

  • Getting Going

    Here I am, the morning of the day before tomorrow, when I go home. Waking up in the hotel by a marketing call from France, which for some reason I answer. Hello? Allo? No one responds to either, and I realise that the background noise is from a call center, so I hang up. Awake,… Read more

  • The Haunted Hotel

    As I write the title and press space, the power flashes very briefly in the room, as if the energy in the room itself gasps. I feel my stomach drop and then feel funny all over. I’m pretty sure the keyboard flashed too, even though it’s not plugged in. I may not write more before… Read more

  • The Sad Clown

    I went to Mom’s apartment alone last night. I knew, with our Aunt and Uncle coming today, that it would be the last moment of calm in her studio at the care home I could be with her in her space, unaltered, one last time. It was sad and comforting. I lay still and fell… Read more

  • Ghost Train

    At night now in our ‘after’ hotel, we can hear the trains pass. They remind me of Lincoln’s Ghost Train, a long sad funeral train that crossed the state of Illinois, maybe even the country, after he was assassinated. The long, slow moans echo in sorrow throughout the landscape. The trains seem their loudest at… Read more

  • The Grief

    Here we are, now. The day after, the morning after the night before. In a hotel room, not far away, we have woken up to a world where our mother no longer exists in her body. She is all around, though, everywhere all at once. This morning, for the first time, I noticed one small… Read more