Monthly Archives: June 2015

Time, Crete and Sicily, April – May 2015

I have just returned from a month-long holiday in Sicily and Crete. What I felt there, over and over, was the awe-inspiring presence of time. It was in the landscape of 400 year-old dry-stone walling; it was in a Greek theatre in a field of poppies; it was in streets with layers of civilizations visible in the walls of buildings. Continue reading Time, Crete and Sicily, April – May 2015

Letter to a friend

I know you are suffering. You tell me that you feel broken, exhausted. Your horizons are diminished. You feel as though you have lost a better self and have no way to regain it. In spite of the specialists, the doctors, herbalists, clinicians, the diets and disciplinary regimes, a cure eludes you. You are beginning to despair. I can hear the anguish in your voice, the distress on your face, when we speak about your condition. You are suffering.
At times you see your illness as the cause of your suffering. It is the insurmountable obstacle that prevents you from realising your true, happier, self. At others, you blame yourself for not being able to accept your condition and forge a life within it. You see your suffering as a sign of failure: your great and perpetual failure to be happy. As if happiness was an achievement. As if us non-sufferers were somehow better at living than you. Continue reading Letter to a friend