You’re There It is dark but I feel your hand on me. I hear you breathing as your fingers rest gently on my arm. I lie beside you and do not want to move. This nothing touch is nothing you are capable of any other time. Its rarity moves me. Sometimes I chase this flicker […]
In this episode, before getting to the main topic, Dara observes how disconcertingly warm it is for November, and argues that things being not quite right can be extremely disruptive. He commends teachers for persevering amidst the unending Covid disruptions. The first part of the episode concludes with why his daughter felt the need to say “I hate you” to him.
Love, Wellness, and Creativity, or Getting Violent with your Process – Episode 26 Read More »
In this episode, Dara discovers the word ‘haecceity’, which stems from the Latin word for ‘thisness’, and is used to describe the quality that makes a thing or a person uniquely themselves. He argues that this is something we cannot hide, no matter what we do.
The Fallible Smotherboard and the Fear of Being Seen – Episode 24 Read More »
In this episode Dara explores the American father as captured in TV sensations The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. He also looks at Arthur Miller’s theatre masterworks Death of a Salesman and All My Sons before briefly visiting old Hollywood depictions of idealised fathers, both with and without collars!
Big Bad Daddies! From Tony Soprano to My Father in Several Easy Steps – Episode 20 Read More »
A poem I wrote about my father, who recently turned 79 and has been showing the signs of a mind and body slowing down and no longer being cognisant of the happenings of everyday life in real time. Not all the time, but enough to be of justifiable concern. It is old age. It is
Breasting the Tape Read More »
Merely I’m sorry. I’m just a man. I don’t know what I represent to you or anybody else. I only know who I am and who I’m not, what I’ve done and what I haven’t. I’m not trying to steal air or drink water or take space that was meant for you. I’m not looking
“Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly . . . while from others the spirit slips before the body perishes.” EM Forster, Howard’s End “It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of,
Staying in the room Read More »
“Are we living in end times? … Either way, it is hard not to feel that we are being shown a glimpse of a future to which we should expect to become accustomed. And when the world around you is physically changing, it is almost impossible for your perspective not to change with it… It
The Institution, or Sometimes You Don’t Know You’re Being Held It is a symbiosis, this thing. This mad, lifelong, love affair that has raged across the shores of time; that has as often been tempest as drought. That has somehow kept out elements of undoing, of easy leaving. A force that has not been quelled,
The Institution, or Sometimes You Don’t Know You’re Being Held Read More »
Closer When will it be that she sees the shock of the old? When will she stop in her tracks, stop her breath, and take charge of my feelings, so that I’m not hurt by more than the passing of time? No time soon. She marauds over me like terrain to be conquered. My
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