If I am going to live in fear, let me fear what is real. I do not generally speak of fear, choosing instead to tell a different story, one that I hope inspires women to shed the darkening cloak of stay-home paranoia – and choose life. Jill Meagher’s murder last week has shaken the hearts [read more ...]
There is a letter I long to write, to a woman who is not my friend, not really, although both of us, when speaking to others, each of the other, would claim friendship. This woman is one for whom I have held deep admiration, for the courage with which she has met life’s challenges and [read more ...]
Barcelona is a woman’s town. I noticed this on my first visit there, 15 years ago. The women glowed. They shone. They were worshipped by the men on their arms. Young, old, of middle age. Beautiful, plain. Just the same, all unequivocally adored, all sharing the same informal, confident grace. All unambiguously empowered, as women. [read more ...]
I am on the street, filling time. It is morning, a slow Spanish morning, where the shops are late opening and the bars are not quite filled with workers in for their coffee and pan con queso y jamon, bread with cheese and ham or a variety of other cured meats. I am looking for [read more ...]
It has rained not a drop in Granada since May. Until today, the day I pulled in on the train. Which, I must say, I actually don’t mind at all. Probably because it didn’t start to pour until I’d blindly dawdled my way through unfamiliar streets misted with morning looking for my hostel, which I [read more ...]
There is a point in every day where the tide of human affairs recedes, when streets empty, stores close and people retreat, as light itself withdraws from the world. It is the point where once-mothers sit alone in big houses, that ought to be filled with the voices of children demanding dinner and needing baths, [read more ...]
Many years ago I read a startling story that resonated deeply not for the incredible survival of its hero, but for the courage of the man whose actions – which were totally unacceptable according to the code by which he lived – triggered an entire escapade and saved both their lives. The book – Touching [read more ...]
A great mystery that has eluded me all my life is that of private land ownership. Most particularly, how one person, usually a man, sees a whole valley, for example, and says to himself, and others, ‘this is mine’. All the rivers in the valley, all the fertile land, all the mountains – ‘mine’. Then [read more ...]
Why is it so difficult to believe men we love and/or admire are capable of sexual misconduct? This question has plagued our world forever – and continues to do so. When otherwise good men are found guilty of sexual misconduct/assault/rape we too often hear people blather ‘but he was so nice!’ Reality check – we [read more ...]
Every human being is born with a longing in their heart so great, that to honour it would cause a revolution. That longing, denied, at best results in disagreeable tension, sour distress; at worst leads to closed and bitter lives prone to telling others what to do, and reinforcing other bitter hearts; in short, either [read more ...]