It's the Year of the Dragon and I'm on a train. Being born in another Dragon year, this feels like my year. Things are going well for me. So well that I sometimes feel embarrassed to tell others about it. Now the train is moving. Things aren't perfect – they never are – and I... Continue Reading →
New year
I'm reading a book about the past. Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov is about a man who opens a clinic of the past for patients with alzheimers, dementia and amnesia. First each room in the clinic represents a different decade of the twentieth century. This spreads to become whole floors, with different rooms for each... Continue Reading →
“He knew, though, that the prize of his intactness was incompleteness”
Excerpt from Tender is the Night, F. S. Fitzgerald, 1934. This edition: Penguin Classics, 2010, p. 125. Photo: J. Zarins, 2022 I don't believe that we ever become complete, or finished, or actually ever grow up. At least I believe that people who do, are unhappy, boring, and unhealthy for themselves and their surroundings. This... Continue Reading →
Thursday purpose
Frozen February sunrise, Cambridge, 2021 photo by Jessica Zarins I'm getting seriously sick of lockdown. And I really shouldn't have espresso with post-dinner profiteroles when it's not at a restaurant that I have to leave and can walk off before I try and sleep. After a few weeks of good sleep the old ghosts reappeared... Continue Reading →
Five things you should read/watch/listen to if you want to understand me
Pippi Longstocking (1945), Astrid Lindgren Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë Star Wars (1977), LucasFilms Peter Pan (1904), J. M. Barrie Normal People (2018), Sally Rooney What five things should I read/watch/listen to understand you?
Branches 