compassion

9

I had a beautiful friendship once, with a woman who is also a writer. We read each other’s works in a kind of ecstasy of communion, making notes at every page. Our conversation was easy and delving, muscular and gracious, exploratory and frank. Then men who wore make up began appearing on the covers of […]

Moth drowning in the shower. Poor fluttering little guy. Even if his whole life flashed before his eyes, it’s only gonna be like 24 hours or so, right? ‘Flew up against this invisible wall. And again. And again. Changed course & met the Sun in person, hanging from a wire from the ceiling. Ate some […]

2

The Declaration of Independence lists crimes against the American people which drove them to reject British rule. Replace ‘the King’ with ‘Trump’ and this list still makes sense. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these […]

4

Had to change trains twice to get home and I was reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, great, familiar, female, underrated. On the second train I glanced up when somebody laughed and saw a short, beautiful African man gazing longingly at me. It was so startling. I hurried back to Cranford, the village where the old […]

4

This is the lunch I had today, in a Saturday cafe set up by a refugees welcome committee (one of the many) in Berlin. When I ordered, a smiling Syrian woman plump and beautiful in her brown scarf came out to me carrying this bowl: a dish I had never eaten before, and when I […]

8

A homeless man was sleeping in the stairwell when I came home. Or, to put it in the terms which my instinctive body understood, a stranger, appearing unexpectedly, had barricaded my door; his body was coiled and his face hidden; I had to step round him to get in. Raised in Australia with its pleasant […]

14

I’m at my parents’ place spending some time with my dying father. He is frail as a leaf. This morning two Blue Care nurses turned up, funded by Australians’ taxes, and hauled him up the bed so hard they bashed his head against the headboard. When he is sleeping, which is much of the time, […]

4

I met a man with shit-stained pants on the subway and we sang together. He had been swaying by his pile of plastic bags for half an hour, offering speeches to the cabin. People ignored him and looked away. Only the Hispanic man behind us covered his face with split fingers and laughed into his […]

15

Bought The Saturday Paper, the one not owned by a misanthrope sadist. Carried it into my favourite weekend cafe and sat down. They were playing the Rolling Stones: bloke music. The first sentence that caught my eye was: “Trying to explain why fiction matters, novelist Ian McEwan put it simply. ‘Cruelty,’ he said, ‘is a […]

War on drugs is not working. Except, of course, as a war: dispute over territories, profit for those who manufacture destructive products, wasted expenditure, huge casualties. I wish compassion could be administered as machine-gun bullets can but it’s a laborious infantry, a science in its infancy, a sophisticated machinery many of us are too fearful […]

A confluence of kindness in the Sunday cafe this morning. People were slouched about, eating their brunch. A series of wan songwriters entertained us from the speakers. When we first walked in a classical guitarist had just done playing, and when he walked around the tables with his cupped hand outstretched, everybody gave. Then a […]

“Aw!” ‘What?’ “Aw just… somebody’s torn this little plant out, and now it’s gunna die.” I could hear my surprised, injured tone of voice, high like a disappointed child. My friend stopped and I had already squatted in front of the dismal garden bed built round the trunk of a tree, in which someone had […]

Today on the markets I saw a man hit his child. He and his wife were standing among the racks of a bright clothing stall, I did not see what the boy had done but I noticed a woman sitting at her sock & beanie stall knitting had stilled her two needles and taken up […]

2

Last night I had occasion to take a taxi and struck the cab driver from hell. Well, hell is an understatement: he was from purgatory. Drove with his hands in the air as he banged on to me about greenies and their so-called eco crisis, a plot to make money. I couldn’t help it, I […]

Almost a year ago I left Brisbane, on three days’ notice, to come to Berlin. I had looked up the weather map and packed a small suitcase and figured I would stay about a week. A very dear friend was in town and we wanted to meet up before he set off on his bicycling […]

Today I had to face some things inevitable but leaving pain. They are not my fault nor anyone’s and there’s nothing I can do about them. But it’s ok. You know how you grapple til you get to grips. While I was grappling I walked the streets. As I walked I passed a very well-dressed […]

Today all I can think about is the moss that grows on furrowed wood; the sound of traffic, that reaches everywhere; my desire to sleep for a hundred years; the fact that not everybody wants to hurt people.

I was standing on the Underground platform just now gazing at a poster for a guy who calls himself the New Houdini. His hair was frosted & his hands outstretched imploringly: I can escape! If you’ll only believe in me! A voice came at my elbow, from a very small, very elderly man: “Might I […]

I was in the petshop section of a department store, because pets were next to pens, as if alphabetical, and it is remarkably difficult to find decent, practical biros in Deutschland that are not too fat to hold. Those I brought with me are all written dry. Standing gazing at the rabbits, whose noses whickered […]