Last year when I was packing up my apartment in Johannesburg, I watched a few too many episodes of the reality show Hoarders, where people with obvious, serious problems are hectored into shape over an episode’s arc of denial, shame, anger, acceptance and redemption. Around this narrative I watched half-full bottles of condiments and bubble […]
Author: Emily Bowers
One Fell Swoop
There’s a chirpy pop song that came out a while back, where the singer exhorts us to be brave, with uplifting lyrics that seem targeted at anxious kids. They’ve been prattling around in my head lately. Bravery is a great concept for a song. In real life, it’s a way of life, a dedication to […]
A Weather Story
Driving down the road in the morning, I see the sun poking through gaps in the dark evergreens along the river and I think about that old expression, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. There is another storm coming, flurries, rain, wind. That red alert band, as red as the warning sky, is […]
Week Four: History on the Run
I use it as a door stop now, but my mother’s old blue-and-white typewriter is close by. She clacked out university essays on it and later, she would dig it out for me and plunk it on the rug in front of the television, to keep me as a school child occupied on snow days. […]
Week Three: A Fault of Memory
A few years ago, I can’t remember exactly when, I was trying to recall the name of the newspaper in Montreal that I wrote a few freelance pieces for, the main English daily. I searched for the name in the recesses of my memory, not so much a wracking of my brain as scouring for […]