Lessons from tina

Lessons from tina

Tina has been a lot on my mind this week. The Queen of Rock ‘n Roll died at 83 at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland. Tina has certainly packed a life, and her death was peaceful, and yet, her loss felt like a punch in the gut, disproportionately upsetting. I was eight...
On dreaming

On dreaming

Before my father renamed me a ‘Fire Dragon,’ I was a ‘dreamer whose feet rarely reached the ground.’ “Where are you now?” he’d snap me out of a moment of reverie and pull me back to the reality I was trying to escape. He’d shake his head disapprovingly and say...
DOLCE FAR NIENTE

DOLCE FAR NIENTE

On the Importance of Beauty, Good Food and Meaningful Connections   I have found my felicità in a bowl of spaghetti alla carbonara. I am in Rome with my mother and we have stumbled upon this cozy brewery in one of Rome’s narrow streets, about a four-minute walk from...
From shithole to a château

From shithole to a château

The Rebuilding of a Life “Maman, tu est formidable,” says my eight-year-old daughter as I struggle to push my queen-sized mattress up the third floor. This queen sized mattress, and my daughters’ art work is all that I have taken from my previous Mile-End home and...
Melancholia, my friend

Melancholia, my friend

It’s January twenty-four, minus twenty something degrees that ‘feel like’ ten degrees colder. I haven’t actually bothered to check the official temperature because I’m too cold to get out of bed, turn on the heating and reach for my phone. I feel like jumping out of...