Homelessness? Or a kind of freedom?
We have been in Vietnam for a week now, the first few days in the new family home in the Delta. The new home, housing the family altar with my in-laws’ ashes, is a modern grey and white villa near the lower branch of Mekong River. It’s comfortable and airy with a small fountain and newly … Continue reading
6 MEKONG DISHES I’LL MISS
Every 16th day of the Lunar New Year, Heart Guy and I travel to his family home in the Mekong Delta to commemorate his mother’s death and celebrate her 96 years of life. This year, he’ll be going on his own as I’ll be at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Mandalay talking about As the … Continue reading
A different lunch on the Mekong River
Before going off to Australia, Heart Guy and I were in Vietnam. On an afternoon, we had lunch with some of the Mekong Delta kids we sponsor. Recalling this lunch now, it amazes me how we could have gone for that extravagant meal at Urban less than seven days later. I offer my memories of this … Continue reading
What’s in a title? Your opinion please…
A title can make or break a book. Imagine if The Great Gatsby was actually published under it’s original title Trimalchio in West Egg! Or William Faulkner’s the Sound and the Fury was launched as The Sentimental Education of Frederick Henry??? Well, that novel I’ve been working on and off on for 15 years is finally … Continue reading
A place in my heart – The Mekong southland
You can love a place before you see it. A place you continue to hold in your heart even after you know it, faults and all. That’s the Mekong Southland for me. My husband is a man of the Mekong southland. He was born in the deep south, in a town on brackish salt marshes a hundred … Continue reading
The Pope is gone, my mother-in-law is dead, but life goes on…
This week Pope Benedict 16th steps down, the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years. At the University of Tubingen in Germany, the theologian Hans Kung, author of the forthcoming “Can the Church Still Be Saved?” hopes for a new spring for a fading church. But in the Mekong Delta, in my husband’s family, life flows on uninterrupted like … Continue reading
Reconciliation
It’s the end of the old year. A time to throw away old grudges and forgotten grievances, a time to make room for what will come in the new year. A time for reconciliation in the spirit of Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation … Reconciliation Our bruises Red and purple Black and brown Forgotten Forgiven Forgiving We run … Continue reading
A mystery
The significant other and I support a community program for poor children in the Mekong Delta. Sometimes it feels like we’re spooning up the East Ocean – we have hope, but still it feels impossible. This poem was written at a particularly hopeless moment. Has this ever happened to you? What kept you going? Do … Continue reading
Reader and Writer - Praying Woman - Gardener - Foodie 