Journal
Articles
The delicate pleasure
Nostalgia is often twinned with sentimentality, but many Baby Boomers I know...have an uneasy relationship with the food of their childhoods. Any discussion is ironically underpinned with acknowledgement that we deliberately left the corned beef and fairy bread behind...
This isn’t theoretical
‘This is the first time we’ve ever taught the history of pandemics while an actual pandemic is upon us,’ I tell the class, to nervous laughter. We are still at the nervous laughter stage, which will quickly be overtaken by the ‘just nervous’ stage...
Note to self
Safe to say, I wasn’t in a good headspace. There was no space, actually, inside the head. The head was a churn, nauseating as the Tilt-A-Whirl, gurning away from 3 am each morning, blankly exhausted during daylight hours, marinating in cortisol and adrenaline.
Mortality’s hour
Urban solitude – retiree solitude – is tough. Especially if one is unaccustomed to domesticity, for solitude is, at its core, domestic. And in old age, solitude insists on vigilance. A pragmatic, fierce vigilance of the flesh.
The void
By then, coronavirus had invaded my life. Australia had imposed travel bans; several friends who were in China couldn’t get back into the country. We had planned to travel together; we couldn’t go anywhere anymore.
The truth about growing older
When ageing is framed as a problem, we can be persuaded to buy things to ‘fix’ or ‘stop’ it. And when we can be persuaded that ageing is a disease, and natural transitions are pathologised, we can be persuaded to buy things to ‘cure’ it. The driving force here is capitalism...
The creative life of Eileen Kramer
‘I feel like I could fly!’ Eileen Kramer was born in Sydney in 1914 and studied singing at the Sydney...
The invisible arrow
WHY DID THEY ask me for an essay about stopping writing? And why did I say yes? Did I...
Death by the book
THE NASTY CHEMICAL smell had gone. His eyelids were shut and she wanted to have one more peep to...
The ball still swings
Click here to listen to Editor Ashley Hay in conversation with Ian Lowe and Ingrid Burkett. ‘IT’S JUST LIKE the game we used to play,’ a...
Longevity, quality and turning back the clock
MY NAN WAS an active, outgoing, engaged senior citizen. She gardened, kneeling on a foam pad to protect the...
Solving my medical mystery
IN OCTOBER 2018 I found myself in St Vincent’s Private Hospital. Located in Darlinghurst in inner-city Sydney, it was...
