The name on my birth certificate reads Sezin Piotruszewicz Menekshe Rajandran. I was named with the same initials as my grandfather on my father’s side, SPM Rajandran. He died just months before I was born, and in fact my mom was so upset at his funeral that her amniotic sack tore and she might have…
The first in a series of reflections on the incredible Dialogue 2010, curated by Rose Deniz and on the topic of hybrid identities and location.
In 1973 Erica Jong wrote the feminist anthem, Fear Of Flying. The heroine, Isadora, though terrified of flying, boards a plane and her subsequent journey leads to a spiritual and sexual awakening that was the one of the first of its kind in print. Jong’s thesis is that the fear of flying is the fear…
My reflections on Miep Gies’ death as well as Wendy Soltero’s would-be 32st birthday.
Here in Europe we have this amazing cream called Bepanthen that is phenomenal for healing wounds without any resulting scarring. Doesn’t matter how you got the wound, scrape, burn, but if you use Bepanthen on it you absolutely will not scar. I got to thinking that maybe forgiveness is like that cream. If you don’t…
For the first time in my life, I am working with children. I don’t particularly like children, or want to have any of them, but this job is exactly what I need to supplement my writing and so I’m doing it, with interesting results. Day One with the kids was insane. Spending my two hours…
I read my first Stephen King novel when I was 12 years old. The book was Carrie and the year was that of the Gulf War I, 1992. Thus began a love affair with King’s books that has continued to shape my life until today. This year I turned 30 and I’m even more in…
When I was a single twenty-something living in Spain it upset me to no end how difficult it was to make and integrate with a group of Spanish locals. I couldn’t understand why locals wouldn’t want to make a foreign friend and learn about someone’s life outside of Spain, in the same way that I…
Unlike most places in the world that can seem alien at first glance, Prague hides her true nature until she trusts you enough to share of herself. The longer you are here the more she undresses her darkest secrets and shows you her violent scars. Kafka called her a number of variations on “the little…
I am pretty sure I’ve discovered a new fairy who has been in my life for some time now. I’m calling her The Trauma Fairy, and my belief is she goes into our minds while we sleep and erases things that are just too awful to remember. One of the more dramatic times she visited…
Five years ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I met an amazing Californian Phillipina woman and we became fast friends, seeing in each other kindred spirits. Interestingly enough, it was the same year I met Paolo Coelho who told me: “Always keep your heart open; it will bleed, but it will heal.”…
Life as an expat can be trying, in spite of its seeming glamourousness. One of the most difficult things I’ve noticed across the board is how hard it is to integrate with the locals of pretty much anywhere. What you find out is that especially in a place like Prague, with a great deal of…
The Season 6 finale of “LOST” featured a gargantuan statue of the Egyptian crocodile-headed god Sobek. Being fascinated not only with “LOST” but also Egyptian mythology (I even took a how-to-read-hieroglyphics course a few years back) I figured it must mean something. *Builds a mountain out of mashed potatoes* Sobek was worshipped in ancient Egyptian…
A surefire way to alienate good folks and lose friends is by being fake. Fake people are the worst. To clarify, being fake is very different from being polite or professional. Being fake is pretending to be friends with people you can’t stand and not giving them even the slightest moment of pause to think…
The awkward transitional periods between one phase of life and the next can give us pause to review our history and see what we’ll salvage and take with us forward. At the moment, I’m saying goodbye to the last year of my life as a relocation coordinator and moving onto a number of new possibilities…
Although it’s been weeks since I’ve seen it, I’m still thinking about the movie The Brave One. Jodie Foster repeats throughout the film that after the horrific trauma she went through, it was like a new person emerged in her. Someone who was capable of doing things that she never would have dreamed of doing…
In high school my dream was to be a movie star. I was in every play I could possibly be in, performed on stage every chance I got and even went so far as to pick a university in Los Angeles because I wanted to be an actress. Once I got to L.A., I realised…
As always, somewhat obsessed, I have a new fascination with the TV series Lost. I know, I know. It’s sorta cliche by now, having a thing for Lost. But my thing is this: I read an article about how Lost is really some version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. You know, the Gunslinger chasing…
Duckie, the long absent daughter of Saucy, has returned to live on our porch. She just rolled up on the porch about 10 days ago like nothing had happened. Like her mother hadn’t been depressed as anything, not eating and crying herself to sleep on the porch’s cat chair. Like I hadn’t been poking my…
“Let them eat cake,” said Marie Antoinette and that is just what I have been doing. I know, I know, I have horrible allergies and normally I cannot eat cake, sugar or bread. However, last week at our friend Ali’s birthday party I was given food that contained not a small amount of sugar and…
While I was devastated to get fired for the first time in my life, each day that goes by I am beginning to understand that the job experience itself has a much greater spiritual significance than I ever would have thought. The job taught me that integrity, while a quality most of us strive to…
Before Wendy died, I was against capital punishment for all the open minded liberal wooo rah whatever theories I can’t even remember now, but most importantly because life is sacred and an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. After Wendy’s death, I was filled with such inconsummate rage that I felt…
Many people compared Babel to Crash and Magnolia because of its story line about the intersection between the lives of disparate groups of people, and on a superficial level the comparison is valid. But what made Babel stand apart from every other film was the fact that it showed how we are all connected not…
I feel like the Turkish Daily News came into my life for a few specific reasons, and namely the people I connected with while I was there. Also, it gave me something to keep my mind focused on with Uma being in the hospital. I think if I were home alone all day it would…
I realised yesterday that the reason my pregnant boss is punishing me by preventing me from working is because to her not working is a punishment! This is a lady who is almost 7 months pregnant, works in a high pressure high negativity atmosphere of a news room with a little boy in her belly,…
Today I was punished at work for talking back to my pregnant boss last night and got to spend the entire morning reviewing editing guidelines. I maybe read three articles all day, when normally I would have read dozens, maybe tens of dozens. Right now, we are in the middle of crunch time and I…
I had no idea until I met him that my Uncle Vasantha had survived the Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004. I remember when the Tsunami happened there was an absolute feeling of chaos and powerlessness that hit our household. We sat, stunned, watching the waves crash over Sri Lanka and were…
After two unsuccessful attempts to post this, I am hoping the third time is the charm, as they say. So, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all y’all! And I say “y’all” the way Sri Lankans say it, not how Texans say it, just to be crystal clear. Yes, back in Bakirkoy and back here. It has…
two types of travelers there are two types of people who travel. the first group is the Questing Travelers, those who travel because they are in search of something. spiritual awakenings, daily epiphanies, random fated connections with strangers that may only be fleeting but end up lasting a lifetime. they are the type who travel…
