Write.SaidRose | Public figure

Write.SaidRose

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25.01.2022 My favourite author, Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote one of my favourite books, "The Remains of the Day" has just won the 2017 Nobel Literature Prize for Literature, and deservedly so. He is a master storyteller with a wonderful way of writing of places and people and situations that leaves you feeling a little unhinged yet invests you completely so you care deeply about what happens next. What is incredible is how he wrote "The Remains of the Day" in just four weeks. I started my "Tales.." book back in 2013 and am still struggling to "find time" to finish it. I think maybe I need to hole up somewhere for at least 4 weeks (preferably 4 months) and crash through it all.... What an inspiring article!

24.01.2022 Photo credit: Andrew Gillan TELL US A STORY, DAD! My dad smoked a pipe until he had Pleurisy and was ordered to give up smoking immediately. From that time forward, all things to do with smoking were banished from the house. If we were watching television and an ad came on for a certain brand of cigarettes, he would get up, turn the TV off, time 60 seconds and then turn it back on again. He would walk out of movie theatres when cigarette ads came on. Print ads from m...Continue reading

23.01.2022 The first #Busybirdpublishing Open Mic Night of the year and I think I unwittingly did stand up ;-) ....a section of the preamble is missing in case you're wondering why it didn't flow.... I start around 21 minutes into it... Can any of you relate??? https://youtu.be/4ZkGZZRVPxU

21.01.2022 I wrote and presented "Weighting" at my favourite tribe, #BusybirdPublishing's last Open Mic Night for 2018... here it is, hope you enjoy it :) (mine starts at 41:18)

20.01.2022 A friend of mine took this shot of me and his family on the beach, giving me permission to use it. It was taken with his drone. Absolutely magnificent, don't you think?!

16.01.2022 JUST HAD TO DO IT :( This came up as a Facebook memory today. Sadly no one turned up with a bottle of wine as I was in Lorne at the time, a full two hours away from the people I knew in Melbourne. Yesterday was a JUST DO IT! Day. A Don’t-See-Me-Unless-You-Bring-Wine type of day. ...Continue reading

15.01.2022 THESE TWO These two are mine Are proudly mine How on earth I produced these two...Continue reading

13.01.2022 Songs stir so many memories in me. They transport me to the time and place when I first heard them and bring back all the memories they invoked at the time. One of those songs was Leonard Cohen's Anthem, and it features in this piece, "Cracks", which I wrote and delivered at #Busybirdpublishing's Open Mic Night last month. I dedicate it to my most beautiful niece Tara Jayne with so much love XOXO

13.01.2022 IN MEMORY OF PAUL QUINCE April 1955 March 2020 I must have been around 11 or 12 when I first met my cousin Paul. He had flown out from England to spend a season with us in India and I fell completely in love with the cheeky British-accented and crew-cut-blond boy who swept into our lives that summer. I was already mesmerized by his mum, with her big blue eyes, roller-curled blonde hair and scandalous range of hot pink and scarlet red lipsticks. The only other person who...Continue reading

09.01.2022 I have just read with great sadness the announcement of the recent death of a dear friend I very much admired and respected, the amazing Lew Scudder. It is uncanny that this should happen at such a time as this as I am at my Great Ocean Road retreat this weekend, working on my Tales memoir, and have just started on the Istanbul chapter. We had the pleasure of meeting Lew and his wife, Nancy, in the early ‘90s during our time in Istanbul. Lew was pastor at the Union Ch...Continue reading

09.01.2022 In this #Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night piece I talk about how feelings of Grief are regurgitated from time to time, often at the oddest moments, and how similar they are to those of Regret.. (I start at 25:26)

08.01.2022 "The Internet of Dating Things" ......I could write a book about this subject, but for now, this 4 minute piece at Busybird Publishing's Open Mic Night will have to do (I start at 1:19:47). Thanks so much to Jasmine whose Questa Dolce Vita's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/questadolcevita/) quote helped with my experience - or non-experience as the case was - with Italian boys :)

07.01.2022 I am wearing these earrings today. They were given to me by my mum and dad on the birth of my first child. My parents were well aware of my penchant for jewellery, not to mention my expensive tastes in what I wore. Everything I bought had a designer label, each pair of shoes, each item of clothing down to my underwear, my tights, were either Italian, French or German. I was perfectly groomed from head to toe with each impeccable article chosen to compensate for what was ...lacking in my ever-wilting marriage. The sadder I was, the higher the price tag, particularly when it came to shoes, my Number Two love. I spent more time in Evelyn Miles' Pitt Street store than in my kitchen. (Ok so I was a lousy cook. Then.) Jewellery however was my Number One Go To and over the years I spent wildly on this gleaming Band-aid. I can easily make the claim that I can shop in many languages having purchased a piece of jewellery in each one of the 17 cities of the 14 countries in which I’ve lived. Sad but true. Yet the feelings of inadequacy and neglect continued to surface, never ever placated. And it is this subject which is featured in the memoir I am currently writing. My parents knew my expensive tastes but they also knew their budget. I remember my mum apologetically giving these earrings to me in January 1989. Telling me they were opals, so they were good stones really, but their setting wasn’t real gold, only gold-plated, so sorry she said as she put the tiny box in my hands. My heart broke. I knew how much it had cost my parents, how much they would have agonized over getting the right piece of jewellery for me but at a price they could afford. I hugged her tightly, thank you so much I muttered, I put them on, then went into my bathroom to weep. These earrings are far more precious than anything I have ever purchased or received. They did not come with conditions, they weren’t meant to pacify, they weren’t a reward. They were simply given with so much love. And they made my heart sing more than any other piece before or since. And the memories they invoke are not tinged with melancholy but instead with heartfelt thanks. I miss you mum and dad. I miss your goodness, your truth, your pure and unconditional love for me.

01.01.2022 There are times when I look back at my parenting skills and think, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!! In fact, some would disagree with my use of the word "skills" in that sentence. So I figured to go right out and claim them at last month's Busybird Publishing Open Mic Night. Here's my bit on Bad Parenting, hope you enjoy it... it starts around 52:16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tah-9Yg75NA