If I told you, Reader, that sometimes when I err down narrow streets, and my glance falls on a flower in perfect bloom, or on a snow-white statue with an arm raised forever toward heaven, and that these sights alone could leave me close to tears for the rest of the day – would you think less of me?

The other day I saw a magic act.

So my friend and I were sitting on a branch of a tree, in the sun. This friend has seen my life blown to smithereens, lying in fragments on the ground. She did not help me pick up the shards; she did something better. She showed me it was OK to have one’s existence blown apart.

Today we have naming of parts.

Today I got up and remembered an old love. Only it was as fresh as the morn. We were walking in a garden and at every step we took, my heart broke. But if we don’t go back, we can never move forward.

Suddenly, all the lights went out in my neighbourhood. There was a power outage. Up and down the street, there were exclamations, curses, the bumping into furniture, the fumbling for torches, the hunting of matches.

“This year, our nation will spend 7.3% of our GDP, or $12 billion, on defence. Approximately $8 billion will go into Keeping Up With The Joneses, or – as is more relevant in our case – With The Wongs. If our neighbours get double glazing or a gazebo, we will too. Whatever the number of our neighbour’s cars, where n denotes the amount, the number of our cars will be n+1.

here i am sitting on the cushion sitting on mat what did the guru say? breathe in breathe out observe your thoughts let it come let it go

More than being a time for tinsel and tinkly songs, the holidays are a season for making lists – lists of favourite songs of the year, lists of the best books of the decade, lists of the world’s greatest disasters, lists for shopping, lists of resolutions, lists of the most and least fashionable people, lists of all the lists available.

My father said. My father said, run your own race. My father said, don’t look to your left or to your right. My father said, head only for your own finishing line. He said, never, ever stop halfway. Never stop halfway.

I did not know, I did not know that Grief lay in wait for me in another room. Who knew? Who knew that Grief could lurk in a linen cupboard?

I hate you, mosquito.

Sometimes, like now, when I look out of my window and see the shafts of sun, landing on tree and leaf and glade, and hear the song of a bird, I thank God, or someone very like God, that this is all I need – an old desk, a few words on my screen, an open field, the chirruping of children from below. It makes me happy.

Is it possible to fall in love because of a sentence?

I dislike the hyphen. There it sits in the middle of those names that are double-barrelled (itself a hyphenated word): the Bowler-Tomkinsons, the Sun-Tans.

My father died six weeks ago. It’s funny to think that his nose, his hair, his bones, his sinews, the way he made his tea, is now no more. We are a short arc in the dark sky – emerging mysteriously, disappearing like a line chalked on blackboard.

I had a ribbon. I loved it so much that I brought it with me everywhere, wore it in my hair, tied it around my favourite books.

Today it was as though I received a visit from a tall and shimmering lady, whose gown was an incandescent red and whose robes bore the fullness of Time. I knew, I just knew, that every bit of poetry in this world has received her touch, and that everyone who has ever felt a drop of inspiration has beheld her face.

In some countries, it is still possible to buy books with the pages uncut.