A coffee after lunch drunk in peace at home is not just a coffee after lunch drunk in peace at home. It means a lot more. The bills have been paid. A cup of coffee AT HOME means one is not getting evicted. Yet, how seldom do we think about that. The fact that we are not homeless. We take it for granted. The coffee AFTER lunch signifies that one has had lunch. Obviously there is enough money for food at one’s home. Another constant we are usually not aware of. One must also have funds for buying clothes, otherwise the drinking of coffee could not be a pleasant experience. Imagine the embarrassment of...

I am definitely suffering from a crisis as a writer. I used to write 25 blog posts a year and I was continuously working on a book, little by little but persistently. Then, in February 2017, something happened. I still do not know what it was. Was it just low blood-pressure making me totally tired and washed out or was it also the accompanying anxiety, which got a lot worse than usual. I started the Jane Austen exercise several times, but only did it once or twice and then relapsed in chronic fatigue – or whatever this new state is – for months. I really do not think it is writer’s...

I am sure you all know the saying “Forgive, but don’t forget”. There is an interesting counterpart in my mother tongue Slovene, which can be translated: “Only a fool goes on the ice twice.” Actually it is ‘a donkey’, but in the meaning of ‘a fool’. So, essentially, if someone betrays us, we will no longer trust the person. That is, if the betrayal is done on purpose, not as a mistake, which can be forgiven and forgotten. Just as the legal system imprisons criminals and thus gives them a change to pay their debt to society, likewise are we, in my opinion, entitled to protect ourselves...

Every year all the Christmas variety Gave me nothing but anxiety. Nasty memories from previous lives Always gave me bad Yule vibes. Then, last year it was, When another idea became my boss. Christmas was no longer to be the rule Winter solstice aspiring to be the new Yule. I owe it all to my friend C. C. She made it all possible to me. She gave me the idea of the Solstice of Winter To be more than a calendar splinter. Thus, this year I make it my shrine To put sun on the spruce top to shine. Light a candle the scent of vanilla, While slowly sipping a sweet wine. It’s winter solstice – let’s be...

I would like to share with you, how I have recently attempted to learn from the masters. I picked one of my favorite novels: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. While reading Benjamin Franklin’s biography by Walter Isaacson I learned that one of the Founding Fathers of the United States used to try to remember magazine articles he liked, and attempted to reproduce them a few days later without looking at the originals. He used a special kind of notes to help the recalling. This was his way of learning to become an accomplished writer. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin I developed my own method. I read...