My New Baby: "Straight from the Soul", now available on Amazon...

 

One of the poems from my book, "Straight from The Soul": The Ever-Changing Self

A Russian doll 

Of many selves 

Inside this woman

A young girl dwells 

 

Playful and joyous

She’s the fun part of me

The one who sings loudest

And feels the most free 

 

But sometimes the woman

Who’s been battered by life 

Takes over my head space

And causes me strife 

 

These different personas 

Appear to be real

But their transient nature

Another truth must reveal 

 

So, who is this “I”

That I think of as me

And which of her faces

Reflects reality? 

 

The self that I sense

When my thoughts become still 

And my mind is unshackled 

From the force of my will 

 

Tells me that I’m not the body

Or even the mind 

But the silent observer

Who exists beyond time

  

Abuela's Signature Dish

To my daughter, the ultimate “foodie”

 

When my daughter was away at boarding school, she used to phone my mother every weekend and say: “What are you making for dinner tonight abuela, go on torture me!” 

 

Her grandmother was the ultimate domestic goddess and for as long as I can remember, the kitchen was her uncontested realm. So much so that when I was a child, she discouraged me from helping to prepare our daily meals as she was so particular about the way things should be done. 

 

She travelled regularly for work and consequently the influence of other cultures permeated the kind of dishes she prepared. Whilst my friends looked forwards to traditional fare English fare for dinner, such as toad in the hole or lamb cutlets, I would often be greeted by the exotic smell of Moroccan Chicken Tagine or one of Madha Jaffrey’s spicy curries when I came home from school. At first my inexperienced tastebuds protested at being assaulted by such sophisticated and unusual flavours, but I soon came to appreciate a wide variety of different food. So much so that by the time I was 10, I would just as happily eat Coq au Vin for dinner as fish fingers and chips!

 

One of her signature dishes, and a personal favourite of mine, was her Lebanese Chicken recipe.  The aroma of this mouth-watering dish as it slowly cooked in the oven would make my mouth water in excited anticipation. 

 

She would begin by peeling the potatoes and cutting them into cubes. Then she would season these with salt and pepper and put them in an oven-proof dish along with the organic chicken thighs, which had been finely coated in top quality olive oil. She would then add onions, lemon and garlic to the dish and liberally sprinkle this mixture with allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Once the chicken was cooked, she would garnish it with fresh coriander and serve it accompanied by, Fattoush, a traditional Lebanese salad. 

 

This colourful salad was almost as delicious as the main event itself. The basic ingredients consisted of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, radish, and green onions. To this she would add two cups of roughly chopped fresh parsley leaves (with their stems removed) and one cup of roughly chopped fresh mint leaves. Finally, she would sprinkle the leaves with bite-sized fragments of toasted pitta bread, fried in olive oil until they turned golden-brown. Just before serving, she would dress the salad with a delicious mixture of fresh lime juice, olive oil and mixed spices. As a special treat, I was sometimes allowed to help her knead the mixture used to make her homemade flatbread, which was always served with houmous on the side. 

 

Throughout my childhood years, the knowledge that my mother was making this dish for supper would brighten my whole day. Later, when I became an adult, I discovered that a sure-fire way to impress a prospective boyfriend was to lure him back to my place with the promise of homemade Lebanese Chicken. I was sure to follow my mother’s time-honoured recipe to the letter, which by that time, I had finally learned to make!

An Encounter with Eve

I hear the creak

Of her high-backed chair

And before I even see 

Her beautiful face

I know it is her 

 

She has come to me in dreams 

And once when I summoned her

With my angel board

She is my guardian and protectress

Watching over me day and night 

Keeping me from harm 

 

She gifted me 

With her talent for words

And from her I learned 

To love a good tale

She made my childhood unforgettable 

And her passing grieves my heart still 

 

For decades I have 

Suffered the guilt

Of a dark secret 

Too painful to share 

 

Something rotten at the heart

Of our little family

A sinister predator

Who robbed me 

Of my childlike innocence 

 

She already knows the details

Perhaps she has always known the truth

Without me having to speak of it 

She utters these words:

 

“I’m so sorry this happened to you 

You no longer need to be afraid 

It’s not your fault, you were just a child

I will always love and protect you

You are safe now

Rest here with me a while”

 

And with that

She takes me into her arms

And I relax into her embrace

And let the tears flow

 

 

Lola's Friendly Stag

  

A long time ago 

On a winter’s day

Your daddy and I 

Went out to play

As it was cold 

And there was snow 

We hoped to find 

An Eskimo

We’d heard they live

Where it is cold 

We weren’t sure where

As we hadn’t been told 

But though we searched 

Both high and low

We found no sign 

Of an Eskimo 

Just then we heard

A sudden sound

Like thundering hooves 

Upon the ground

And there before us 

In the wood

A friendly stag

Most proudly stood 

His branch-like antlers 

Held on high

His nose turned up 

Towards the sky 

He looked at us

With deep brown eyes 

His gentle face 

Filled with surprise

“Hello, dear ones”

We heard him say 

“I wasn’t expecting 

Any humans today” 

“This is my wood

But you may stay 

Just be careful where you play

So you don’t scare my friends away”

“Don’t worry, dear Stag”

Your daddy said

“We will remember what you’ve said

But may we pat you on the head?”

“Of course, dear chap”

The Stag replied 

“Just come closer

By my side”

We stood and stroked

His shaggy coat

The fur so soft 

Around his throat 

Until he said

“It’s time to go”

And leapt away

Into the snow 

Although we felt sad 

To watch him go 

We forgot all about 

The Eskimo!

Snail Mail: A Letter of Gratitude

 

Five long years have passed since you’ve been gone

Since we last heard your unmistakable laugh

Like a schoolgirl, who feels self-conscious in her spontaneity

 

But time has done nothing to fade

The memory of your voice, your words, your gestures

Those things that made you unmistakeably you

 

You have left me motherless and alone

Yet something of you lingers on in me

Deeper than shared experience or DNA 

 

I see the evidence of your legacy every day

It shapes the values that determine how I live 

My love of travel and the written word

 

I remember the stories you read to me when I was small

A different one each night to spark my imagination

The soft lilt of your voice lulling me to sleep

 

And how I discovered the truth about Father Christmas 

The year you tripped over the foot of my bed

Delivering my stocking after one too many glasses of wine

 

I remember how you stood up to my teachers

When they refused to give me a chance

“If she’s so bright, let her prove it” they said

 

Undeterred, you replied

“She can’t, she’s too depressed to get out of bed

It’s not her job to prove anything, it’s your job to teach her”

 

In the end, they relented 

Worn down by your tireless appeals

To their better nature

 

I remember how brave you were

Faced with the knowledge that your illness had no cure

No trace of self-pity, the grace of your acceptance a lesson to us all

 

And how hard you fought towards the end

Struggling for each breath, with that same steely determination

That characterised your entire life

 

We will always miss you Mama

You gave so much to those you loved

I was blessed to have you as my mother

A Memory of Winter

Last night, I dreamt I had returned in time to inhabit the small body of the child I once was. In my semi-conscious state, I saw before me a dreamlike version of the magical wintery scene that I witnessed when I was 8-years old. The dream was so vivid that when I woke up it took me some time to reengage with the reality around me. 

In the real-life version of events, I remember that I was sent to bed early after a minor disagreement with my parents involving my stubborn refusal to eat dinner. The following morning, my brother and I had woken early to find that the world outside our house was covered in a thick blanket of snow. At that time, we were living in a small village in rural Oxfordshire and nature’s presence dominated our daily lives. We lived on a cul-de-sac surrounded by trees inhabited by many different species of wildlife. The snow in such a setting is distinctly different from how it looks in an urban context. I remember the sense of excitement I felt as I flung back my bedroom curtains and saw the branches outside my window hanging low with the weight of its heavy ivory mantle. At that early hour, the only imprints on its pristine surface were the footprints of birds and small mammals, and the temperature was still cold enough to prevent it from turning to slush. We were too excited to wait for our parents to get up, or to eat breakfast; we wanted to be outside feeling the icy air on our cheeks and having our first snowball fight of the season. 

 

I remember that we dressed as though the house were on fire, not bothering to wash faces or clean teeth, and crept downstairs so that our parents wouldn’t hear our feet on the wooden stairs. I was the first to haul on my winter wellies, and as soon as I had done so, I ran outside and pirouetted around the garden like a ballerina who’s mistaken her ballet shoes for walking boots. There was still a delicate, powdery veil of snow falling, and when I opened my mouth to let out a happy laugh, I felt its icy crystals dissolving on my tongue. My brother soon joined me, and for a while we roared around the garden pelting each other with hastily improvised snowballs. 

 

I can’t remember whose idea it was to go for a walk, but after we had tired of the garden we headed out in the direction of the local woods, conveniently situated down the hill from where we lived. As we trudged cheerfully down the hill, throwing snow at each other, I remember having the strange but exhilarating feeling that we were the only two people in the world. The snow had covered the entire village and there was nobody in sight. We were in high spirits and even the icy water seeping into the bottoms of our leaky boots could not dampen our childlike exuberance. In this state of happy companionship, chattering and laughing as we went, we crossed the main road at the bottom of the hill and passed through the big iron gates that led to the forest beyond them. 

 

I will remember the emotions I experienced as we stepped through those gates for the rest of my days. When I look back, it seems as though there were some sort of sharp demarcation in reality between the moment before we passed through the gates and the moment immediately after we passed through them. As though we had stepped into a parallel universe, where time moved at a slower pace. Like the children in Narnia who stumble across another world at the back of their ordinary looking wardrobe, it felt to us as though we had stepped out of our mundane, every-day reality into a magical universe. 

The scene before us as we entered the forest actually made me stop in my tracks, and the idle chatter between us immediately subsided. A single stag stood directly before us, his snow-covered hooves reflecting the bright light of that crisp and perfect winter morning. He remained immobile, as if frozen in time, and we too remained motionless – hardly daring to breath. He stood tall and proud before us, his magnificent antlers held high, his nose quivering in nervous anticipation. Immediately behind him, the forest spread out on all sides in its full and wondrous winter glory. Elms, ashes and oaks looked resplendent beneath a cloak of snow that draped its way around their trunks and encased their slender branches. Nothing stirred in the undergrowth; there was no movement and no sound, just a profound stillness and a deep silence that reminded me of being underwater. It felt as though the world around us had come to a halt in that single moment, and that we had become immobilised in a snapshot in time. Then, all of a sudden time unfroze and the stag leapt sideways into the undergrowth; his survival instincts finally kicking in. And just like that, the spell was broken. 

 

The sense of all-consuming awe and astonishment that my younger self experienced that day has stayed with me ever since. And although in real time those precious moments only lasted a matter of seconds, I experienced them as beyond time: in another realm where stillness, peace and beauty reign supreme.