But Who Knows Their Own Child? You

The Place Didn't Look The Same But It Felt The Same; Sensations Clutched And Transformed Me. I Stood Outside Some Concrete And Plate-glass Tower-block, Picked A Handful Of Eucalyptus Leaves From A Branch, Crushed Them In My Hand, Smelt, And Tears Came To My Eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, On A Pavement Awash With Packaged American Matrons, Crying Not In Grief But In Wonder That Nothing Is Ever Lost, That Everything Can Be Retrieved, That A Lifetime Is Not Linear But Instant. That, Inside The Head, Everything Happens At Once.

I Didn't Think I Had Anything Particular To Say, But I Thought I Might Have Something To Say To Children.

Unless I Am A Part Of Everything I Am Nothing.

The Past Is Our Ultimate Privacy; We Pile It Up, Year By Year, Decade By Decade, It Stows Itself Away, With Its Perverse Random Recall System.

I Do Like To Embed A Fictional Character Firmly In An Occupation.