Trying to write through the challenges of a life that refuses to settle; a life precariously balanced on the waters of various cultures, languages and climes, this is my reality; the scribbler’s right to peace and quiet is not now, and will never be, mine.

Acceptance of limitation is a kind of freedom, so I make do. My time so often not my own, brilliant thoughts must be hastily scratched onto the white space of scraps: boarding passes, gas receipts, cocktail napkins, paper bags and candy wrappers. These valuables are jammed into stained envelopes, zip lock bags and empty tissue boxes. Upon subsequent retrieval, the hieroglyphics are studied for long moments … then discarded as undecipherable.

Sometimes I think I should put an end to this farce.

Yet awkwardly, desire burns, stimulated I suspect by the smirking face of “Difficult”. Defiantly, recklessly, I press on, ears stopped against his mocking, eyes averted from his sneer.

Difficult is after all, not impossible.