He Looks Tired, Like Someone

I Grew Up In The 70s, When People Talked On The Phone - And Just Talked More. I Remember The Phone Was The Epicenter Of Our House. I Spent Hours Every Evening As A Teenager Waiting For The Phone To Ring And Talking To My Friends. Before The Age Of Technology, It Was Also Easier To Just Disappear From The Face Of The Earth.

Some Mornings... I Sit At The Kitchen Table Shaking Salt Into The Hairs On My Arm, And A Feeling Shoves Up In Me: It's Finished. Everything Went Past Without Me.

I Think The One Thing That's Changed Over Time Is That I've Come To Realise, As A Fiction Writer, The Fact That I Don't Think It Will Work Out, Doesn't Mean That It Actually Won't.

I Loved Every Minute Of My Childhood - Sunbathing On The Fire Escape, Digging For Buried Treasure In The Back Yard, Pulling Alewives Out Of The Sand... Then It Was All Taken Away From Me. I Came Back Every Summer To Visit My Father Until I Was 18, But I Was Always The Outsider.

So I Feel That Lack Of Qualification. And I'm Scared. And I Have A Tendency To Think Things May Not/probably Won't Work Out. That's My Basic Mindset.