This Moment

An exercise from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.

 Give us this exact moment in time.

 I am on the train to Parramatta. I’m sitting in the area where the doors open straight onto the platform. The sun is over my shoulder and occasionally there’s a shadow as the train goes west.

 A woman is sitting opposite me.

 Somewhere in the carriage is a conversation on loudspeaker.

 There goes Summer Hill and the next train stop will be Strathfield. I was meant to work today but I didn’t because of a meeting I did not want to miss, one I have been trying to arrange for a year.

I think of the word divergent, the title of a novel by Veronica Roth.

 Divergent, divergence, neurodivergence, neurodiverse.

 I left my phone at home because I did not want to be checking my phone every few minutes.

 Yesterday the pagers exploded in Lebanon and today the walkie-talkies.

 Over 30 dead and 4000 injured.

 When I think of Israel’s attacks these days, the word monstrous is what comes to mind.