by Joke Debaere As my presence on stage has been fairly silent the past 4 months and will be more silent than usual in the coming ones, I wanted to give you some news about the novel I am writing, which is the reason for the break I am taking from the stage. I can … Continue reading of heart and mind
A Shocking Structural Setback
Sometimes history comes in overload. So it has been the last months, weeks.. Joke and I circled North America yet again, all the while glued to our internet news screens for all the hourly tidbits coming through on the presidential elections. Right up to its shocking end and ongoing aftermath. Some of you might say: … Continue reading A Shocking Structural Setback
What is it to be a man
What is it to be a man.. Is it to team up with other men and build towers, reaching for the sky? Is it to build empires, plundering and stealing to raise up your own? Is it to look down on all that is not man, to treat the feminine as an adjunct, to say … Continue reading What is it to be a man
On touring and the memory of voice
by Joke Debaere Of all things possible, I find the voice the most intimate part of the body. I have looked at myself in the mirror. I have hated what I saw, loved what I saw. Some confrontation there. But nothing like my own sound, speaking through the speakers. If ever I wanted to run … Continue reading On touring and the memory of voice
Trumping politics cannot last
For weeks now I regularly think what it is that I want to share with you - the thinking trying to bring together the intensity of the year so far: my mother’s death, the rise of Trump in America, turning fifty, landing on Paris airport two hours after bombs exploded in Brussels airport and my … Continue reading Trumping politics cannot last
Of yellow flowers and finishing a novel
by Joke Debaere During the time that we stayed in the Bushveld, to take care of Francois’ mother, we experienced a severe drought, as so many regions of South Africa did and still do. I had been in the Bushveld during summer time for numerous times, but never saw the fields covered with such brownish, … Continue reading Of yellow flowers and finishing a novel
On the life and death of a mother
My mother passed away on Tuesday morning. Many of you have known her, or know about her. I mentioned her illness a while back. Yesterday, I wrote a message about the impact and significance her life and death has to me, but had a feeling I needed to write this intro to put things in … Continue reading On the life and death of a mother
This dangerous, ecstatic, but lonely path
Usually when I write for HA!News, I have a single sort of inspiration and then find that the writing comes rather flowingly. This time, too, I have an inspiration, but I have been thinking for weeks now what it is that I want to say. So difficult! But let me try and engage it with … Continue reading This dangerous, ecstatic, but lonely path
The Madness Makes Me Homesick
by Joke Debaere The waves here in Africa hit harder they don’t break so gently against me as when I was twelve in France and me and my sisters let wave after wave break on our bodies for hours Here the water hits you so hard that I was surprised by it the first time … Continue reading The Madness Makes Me Homesick
Cancer, the Greeks, and the Need for Re-integration
sometimes, like now, it feels impossible to write.. I am in the Bushveld, where my mother lives we had a week of family togetherness, all four children with their families (and I with Joke) coming from far and away to celebrate my mother’s birthday also to face my mother’s illness. my father died from cancer … Continue reading Cancer, the Greeks, and the Need for Re-integration
