The blog name comes from something I wrote shortly after D. died. Something about my thoughts like "Footless sparrows flapping against the black cardboard covers of my skull."

During New Years, I was out to Fallika Island with a visitor from Perth. We talked at great length, and at one point I wandered away to sit on a dusty bench while he photographed a bombed-out house. (Or took a pee.)

(Fallika Island was left largely untouched after the Iraq invasion)

I can still see him stepping over debris as he returned. "Here" he said, handing me the bird in the picture. "It better go up somewhere." A footless rubber sparrow, a child's toy.

Kuwait was liberated from the Iraqis exactly a month after my brother's death.

*******

I don't have a favorite memory of T. She runs through everything I do and say; to describe her impact on my life would be like trying to map out a system of veins and capillaries between stars. If I have a sense of self, if I am able to survive alone in a culture that does not place a high value on tolerance and unconditional love (like I do now), it is because I have been thoroughly loved and accepted for who I am by T. Not just by T, but by T and the people she collected around her. who simply never conceived of anything less.

I actually never thought about it until this minute, but how odd for me to be here.

Now I am thinking of a chat I had in another friend's car...his wife disapproved of the "Kuwait Bashing" that had gone on at a party earlier in the week, tone it down in the future, etc. I have my weak spots and spots of low and absurdly low tolerance. One of them would be wealthy people. Another would be people who choose to remain ignorant. A third would be wealthy people who choose to remain ignorant and sub-educated despite sitting on billions in oil money and resources. I'm only human.

I will always accept the person in front of me for exactly who they are, no questions asked. It also means I will demand that they be more than who they think they are.