In Defense of Coffee

Friday, 5:30pm, December 23^rd 2016, Somewhere in the West of Ireland.

To you,

 who doesn’t like coffee,

This might be a tad of an exaggeration, but coffee is probably the most important writing tool there is.

I’m not here to condemn you, but rather, to answer what you’ve been asking me and coffee drinkers alike for years on end: Why do you like coffee, when it tastes like the soil of a potted plant that’s been beaten into an ash tray?

Well, as I’m now on my Christmas holidays with buckets of free time before me, and because I can never make a long story short, I will try to answer your question with something more satisfactory than ‘because it’s nice’.

     Maybe it’s the divine stereotype of writers sipping coffee along the Seine. – If I were to place myself in the nook of Au Petit Suisse, following a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens, I would definitely reach a higher word count, than if I had no fondness for coffee to begin with, and therefore had no reason to track down all of the cafés best suited for writing in Paris.

     It’s the illusion, sure. Coffee gives me the air of a busy person. My parents noticed this illusion in the late nineties when they took a trip to Milwaukee in the U.S and couldn’t believe the air of the busy people around them who were bopping about with coffees to go. In Ireland, drinking coffee had always been more of a sit down activity before the years of the noughties, paired with a chat with friends and maybe even a kit kat bar. Coffees in cardboard cups to go were unheard of.

     But now, feigning confidence in my ability to overcome the day’s tasks is so much more attainable when I have a coffee cup in hand, because it looks like I don’t even have the time to sit down and drink my coffee. I project the image of someone who is so determined to be productive that they will fuel themselves with coffee whilst cantering from Point A to Point B. If I can fool others with this façade, I can fool myself, until it’s not even a façade anymore, and my coffee has morphed into my own natural merriment.

Coffee is empowering.

     Sometimes I think I don’t even drink it to stay awake, because coffee is worth a lot more than its caffeine. With every cup of coffee and every effort to stay awake, I fall asleep, because staying awake with coffee brings me no comfort; Only too much excitement that eventually burns out and lulls my brain to sleep. I drink coffee for different reasons.

T.S Eliot gets it. He was the first person to innovatively develop the idea of the ‘objective correlative’ in poetry, i.e attaching an emotion to a certain object or subject in a symbolic way.

So, I don’t drink coffee just to stay awake when I’m tired. Coffee is comfort, joy, and confidence - liquidized. The warmth on my hands is like petting a cat. The smell could instantly cure a cold. I even find joy in the hiss of the coffee machine, because it replaces the other sounds in my head, like alarm clocks and deadlines.

And then there’s the taste.

The taste varies from my thoughts to yours.

Please remember that I will never think less of you for not liking coffee, but it would confuse me to hear that you’ve never tried it in its varying forms. To me, coffee is a socially acceptable way of drinking luxurious cake batter that’s been toned down to the lighter end of the scale in order to suits us ‘adults’.

It is probably the most important writing tool there is so,

what does it mean to you?

And don’t worry if hot chocolate is more to your taste;

You can always add a flavoured syrup to your Americano, or just start anew with a mocha. (Mmm… healthy! ;) )

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x

How to Like Christmas

Saturday, November 19^th, 11:40am, 2016

Somewhere in the West of Ireland

Dear Reader,

Anything linked with the U.S election has no place in this space designed for writing (mainly) about writing, preferably with tea and maybe even a chocolate biscuit nearby.

That said, in a Madame Mayreed fashion, I must briefly address what’s badgering my mind (like always).

-It’s the collective sigh that has spanned over all classrooms this week any time a college professor has mentioned the election; Sighing because we’ve talked about it from all corners, upside down, and hypothetically at this point

and please,

I just want to go to my Irish folklore class to learn about fairies.

But,

the truth still stands so I’ll address it solely with a quote that was brought to our attention in French class, from the book ‘Meurtres Pour Mémoire’ by Didier Daeninckx;

When we forget the past, we’re condemned to relive it.

Yes.

So,

now as I try not to think about the election, I’m led to think about the latter of the two plagues that has swarmed its way through Facebook this November;

Christmas!

     Aha but I said I’d be positive today. Positivity is on its way in this post; I swear it on the darkest winter cloud, because clouds change their colours and so will my temperament. Hopefully by the end of today’s writings, I will optimistically veer back to my true spring self, as will you, if you find yourself in the same boat as me.

     This boat, that is barely kept above water in the season of two juxtaposing words – Christmas Exams; they rain over us too early; Heavy words of hissing X sounds like a snake in the grass, and sometimes, exam season casts a dark shadow that holds actual Christmas hostage, and it doesn’t release the festivities until Christmas day is practically gone, and no one knows where it gallivanted off to.

     It’s like when someone asks you; ‘How does it feel to be <insert age here>?’ on your birthday, when you don’t feel a day older, let alone a year.

I, being of sound body and mind, can sometimes be a Scrooge too. So if like me, you enjoy everything that comes with the build up to Christmas; the bells, the music, the lights, the mulled wine, etc. and yet you still experience what I like to call regular Christmas displacement; Keeping a Halloween themed photo as your profile picture on social media late into November, cursing the cold on a daily basis (Bah Humbug), scowling at the early arrival of Christmas decorations in shops… Well, then that’s great, let’s try to like Christmas together.

Such instruction should probably be reserved for an expert in this field, but hey, maybe my hypocrisy will act as the catalyst in the return of my spring self and everything will be all daffodils and lambs before we know it.

Positivity - *Activate!*

How does one go about liking Christmas?

Like this:

1)  

Boredom over Christmas break will lead to the realisation that you haven’t had time to feel bored since last Christmas, and for this time, you will feel blessed.

Feeling oddly dissatisfied with the lull that follows the exam adrenaline can only mean that you really worked hard this semester,

even on days when you sat outside the library rather than inside; a coffee in hand, watching your red lipstick stain the lid of the cup, because red was your favourite colour and you liked to see it sparkle under the sunlight; tearing your mind away from the work load during your break on winter’s rare sunny days.

And even though that break turned into more little breaks, you still didn’t waste the semester,

because you caught a moment and used it; smiling at the mundane made magical.

Maybe that was what was needed to stay level-headed.

Maybe that was the incentive that was needed in order to glue yourself to your laptop for two days straight, writing a French essay on Joan of Arc.

And maybe now during Christmas, it will irritate you that you still speak so gracefully and unlike your colloquial self, like, someone from the nineteenth century. That said, one must remember that such rich language evokes the effort you put into your work this semester. (Yes, one should.)

So now, in the words of Kings of Leon (my favourite band ever)

-    ‘Take the time to waste a moment’

because this Christmas, you deserve it.

2)  

    

     Christmas approaching means that ‘The Sound of Music’ will be on television, and the very thought will force your hands to clap together and your cheeks to redden.

You will react as you always do every year;

Wishing that you could just be Julie Andrews so that it would be socially acceptable to burst into song in every situation;

Loving and relating to her character who doesn’t always get things right the first time, but who always wants to see the fun in everything;

Singing about your favourite things when the road outside is too icy to commute anywhere, and instantly feeling better with a jaw that aches from smiling.

3)  

Christmas will allow you to reminisce about the past days of freedom; That enchanted day reserved for finishing a final exam or leaving work to go home for Christmas or summer.

Like,

When your Science teacher from secondary school gave your class the day off and invited you all to roast marshmallows over Bunsen burners.

Or the time you finished your summer exams and went to your friends’ house for Chinese food and to watch ‘Zoolander’. You then hopped straight onto a plane to Florence and discovered how much you loved Italy.

Or there was last Christmas break, when you got off work early in Paris and went to Disneyland with your cousins; Passing a co-worker in the hallway on the way out to whom you sang;

‘I’m going to Disneyland with my cousins!!’,

to which he replied;

‘Oh wow! Are they very little?’

Nope, they were all in their twenties, like yourself.

You shook with excitement at the thought of going to Disneyland; Shaking too because of the cold, but that didn’t bother any of you that much.

You lived to tell the tale after the tower of terror ride broke down while you were on it.

You laughed under a clanging bell that beckoned the fake bubble-snow that fell all around you.

You ran delightedly through long corridors when there was no queue for Space Mountain,

and each and every one of you slept pleasantly on the train back towards St. Michel, because you’d shared a day that brought back childhood memories of afternoons spent playing Hide and Seek in the garden.

Smile now,

in anticipation of that feeling you will get, once you get your Christmas holidays this year.

4)  

                When trying to like Christmas, it is best to surround yourself with people who incessantly adore Christmas and everything about it, even if it is just to compare your thoughts with one another. (out of interest, and not for the sake of a real argument)

Just like the time you conducted a debate with a class of students in Paris about the existence of Santa Clause;

Except that it was more like a rap battle at the end of the day, based on the persuasive style of the Freedom speech from ‘Braveheart’.

The intensity and hilarity of the ordeal added to your Christmas cheer; Beaming at the idea of such silliness coming from your family that Christmas.

     This year (and luckily) a lot of your friends in Ireland seem to be obsessed with Christmas too.

Even if you can’t mimic the highest degree of their enthusiasm, it will warm your heart to hear them counting down the days,

because hearing a friend talk about what makes them happy, leaves you jovially in the company of someone so expressive.

5)  

Writing.

Christmas will present you with so much time to write, or to do whatever it is you love to do that time doesn’t always allow.

-   Meeting up with the friend you said you would meet up with months ago but didn’t, and considering turning such a meeting into a black tie event because both of you are so proud of yourselves for actually organising a time to have coffee.

-   Listening to the birds and seeing the light touch your garden in the morning at a time when you normally would never be at home.

-   Indulging in tea and ‘The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems’ that still comes down from the attic every single year since Santa Clause brought it in 2001. (If you haven’t read it, then I really think you should. My voice raises an octave when I talk about it because I love it so much)

How often have you heard a student friend of yours say that they can’t remember the last time they read a book for fun?

Well,

Christmas is coming.

*

Who knows if I will ever submerge myself fully in Christmas cheer, but now I appreciate the festive season for what it is, and I hope you will too.

I swore that I would.

I swore it on the darkest winter cloud, because clouds change their colours and so has my temperament.

I could swear it now, on November’s super moon; A spirit shining bigger and brighter now, than it has shone in years.

Ah, but didn’t Shakespeare say not to swear on the moon but to swear on thy self? Of course I am now referencing a source and sounding like an essay again, but it all amounts to proof of hard work even if it does make me grimace. Henceforth

So, Shakespeare says not to swear on the moon because the moon is always changing and thus so will your promise. Did I really just say thus

It is enough to swear by myself, and you can too,

to say that we like Christmas,

even if it takes a while for us to comprehend the whole thing.

See, I can be Christmassy when I want to! ;-P

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x

Why I Write

Monday, November 7th, 10pm, 2016, Somewhere in the West of Ireland.

Dear Reader,

How ironic it is that I sit here staring at a blinking cursor and a blank page, with no idea how to put it all into words.

Why do I write?

Well, today I write for therapy; because I missed my bus home, and before that, I cut my tongue on a lollipop in French class. I didn’t know that was possible, or that it should have been something to look out for and to possibly avoid; but if I’d feared cutting my tongue on lollipops before, then I might as well have been afraid of getting a papercut from a pair of socks.

Well, maybe that’s what I get for eating in class.

And maybe I’m not writing today because of the bus or the lollipop, but because they collectively acted as the straw that broke the camel’s back in a desert made of college essays. And maybe it’s more fun to melodramatically describe such incidents than it is to write about this featureless wasteland.

Uuuhh I sigh to the sound of myself,

because really

in the grand scheme of things,

I write,

because at passionate times like these when I write about writing, my prose becomes a

poem,

in free verse,

because oftentimes I want every word to hold merit; for each word to stand on its

own.

I write,

because every character embodies how much I love people, like the little girl with the x shaped scar on her forehead and the pink-haired imaginary friend. I adopt the mannerisms of life-long friends and people passing by me in real day to day life; Grimace-turned-smiles and flamboyant hand gestures painted to the page from my hand to create a real character, even if it’s a mongrel breed of my niece’s smile and a cool hat I saw a guy wear in the street.

Still, this hypothetical character could be real,

so then, I can imagine them in countless situations. I get to know them.

I pity their weaknesses and love them for their flaws.

I know them now from the inside out; so then if ever I’m craving pasta at midnight, I can’t help but think that Laoise, the protagonist of my play, would really get at me to look after myself more and not to eat carbohydrates at such a late hour of the night.

And then,

if I’m chatting with a friend in a café and I say something obscure and funny before realising that it was something a character of mine had said before, I will make sure not to take credit for it, because it was my character who said that, and not me.

And it’s now that I ask myself why?

-          Why wouldn’t I write?

A fictional child character of mine turned eight on October 29^th of this year, and back in April I cried to my Mam on the phone because I was mourning my characters after having finished my their first draft.

And hell yeah, I’m aware that the entire ordeal sounds hella crazy,

But,

I write

because I created characters, worlds, and people who could be real from absolutely

nothing;

Stories came from the cool hat I saw a guy wear in the street; a poem evolved from the realisation that I really like ‘Z’ sounds; A protagonist sprang from a single word scribbled onto a napkin in a café, that over time, turned into a one act play.

Those possibilities that hang from a pen when I bring it to paper are tainted with the most amazing feeling. It’s like the warmth of my fingertips when holding a cup of moroccan tea; the world is literally in my hands and I can morph it into anything I want.

All because of one little light bulb idea moment – One little song getting lodged in my head and inspiring a novel, all in one day.

I write,

because I like the feeling, and I’m grateful that I like the feeling because for me, writing is not a choice.

It has just always been what I have to do, and exactly what I need.

So yes,

Maybe I wrote today because I needed the therapy, because I missed my bus home and I cut my tongue on a lollipop – the straw that broke the camel’s back in a desert made of college essays. But maybe I wrote because I missed writing and you know,

Words,

They’re pretty cool at the best of times. ;)

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed.

The Weight of Words / The Power of Images

Tuesday, September 14^th, 10:30pm, 2016, Somewhere in the West of Ireland.

Dear Reader,

The words blurred on the yellow page like an anchor sinking through to the other side. – A page drawn blank again; The weight of the anchor leaving no trace behind, oblivious to its destruction.

     But then I saw the words again, damp now, wavering in my eyes. My skin cried out cold, but no one could hear it; blaring out of tune with my leaping heart. I jumped in my seat to straighten my posture; eyes poking around the room to make sure I hadn’t frightened anyone with the noisy weight of these words.

     But to my surprise, no gaze met mine, and no one had heard the weight of these words through my eyes. My professor’s voice played on melodically in French wonderings and I listened intently, although helplessly, in the same way that no one can help but to listen to a breaking news story. They listen, despite it coating their throat in a sour glaze,

leaving them frozen, speechless.

     Still, I listened, my eyes darting from one side of the classroom to the other, as a silent way of asking if anyone else felt as upset as I did, given the weight of these words.

     These words –

‘Un mort en direct.’

     Our French Professor had just told us about Omayra, a Colombian girl who was killed in a volcanic eruption in 1985. She was stuck under the debris of her house and trapped in water for three days before her struggle ended.

I jotted down these points through French on the yellow page, mindlessly; Ink flowing quickly so that I wouldn’t miss a thing the French Professor said.  But I stopped short at

‘Un mort en direct.’

A live death.

Omayra’s death had been documented by a journalist, and shared with the world.

‘Un mort en direct.’

The words cast disturbed tumbles in my eyes.

     I had underestimated the weight of words.

-   These heavy words and words alike that were all connected with the subject of our class: ‘The Power of Images.’

There was one specific image from the novel ‘Portrait d’après Blessure’ by Hélène Gestern that we would be focusing on for the coming weeks.

-   A photograph of a grief-stricken man emerging from the wreckage of a bomb on the Paris Metro, with an unconscious woman in his arms.

The book tells the story of how this image changes the lives of these two people; How their privacy is stolen; How their fame is unwanted.

     The most memorable thing about this book for me so far, is the weight of Helene Gestern’s words; How her descriptions of injuries and feelings leave me with stuffy lungs, feeling literally breathless. So even though this French class is labelled ‘The Power of Images’, it always directs me to think of ‘The Weight of Words’, because with a powerful image, comes some heavy words.

     It got me thinking about Roslyn, my novel’s child protagonist, because she also experiences this ‘power of images’ newsflash-type phenomenon that we see so often today in the media. And sure, it’s a cliché to relate to the book you study in school at age eleven because Narnia seems like a lovely place to go for tea with Mr. Tumnus the fawn, but this time, in my case, my mind connects the book I’ve personally written, with the book I’m studying in University right now as a twenty-one year old.

     In my book, Roslyn finds herself at Singapore airport amidst the chaos of the terrible news breaking out that a plane flying from Indonesia to Singapore, has crashed.

Roslyn kneels in prayer,

unaware that this image will circulate the world, making everyone oo and aww at the angel-child in the airport.

     Now, I imagine comment sections on Facebook. I imagine people commenting on Roslyn, and calling her ‘the nation’s sweetheart’.

Her privacy’s been stolen.

She doesn’t like the attention, and she doesn’t like the weight of these words.

My heart seizes up at the thought.

     Now, I hope, that I will always be precise in weighing my words. No poem will be left limp and frail when its initial intention was to pack a punch. No short story will be riddled with heavy words to the point of over-describing.

     I’ll weigh my words with caution; perhaps throwing out the recipe entirely. I’ll tread carefully through the power of images, and I’ll refrain from clicking ‘like’ on social media if ever I feel like a hero’s privacy has been shattered.

Maybe they can’t stand the weight of the word.

Maybe they never wanted to be a hero.

     Naturally, others will click ‘like’, and of course they are entitled to that freedom.

What if, for a fleeting second, I am among them?

-   Drawn in by the ‘town’s local hero’ or the ‘nation’s sweetheart’, as Roslyn is often called.

I must weigh my words,

because recipes can’t be reversed and my words won’t disappear once they’ve been planted on a screen.

     I hope, dear reader, to have you right beside me in this careful consideration.

 Even though two tons weigh the same, stones hurt more than feathers,

so weigh them wisely,

and check them twice.

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x

Saturday Night

Tuesday, August 30^th 11:30pm, 2016, Somewhere in the West of Ireland.

Dear Reader,

     Guess what? Last Saturday night, I realised that I had never been on a girls’ night out before, despite being 21 now, and quite partial to going out over the past three years. Every night out I’d been on had just always been with a mixed group of people. Luckily, that Saturday night would be a girls’ night out, so I was very excited, and I was also going clubbing for the first time in ages! (That is, if you don’t count the time I went clubbing in Edinburgh, so I’ll rephrase and say that it was the first time in ages that I went clubbing in my home town.)

     Normally, I’m not the biggest fan of clubbing because I don’t like the crowds and the noise and being leered at like a fish in an aquarium. That said, Saturday was such fun.

     I got to catch up with an old friend and meet a new friend, and bump into so many people I’d gone to school with who I hadn’t seen in years. The nightclub was different to how I had imagined it too, as if to say that the songs weren’t all incomprehensible remixes of remixes (Oh God, sorry that I sound like such a hipster) and I could dance to the great songs being played like Whitney Houston, Jackson 5, The Chemical Brothers, and so many more.

It was, of course, one of the best nights out I’ve had in ages, but there was just one thing that made my skin run slick, cold at the end of the night.

It’s something that I’m kind of scared to write about because I don’t think everyone will understand its impact. I believe that people will read about this thing with an ‘o’ shape on their mouths and puzzlement in their eyes, because an action of this kind, that I experienced on Saturday night is so small, subtle, invisible even. You could say it’s not serious at all.

And yet, why do I justify myself?

The best thing to do is to explain this incident in the best way that I can and not to feel like I am the culprit in the situation.

I need to write about it because I know that there are readers who will relate.

And so, here I go.

It was the end of the night and so I was making my way across town with my friends towards the smell of pizza, just minding my own business and daydreaming about peperoni.

But, my inner monologue of pizza toppings was interrupted when a rusty voice flew in beside me, just there, next to my ear.

Hello there, lovesss.

It was a hiss,

from a young man I assume; his hiss meant as a way to address myself and my friends.

     It was not well received on my end. Imagine slick, cold skin; My freckles erupting in goose bumps.

I did not like the feeling.

     Sure, there are times when I am in the supermarket buying milk, and the shopkeeper greets me with a ‘Hello, Love’, but it does not spark the same feeling that rose from the serpent-like hiss of Saturday night. I know that the shopkeeper during the day probably recognises my face, and by addressing me in this way, he is just being friendly and wishing me a nice day. That is completely fine with me.

He calls the woman behind me - Miss, and the man behind him – Chap.

But at night, my ears become more sensitive to strangers in the street who call me these pet names, like something you would say to a cat or a small child.

Darling. Babe. Love. Princess.

These are words that have completely different meanings when chosen to label someone who you really do care about, or at least somebody that you’ve talked to over the course of your Saturday night, given the right context.

It is not something you should say condescendingly to a girl walking past you – a girl you’ve never met before in your life.

What sounds better: Getting pizza or humouring a sleazy stranger?

Yeah, right.

And yet, it’s something that I’ve always found so hard to explain to guys that do this because it is something so small and subtle that you wouldn’t even see it. It is not physical. It leaves no scars.

But, it’s still a problem, because when a girl grinds her teeth to smile back at the strange voice that called her his baby, she is only reinforcing the idea in his head that he can call her anything he wants, just because he can.

What other ideas are floating in his mind?

What else does he think he can do to this girl? To other girls?

Of course, maybe it’s not this guy.

Maybe this guy is the nicest guy in the world, and his only flaw is that he’s impressionable so he’s just parroting what he’s heard another guy say.

He doesn’t mean anything offensive by it at all.

But what if this other guy was parroting a really, really bad guy.

When this bad guy hears these other nice guys parroting his actions, he will think that these actions are acceptable, and if the patriarchy is 100% flawless in his mind, then what’s stopping him from executing his ‘superiority’ in other, far more extreme and harmful ways, than simply calling a stranger his baby?

Well, now, what was once a simple action doesn’t seem quite so simple anymore.

This ‘simple’ action of barking a pet name at a random girl in the street is not the fault of these guys or the girl who grinded her teeth and brushed it off.

They are all collectively to blame, like we all are too for fuelling our society in this way.

-Like me, who up until recently would ignore the strange voice in the street or else just start speaking in a foreign language so that the voice would think I hadn’t understood him.

But something inside of me snapped on Saturday night, and my pizza priorities fell to one side for a moment, and I said:

     ‘Why would you call me that in that way? I don’t even know you, and it’s patronizing!’

It’s only now that I realise that I can’t even describe the face of this stranger, because I, feeling threatened, couldn’t look him in the eye.

His friends nearby, two girls that looked to be about my age scoffed at me and said:

     ‘He was only being polite’

And the three of them walked off together; my heart engulfed in a shrinking feeling.

Polite? Really?

It had felt like I was a sheep dog and a farmer had just whistled my name.

So then this guy and the two girls had created mental chaos, just like the hypothetical nice guys who parroted what they had seen, and the hypothetical nice girl who had grinded her teeth and forced a smile at the voice in the street.

If the voice in the street had been kind, or if it had simply said hello, how are you, I would’ve said hello back.

My friends will tell you that I could talk for Ireland, so yes, kind stranger in the bar, I would love to see a picture of your baby, and good luck with buying a puppy tomorrow! I’m sure you’ll find the cutest one.

But, if you have made me feel threatened, then don’t expect me to engage in conversation. And don’t argue with me about it either.

If you’ve offended me then you don’t get to decide that you haven’t. You just have.

     Now you’re probably thinking that me telling you all of this is entirely useless; that you’ve never done anything like the voice in the street has. Well of course, dear reader, maybe you haven’t, but maybe you’re the girl grinding her teeth and brushing it off.

Next time, you could speak up, and say that

you don’t like the feeling,

and even if the voice in the street does not hear or understand, your best friend by your side will listen to your reasons for speaking up, and she will then realise that it’s important not to encourage the voice, and you will have made a difference in the world, even if it’s only a small one.

Maybe you’re a guy, or maybe you’re a girl, who’s seen the parroting guy in action before. I bet you know him quite well. Maybe you could let him know that his actions are quite damaging and condescending.

He could be the nicest guy in the world, but you need to let him know that you

would not like the feeling,

if you heard the voice in the street speaking to you in that way.

There doesn’t need to be a fist fight or a bellowing argument about it.

You just need to speak up.

     Onwards we marched on Saturday night in any case, because our tummies still hungered for pizza. And in the pizzeria of an Italian name, away from the hustling, bustling crowds, we met a bunch of lovely men and women who offered us slices of pizza and asked us all about our lives. In return, we offered them chips and asked them all about their lives.

I must say that even despite my discomfort when I heard the voice in the street, my expectations for my first ever girls’ night out had been met and surpassed, now that the chef had given us a free pizza.

Not a single pet name was used inappropriately there,

and it gave me hope,

that the hustling, bustling voices in the street had the potential to be as kind as the voices in the pizzeria.

So even now, dear reader, if you read this with an ‘o’ shaped mouth and puzzlement in your eyes, I hope that you will agree that the world is better when we’re looking out for each other.

The pizza tastes better when we’re sharing it, and not trying to prove our superiority above each other.

I know, that even through your puzzled eyes, it would upset you to hear a family member or someone close to you say:

I don’t like the feeling.

So then, why is it different for that girl in the street?

Ciao,

Madame Mayreed x