CANTO DA CEREJA

Hay un momento en la vida en que una deja de esperar ciertas cosas. Una disculpa, por ejemplo. Si no llegó cuando tenía que llegar, cuando todavía importaba, cuando todavía podía reparar algo, después ya no hace falta. Una disculpa tardía se parece bastante a mandar una carta a una dirección donde ya no vive nadie. Puedes enviarla. Pero no esperes respuesta. También llega un momento en que dejas de necesitar que todo tenga una explicación. A veces la explicación ya estaba ahí. Simplemente no era la que querías escuchar. Literal. Eso también es una respuesta. Y aunque suene menos dramático, suele ser mucho más útil. Porque cuando dejas de esperar que lo evidente sea reconocido, recuperas una cantidad sorprendente de tiempo. Tiempo para desayunar tarde. Para reservar un vuelo sin convertirlo en una cumbre diplomática. Para pasar una tarde entera caminando por Chicago. Para manejar sin prisa por una carretera que no lleva a ninguna parte urgente. Para sentarte sola en una mesa en París, q...

  Gladiators don't run. They fight. They slay dragons. Apparently, they also answer emails at obscene hours, read documents nobody else wants to touch, solve problems that arrived wearing somebody's name tag, and occasionally discover that "urgent" is simply corporate for someone ignored this for three weeks . I have now been working for more than 24 hours. Not continuously, obviously. I'm a lawyer, not a hostage. But long enough to remember something I occasionally forget: I am not a baby lawyer. I am not a junior anything. I am not "finding my feet". My feet have been found. They are currently in very good shoes, standing in the middle of a disaster. There is a particular kind of work that lands on your desk when everyone else has run out of easy options. The complicated one. The ugly one. The one with too many documents, too little time and at least one person saying, "This should be quite straightforward." It never is. Straigh...

  Apparently, I will never be this age again. Good. It would be terribly inefficient to do 60 twice. But here’s the thing. Life is happening now. Not when I lose five kilos. Actually, fuck the five kilos. They seem perfectly happy where they are. Not when work calms down. Not when I’ve organised my life. And certainly not when I meet a man. I’m not waiting for one. There isn’t a vacancy. I’ve become extremely fond of my independence. My house. My bed. My mess. My remote control. My bathroom. Especially my bathroom. I like a toilet closed. Completely closed. Lid down. Finished. Civilisation restored. In my house, men pee sitting down. I introduced this policy years ago and see no reason to review it. And yet, somehow, given access to a perfectly respectable toilet, a man can still leave the whole thing open like an exhibition at the Tate Modern. Why? What exactly are we displaying? So yes, romance may enter the building. It is not getting a key to my bathroom. If I meet someone ...