Move Over Greta Garbo - His First Sentence

Like so many other things Microblogging Monday got knocked off track by lunch. But here's the good news. Jackson formulated his first sentence today.

Here's the bad news. It was "leave me alone."

Clearly a life as an artist or a writer beckons. As writers we rather like to be left alone. Like once on an organized press trip when I decided to give the tour a miss and instead lost myself in a labyrinth of streets in inner Jerusalem. There's a curious pleasure in being hopelessly lost in a strange city wandering the dusty streets of antiquity. The pleasure is only exacerbated by the feeling a panic that creeps up on us when we turn a corner into a dark and squalid looking street.

Inevitably I worked my way east in this divided city to the place where a wall separates Jewish and Islamic Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock was my beacon but when I reached the checkpoint an unamused looking Israeli border guard wouldn't let me through to see the mosque. His demeanor suggested I would be shot if I even tried to take a photograph.

The upshot. Nervously I handed my Canon to some Muslim kids who took a picture for me. They didn't run off with the camera but the picture was poor.

I thought about doing the English routine with the border guard. "Look I'm English. We helped get you into this mess."

Instead I just sloped off and got lost again. I have no idea what this has to do with Jackson's first sentence anymore.

I don't recall my own first sentence. I just hope it wasn't a life sentence.