About Me
About Me
Hi and welcome!
My name is Judith and I tell stories.
I was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, grew up in the beautiful city of South Pasadena, California, and have spent most of my life attending various schools in the southern California area. I'm proud to be a Tiger (South Pasadena High School '07), a Bruin (University of California, Los Angeles '11), a Wave (Pepperdine University School of Law '14), and a Sun Devil (Arizona State University '18).
I used to want to be a lawyer. Then there were doors, walls, and crossroads. I became a lawyer anyway but saw too much.
Now I am a teacher.
“The bourgeois system insulated all its children as much as possible from a knowledge of the processes of human development, and in my case succeeded admirably in its purpose.”
Old stomping grounds at South Pasadena High School.
On top of Europe surrounded by the Swiss Alps.
“The cure is storytelling… stories can shatter complacency and challenge the status quo… stories build consensus, a common culture of shared understandings and deeper, more vital ethics.”
“In California we did not believe that history could bloody the land, or even touch it.”
Before the boardwalk, Venice.
Somewhere beautiful at the Tonto National Forest.
“The closest I have ever come to the outer limit of friendship with the dead is when I promised myself that at the end I will use everything I know and feel to resurrect the thoughts and feelings of those about to die in a world that roared at them but obscured itself in smoke and flames.”
“There are some things that if learned change a person forever.”
Winter Seattle days without rain.
Hiding out at Coconino National Forest.
“Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.”
“It follows that if an anomaly is to evoke crisis, it must usually be more than just an anomaly.”
Reflecting in San Diego.
One Christmas in Barcelona.
“Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.”
“To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.”
In the heart of hill country, Sri Lanka.
Beginning and end, Sonoran Desert.
“I had decided that I would not go anywhere with a piece of paper in my hand asking white folks for any favors.”
“You can’t understand the world without telling a story. There isn’t any center to the world but a story.”
Where good enough became not enough, Malibu.
Indescribable magic, Oregon coast.
“One writes to try and answer the questions that buzz in one’s head, obstinate flies that disturb one’s sleep; and what one writes can take on collective sense when it coincides in some way with the social necessity for a reply.”
“But remember always, Dante, in the play of happiness, don’t you use all for yourself only… help the persecuted and the victim because they are your better friends… In this struggle of life you will find more and love and you will be loved.”
Listening to the silence, Sri Lanka.
Where a river meets an ocean.
“When one begins to turn over the pages of the stenographic minutes and speeches made by our prominent leaders, one is astonished by the unexpected manifestation of their pedagogical activities. Every author of the thesis proposes the most perfect system of bringing up the masses. But all these systems of ‘education’ lack provisions for freedom of experiment, for training and for expression of creative abilities by those who are to be taught. In this respect also all our pedagogues are behind the times.”
“If freedom (real freedom) is the ability to make friends, then it is also, necessarily, the ability to make real promises. What sorts of promises might genuinely free men and women make to one another? At this point we can’t even say. It’s more a question of how we can get to a place that will allow us to find out.”
Like a place in dreams to be found and lost.
Sunrise at a river facing the ocean.
“Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.”