A walk around the block is enough to tell me how much, in these public lives we lead, we owe it to each other to make our own little contributions of neatness, order, and beauty. Everyone benefits from flowers, for instance, a bit of greenery, and a swept sidewalk. Even bare unplanted space that’s raked periodically and kept free of litter is a positive statement that’s good for the eye […]
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention, and heartily recommend, the book I just finished reading: Pedlar’s Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott, by Odell Shepard. Published in 1937 in Boston by Little, Brown and Company, this masterpiece of biography was the publisher’s Centenary Prize Book, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1938. It’s easily one of the best biographies I’ve read, and I’ve read many. Shepard’s work, […]
We’ve all seen it: the grocery stores are stocked with plastic fruits and vegetables, most of which are laced with poison. In neighborhoods far and wide, perfectly good garden space in sunny locations is taken up by lawns, many of which are also poisoned. Trees are cut down to make room for more concrete, upon which to park even more vehicles, which in many cases outnumber the residents. And so […]
Notes of an AlchemistPoems by Loren EiseleyIllustrated by Laszlo KubinyiNew York : Charles Scribner’s Sons (1972) Found in a local used bookstore, after what struck me as a dreary drive past pot stores, fast food joints, and numerous other businesses that have no reason for existing, other than to satisfy a society that prizes bad habits and unhealthy living; past men and women pushing shopping carts bearing all of their […]
We come and go in search of minds — minds of depth, minds of truth, minds open to other minds however differently they might see the world, and because they see the world differently. Knees on the ground, trowel in hand, hoping we might find each other. Backs and necks to the sun, on trails winding and trails long. Raven. Quail. Dove. Deer, with mouths to the river, now looking […]
We see them everywhere — little children watching their mothers and fathers intent on their phones, staring, necks broken, spirits nowhere to be found. I’m here — and I’m so alone. And they will be more so, when given their own. ~ [ 2139 ]
When it comes to my immediate surroundings, I see always that there’s sufficient space between and around objects; this extends even to my crowded library — or my library that would be crowded, and would feel crowded, if I didn’t observe my own personal rules of harmony, order, and balance. This creates more than a pleasant overall impression; each shelf, stack, and book is placed and arranged in such a […]
If I were in Meligalas, and you and I were enjoying the sunset amid the vaporous old olive grove, I wonder what we would talk about, or if we would talk at all. Who knows — despite our shared philosophy of no extra words, we might find ourselves blabbing well into the night, a fire between us setting our faces aglow. Here’s a subject for you: “How to cultivate white […]
Your welcome birthday letter makes me wonder again about just how long we’ve been writing to each other. I can’t remember: did our exchange begin during the writing of One Hand Clapping, or did you stumble on that windy journal sometime after it was completed? All I know for certain is that I was grateful then, and am even more so now. That we know each other entirely through words, […]
William Michaelian 