Like April, and again like May, June has been a cool, cloudy, rainy month — much more so than what is considered normal, but of course normal is nothing but an average of the dry years and the wet years taken together. Last June, for a stretch of several days, we had to cover our cucumbers and dahlias with sheets to protect them from record high temperatures, which registered, at their peak, one hundred seventeen degrees. This year, the plants are still so small that, if they needed to be covered, we could do so with clay pots and grocery bags. There has even been some flooding in the area, and snowfall in the mountain passes.
I have, meanwhile, been thoroughly enjoying my time away from publishing, social media, and the worldwide web in general, and have been using the computer only for writing letters and paying bills. In fact, this note is, in part, to say that I’ve been enjoying the break so much, I now plan to extend this pause for an indefinite time — perhaps to the end of the year, and possibly even beyond. My feeling and reasoning is this: the silence is so sweet, why not let it fully sink in — especially now, while we’re strong and our health is good, and we can run and walk and work outside to our lungs’ and hearts’ and minds’ full content?
As my note says in the area below, the original purpose of Poems, Notes, and Drawings was to organize and preserve what I feel are the best of my earlier writings and drawings. That part of the website comprises 1,351 pages — an extensive collection and a fairly thick book by most standards, and which took more than three years to assemble. Sweet Sleep and Bare Feet, the section that follows, consists of entirely new pieces. While it might almost be thought of as a collection in itself, what it really appears to be, at least to me, is a rather long-winded afterword, or the reflexive meandering of someone so long immersed in his habit that he doesn’t quite know how, or is afraid, to stop. And yet the writing and drawing in that part is as valid and true as anything else to be found in these pages. How valid, and how true, is, as always, up to the esteemed reader and visitor. Does it make you want to go back and start at the beginning, and perhaps see what you might have missed? Or is it just one more batch of words and images already well on its way to being lost on the internet? The answer will vary; for some it will likely be both.
Despite its neat and efficient archive, blogging, by its very nature, buries its own past. We’re like ants at a picnic: once the cake and watermelon have been consumed, we look for our next treat elsewhere. This is like reading the last page of every book we pick up or own. And so this, too, figures into my pause. It’s not that I aim to quit writing. But a full, creative life, one worth examining and worth living, need not follow any particular model. Indeed, it can, and must, flower according to its own discovery and need, until it grows to encompass all things, and eventually loses itself in its own rebirth and joy.
Most important, I urge you to not let yourself be lost. Any fear you might have of not being seen or heard, or idea that you must constantly remind others of your existence, just might be the very thing that is holding you back, even while you seem to succeed and advance. Nature, in her profound and inexhaustible glory, doesn’t act this way. It abides.
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Categories: Sweet Sleep and Bare Feet
Tags: Abundance, Afterwords, Ants, Blogging, Books, Clay Pots, Cucumbers, Dahlias, Extreme Heat, Fear, Gratitude, Grocery Bags, Habit, June, Letters, Life, Love, Nature, Patience, Peace, Picnics, Rain, Reading, Silence, Snow, Social Media, Sweet Sleep and Bare Feet, Writing
William Michaelian 
We all do it for different reasons. Or, for no reason at all. June Rain shores-up my best guess as to why I show-up online.
I didn’t love my life for more years than I care to say. Then it happened. Not like a magic trick, of course, but love sickness struck and asked for my voice in whatever small way I could offer it.
“All the same that one day should follow another;
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday;
that one should wake up in the morning;
see the sky; walk in the park…then these roses;
it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was! — that it must end;
and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
That’s why I’m here. To let people know before I die — 1 or 1,000 of them — how much I love it all. Online and offline, we’re here to show in some small way that love-sickness is something anyone can catch.
That’s what I’ve been hearing from you all these years, William — “How much you love it all”. Thank you for that. Because, sometimes, I still forget.
Enjoy the silence. I see it as a destination. But then, you’ve always been a few miles ahead of me.
~ . ~
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Indeed, love-sickness is the best sickness of all, because there’s no cure. And everyone has it. Some just don’t know it, that’s all. There’s no ahead or behind, only side-by-side. Sometimes we limp; sometimes we laugh; others we cry… then these roses!… these words!… this sweet silence we live by!
Thank you always ~ ~ ~
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Thank you again, William. Your quiet wisdom enthrals me. You’re right. We endless writers are like ants at a picnic. Once we’ve eaten the cake and watermelon we go in search of more, to read and to write. Slow movement and a time to digest seems like a good antidote to our frenetic efforts to be recognised. I’ll miss you.
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Elisabeth, I accept your thanks with one provision: that you always remember, the feeling goes both ways. You’ve been a steady friend from the beginning, one whose writing I hold in high regard. Rather than missing each other, let’s welcome this and all change, with the understanding that you and I are lucky to still be here. My best wishes to you.
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Your words are always a delight to read, calm and wise, worldweary almost but still comforting instead of being bitter. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Take care ❤
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Thank you too. I love your poems. If I were world-weary, they’d be the perfect remedy. Instead, they’re simply a delight. I’m glad you’re sharing them.
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Aww thank you, so glad to hear you like reading my poems! 🙈💜
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Beautiful and wise words. The eternal, nagging question – “Where’s the next party at?”
Maybe quieting down, looking within, and releasing the creative energy is the answer.
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Yes — and as every kid knows, and all nature shows, there’s no party bigger or better than simply being alive. Thanks, Terveen.
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Enjoy each and every step and pause on the road ahead, William.
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Thank you. I’ve really appreciated your calm kindness along the way.
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Beautifully written. I found my way to the blogosphere a little late but just in time to have discovered your wonderful words which as always will be missed. Be good to yourself, William.
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We’ll see where it leads. Meeting you, exchanging notes, makes this whole crazy web experiment worthwhile. As long as we’re here, the door remains open. Thank you, and thanks for being in touch.
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Not being afraid of anything comes from inner peace.
To write is to transmit.
It’s inviting.
Write in the natural order of things and of life.
Write to erase oneself.
Write to welcome.
Write to remember.
Arouse the echo between the souls.
Nothing else.
But writing is also practicing what we write.
To forget oneself is to write better.
Enter teaching.
To bloom.
Write and then forget what we have written. Like flower petals flying away.
To be delivered from all possessions and desires to appear. Wonder !
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Such a beautiful note. Or is it a message in a bottle? Line by line, I hear waves upon the shore, each, by its own true end, a perfect beginning too.
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Dear friend,
The soul spoke and my heart rejoiced.
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