An Ethereal Glow

If I seem preoccupied with books, it’s because I am. The fact is, if I never bought another, I still have enough to last me several lifetimes. And among them are a great many that are well worth reading again. So it should come as no surprise, that as winter closes in and my little thrift store lamps come on, I have mostly set my computer aside and dedicated myself to the printed word. In that mellow-dim light, it may seem contradictory that I go on publishing here. But in that sense, even I have to be practical. Try as I might, I’ve yet to find an easier, less-expensive way to organize and preserve, as far and as long as our present commercial culture and the internet will allow, a record of what I can only smilingly refer to as my life and times. That this is an exercise in arrogance, I cannot deny, because, except for the drawings, everything found here could have been committed to a private journal alone. That in this regard there are millions like me is hardly justification in itself. Besides, what others do, and why they do it, is really none of my business. I’m glad they do it, especially if it’s truly meaningful to them and makes them happy.

Reading books benefits me in several ways. The reasons this might be so you already know, and have no doubt experienced directly and thought through yourself. For me, reading online feels like too much of a job. It wears me out. And that is why, at the ripe old age of sixty-seven, I’ve decided to give in to my natural inclination by embracing paper and ink, and by using the computer mostly as a means of private and public communication. That might not sound like fun to most people, but it’s great fun for me. And anyway, you are not most people. If you were, you wouldn’t be reading this letter, and I would have no reason to write it.

On the thirteenth day of this month, we visited Willamette Mission State Park. As expected after receiving more than six inches of rain the week before, the road further into the park was closed due to high water. But we were able to walk from the massive black walnut tree, now silent and bare, along the high path by the slough, and follow the north-south trail upon which shredded bark has been spread, almost to where the path turns west and leads into muddier territory. The sky was mostly clear, with wintry strands of clouds to the south and east that were lit by the low-hanging morning sun. We saw one bunny, which looked like a furry loaf of brown bread. Then, emanating from some tall grass in a stand of young cottonwood trees, we could hear the long, drawn out croaks of a frog. The weak sunlight, meanwhile, lit up the mossy green trunks of the trees, giving them a kind of ethereal glow. The ground felt wonderful beneath our feet, even as my toes were dampened by the dewy grass. But, as you know, I am accustomed to such things.

Then on the sixteenth, we went to the Reader’s Guide, a used bookstore in West Salem. For our youngest grandson, we were hoping to find a copy of Walt Morey’s Canyon Winter. We were not disappointed. Not only was there a copy, but it was in near-perfect shape, with a nice dust jacket, and had been signed by Mr. Morey for someone in 1991.

I bought two books for myself: a beautiful like-new History Book Club edition of Henry Adams: The Middle Years, by Ernest Samuels, of which I’ve already read almost two chapters; and also in perfect condition, A Private Life of Henry James: Two Women and His Art, by Lyndall Gordon — the two women being the writer’s cousin, Minny Temple, and Constance Fenimore Woolson, an American writer and grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper.

In all at the moment, not counting Thoreau’s journal, which I still dip into on occasion, I’m reading five books. Like a boy in a library candy shop, I go from one to the other, reading a chapter here and a chapter there, only to look up and find myself fifty or a hundred pages in and wondering how I got there.

With Christmas coming on, it will likely be a while before my next letter. Until then, I’d consider it my great good fortune to receive one from you.

[ 1934 ]