Life’s too precious to spend it in the dread cycle of acquisition and protecting what we own. Still, our societies are based on this, and our nations set to war. The misunderstanding is simple: we’re not what we own. Nothing can be added, and nothing taken away, from a universal song. Yesterday Afternoon Laughing in the dentist’s chair The doctor and his assistant singing His wife reads vampire novels […]
What a strange feeling — this morning it’s cold enough for socks. And for those shivering outside in moldy, lice-infested bundles, and for those who hunger, and for those who are beaten and killed and spirited away from the streets against all laws of decency and man, may we cease to pretend, may we treat one another with kindness, and may we finally awaken. ~ [ 2055 ]
Another bright, sunny afternoon. The south-facing side of the house is flooded with light; the north-facing side, which is where I am, is quite dim — dim enough that I’ve already turned on my little stained glass dragonfly lamp, which is situated about six inches to the left of the laptop computer I use here on the desk. This morning was agreeably spent cleaning the house. This afternoon, we took […]
A clear, chilly morning of thirty degrees. Out under the stars, I ran for the forty-second consecutive day, making six weeks of barefoot sandal running. I saw no one, and was met by only one car, which was driven by one of this country’s many thousands of “independent contractors” delivering packages. I’m about halfway through Melville’s Typee, the narrator of which has come to question who is truly civilized — […]
warm winter sun robins and bluebells man and his shadow looking down ~ [ 2052 ]
What can I do? I can be kind. I can listen. This is the most valuable, abiding contribution I can make in this world. It might also be the last thing I’m able to do, because my life is made to go out in an instant. What a sad thing it would be if that moment came in the midst of selfishness, impatience, anger, or the tired, desperate feeling that […]
It’s much less what I’m reading, than the simple fact that I am reading, that I find remarkable. More than remarkable: holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, and making sense of what’s printed on those pages, is a miracle. How the books I read find their way to me, and come to a temporarily safe harbor within these walls, is a mystery. Though it appears that I’m […]
I finished pruning the fig tree. I don’t know how long it took, but I guess it to be around four hours, which includes cutting the brush into little pieces for the recycling bin. I did the work in three afternoon sessions. During the last session, I heard the sound of a mourning dove in flight, and looked up in time to see it winging its way north. A second […]
Sometimes writing is like holding fabric in my hands and looking at it from its woven underside. Sometimes it’s like watching a preening robin after it’s had a sunshine bath. Always, it’s the eternal child’s way of saying remember me — and an old god’s kind and absent-minded smile. ~ [ 2048 ]
The bathrooms are clean, the floors are clean, and we are clean. And since the weather is dry and sunny, after our afternoon walk I’ll be able to resume work on the fig tree. I have nothing else to do in any formal sense, nothing “important.” And anyway, I’m convinced that tending to ordinary, everyday details, and really paying attention to them, is the best thing I have to offer […]
William Michaelian 