Long Shadows

During a brisk walk by the river yesterday morning, we saw two vacant, rugged osprey nests — one in a tall, dead cottonwood tree, the other in a sparse, narrow fir. Both will likely be in use again this spring and summer. We did hear an osprey calling out from over the water, but we didn’t catch sight of it.

There are hints of spring in the landscape, though the coldest winter weather is likely yet to come. Part of this appearance is simply due to the changing angle of the sun. And the lushness of the moss also contributes largely to the feeling. In the bright sunlight through the leafless trees, the moss lends its greenness to everything — beautiful, glorious moss, inhaling, exhaling, lightening and cleaning the atmosphere with every breath.

I finished reading Melville’s Typee, and am now moving on to Omoo. It was nothing earthshaking, but it was interesting, pleasant, and worthwhile reading nonetheless. A writer begins somewhere, then, somehow, he ends up writing Moby Dick. Then he dies, and people write about his work and talk about it and study it, and along the way they draw their various conclusions, or make the conclusions of others their own and feel pretty smart about it. Then they forget it all, and they die, and Moby Dick lives on.

Or something like that.

I’m also nearing the end of F. Hopkinson Smith’s In Dickens’s London. Liberally sprinkled, or salted, or peppered, with excerpts from Dickens, I’ve found the book a real delight, a long-shadows, winter-reading sort of book. Smith’s charcoal drawings I love, his dark buildings, his wagons and carts, his streets glowing with soft light. Seasoned — that’s the word I was looking for.

The reading of Ron Chernow’s Washington continues. Even at the age of thirty, the future first president understood that a person’s religious beliefs should remain quietly sacred unto himself, and not be used as a public demonstration meant to impress or convince others.

By your actions, your expression, your tone, your life will be revealed in any case. It will be revealed by what you value and by what you discard. Whether you throw away your wife, your children, or the health and well being of the few or the millions in your care, it will all be made manifest. And then you will die, and so will end your tragic tale.

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