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, […]
You won’t be surprised to hear that our eldest son, avid reader and collector that he is, offered to take me to Robert’s Bookshop in anticipation of my birthday. We enjoyed a beautiful Sunday-morning drive to the coast, through the lush spring mountain greenery, and arrived almost immediately upon their opening. As soon as we stepped inside and inhaled the old book smell, we felt the same rush of excitement […]
How nice it would be if our letters were the old-fashioned paper kind. As it is, having a mailbox these days is hardly justified. Our carrier, as I said a while back, is friendly; I’m sure he’d understand if I removed ours, or at least find it humorous. He can leave the advertisements on our front step if he likes; or I can place the recycling bin at the end […]
So it goes, my dear butterfly. I write to tell you what you already know: I’m still glad to wake up in the morning, and my days, however seemingly ordinary, are full. I have a small cup of coffee, then go out for a walk before sunrise. This is followed by a few stretching and breathing exercises, which I do here in the library while looking out the big front […]
And if we had left the oil in the ground, and the coal, and the minerals, and the gems? If we had not cut down the trees and polluted the rivers? If we had not altered the climate and destroyed the environment? If we had not conquered our neighbors, and humbly learned from them instead? If we had not created artificial intelligence, and data centers, and guns? If we had […]
Reading Thoreau’s Walden and Percy Fitzgerald’s life of Henry Irving, while dipping at random into many related and unrelated volumes. Encyclopedia Britannica entries: Oliver Cromwell; Thomas Cromwell; Thomas More. Books by and about famous stage actors: Sothern; Jefferson; Garrick; and that guy some people still talk about and others quote without knowing, Shakespeare. I was on the roof yesterday, taking care of some mossy spots before last night’s rain. Not […]
Says my childhood sitting in the sun, what are these later years but a penny you found and couldn’t resist picking up? ~ [ 2130 ]
No need for explanation long, said bumblebee to sun; my purpose is as yours: not to cease ’til I am done. ~ [ 2129 ]
William Michaelian 