A thunderstorm began yesterday evening at about eight, with faraway rumbles and flashes of lightning to the east, which gradually increased and grew nearer during the night, until about two-thirty this morning, when we were engulfed in a loud and steady display, the house windows pulsing with light. This lasted about an hour, but out of it came little rain. The smokiness persists. And here in the dark, with more […]
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man — I wonder how many years have passed since I read this story aloud to my wife in the kitchen of the house we were renting at the time. Twenty? Twenty-five? The reading ended in tears — mine. And even then, it was not the first time I had read the story. Had Dostoevsky written nothing else, his mission on earth would have been […]
Even just a few casual observations by Dostoevsky on the then-current publication of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina are of such a depth as to distinguish both as great writers. My own reading of the book years ago, as much as I enjoyed it, by comparison, was that of a naïve schoolboy. Considered in the context of Russian society and Russian history, of which then I had but a slight understanding, there […]
This much I know: if we had a two- or three-story house, I would, with or without a stick-horse, be galloping up and down the stairs numerous times a day. As it is, having to stay inside due to the smoke, I take regular walks over the length and breadth of our dwelling for the exercise. It has become quite the meditation. In the mysterious atmosphere of family heirlooms and […]
It’s well worth putting on a mask and spending a short time in the thick, hazardous smoke for the birds’ sake alone. As before, within minutes of refilling and refreshing the birdbath, I saw a robin vigorously splashing in the water. Even as I stood there with the hose, I heard him chirping not far above me in the birches. Found early in the first chapter of the January 1877 […]
Little by little, the ocean is breathing life into the valley. The air is still dangerous to breathe, but now it contains far more moisture, which is helping to slow the spread of the fires. Yesterday afternoon, there was a lot more bird and squirrel activity — the birds bathing, splashing, and scratching for seeds and worms, the squirrels with nuts in their mouths, scurrying along the fence tops. Humans […]
The end of the world is a strange and beautiful place. It keeps growing, and it keeps ending. And as it ends, it gives birth to countless new beginnings. Eyes open, eyes close, eyes open again. Galaxies and atoms. Oceans and tufts of grass. A little boy’s pockets turned inside out for the wash. What he remembers. What he loses. What he collects. Where have you been? his kind mother […]
We’re told this morning that more than 900,000 acres of Oregon’s forests have been burned or are in the process of burning. We’re also told that ten percent of the state’s population has been evacuated to safer areas. The valley we live in is dense with smoke. The air quality readings are well into and beyond what is deemed hazardous. Yesterday evening our youngest son brought us two air purifiers […]
Another hour spent outside watering in the smoke, which is much thicker this morning than yesterday. The air, though, is noticeably cooler. The windy time has passed; I saw several spiders calmly working on their webs. I also heard the squawking of a scrub jay, and a brief exchange between nuthatches. A squirrel caught my eye; like an ordinary pedestrian, it was making its way along the sidewalk across the […]
It’s darker now, at one in the afternoon, than it is on the darkest of winter days. At six this morning I walked slowly to the second stop sign and back, the air smoky, everything coated with ash. The walk took, I would guess, about seven minutes. Then I watered the plants and gave some of them a bath. They depend on me. They are where they are because I […]
William Michaelian 