Fifty years ago, when my father went to visit a farm neighbor dying of cancer, he heard him howling with pain the moment he entered our little hometown hospital. I was born in that hospital. When we were in high school, a close friend of mine died in that hospital. Three of our four children were born in that hospital. In that hospital, my appendix was removed. My wife worked […]
The body at work — its processes humming, oxygen, the brain, the blood, the ebb and flow of star matter, day and night, moon shadows, waterfalls — and somehow, from somewhere deep in the tickled tissue and folds, there arises the familiar notion that I am bothered or inconvenienced, that I am in pain, that I am unfairly punished, that I am ennobled, to the point of addiction, the crutch […]
These entries, however poetic, abstract, direct, or imaginal they may be, also reflect my understanding of the science of the day. And that understanding, as extensive as it is, is really quite limited. It’s also full of comfortable assumptions, gaps, fictions, and inaccuracies. It is imaginal, abstract, direct, and poetic, like the interwoven fibers of a beloved old coat. Many years ago, my parents gave me a simple but beautiful […]
Would I be a good public speaker? Even at my advanced age, I don’t know. I’ve never sought the opportunity, which might be a way of saying I’ve avoided it. And if I have avoided it, I’ve probably done so for the usual reasons: fear of failure, fear of making a fool of myself, fear of embarrassment. And if these are the reasons, they must have their origin somewhere in […]
Somewhere in the house — I can only guess where — there’s a sturdy flat box meant to hold a ream of paper, with a patterned lid that fits neatly over the bottom portion; this box contains a long story I wrote for adults who are children, and for children who are adults — a sort of Huck Finn lightly fictionalized family history set on the farm where my father […]
Wealth and fame? I sought them in my own simple way, but not for their own sake; I was willing to be rich and famous if it meant earning a living. And as I have neither, it’s useless to say or to guess what I’d do if I did. I’m also fairly sure I once feared them, which is another way of saying I once feared myself, which is another […]
When I’m in a room full of people and everyone is talking at once, I often find myself in a kind of bodily hum, a state of vibration that is both pleasant and painful, as, say, a rock in a riverbed might feel when the spring melt has begun and it’s exposed to a new wave of sensation and song. The state is suspended when my attention is required in […]
It wouldn’t be hard to convince myself that I am in hiding, that I have been in hiding for years, and that I am a hermit or recluse, despite being seen in public every day, and speaking in a friendly fashion with people I meet. One curious thing is that my voice seems to belong to someone else, and that the sound of it seems to come from a great […]
There is still the funny little matter of what to save and what to throw out. This question comes up every few weeks or years, when the urge arises to gut entire closets with their stacks of storage tubs half-buried in all manner of curious debris — papers, crayons, lamps, fried or obsolete electronics — even old decorative pillows long past their presentable lifetimes. Some decisions are easy. For instance, […]
Not until I’d written the last word of what follows, did it occur to me use the title of my unpublished novel. But that letter has been read — by a few, a very few — and will be safely forgotten unless someday someone summons it into the light. Come forth Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. The Smiling Eyes of Children Let’s say you’ve come […]
William Michaelian 