I would gladly wear the colors of the male towhee that sings and dwells with his lovely mate in the birch-and-ivy environs of our fir-sheltered backyard. And it may well be that in another life, I already have, or will, and that this other life has a beautiful name of its own — Now. April 28, 2020 [ 732 ]
Yesterday’s birds: towhees, chickadees, robins, starlings, scrub-jays, downy woodpeckers, flickers, doves, geese, hummingbirds, crows — and, late in the evening, with my throat feeling a bit dry, two timely swallows. Yesterday’s planting: twenty-one dahlias — twelve in the main garden, three in the “test plot,” and three under the kitchen window where our daughter’s little boys used to dig for treasure. Yesterday’s walk: barefoot in the grass in front of […]
Is there a problem that’s not more readily, fully understood after setting aside the ego? And when a problem is understood, is it still a problem? Even the much-respected word solved is an obstacle. One solves many problems during the course of a lifetime, only to find that the so-called solutions spawn new, more complicated problems. Complication is the opposite of understanding: first there’s one problem, then there are three, […]
I’m still reading Vincent’s letters, and will be for quite some time. I continue with Thoreau’s journal, a fourteen-volume project. I’m about fifty pages into William Wetmore Story and His Friends, from Letters, Diaries, and Recollections, by Henry James, published in two volumes in 1904. I’ve begun the Library of America edition of John Muir’s nature writings. And I’ve just finished at Home with Disquiet, a wonderful new collection of […]
When I see birds chase each other through the maze of the budding fig tree without so much as touching a twig, I realize how quickly they must be processing the visual information given them by their eyes. If I view the scene at x frames per second, they must be viewing it at x frames a great many times over; it is this, perhaps, that makes them wise. Perhaps, […]
Death, or politics? Politics have neither death’s dignity nor purpose; and they lack death’s sublime, optimistic future; for after death, that which is once said to have been living, goes on living in myriad forms and ways; whereas politics are an accumulation of toxic waste matter that is dangerous to all living things. That politics often cause death, is reason enough to set them aside. Why sacrifice my precious energy […]
I wonder how old I was when the idea first reached me that our departed loved ones might still be near and looking on. I don’t remember having thought of it myself, or it ever being suggested by my parents. I might have read it somewhere. I did a lot of reading in my youth. I find the idea poetically appealing, but I’ve never thought of it as either definitely […]
Thoreau’s journal entry for July 13, 1852, begins with this one-thought paragraph: A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy. I found it waiting for me this morning when I opened the book to pick up from where I had left off reading yesterday. Upon reading it, I realized it had waited almost one hundred sixty-eight years. I closed the book. One relishes […]
Autobiography is the strangest thing. It’s about everything, and nothing, and no one, and everyone, all at the same time. To be of use — is there anything more to ask? March 23, 2020 The Wise Old Man The wise old man noticed he was hungry. Then he remembered he had no food. “Ah, yes,” he said, “there is that.” A very serious-looking man entered his hut. “You owe […]
Our apricot tree has bloomed right through the frosty weather. Now we’ll see how many of them stick. The first blossoms appeared during the last week of February. Now it’s St. Patrick’s Day and they are still opening, some puffed and ready, while the oldest look like hairy spiders attached to the limbs — at least that’s the way they looked yesterday afternoon, when I paid the tree a visit […]
William Michaelian 
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