Today is the birthday of my father’s little sister, Marian. It is also the anniversary of my grandfather’s death in 1990 and the day the ancient orthodox Armenian Church observes Christmas — except in Jerusalem, where the Brotherhood at the Monastery of St. James follows an older calendar and Christmas falls on a later date. In the dimly lit, incense-laden sanctuary of St. James itself, there is a nook where […]
If you sit alone in a room long enough, and if you do so year after year until you’re so old or so young you don’t know what or who are where you are, you can rest assured of at least one thing: you’ve put in a good day’s work. . A Rose and Other Matters I’m tempted to move the book with the picture of André Malraux on the […]
The great naturalist, Edward O. Wilson, has died. But the world has not lost him, as the common phrase goes. He lives on his books, in his colleagues, and in the countless people he has influenced and taught. He lives on in the environment and ecosystems he helped and is still helping to save. It is not necessary to meet and know someone personally to benefit from his or her […]
Yesterday afternoon I cleared the driveway of snow with one of the old manure shovels my father and grandfather used on the farm during the Great Depression and after the Second World War, and which we continued to use in later years, and which now reside, along with several other tools from that earlier time, in an old barrel in the little shed behind the house. While I was out, […]
It really is a walk. Not a race, as many have come to believe. December 18, 2021 . It’s Still a Long Walk to Christmas I’m hidden away from holiday visitors, egg from plates wiped clean, crumbs up from counter brushed with efficient palm, frying pan still warm and slick upon the stove, potato peels filed away, scent of navel orange, morning paper rearranged according to topics best ignored. Outside, […]
When I was born, I was given a genocide. I was also given a dear dead uncle who had killed, and been killed, in war. I was given simplicity, poverty, hunger, and joy. I was given anger and disappointment. I was given pride and competition. I was given physical and psychological pain. I was given fear. I was given honesty. I was given laughter. I was given play. I grew […]
I was ankle-deep in organic composted dairy manure, shovel in hand, when the mailman stopped at the foot of the garden space and said with a smile, “I just realized you look exactly like Gandalf.” I pointed to the manure pile in the driveway and replied, “And this is the source of my magic.” Under the vine, then, under the apricot, under the blueberry. Under the sun, the moon, and […]
And what of the salamander we met on the trail, skin smooth, mud-colored, orange beneath, walking on its toes, crossing in the chilly damp? And what of the woodpecker knocking unseen from above? What of the massive cleft rock in the stream? Are we to think nothing of them and pretend their existence away? Or shall we carry them with us, and make ourselves living reminders that all is not […]
Doing one thing at a time, doing it thoroughly, lovingly, and well, my thinking becomes less tangled. One thought doesn’t always lead to another. Often there’s a large space between it and the next. To me, what happens in that space, and the nature of that space itself, is more beautiful, vital, and important than anything I might accomplish by juggling away what’s left of the precious time that has […]
This morning, after watering the various plants and flowers, which are now taking on their fall tones, I continued my early morning celebration by soaping myself in cool water and rinsing with cold. It was a bit like bathing in a river and then standing under a waterfall. The shower space is small, but there is a skylight in the bathroom. Only in the dark days of winter do I […]
William Michaelian 