It’s indicative of character, I think, that beyond my immediate family, my dearest, closest friends are people I’m unlikely ever to meet in the flesh, and who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. It’s also indicative of the times, for without social media, email, and online publishing, chances are great that our paths would never have crossed. As it is, the number is still small. I have many acquaintances, […]
Must I learn the hard way? A valid question, perhaps — if there is a choice, and if it comes to that. But the gentle road is oft-mistaken — like an autumn breeze, or an old gray cat that’s lost its teeth, and can’t fight back. Am I on it now? Is there worse to come? I no longer ask. I carry on. I remember the night Cisco died. I […]
Standing between the hot, vibrating fender and the seat, there was just room enough for me to ride beside my father on the tractor. At three miles an hour, we went up and down the vineyard rows, transported by the mellow, acoustic hum of the gas engine as dozens of blackbirds crowded behind us to hunt for worms and bugs in the newly turned soil. This, too, was paradise. There […]
While growing up, I was never in serious trouble. There were a few childish capers, a few lies, a few dangerous chances taken, but no harm was directed at others, only at myself. Once I was old enough, almost all of these mindless adventures included the consumption of alcohol. Why this would be so is not entirely clear. I never witnessed excessive use as a child, unless we deem excessive […]
The telephone was big enough and heavy enough that it could have been used to bludgeon an intruder. We had no intruders. We locked our doors only at night, or when we were away, by pressing the little button in the center of the knob; during the day, my father left the key in the pickup parked in the graveled driveway in front of the house. The telephone was in […]
Looking back, if I think of each insect and bird, each leaf and handful of soil, each mountaintop and white puffy cloud as an ancient scroll waiting to be read, then my daily childhood surroundings on the farm might be seen as a kind of living, breathing Library of Alexandria. And I had it all at my disposal without a single bit of advertising — no pop-up ads, unless they […]
I saw the lizard exactly one-quarter of a mile north of the center of the road in front of our house, resting on the dry ground within inches of the rusted peg my father had pounded in before I was born to mark the place where our farm ended and the two neighbors’ began — one with a vineyard to the west, the other with plums to the east. I’d […]
If it’s important to remember our childhood darkness, trauma, or pain, then it’s even more important to remember our joy, because joy is our natural state, the original spirit and foundation of our very existence. If we cling to our pain, that pain becomes our identity. If our pain seems a greater, more powerful force than joy, then we need to work harder at remembering our own joy, however small […]
The earliest joys, at least those that can be remembered, are most certainly tied to the soil, beginning with its warmth and smell, its texture, and its dense, composite makeup, which changes with every handful. I was drawn to it, as every child is who is fortunate to live where it has not all been ravaged and paved over, and I sought, and returned, its intimate contact. I can say […]
One day — a childhood day, a day quite possibly a year long or more — I discovered that our old blue boat was gone, and another boat, a simple, plain one made of aluminum, had taken its place. This new boat, I soon learned, was much easier for my father to pick up and slide on and off the padded runners he’d made for our pickup. He didn’t have […]
William Michaelian 