Finished early this morning: The Diversity of Life, by Edward O. Wilson. The leaves are changing in the canyon. Yesterday morning, all through our three-and-a-half-mile walk from North Falls to Winter Falls, to Twin Falls, and then back to North Falls and on to Upper North Falls, the canopy was dripping from the previous night’s rain. In fact, it was raining, but the rain itself was being absorbed well above […]
For adventure, I need look no further than the changes in my body. I’m happy and fortunate it’s willing to have me along. Even my most basic habits need to be reexamined occasionally and held up to the light. Practical and beneficial as they may be, they all have the potential of becoming dead weight. In essence, they really shouldn’t be habits at all, but ideal, spontaneous acts born of […]
Are we on the precipice? Are we already falling? Who can tell? October 5, 2021 . From Sleep to the Precipice This morning, like every morning, there is no greater surprise than being here — not that I know where here is, or if or who I am. And if I did, then maybe there would be no feeling of surprise at all — or maybe the surprise would be […]
Cedar, juniper, green maple, red maple, pine. Arborvitae, crape myrtle, rhododendron, barberry, apricot. Blueberry, grape, fig, birch, fir. Grasses. Such, in varying numbers, constitute the perennials on this relatively average-sized suburban lot. Hosta, fern, moss. Lilac. Ivy. Rose. To arrive at a complete list, one would need to comb the area with notebook in hand, to look carefully, see calmly, patiently, making it the work of a lifetime, his own […]
The rising sliver of the waning moon is good company. So is a blank page. I have seen many of the latter dawn and fade over the years, very nearly one each day — fade into print, into scratch, swirl, and scrawl. But if I had to choose between the page and the moon, I would keep the moon and let go of the page. And while it is one […]
Old friends, old souls — who else would care for these pages? In today’s mail I received a fall shoe catalog. It made me wonder: when was the last time I wore socks or shoes? I wish I had noted the date. A fair guess, though, would be somewhere in the neighborhood of four months. In that time my feet, ankles, and legs have gained a tremendous amount of strength. […]
Out already for half an hour or so, the first person we met in the canyon early yesterday morning was a man we saw several days ago on the Perimeter Trail. Quiet, friendly, and about our age, he told us he retired last year, and that he hikes in the area about four times a week. With the stream rushing and the maples yellowing in the moss-moldy atmosphere recharged by […]
Our garden space is small, but this year we were still able to give away dozens and dozens of cucumbers and many baskets of cherry tomatoes. Now the garden is on the wane, with a tomato here, a cucumber there, and as many sunflower seeds as the birds can hold and the squirrels can tuck away. Whole heads, their spiny necks broken, jays squawking, squirrels chattering and scolding — we […]
Maybe I have changed. Clearing the downspouts of birch leaves in a light rain at fifty-three degrees while wearing shorts and short sleeves and being barefoot is something I have never done before. That I felt warm and completely comfortable while doing it is, I think, as good a sign as the early fall rain, which is drenching everything in fine winter style. Fifty-three, of course, is not cold. The […]
Fifty-seven degrees. A steady rain. Imagine reading such details in an arid, treeless future and thinking they could not possibly be true. We went to the falls. Upon entering the forest, we — Falls? What falls? Forest? Impossible. A hoax — a hoax! a hoax! a hoax! a hoax! Stone, papyrus, books, electronic files — and these, our very own bones. September 27, 2021 . [ 1242 ]
William Michaelian 