As noted then in these pages, my brother, Kirk, died two years ago today — an interval which seems much more like one expansive, all-encompassing breath. I see, meanwhile, that it’s been almost a month since I last wrote. During that time, I’ve felt neither the urge nor the need. And I don’t feel it now. What I do feel is the arrival of spring. Why, then, am I writing? […]
My eldest brother has been gone a year and a half; our mother, ten years; our father, twenty-eight; our father’s mother and father, thirty-three; our mother’s father, sixty-nine; her mother, forty-two. Friends, family friends, relatives, loyal canine companions — the list is long. Teachers, schoolmates, barbers, insurance men, mechanics, storekeepers, fruit packers, janitors, farm help; doctors, dentists, accountants, farmers from the old neighborhood; grocery checkers, retired men in overalls, librarians, […]
I’ll be old today — love what I love most — ferns, moss, stone — come hither, friend, and be alone. . [ 1821 ]
The two little girls were surprised when I gave them each a sprig of lilac and asked them to smell the flowers. They were hushed, too, because in their boredom they’d torn them off, along with others and many tender leaves. And they were saddened, when I gently told them we’d given the plant to my mother many years ago, that it was her favorite, and that though she had […]
A few nights ago, after we’d been on our walk by the river, I had a strange little dream. A few feet away, in a small grassy area greening its way into spring, there was a blue-gray owl looking up at me with a friendly, cheerful expression. It had very large bright-green eyes. Though it was obviously an adult, it was smaller than any owl I’ve seen. When I moved […]
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, […]
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 […]
What grew in me without my knowing, what crept stealthily into my burgeoning little boy’s identity and went unrecognized for years, was a keen sense of competition. The expectation, need, and desire to be the best was administered in tiny doses without their knowing by family, friends, acquaintances, and teachers. The best reader, the best speller, the best runner, the best at throwing or kicking a ball — the process […]
Another early-morning skunk visit: when I opened our front door at four, our fluffy friend was passing by. When I went out at four-thirty to run, its scent was strong in the air. When I returned, the scent was gone — which is to say, it had become part of the breathable atmosphere we all share, thus making us part skunk. Stardust and skunk. Roses, too. Violence and intelligence do […]
William Michaelian 