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? […]
It’s a funny thing. I say I’m going to write letters, and I actually do write a few, then, soon enough, my letter-writing degenerates into postcards and poems. It’s been that kind of winter — that kind of life. You, there, cozy on your couch; you, hunched and bunched at your desk; you, with your laptop, tablet, and phone — don’t think I’m not mindful of my promise, or my […]
The long nights, the deep, dark days, the eerie, sublime chill, shadows hidden within shadows, naked limbs, moss in every crevice and seam — if I’m lucky enough to emerge come spring, how can I arrive unchanged? In the street of an early morning, I’m amazed by the relentless human roar, the gasping of brakes, the grinding of gears, the howling of wheels, and I think, What means Sanity if […]
My way is not the way. The way is your way. My way can never be your way. Your way can never be mine. I can follow your way. You can follow mine. Then we have no way. But all is not lost. For no way is the way to the way. . Read Bees and Their Keepers, by Lotte Möller, Pages 119-124. For the month of August: A Honey […]
Like some others recently installed in the neighborhood, the new streetlight near Don and Jane’s house doesn’t have a plastic enclosure for the bulb. And this morning I noticed a spider has built a web across one of the four exposed sides. Beaded with moisture from the fog, it was beautifully illuminated. The spider could have chosen any bush or tree growing nearby. Instead, it climbed the smooth, silver pole […]
I’ve lived a fair span; it would be greedy to depend on more; yet it isn’t good grace to count the years, or close the door. . Read the forty-third, forty-fourth, and forty-fifth chapters of Middlemarch. Read The Rambler, Numb. 9. Tuesday, April 17, 1750. Chuse what you are; no other state prefer. — Elphinston The philosopher may very justly be delighted with the extent of his views, and the […]
Upon returning from her early-morning walk, she said, “A raccoon, as big as a small bear.” . Rushing water, fluid sand, where the stream meets the sea. For an instant, there are two of me. But to keep my balance as I cross, I must mind my feet. . Potted the coleus cuttings. . Read chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine of Middlemarch. . . . It is an uneasy lot at […]
I would describe most of my adult life as a great unlearning — a process moving gradually from prior conditioning and habit, through blindness, ignorance, intimation, denial, recognition, acceptance, and gratitude. Is the process done? Have I reached my destination? I don’t worry about it, or think in those terms. I’m simply amazed by my good fortune. I won’t even say that I know what I know. Do I? And […]
How pleasantly strange, once again, to find myself running through the neighborhood at four in the morning, while no one else is out and about. And on this new day, what is the first thought I remember? How few thoughts. The others, before and after, have drifted into space. Maybe they’ll find a home out there. Maybe that is their home, except out there is also in here — this […]
Met with no traffic during this morning’s run through the neighborhood. Back in the house before four-thirty. A starry sky, with a bright, waning, super-blue moon. Air clean and free of wildfire smoke. Spanish. Read a page of Juan Valera’s Pepita Jiménez. Italian. Read a passage from a translation of Homer’s Iliad. How much of effort is really the reaffirmation of one’s ego-identity? Axe, muscle, gravity. But when I chop […]
William Michaelian 