My reading life began early in childhood, with countless visits to our hometown library, the same library my mother frequented when she was growing up. I have no idea how many books I’ve read. I know others who have read more than I have, and who read more than I do, and who are better readers in terms of how much they can recall, and how well they can analyze […]
If summer is a dry-grass smell and fall is smoke, winter is a clear-glass bell and spring is a rhyme alive in your throat. . [ 1790 ]
The less I think, the better I feel — physically, mentally, every which way. Once I recognized the connection between what goes on in my head and my general well being, the thinking process grew quiet, and the intervals between thoughts became greater. Sometimes, I hardly think at all, and wouldn’t notice it, except that when I finally do think, it’s like waking from a vivid dream. I don’t mean […]
Every bit as much as I love writing, I love not writing. Each love illuminates, energizes, and inspires the other. Each is an indispensable part of the other. Each is the other. To put it another way, I couldn’t love writing if I didn’t also love not writing. I say this because it’s impossible to remove some love and leave the rest. Love is indivisible. It is whole. In the […]
Look at them. Some are so small, they seem only feathers and a heartbeat. And though we’re made differently, we’re made of the same things, and share the same breath. To me, this isn’t just poetry, religion, or science. It’s miraculous, inspiring, intimate. Thank goodness I don’t need to prove its significance, or tell you what it means. You already know we’re here to love each other, ourselves, and all […]
The rain isn’t falling in huge amounts, but there’s enough of it every day to keep things glistening and drenched. There are piles of ice storm debris to attend to, but getting to them leaves deep footprints, where miniature lakes form, not in the shape of Italy’s boot, but in Oregon’s mud-and-moss-encrusted hiking shoe. And so that work waits — or, rather, the worker waits, while the debris does what […]
Little Boy Blue It’s my pleasure and good fortune to work every day of the year — to set down a few words, to draw, or to otherwise tend to the bookish details of my elderly childhood. But the word work should fool no one; I use it only to distinguish from the rest of the play that constitutes my daily life. For I’m as silly and eager about […]
William Michaelian 