What to say, that might do justice to the experience of being alive? To notice, perhaps, that the well worn and oft-misused word, justice, is just ice, and that those two words more accurately represent the meaning of the one as we are likely to encounter it? Or that law is a word that signifies less a universal moral code than something to be feared, and which is wielded by […]
I still walk every day, but my whispers have died on the vine. This is a good thing, because it was almost immediately plain that they were leading nowhere and were better off left unuttered. Eleven entries in all, I’ll let them stand as a reminder: when there is nothing to say, say nothing. And, even when there is something to say, chances are that it should be left unsaid […]
If sleep is life and death is waking up, the lightest dark and the darkest light is just enough. ~ [ 2114 ]
Grumbling tendon — I loosen my grip on the honey jar — on life, too. ~ [ 2094 ]
Early this morning, ‛neath hazy starshine, in a temperature of thirty-seven degrees, through fresh, clean air, I ran for the twenty-second consecutive day, as always with my feet bare in the flat, thin sandals I’ve long since come to rely on, live in, and love. In the vegetable section of the little organic grocery store we visit every Sunday morning, a woman perhaps in her late-seventies looked at my bare […]
For a great many years, I thought I’d never fall out of the habit of daily writing. But here I am, days, weeks, and sometimes months between pieces, with just as few handwritten notes in between. Other than what I’ve already published, one would think I’m not a writer at all, at least by any outward sign, other than the use of playful, colorful language to address the odd experience […]
If I fear death, then of course I fear life, because life and death can’t be separated: they’re mutually dependent, present in every process, inextricably intertwined. For proof, I need look no further than my body, where life and death are happening every minute of every day — not as a battle between the two, but in a movement so beautifully efficient and harmonious that it makes them, in terms […]
Whatever I meant in that moment and mood, it seems blurred and faded now. The words sound nice. Maybe that’s why I was satisfied with them at the time. But I can’t say I’m satisfied with them now. The drawing, though, I like better. I can’t criticize someone for the way he looks. His expression seems the result of having lived many lives in one. Now I wonder: is that, […]
If this is my calling, so be it. If it’s simply something I like or love to do, again, so be it. And yet, at the beginning of my Perspective statement, which was written a dozen or so years later, and has remained unchanged to this day, I say, Each word I write and line I draw is an artist’s statement — not because I am an artist, but because […]
My father died in 1995, yet I know him a little better each year, one quiet revelation at a time. This is a way of saying I know myself better, for the former cannot happen without the latter. How well he knew himself, though, I wouldn’t presume to judge, for he has surprised me many times, and will likely go on surprising me as long as my memory holds. It’s […]
William Michaelian 