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 […]
We sat in rows in classrooms. We laughed and squirmed and raised our hands. Pretty girls, awkward boys. Pretty boys, boyish girls. Dervish whirls and eyes. Teacher, teacher, tell us true. You have seen us, bright and blue. We were meek and we were wise. You taught us, and we taught you. Some were lies, some were true. Teacher, teacher. Teacher, teacher, teacher. * I don’t resolve, but I do […]
What do they mean? Do you ever ask the words themselves? Or do you expect them to do as you tell them? If they were your children, would you demand their rigid compliance, or would you give them the freedom and space they need to blossom? Your answer reveals the kind if writer, speaker, thinker, dreamer you are. If you’re sure the words you use are at your command, then […]
I could never think of myself as a self-made man. I’ve learned something important and indispensable from everyone I’ve known, every step of the way. Immediate family, relatives, friends, acquaintances, playmates, school teachers, employers, coworkers — each has contributed something, each has awakened something in me, each has helped show me the way. In this process, I also count forgotten random encounters. I include pets. And I most certainly include […]
There were high winds and heavy rain throughout the night. Now that it’s light, I see several more fir branches are down. Most are about six to eight feet in length; the longest, with its thick end leaning against the fig tree, is about twelve feet, and two inches in diameter. And so nature’s cleanup of last year’s ice storm continues. Later I’ll go out and have a look at […]
The great naturalist, Edward O. Wilson, has died. But the world has not lost him, as the common phrase goes. He lives on his books, in his colleagues, and in the countless people he has influenced and taught. He lives on in the environment and ecosystems he helped and is still helping to save. It is not necessary to meet and know someone personally to benefit from his or her […]
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 […]
How many of us realize we are teachers by our actions? How many of us know we are learners by grace? How many of us rejoice in the infinite and give thanks? June 15, 2021 Canvas 926 June 13, 2017 . [ 1136 ]
William Michaelian 