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 […]
It’s cold here, with an inch of snow and ice on the ground. Later today, an ice storm is expected, after which a warming rain should set in, freeing up the roads. Through it all, we marvel at the birds, the tiny ones especially, the hearty juncos; and then there are the romping squirrels, whose instinct for play hasn’t abated a whit. I was prompted to write this morning by […]
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 […]
If I seem preoccupied with books, it’s because I am. The fact is, if I never bought another, I still have enough to last me several lifetimes. And among them are a great many that are well worth reading again. So it should come as no surprise, that as winter closes in and my little thrift store lamps come on, I have mostly set my computer aside and dedicated myself […]
Winter or summer, wherever you may be, I hope this finds you well. Upon resuming publication, my thought is to take things slowly, and to add to these pages on an occasional, irregular basis, making each new entry a kind of letter from home, a hodge-podge from this side of the moon, taken from notes and observations made along the way. These “letters,” as I’m calling them, will be collected […]
Once again, it’s time to pause — to look up, to look around, to look within. And so for an indefinite period, I’ll be taking a break from publishing, and from most other online activity, including reading and social media, and giving myself up not only to the bright, cold days of winter, but to books, ink, paper, and private correspondence instead. Yours always with thanks and warm regards, William […]
The mail was late yesterday, but among the usual junk was a package containing two books from the Library of America — one being the volume by Henry James mentioned recently, Collected Travel Writings: The Continent; the other a collection of early work by Gertrude Stein, Writings: 1903-1932. And so the stacks grow a little higher and a little deeper. . I slept remarkably well last night, and woke up […]
The primitive human in me doesn’t want to be sitting here at a keyboard. It wants to be gathering wood or picking berries. If I must tell stories, let it be near a fire, sung as a poem, or pounded out on a drum. . In life as in the library — may the sweetest, ripest fruit always be just out of reach. . A cloudy morning for the eclipse. […]
Fall. The honey thickens. Visited the beach at Neskowin. Sunny, a light breeze from the north, temperature around sixty degrees. No sand fleas. The tide was coming in, but it wasn’t so high that we couldn’t see that since our barefoot stroll there two years ago, the ghost forest has been mostly covered with sand. Only the top of one of the heavily barnacled stumps was visible. The western-most part […]
My body language — the way I walk, sit, and stand — would it be the same if I had no clothes? How much of my physical attitude and self-perception is in the clothing I wear? How much of my perception of others is in the clothing they wear? When we meet, do we meet each other, or do we meet each other’s clothes? We’re born naked, wearing a uniformly […]
William Michaelian 