I didn’t realize that autumn had arrived in the South. I’ve learned somehow to adjust my expectations, and so wasn’t looking for the change in temperature and leaf until November, really. I had noticed some yellowing here and there, but nothing flagrant, nothing bright. The change was still pending; the change was yet something to […]
Read moreI wondered for a moment today what it would take to get this house ready to sell it. Not that we’re planning on doing such a thing– that were impossible right now, and anyway, I’m attached to this place. But the idea has some appeal– getting it ready, I mean. A house for sale is […]
Read moreBill competed in another triathlon this weekend. .5 mile swim, 14 mile bike, and a 5K to finish it off. It’s called a “sprint,” and I guess it is: the race takes about an hour and a half, and it’s amazing, when it’s over, to think of all he just did. The event was […]
Read morei am, again today, this (closed) and would have you knowthat i am (or would be) sealedupagainsteverything but for hope in(and recollection of) Those Hands: (may i publish it here? again?) (–rebecca) somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyondany experience,your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot […]
Read more“All ambition has the reek of disease about it, the relentless smell of the self….So long as your ambition is to stamp your existence upon existence, your nature on nature, then your ambition is corrupt and you are pursuing a ghost. “Still, there is something that any artist is in pursuit of, and is answerable […]
Read more(Wednesday) This day was no more difficult than any other day. Nor was it easier. It was fine. And full. And, as ever, productive. Some days are heavier than others, yes? I would say it’s atmospheric, but the humidity hasn’t kicked in yet, and the skies today were mostly clear. Maybe it’s atmospheric in another […]
Read moreI was Incredulous. That already it was Tuesday morning, with the Easter break over. That already it was 5:14. Now 5:45. Time to get up. I was Mother. Warming the oatmeal, pouring the orange juice, parceling out the vitamins. Calling the children to breakfast. I was Late. Muttering at the red light. At the driver […]
Read moreShredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing, the clocks of Harley Street nibbled at the June day, counselled submission, upheld authority, and pointed out in chorus the supreme advantages of a sense of proportion, until the mound of time was so far diminished that a commercial clock, suspended above a shop in Oxford Street, announced, genially […]
Read moreBut what is there in me that could remain hidden from you, O Lord, to whose eyes the depths of a man’s conscience lie bare, even if I refused to confess it to you? I would be hiding you from me, not me from you. —St. Augustine, from the tenth book of his Confessions.
Read moreDriving to the tennis courts yesterday afternoon with my children, we passed a group of young men sitting on a guard rail. They looked innocent enough; perhaps they’d stopped to rest for a few minutes in the warm sunshine. And then, just as our car passed, they stood one at a time and did the […]
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