It goes without saying that moving is a tricky business. You collect your things, box them up carefully (or haphazardly; it really depends on the stage of the process), and, ultimately, hope for the best. The last time the Greek and I did this, we were sure that some of the potholes we…
(Greek) light acquires a transcendent quality: it is not the light of the Mediterranean alone, it is something more, something unfathomable, something holy. Here the light penetrates directly to the soul, opens the doors and windows of the heart, makes one naked, exposed, isolated. - Henry Miller (The Colossus of Maroussi), qtd. in Tony Perottet's…
Volare, oh oh Cantare, oh oh oh oh Let's fly way up to the clouds Away from the maddening crowds We can sing in the glow of a star that I know of Where lovers enjoy peace of mind Let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind Just like bird of a feather, a…
Herbal and verbal, Daniel said. Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seedheads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there's even more language waiting to come up. -Ali Smith (Autumn) Almost…
Last year, on the night before Thanksgiving, I was suddenly struck by the mad desire to make something real for dinner. Never mind that I had a cheesecake to bake and egg whites to whip, all I could think about was removing some of the excess food from the fridge and cluttered counter tops--Delicata squash…
The past few weeks have been several shades of brutal. No matter what I've been doing, whether speed reading a book with a looming library due date or keeping up with the piles of dishes that always manage to accumulate when I'm looking the other way, I've felt more than a little pressed for time.…
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me. And I'd say, What?And he'd say, This--holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.And I'd say, What?And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.-Marie Howe ("The Gate")Last week, last Sunday in fact, this little blog turned 3. It was an occasion that…
Yesterday I really sang for my supper. By the end of the day (in sum total, two days of preparation), I was Exhausted, Spent, Ready to Fall into Bed and Appreciative of my more than comfortable mattress. More importantly, however, I was pleased that the first Thanksgiving that we had ever hosted had been, by…
During the Age of Glass, everyone believed some part of him or her to be extremely fragile. For some it was a hand, for others a femur, yet others believed it was their noses that were made of glass. The Age of Glass followed the Stone Age as an evolutionary corrective, introducing into human relations…
But then who can tell what it really is that flickers up there in the dark above the houses--the luminous name of a product or the glow of human thought; a sign, a summons; a question hurled into the sky and suddenly getting a jewel-bright, enraptured answer?-Vladimir Nabokov (Mary)The past week has been a lot…
Dining with Dostoevsky 