The only reason for Time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. Albert Einstein As I write this, it’s sheep season in Provence. The fields on the outskirts of town, in between the canebrakes and canals, are beginning to mushroom up flocks of dusty, dumpling wool. It starts in mid-March, a trickle at first, … Continue reading Time and Tide…
“Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.” William Butler Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’ Quick – where’s … Continue reading Come Together…
There is not a thing that is more positive than bread. Fyodor Dostoevsky I have written about bread before, and talk of bread is unavoidable, but this is about the morning walk, the intention. There is a purity of purpose that is a raw and cleansing way to begin the day. There is no rush, … Continue reading Walking for Bread…
At the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. Norman Maclean The Rhône at Arles is a tidal river, which is a thing that takes some getting used to. There are hours of the day where it torrents northward with a single-minded purpose towards Avignon, like … Continue reading A River Runs Through It…
Walking home with Jess and Max after dropping Alexander at school, out the old cloister gates and through the winding cobbled streets redolent of woodsmoke and the scent of baking bread. The rhythmic clang of metal on metal, not mechanical, hand labor, off some distance, but so distinctive you can almost taste it on the … Continue reading An Alchemy of Place…
Several July 4ths ago, when travel was possible… Pine burns hot, fast and faster – tumbling headlong, embracing immolation in a hissing, spitting rush. It makes good kindling for harder species like oak and ash, a satisfying crackle of resinous sputters like tiny solar flares igniting the denser, longer-burning woods. I’ve spent the past several … Continue reading Another Place…
Chasing Snails (And Other Movable Feasts) 