Friday morning at Starbucks, the room is a-twitter with rising and falling conversations from tables — not unlike a tree full of blackbirds. The sound of life, the exchange of advice, consolation, the ritual of community. I am fortunate to be here. My sleep of last night was interrupted by a strange early morning…
News Year’s eve. Everyone reflects. Some do it a little, I do it a lot. Cold enough to snow, just enough to whiten the ground: Nature’s proof that winter is present. How could I doubt? A few days of temperate weather in mid December is enough rhetoric in my mind, raising suspicion that climate…
The year draws down. Yesterday was warm. I decided to take a walk alongside the Fox River, to visit the FABYAN ESTATE which is close to my neighborhood. The day was gray, damp, unpropitious for photography. Determined anyway, I took my camera. The Fabyans, George and Nellie lived here from 1908 until 1939. George…
The day arrives, on the face of it, like every other day. Everything up to this day has been preparation, doing the work requisite to celebration. Not that the “to do” list of decorating, seeking out and purchasing the “right gift” for those whom you have a natural obligation etc. is without satisfaction. Work…
December 21st, I was inclined to make a fire in our fire pit. Then I learned that we were to attend a holiday party with old friends in another town. The enjoyment of open fire, heat emanating from burning wood, the glow of embers, pungent rising smoke into the inky sky, was delayed. Maybe…
So, you’d like to be a writer? Start keeping a journal. Everyday write something. Even if, and especially if it’s raw, words that can’t be polished, that take heroic effort to release and get down on the page. No matter how disjointed, incoherent, unappealing your emotional storms may be, –do your best to find…
This morning there’s little in mind. A lingering memory from yesterday; the image of a Republican lawyer at the impeachment hearings in Washington. The man speaking to a struck-dumb, packed hearing room said the president had nothing in mind, no intention, when he had the phone conversation with the President of Ukraine, Zelinsky. The…
…in his or her own way of course. As you’d expect, I continue to read Slavoj Zizek — with more care the second time around. The European intellectual wrestles with the problem that confounds me: how to address a virulent ethnic hatred that matastasizes as a ravenous cancer in our society. Our President and…
This morning as I opened my browser, this graphic caught my eye. I felt compelled to read the story. The image is of Mount Everest. I have never been a rock climber and I am well past the age to consider climbing a mountain. I thought it common knowledge the Everest was the severest…
The Socrates Café discussion of this past evening was stimulating, open-ended, a probing exploration for a definition of freedom. Our quest to find or to fashion a definition of freedom came from a quotation from a book, “To Fight Against This Age” by Rob Rieman: “He who remains a slave to his desires, emotions,…
