Writing is Remembering
"Venice. The city of mirrors, the city of mirages." Photo by Vlad Hilitanu, Unsplash. I own an edition of The Harvard Classics. One of the frustrating things about it is the process I have to follow to locate something I want to read. All the books have the same front cover; the back covers are blank; … Continue reading Books, Covers, and Masks
Blind child making the acquaintance of a bit of statuary at Oklahoma School for the Blind. March 1917. By Lewis Hine, 1874-1940, photographer. Walking home after Morning Prayers, I pass a spot where a kind-hearted woman feeds homeless cats. The woman knows her customers well. She puts several servings of food down. She sets them … Continue reading With Eyes That Could Not See
Jacob Blesses Pharaoh Illustration by Owen Jones from "The History of Joseph and His Brethren" (Day & Son, 1869). In the 3rd century BCE, a Greek named Pyrrhus ruled an area in the western Balkans called Epirus. He is remembered for two battles he fought and won against the Romans—the first in 280 BCE, the … Continue reading Far More Pain Than Contentment
Rydal Mount - home of the poet William WordsworthPhoto by Neil Parley CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). One summer, while vacationing in New Brunswick, Canada, I took a ferry from the mainland to Deer Island, a small island in the Bay of Fundy. While searching for a picnic spot, I passed a bookshop advertising old books … Continue reading How to Count Family
Vanitas Still Life with Books, by Jan Lievens. Date: c.1627 - c.1628; Netherlands. One day when I was in elementary school—the fifth grade, I believe—I was walking down my school's long central hallway; no one else was present. There were classrooms on both sides with doors entering into the hall. Suddenly, a teacher appeared, standing … Continue reading Except for Pride
Joseph and his Brethren, c. 1665-1670. Bartolome Esteban Murillo. In November 1915, in a prison in the state of Utah, a firing squad executed a thirty-six-year-old Swedish-American immigrant. The man had been tried for and found guilty of committing murder during a robbery a little more than twenty-two months earlier. Now, over one hundred years … Continue reading Of Dreams and Dreamers
Breakfast in the Loggia. John Singer Sargent. Date: 1910. I know a woman who spent her summers growing up in a small town on the coast of Maine. One day, in the town’s library, she noticed a row of books atop one of the bookshelves. The books attracted her attention; they were classics, dust-covered, and … Continue reading How Frail I Am
