Month: January 2024
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But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end
Although I am old now, and should know better, I still have not figured out loneliness. It is not avoided, as I once assumed, by having a lot of friends, or things to occupy my time; it is not so easily definable. As St. Augustine was said to have observed when asked about Time: If…
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Looking a gift horse in the mouth
I’ve never thought much about how deeply gifts are ingrained within our culture, within our interactions, within our expectations. I have always looked upon gifts as merely acts of caring and altruism on the part of the giver: offerings that expect no return but gratitude; a feeling that both sides benefitted from the exchange, albeit…
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Furry Worry
Why do I find myself always behind the times? I read, I listen, and I watch with what I assume are open eyes, and yet I’m always discovering new things that everybody else seems to regard as old things, passé things no longer worthy of prolonged scrutiny. Okay, I’m old, but so is the world,…
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Regret-me-nots
Sometimes if I awaken during the black of a cloudy moonless night, I am gripped by an uncomfortable feeling I can’t identify, a feeling whose source is almost within reach, yet blurred and formless like a ghost. And then, as silently as it approached, it disappears again into the night leaving only shards like broken…
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And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees
I’ve always felt a part of Nature, but now that I’m in my autumn years, there seems to be a special urgency to it. Still, the continued rebirth of green each Spring gives me hope; the longevity of trees that will continue to stand long after I cannot, inspires me; or perhaps it is simply…