There’s just something about incense. I realize that may sound strange from a middle-age man who is neither a Reiki practitioner, nor a musician, nor a Tarot card reader. I’m not even sure when I started appreciating a thick haze of aloeswood in my study. Incense, with its evocative fragrances, has the power to call … Continue reading What Life Smells Like These Days
I had spent most of the morning working on my novel, living inside the bell jar of my own, strange imagination. At some point, I went to fetch my phone from the family room. As I did, I spotted an airy tuft of cat fur on the hardwood floor, just lallygagging there like a tiny … Continue reading Glitter Glue and Just Slowing Down
A few days ago, I received notification that there was a new post from one of the prostate cancer bloggers I follow. The man is Jim Mantock and his blog is Yet Another Prostate Cancer Blog. I hadn't been following Jim's blog as long as many folks had. He started blogging about his stage-IV prostate … Continue reading Today, One Man Poorer
My daughter makes a point of being the first person to “like” my new blog posts. I freely admit that I await with eagerness the WordPress notification that she hit the button. She’s a rising senior in college in New York City, and her two summer jobs keep her busy; so these days she reads … Continue reading Blogging to Complicate Yourself
Gita Quiet is your wrath, little cat. Marsupial-eyed, impassive, You sit like Rhadamanthus on his terrible throne. We beneath your crouching glare are Burdened by your malice— As you lose interest In us and Doze.
Despite those moments of stillness when I notice, almost accidentally, the slow sway of the fir branch, or the gray spider moving along the windowsill, life most often feels like a headlong sprint. When we’re young, time’s advance doesn’t trouble us: It carries us reassuringly toward maturity—meeting that girl at the football game, getting a … Continue reading Defiant Spaces
Until I enrolled in the Skidmore Summer Writers Institute for a two-week course on nonfiction writing, I’d never heard of Philip Lopate, the man who would be my instructor. I guess that shows how little serious reading I’d done in “literary nonfiction.” Lopate, it turns out, is the king of nonfiction, having written four collections … Continue reading Putting It All Out There
One of the great benefits of having a daughter in college is getting to see her assigned readings—and then indulging myself in those that capture my interest. It’s like a dividend payment for all those tuition checks we wrote. In the last three years of my daughter’s studies, I’ve been turned on to the works … Continue reading Business and the Moral Life
One of my former employees recently recalled some advice I gave the editors at our marketing communications agency: “You only get one exclamation point in your writing career. Use it wisely.” At the time, I thought I was quoting Tennessee Williams, but I can’t find any such remark from him. My search for the origin … Continue reading Exclamation-Point Leadership
Early Flowers Pale purple crocuses crowd beneath the apple tree by the stone foundation warmed by a mid-March sun. April, I know, brings Spring but also snow, feather-flaked and heavy, bends the creeping rose low to the garden’s cheek. If the cold should come again, will the huddled crocus, mustering crowd of luminous stem and … Continue reading A Poem About the Early Crocus
