Category: education

• May 2, 2012

  A Gothic afternoon

  For two days, the morning fog has blanketed the hillside rising above the cabin. It is, she is right, a bony, smoky shade. We were standing at the lookout when she said the last. We had hiked up a red clay path on a Gothic afternoon–gray sky, abandoned ruins, blasted trees–only to stop at the…
• May 1, 2012

  On getting away from the city

  I awoke the first time to the sound of falling river. The second time it was to the birdsong calling down the hillside. The falling rain on the cabin roof awoke my feet to floorboards. As I write, the other is still asleep. The delicious pleasure of sitting in contemplation, of being alone and listening…
• April 30, 2012

  Attention: attendere (L.), tenderness; attend: to turn one’s ear to, listen to

  I am writing half an hour before nightfall. Before I awoke on Sunday, a mosquito kept buzzing in my ear, reminding me of dear Emily’s buzzing Fly. I awoke with the dawn, the sun having made its case rather nonchalantly this morning. Around 7:20 a.m., the sun cast itself upon room and walls and trees…
• April 28, 2012

  ‘My sad smile corrects her’

  Joan’s PET scan came back negative. The doctors don’t know what the spot on her lung is. Maybe just a scar. Joan turned 89 the week before last. Today she said, “Eight-year-olds are such a marvel. They see and say so much.” We drank champagne on her birthday and, with her two sons and also…
• April 26, 2012

  On Ajax’s becoming mad

  Overcome by rage, Ajax would have his revenge. He would steal upon the Greek camp, would bleed Odysseus alongside the other men who had had a hand in the scheme. Achilles had died and his armor was rightfully his–for who greater than he, what warrior more mighty and more deserving, what man nobler? Odysseus was…