Jul 24, 2025
I always carry books on a train, in case my attention to the scenery outside the train flags. A book would offer the opportunity to step away into another world. But I never read, because the view rushing by never flags. The panorama rewards, and even requires,...
Jul 3, 2025
I was today years old when I figured out that my grandparents had told me a story that is apparently not true. In my slow summery childhood, I traveled with them on many Fridays out of suburban Chicago, past industrial Gary, Indiana, and up to Michigan. Before the...
Jun 20, 2025
In the abundant summer, mature trees unveil themselves in all their power, ferociously alive, brilliantly vigorous and stretching up. Those that stand alone are particularly stunning, with their strong supports and barky architecture. There are groves sometimes, too,...
Jun 6, 2025
My bookshelves are crowded, and I sometimes think about off-loading, purging, thinking in passing “well, I’ll never read that again.” Then I wake up, slap myself briskly, and realize that in a sense my books are the architecture of the house my mind lives in. Each one...
May 8, 2025
It’s May, and this northern city is finally greening. The buildings, the built world, are the same, but the infrastructure of trees, dozing during the winter months, is rousing. Spring has moved northward on its own mysterious, rhythmic, and dependable calendar. It...
