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Notes Of An Unknown Writer

I am now at an age where I have watched people grow old. They look older, maybe more feeble, their bodies thickening, their bones feeling more frail or their bodies a little stooped, their faces worried in a way I have always associated with older people. I see my friends looking more and more like my aunts and uncles did when I was a child. This is the first generation I have seen grow old. And it is a shock.

Shadows

Sunbeams

Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have of trying to change others.

Jacob M. Braude

Everybody’s Lie

The only thing more complete than this moment will be the loss of it, as memory repudiates everything. But why complain, when even the complaint will be forgotten?

After Reading Rilke’s “Archaic Torso Of Apollo”

In My Father’s Arms

My keeper hurled me into the hole, and jumped in after me. She pulled the floorboards back into place, over our heads, and we were engulfed in darkness as the hammering against the front door started. I tried to call out, but her thick arm snaked around my chest, and her calloused palm clamped over my mouth, as the sound of wood splintering, and then crashing, exploded all around us.

Living Through A Spiritual Emergency

Should I start with the apparent beginning, with that frozen January night when I felt suddenly dizzy and lightheaded, when my lungs tightened and my heart spasmed, when the malaria-like tremors began?

The Perils Of Self-Realization

A harmonious inner awakening is characterized by a sense of mental illumination that brings insight into the meaning and purpose of life; it dispels doubts, offers the solution to many problems, and gives an inner source of security.

Men

Quaking

The landfill under the office where I work holds the decomposed bones of old ships and piers, derelicts not worth repairing, sunk in the harbor. Our building has piles sunk straight down to bedrock, supposed to keep us standing when the ground all around quivers and liquefies.