Good morning Reader, A few months ago, my friend John in Athens was telling me about a book on Michelangelo he wanted to translate. He was reading, connecting ideas, and finding things he wanted to explore, and I loved how it pulled him in. I wanted to understand that pull. What was it about Michelangelo, about the Renaissance, that had him so excited? A Perfect Threshold So I asked him why the Renaissance was such an important moment in human history. “It’s the perfect threshold,” he said....
12 days ago • 6 min read
Good morning Reader, Yesterday morning at about 6:15, I was sitting in our family room reading while Gail was in the kitchen making herself a cup of coffee. Our son and daughter gave her one of those fancy coffee machines a year or two ago, and she loves the thing. She had never really been much of a coffee drinker before, but now there is this whole little process to it. From where I was sitting, I could hear the machine grinding the beans, the milk foaming, the coffee pouring into the cup....
19 days ago • 4 min read
Good morning Reader, Last week I stayed in the mountains of West Virginia. On my second night, I started to stir hours before the sun was to rise, and in that half-awake, half-asleep phase I looked out the window at the dark, black sky. Then my eyes cleared, and I started asking: what am I seeing? It became clear that the night sky was black on black, dark, with starlight making its way through the void of space. My goodness, there seemed to be a lot of those stars. Then my mind started...
26 days ago • 5 min read
Good morning Reader, For the last month, I’ve been making my way through Ohio and West Virginia in the RV, moving from one state park to another, hiking when I can, reading every morning, writing most days, and stopping at used bookstores whenever one happens to cross my path. A couple of weeks ago, while passing through Columbus, I stopped at two. The first was fine, but nothing about it really grabbed me. The second was Karen Wickliff Books, and almost the instant I walked through the door...
about 1 month ago • 10 min read
Good morning Reader, In a distribution center in Monroe Township, New Jersey, cosmetics come down a conveyor line all day long, and for years a woman named Adela Perez Marin spent her working life inside a workstation about four feet by four feet. A screen in front of her, a stack of flat boxes within reach. She would read the order off the screen, fold a box, wait for the tub to come down the line, reach in, pull what the order called for, drop it in the newly folded box and send it to be...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Good morning Reader, Each morning, typically before the sun rises, I open my journal to center my mind, body, and spirit for the day. I always start in the top right-hand corner to remind myself what day it is. This morning I am going to write, "Day 729 of Day 1 of sober life, and I love it." Tomorrow will be two years, alcohol free for me. Day 730 of Day 1 of sober life. And, yea, I love it! Tomorrow is also Labor Day here in the states, reminding us that summer has come and gone. The pools...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Good morning Reader, This morning, I’d like to start with a question: Have you ever been to a place that didn’t exist, but in your mind was as real as the things you hold in your hand? Have you ever sensed a void, one that you couldn’t really feel - I mean, it doesn’t exist - and yet it coursed through every vein, muscle, organ, and neuron in your brain? And then as if there is no off switch, that void manifests itself as a stream of thoughts that regenerate themselves until, they are all you...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Good morning Reader, It was 5:30 in the morning, still dark, when the cars started pulling into the commuter parking lot where we built the Freedom Festival every year, the booths, the food tents, and a stage worthy of Lollapalooza all going up before the sun crested the horizon. We did this every year for seven years to support and thank our troops. I couldn't have produced the festival without my friends rallying behind me to turn that parking lot into a place of recognition and thanks. I...
2 months ago • 7 min read
Good morning Reader, I pulled into the winery a little after eight, later than I meant to, on the last night of my three-month writing retreat. It sits off a two-lane road in a quiet stretch of Ohio, the kind of place you find only because you went looking for it. They were already closing, the chairs up on half the tables and the light low. I had called an hour ahead to ask if I could park the RV in their lot for the night, and the two women behind the bar had said yes, and then stayed on...
2 months ago • 4 min read