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Author’s note
This piece is so far from being complete that I thought it might clarify matters for my readers if I put my note at the start instead of at the end, which is where I usually have been placing notes about the texts.
The assignment was to write about a book that’s had a big influence on me. I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly why this has been the hardest exercise for me since the 50/50 class started. I love books—lots of them! I could name many books that have had a profound impact: The Chronicles of Narnia, any Ray Bradbury short-story collection, The House of the Spirits, Illusions, Walden, A Christmas Carol, Welcome to the Monkey House…the list goes on and on and on. But I settled on One Continuous Mistake a few moments after receiving the assignment, and I’ve been chipping away …more
There is an expression in the Roman language, genius loci, “the spirit of a place.” It has acquired a modern, figurative sense in the realm of landscape and architecture—a characteristic atmosphere. But its meaning is rooted in a literal, supernatural sense—the guardian spirit that protects a place.
I try to describe Rome to you without resorting to the clichés and hyperbole that pour from the reservoir of what I have read and heard and seen on television:
majesty • power • glory • history • grandeur • richness • pageantry • eternal • holy • baroque • …more
Dear Grandma,
I’ll bet you thought you were never going to hear from your youngest grandson again. I wasn’t too regular about writing to you for the last decade or two of your life, so you certainly shouldn’t be surprised that you haven’t heard from me since you left us.
From your vantage point, I would think it’s easy for you to see why I didn’t stay in closer contact. Not long after the last time I saw you, when we got together with Laura and Yvonne, Karl and Edith, little Karl, Linda and her kids, Jane, Dad, and all those others at your place in Middle River, my life started heading in a direction that I wasn’t ready to share with you. I hate the way that time and circumstances isolated me from you. It wasn’t that I thought you couldn’t handle the secret …more
This morning he told me, “I have never been in love on Valentine’s Day before.”
When I hung up the phone, I tried to weigh those words against the measure of my own memories of Valentine’s Day. I thought of elementary school, of making valentines for our mothers. We crafted lopsided hearts of red construction paper folded down the middle, outlined in number-two pencil, and cut out clumsily with blunt little scissors. (The green-handled lefty scissors never cut worth a damn.) For decoration: borders of white paper lace, globs of Elmer’s glue, magic markers, and stickers depicting bouquets of flowers and bow-and-arrow-wielding cherubs.
…more
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