Archive for June, 2026
Pleasures in the modest display
Readers here know how much I treasure the writing of my old friend Jonathan Mayhew. In a recent post Jonathan lightly derides “the dreaded artist statement.”
Everyone that know me knows I hate that kind of pretentiousness. Mediocre poetry bolstered by pretentious explanations is even worse, because it isn’t allowed to be what it actually is, a modest display of one’s own literary persona.
“A modest display of one’s own literary persona” is a beautiful phrase. (One could substitute “artistic” for “literary,” and the point remains.) Sharing one’s work, completed as a recreational devotion, is a generous and notable gesture all by itself.
Preparing the penultimate
I like to tell people I’m not retired. “I am semi-retired!” Depending on how enrolments go at my university down the street, though, before too long I could lose that “semi.” To prepare for that, I have been trying to fill up my home time AS IF I’m already retired: reading and writing a lot, playing the piano and keyboard, working on photography projects, Yoga. It’s taken awhile for me to get used to the busier swirl, but I’m pretty happy with my new routine. That said, I was very surprised by how much thought and planning it took simply to do things I was already doing regularly but two or three times as much.
There’s no getting around it
We don’t have enough family doctors where I live (specialists, either). Several friends of mine have to find work-arounds to look after severe, chronic conditions. Others rely on overcrowded emergency rooms again and again. It’s galling.
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