“I believe that the men of this age (and among them you Father, and myself) think too much about the state of nations and the situation of the world. Does not the author of The Imitation warn us against involving ourselves too much with such things? We are not kings, we are not senators. Let us beware […]
Pictures on the Ceiling
I have a lot of siblings; and when I was little, we always had more than one triple decker set of bunks. My stuffed animals and I slept at the top, where we were thrust — not quite to the stars — but right up to the spackle on the ceiling. By day, I would […]
Consider the Whale… and Herman Melville
I made this bookmark for myself for a favorite ‘Moby Dick’ quote, and I wondered if it’s the sort of thing you all at Story Warren might be interested in, as it can be printed on card stock and cut out. I’m attaching a pdf for the front, and one for the back, and a […]
Cupped Hands
One of my nieces used to cup her hands over the enchanting pictures in her storybooks, and carry them invisibly in a finger-cradle to her mother. At that time, my sister-in-law washed dishes by ones and twos in a portable tub, hung laundry to dry, and revolved a simple routine of feeding, delighting, neatening and […]
The Endless Steppe, by Esther Hautzig
“The morning it happened — the end of my lovely world — I did not water the lilac bush outside my father’s study.” The lilt of Esther Hautzig’s memory of exile in Siberia–seared by privation, filth, and loss–keeps an almost magical, storybook intonation. Her cadences are soothing, even when her recollections are barbed. The World […]