When I have a free day I seem to have trouble nestling into the luxury. This morning I got up early, made a cup of tea, pottered for a while online, had breakfast, and pottered some more. When I got up from the computer it was three hours later and I was jittery as hell, torn by various priorities. Most of the things I have to do I also want to do ( Read more... )

From Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, in a description of Pingok Island off the north coast of Alaska:If the mind releases its fiduciary grip on time, does not dole it out in a fretful way like a valued commodity but regards it as undifferentiated, like the flatness of the landscape, it is possible to transcend distance-to travel very far without ( Read more... )

Les's shop windows overlook a meadow of high golden-brown weeds, with pines in the distance. All week long, fairytale snow has been falling, like a radio stuck on The Nutcracker day after day. The tall weeds are buried to their middles; the trees hunch like a row of giants, pale and vanishing behind a mist of flakes. Every time I look up from my ( Read more... )