I don’t know if it’s true, but someone once told me that domesticated birds can be trained to sit by an open window—and not fly away. You put their perch next to an open window, but you tie one foot to the perch, so that when the bird attempts to fly out the window, it […]
Wildness is Necessity
If summer is come (as of Tuesday), can vacation be far behind? Unless we’re in for a stay-cation, that means getting out of town, finding our way somewhere else. When we live in town and work in the city, we often head for someplace far from “civilization,” remote, wild. I always develop palpitations when I […]
Holding Our Children, and Letting Them Go
This is the weekend to remember our fathers. Fathers struggle. We know this. Mothers hold onto their children, sometimes too closely, sometimes for too long, but once that wet, naked child is placed in their arms they know instinctively what to do. Fathers don’t. We have to learn this stuff. We’re not so […]
Smile
I read this week that a typical small child smiles six hundred times a day, and old men smile two and a half times a day. That tells you all you need to know about the course of human life. As we get older, we get more “serious.” I put that in quotes, because mostly […]
What Kind of People Live Here
Unhappiness is an inside job. But you’d hardly know it. We’re so used to blaming others for our state. “I don’t like my job—I work with a pitiful group of people.” “I hate this town. It’s full of lousy people.” Or “I stopped going to that church. It was full of nothing but hypocrites!” Like […]
What Arnold and Dominique Really Want
It’s not been a good week for Arnold Schwarzenegger; worse for Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Schwarzenegger, the erstwhile governor of California, admitted to fathering a child with a member of his household staff. Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief, was yanked off a plane after—police say—he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in his $3,000-a-night room. These lurid stories play […]