Currently Reading: The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie 📚

At its best, it is writing that one reads with one’s whole life, testing the work against one’s own life, and vice versa.

It is writing that invites the reader on a pilgrimage. … Certain books, certain writers, reach us at the center of ourselves, and we come to them in fear and trembling, in hope and expectation - reading so as to change, and perhaps to save, our lives.

Lights are up, our single ornament and improvised tree topper placed with précision. But I’ll always be partial to the Charlie Brown tree.

Last week I finally got around to christening the kitchen chalkboard. After quickly flipping through the quote index, it makes complete sense who got first dibs.

The soft consonance of a waterfowl floating in the foggy, feather-calm final minutes of low tide on a fall … Saturday. [Dang it.]

Happy pup at Pemaquid

Finished Reading (2023): Culture Care by Makoto Fujimura 📚

Simple and elegant, pointing clearly toward (and from) the profound.

We swim in rivers of culture that are “blackened and uninhabitable with utilitarian pragmatism and over-commodification.” But in that culture, we must “always be willing to present a bouquet of flowers” — even to those “who may not yet know that they desire beauty.”

Post-Thanksgiving reminder:

… When the power is restored, transfer the roast to oven, resume normal cooking activities, play some “smooth whiskey blues,” and thank your lucky stars you’ll be eating before midnight 🙂

And when the power is not returned to thee at the appointed time, light thine charcoals in order to save the holy ($95) standing rib roast. (It was an accidental purchase…)

The second rule is to continue to relax. Light some candles and play a couple games of cribbage.