We don’t remember conversations in full tableau. Instead, glistening moments, a bluesy vignette, a mere phrase filled with undisclosed meaning. They shine like supernovae across our lifespan, persistently prodding us to mine their significance with each new contemplation. Gifts which keep on giving.
The 3rd in a series venturing beyond the veil of the obvious. Read this for more orientation info about the series. I almost feel a need to apologize since the length of this piece is over 5000 words, but only almost. Within this entire series (A-i-t-s) I try consciously to build as vivid a context as possible, according to my memory, within which the events in question unfurl. If I lose some people enroute, that is something I can live with. It is important to me to treat these things comprehensively and lovingly.
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton
Icker’s youthful reportage on how the convent dwellers of his 6th-grade schoolyear approached a certain disciplinary incident in the classroom. (A previous adventure from Icker’s formative years can be found here).
A changing of the guard took place over the summer between 5th and 6th grades: the two chief mover-and-shaker nuns at St. Aloysius had been replaced.
Read On…
A story about going off the grid — before there was a grid.
By the 4th night things were getting rough. He’d lost everything of importance, save for his wallet, half a week ago hitchhiking down from the north into Munich. Probably in the backseat of that Mercedes.
Read On…
Occasionally something impels me to puzzle through some enigma enclosed within a vignette from my youth, and invariably I turn to writing as the method. But once I start to immerse, I lose some control and it becomes more like managing a kite in a gale than steering a ship into the memory banks.
-ONE-
think I saw her 4 times
very first time, I kissed her mouth
completely unlike me
Read On…
A young boy experiences the tug-of-war between the heady excitement and level-headed clarity which comes with the quest for knowledge.
Stuart was the first philosopher I’d ever met. At least he saw things that way. He was actually studying it in university, in South Africa I think, and could hold forth about Nietzsche’s opinions on this or that matter while as a 19-year-old hitchhiking through Europe in the early 70’s, all I could muster was a general awareness that the guy was cool for our generation because he said God was dead and dug the concept of superman…
||skirmishes|| ||with|| ||reality|| 