Essays
I wake up at 2:30 in the morning, not every day but probably most days. I wake up. I pee. I dress in the same khaki pants and the same company shirt, which is a black polo fixed with the embossed golden emblem of the company store. I make coffee and pour a deep cup. I add lots of cream. After this, I read. There are thirty minutes remaining before I must drive to the grocery store. I am reading George Seferis: Collected Poems. I have wanted to read Seferis for years now, and yet for reasons unclear to me it has not happened. His work puts me in mind of certain islands and the long ago scent of almonds on a warm day when I walked through an olive grove to the top of a stony hill where a ruin waited. I stopped among the olive trees because I needed shade. And with Seferis’ poetry, I make notations and underline passages in the book. The book is a library copy. I use a pencil.
The path led to a house situated by itself. From the house, the path cut sharply up a steep hill and ran to the chapel on top. It was one the few houses on the island that existed in semi-isolation. A laundry line had been secured between the two porch posts. Bright colored swimsuits fluttered in the wind. How oddly beautiful they looked. She listened to the swimsuits flapping. She passed quietly, not wanting to upset whatever magic was conjured there. She continued up the hill. There were places where the path had been carved like steps into the stone. She reached the hilltop and saw that the chapel was small, smaller than she had expected. The building looked like it had been shaped from the dust and fitted with a tin roof. There were but three windows, and they were barred with iron rods. She calculated the structure to be 15’ by 20’ with a 7’ ceiling. The door was closed and padlocked. There was only one door that she could see. She figured that an average sized man would need to stoop to fit under it. She tried the padlock, but it was secure. She then looked through each window. The walls were crowded with icons. There were hooks where smocks were hung. There were elaborate candelabras crowned with unlit candles. The benches looked heavy and old. She cupped her hands around her eyes to see better, but there was nothing more to see. She thought she could smell the dust and darkness in the room. It was quiet. All was quiet.
Dad was a good reader. He still is, though with less attention than he once commanded. I cannot discover the other side of Dad’s influence upon my reading life. His influence remains present. Books were in all of our homes, in Dad’s office, piled around his chair, in our bathrooms, and in Dad’s hands. I took up William Faulkner’s Light in August at 13 years old, and Dad assured me it was a tough read. Around that same age, I found his copy of The Lord of the Rings. I liked the idea of the book because I was enthralled by the cover art. Dad again told me the book was tough. He suggested that I start with The Hobbit. He found his copy of The Hobbit and handed it to me. The edition, like the other volume, had a magnificent cover. I soon went into Middle Earth. I don’t know why, but I felt an obligation to finish the books I started, even when they were too much for me. I continue to feel this obligation. Perhaps it was Samuel Johnson who said we are not obliged to finish a book. He argued, I think, that it was enough to start a book, gain a sense of its effort, and leave off, if we were so inclined. Johnson was a great reader, and I trust his advice, except I do not practice it. I try to finish the books I start, cover-to-cover. I hope people are still reading. There are readers to be sure, but reading literature has started to feel somewhat specialized, which, if that is true, then it is deep loss for all of us. Below is a list of books I read in 2024. I am fortunate that some of the books were gifted to me and some were gifted by the authors who wrote them. I am grateful to those individuals who sent their work to me or who gave to me the books of someone else. A warm thank you to those who did. Please know that I read the books. I take time to think about them and to discover where I could love them, even in moments, if not always in whole.