The Road That Was Taken

Content 16+

Once when I was stuck in Palatka, Florida, a truly smelly north Florida backwater featuring an all-pervading, nostril-putrefying paper mill, I took an English class from one George Kennedy, who hailed from Chicago. He was Head of the Department at St. Johns Junior College back in the very early 1970’s.

George, unlike the other professors – even those from up north who seemed to fit in well with … Read the rest

Atlas Plugged (and rebooted)

pexels ylanite koppens 697662
Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Content 16+ It would be hard to exaggerate how much my life has changed since 2017. I used to live in Moscow and in my role as ESL (English as Second Language) tutor I would beat the streets in all directions — with long intervals aboard metro trains, buses, trams — often scouring broad and faceless oblong buildings or plunging into the shadows between … Read the rest

Shadows Gather

(The eye, altering, alters all) — William Blake

Content 16+

One of my more engaging and creative young Chinese students (a girl of 13 years) recently started an essay with the following title: ‘Imagine that you are someone’s shadow for a day.’  In the first paragraph, she asks, “Can you choose whose shadow are you or would you just come into existence when someone is born or when the person … Read the rest

Stuck on Earth

Content 18+ I went out on the balcony, and suddenly I saw that stars are visible here… for me, being born in a small town squeezed between the sandy desert and steppe vastness fuelled by oil underneath, the view of the night sky full of stars was something common and familiar. I used to dream of them, trying to guess if there is a life out there. Soon after my … Read the rest