“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
FIELD NOTES #17 At the foot of Dogen's Blue Mountain, I listen for the sound of scurrying feet. Soft steps kicking up red dust. The slow methodical trod of a mountain on the move. The moonlit peaks like a monk's bare scalp. Mountain streams chant the 10,000 things. Sit still long enough and even mounatins seem to move―valleys the space between their snow-capped strides. Measuring distance in decades, the mountain defies our time-addled minds. 𑁍𑁍𑁍 Gray days pass between my thumbs. I try to hold on, but tired hands quickly lose their grip―sitting on my stoop, I watch the sun set: beneath my feet, water pools in concrete cracks. 𑁍𑁍𑁍 Missing the forest for the trees, I take my life in large chunks. Too busy to notice the careful craft of minutes. Prefering hours and years to the slow build of seconds.
All jokes about Bezos aside, I'm working with/ my publisher to try to place my novel in some local bookstores here in Queens, NY. For now, we pay our dues to our overlord and pray for a day when small publishers win the day! My publisher Alternative Book Press is a small press, so know your purchase still eventually goes to support the underdog. Thanks for the support! If you enjoy it please leave a review!