the word studio notebook

When I look back through the years from here, back across a landscape fifteen-years across, it looks vast and varied. I can see behind the mountains, into the dimmest valleys, through the tricks of light and under the monuments, because we were there. We were there together, living those years, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes brushing our fingertips together, sometimes hollering out across the plains and through the woods, touching voices.

When I lay the years down next to each other, though, they seem so few—too few, never enough. This fifteenth spring means just fourteen summers, fourteen autumns, so far, which hardly seems like a start. I think of whole days happily, gloriously given over to idly being in the world with her, treading ground and crossing seas, driving uphill and kissing in ruins. I think of whole damned days that have escaped our grasp, days when we could be going to the places, meeting the people, eating the food, and sneaking kisses and high-fives.

[From “15 Ides and 15 Marches,” posted today]

Cheer Up

Shortly after the Great Chicago Fire, ignited 140 years ago today, the Chicago Tribune apparently printed this under a header reading “Cheer Up:”

In the midst of a calamity without parallel in the world’s history, looking upon the ashes of thirty years’ accumulations, the people of this once beautiful city have resolved that CHICAGO WILL RISE AGAIN.

[via Wikipedia]

I wrote more about the fire today, over here.