A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.

Alice Munro, Selected Stories

As libertines we seek to find and provide pleasures for others before pleasing ourselves. Libertines are never boorish, profane or blasphemous. We seek to lessen any cause for offence while maximizing pleasure. After our liaisons, our return is eagerly anticipated, and our departure is mourned. For most men the reverse is the case. In a world where most men are barely on before they are off again, we take the time and the care to be gentle lovers and build the sighs and the panting of true delight.

Harry F. MacDonald, Casanova and the Devil’s Doorbell

Trees

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured.

― Herman Hesse

Red Sox

On a sunless cold mid April day with the threat of light rain, I went to the red sox game with Mike and Diane. 

We took a late model Uber to storied Fenway park, and as we got closer to the park the heavy traffic inched along.

The driver became chatty and actually had Red Sox radio playing over the speakers

Got dropped off right into the middle of the scrum of excited Red Sox nation fans as we made our way into the stadium.

Along the way, dozens of purveyors of street food treats filled our senses with temptations of pungent sausage, hot dogs, roasted peanuts, as well as vendors hawking red sox paraphernalia. “Get your program here”.

It seemed like we had to walk through the whole stadium to eventually get to our skybox seats high above home plate–great seats.

We asked several employees for directions or at least assurances that we were going in the right direction.

As we sat down a friendly employee introduced himself and said we could order any food or drink from him which was certainly convenient and worth the 18% gratuity. 

The game was close, and watching the boys of summer play such high level baseball on the perfectly manicured grass carpet filled a special place in my brain.

As an extra treat, a man proposed to his girlfriend which was broadcast on the movie-screen sized “TV” that is pinned high above the bleachers. 

The lucky girl seemed to have no idea that the boyfriend would ask the big question and excitedly said yes as her body language gave away her overwhelming joy.