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Paw
He was not my kin, but perhaps someday I will find that he was, after all, one of my people. My only connection to him is long gone from my life, an ill-fated romance birthed in high school. But she introduced me to Paw, and so I am somewhat indebted to her for bringing me into his eccentric and loveable orbit. Paw was what we used to call a coon-ass, born and bred down in Louisiana’s swamp country, that murky and mystical patch of America with its legends and lore, its distinctive patois and food all a part of the myths of the Cajun people. He and his wife, Granny,…
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Sunday Evening, Full Dark
I toted an extension ladder about 100 yards this evening and I feel like I fought with the devil all day. My lassitude isn’t helped by the supper Mrs. Orr fixed, which was smoked pork chops, butterpeas with bacon, cornbread, and baked taters. We took all of the dogs for a walk in early evening, and it seems to have worn them out. Usually at this time of night, they’re getting on our nerves and testing the limits. Right now, it’s snores, cubed. We did a bit of our own snoring earlier today. My wife and I kwiled up and took a long, long nap. We woke up, assessed the…
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Summer’s End
For the first time in my entire life, the end of summer has sparked within me a feeling of melancholy. Time was, I would rejoice at the end of hot weather and welcome the cooler temperatures. But this year, the approaching winter is heralded by the awareness of many things new to me, things of which I have become aware, things that leave me sitting for long stretches with head down and eyes unseeing. This is the world, and I must, as Dylan Thomas admonished, have faith. Goodbye, summertime of this year. You will have passed forever in just a few more thumps of the heart. And Happy Birthday, Weia…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Movies, Photographs, Reflections
The First Sunday of Advent
It’s been cold in a raw, bone-grinding way the past week, and we’ve burned a lot of wood in the evenings to keep things cozy. These days, the hostility of the petty and screeching world outside contrasts so dramatically with the peace found within the family walls, and I spend much of my time maintaining the chasm that separates the two Almost a year ago, Mrs. Orr and I watched Terence Malick’s haunting film A Hidden Life, and I was so moved that I wrote a blog post about it. I re-watched the movie yesterday and was affected even more forcefully by the similarity to what happened to the quiet…
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A Wanderer Forever in the Streets of Men
Ever since I discovered him by playing book roulette at the local library, Loren Eisley has been one of my favorite writers. An anthropologist and nature writer, Eisley was “discovered” by Ray Bradbury, who read one of Eisley’s essays in a science magazine and wrote him, saying, “You need to write a book.” Eisley took Bradbury’s advice, and I’m grateful he did. Eisley’s brooding prose saturates my mind every time I pick up one of his books. My favorite of his works is his guarded, haunting autobiography All The Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life (1975, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY). I want to share a portion of…
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“To You Today”
Almost every morning before I leave for work, Mrs. Orr will say something along the lines of “I hope someone is really kind to you today.” It’s one of those things that I know she sincerely means, and I take it in that vein, but I rarely think about it once my day begins. This is probably because on most days, no one is “really kind” to me. This morning on the way to work, I prayed the Rosary and then did some thinking about my life, about the spectacular mess that I’ve made of it in so many way, of the numberless crevasses of regret that I see when…
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Before My Candle
I sit before my candle and watch it the flame. How can a thing so still be so alive? The flame is mysterious to me. I’m told that energy is never destroyed, that it merely changes form. What form does the blue-and-yellow flower of fire morph into as it reaches to the ceiling, immobile as long as my breath does not reach it? Does it cycle back to be used by some other soul, some child of God asking questions that all seem rhetorical? The candle illuminates my face, and I wonder how I appear to it. I suspect that animals can see and hear and sense things that are…
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Trying To Make It Home
When I arrived home from work, I fed the dogs and was puttering around the house, doing a few chores, when our small dog began woofing. Not barking, but woofing. A soft, short woof that she likes to utter particularly when she’s perturbed at something. When the woofing went on for more than a few seconds, I went to investigate. What I saw was this: A little rabbit, seeking shelter from the rain that had just started blowing in, was trying to make friends with our dog through the glass door. Our dog woofed a few more times, but she seemed content to mostly just sit and stare at the…