friendship Archives - Meandering home

Meditation on friendship

Close your eyes. Breathe calmly. You sit here alone, master of your own thoughts. Imagine I am talking to you. I want to know what friendship means. Quickly, construct a differentiation. Which opposite op 'friend' have you found? Mere acquaintance? Or: enemy? But what can we say about a thing of which we cannot determine the ...

16 May, 2018

friendship, meditation

Essays, The good life

Two Strangers

How much peace is in an evening walk of two near strangers at the bay when they hold hands and gently talk even if their peace - has gone away How much truth lies there, for a little while when of human needs the most divine between a thoughtful nod and then a smile is ...

3 February, 2018

beach, friendship, love, shadow, strangers

Poetry

Reading: Impossible Friendships by Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945) is another famous Polish poet. Browsing his poetry, I found this endearing list of impossible friendships, and I quote: Impossible friendships For example, with someone who no longer is, who exists only in yellowed letters. Or long walks beside a stream, whose depths hold hidden porcelain cups—and the talks about philosophy ...

17 December, 2017

Adam Zagajewski, anthology, friendship

Poetry

Coffee

After the boil you wait. Then you pour. Then you wait again. Three minutes. And then you press down. Slowly. Each morning, I serve myself a cup of coffee. I smile for my master who is so free, almost like me We both saw a full moon last night and she turned us into a ...

3 October, 2017

clouds, coffee, friendship

Poetry

On people who live on in our dreams

I dreamt that the late British American public intellectual Christopher Hitchens was walking next to me. He was bald, like in the last months of his life when he underwent chemotherapy, but appeared in excellent health and was obviously not aware of his impending death. The image was so vivid that I could see the ...

29 April, 2017

death, dreaming, friendship, Hitchens, humanism, imagination, life

Essays, The good life

Hitch

Christopher Hitchens died four years ago today. Of course, he went far too early. We need "contrarian" intellectuals like him more than ever, to put into words what we would call the enlightened position on the Issue, because there really is only one Issue left. Call it the refugee crisis, call it climate change, call ...

15 December, 2015

friendship, Hitch-22, Hitchens, James Fenton, Martin Amis, Nietzsche, Salman Rushdie

The good life

July 14.

What is friendship? This entry will take us to the height of theoretical considerations, to a summit where icy winds blow large snowflakes against our reasoning skin, where big halcyonic birds spread their giant wings to cast a mighty shadow upon our theories, where you can look to all directions without seeing anything. Who knows ...

2 August, 2009

fire, friendship

Travel