Honeysuckles

At the end of my driveway grows a sprawling honeysuckle bush that now, at the vanguard of summer, flowers with its beautiful yellow and white blossoms whose soft, sweet scent wafts through the air at dusk and makes one stop for a moment and breathe in what feels like the essence of the season. The honeysuckles seem to glow in the fading light, and I experience a sensation of time having flown backwards.

At Least One Benefit

Months go by between entries, and I don't even feel the time passing. I mark the days only by the inches that my long, white beard grows. I thought today of how one of the characteristics of our foray into adulthood is the dropping away of the little social fears that almost every adolescent has, the worries about offending or being disliked. Without this diffidence, I feel one can judge decisions in life more clearly, and act properly, fairly when faced with a circumstance that in earlier years one would have backed down from because of perceived pressure---in retrospect, it is astounding, the cruelty and cowardice of which children are capable.

I'm so sleepy I can't even tell if I've written my sentences correctly; so to all a good night.