PAUL CHRISTENSEN

I've noticed as I grow older that my conscious mind is not so defensive about its executive authority. I feel the steady encroachment of something else making itself known, pressing for its own participation in managing my daily life. I rather like it, to tell you the truth. It's a little like having a third hand suddenly catch the lid that come's loose on a jar and putting it back on the counter. My other hands were busy just holding the jar so I could read the label, and ma

I sometimes think of myself as Jody Tiflin, the boy from John Steinbeck's story who longed to have his mare Nellie deliver a foal, the red pony, only to discover that the foal hasn't turned and Nellie must be killed in order to deliver the foal by caesarean section. That's spring here in Vermont, a foal moving its hooves and head around in the womb of a mare called winter, but not quite able to be born. We have our buds starting on the forsythia bushes; the ground is wet and