Some times you are in a place so lovely that it defies description. That was the Waimea Canyon in Kaua’i in July.

But isn’t this judgment subjective? Someone else might not find this view sublime because it contains no human figure to provide perspective. Or that because there is nothing in the foreground to catch the eye, the seer just wanders into the landscape and is lost?

Or is that the point of a view like this — to become lost from others and self?

Lately I have been thinking a great deal about my place in this world and this life since I am leaving one position and moving to another one and since two of the three children are leaving home for college. How shall I feel and fill the hours?

Once I wrote a dissertation. It took all my powers of concentration and thought to compose sentence after sentence and have it all make sense. I have not done any real writing since then — and means not counting letters, comments, short reflections. My mind feels atrophied and yet the barrier to begin writing is so high since writing is painful and painstaking.

I have one friend who manages to write poetry while being a husband, dad, and full-time teacher. He churns out poem after poem of austere allusive erudition and wit. How does he manage?

Because he makes it a priority. It is just that simple.