If Jonathan Livingston Seagull hadn’t been a bird, he would have been a Stearman 70 — Normally, there would not be much to report. That said, I happen to think a visit from God is worth a mention. Look, I’m sure it happens all the time to those who bow their heads and pray, standing in pews before a minister. …

I’d returned to Missouri full of purpose and conviction, convinced the new novel would be successful. — Before I left for San Francisco, I had worked on the foundation and completed the story framework. I figure another three months will be sufficient to complete the first draft. Three months later. Okay, I haven’t progressed beyond the first chapter. I can’t even make the excuse of having writer’s…

There’s not much to know. I’ve been fortunate. Now I write. — I started life in an orphanage. Actually, not strictly true, I started life being hidden beneath a shrub on a roundabout in Gants Hill, Essex. I was found by a young couple leaving the Odeon cinema (since demolished) having spent their evening watching a Spencer Tracy movie, Edward, My Son. …

If we cannot see, taste, or touch love, where does the feeling love end? — The black telephone rings four times before Catherine answers. ‘Please be him,’ she hears herself thinking. “Please…please be him,” she says aloud, closing her eyes and holding the receiver to her ear with both hands. “Honey, are you there?” She asks. “Yes, darling. I can just hear you,” the man’s…

A man stands in a room — it’s raining, the wind is howling, and a figure stands alone on the shore of Lock na Keal — I’m in his room. It’s afternoon, but the space is submerged in darkness. Outside, the rain is falling so heavily the roof groans and sighs. It’s that windy rain, filling with the sound of a woman hoarsely whispering. The bed is unmade, its faded white nylon bedsheets crumpled in whorls…

We all have dreams, some frightening, some spectacular, all end upon wakening… or do they? — I thought once I’d mastered it in some way, given it musical justice so it wouldn’t haunt me the way it does. Haunt — a strange word for something that came to a sleeping mind, filling it with incredible beauty. …

I wasn’t aware I would meet my tutor, the seventh I’d had in my lifetime, but the first in sixty years. — I got off the bus at the wrong stop, not knowing St. Louis at all well. The only good thing to know about the city is understanding those areas to stay away from. It had started to rain, and typically I’m without a coat, having been told to take one…

How do you get seventy-three years into life and never learned to dance? Not that I have led a boring life or anything…but! — I just had yet to learn to dance. Oh sure, I can take Jenny to the dance floor, mingle, sway a little, and feel the joy of having her in my arms, but learn to dance? Never. So I thought. The first lesson felt weird, as it would for anyone…