I love to dream. My most fantastic creations come in the hours just before dawn, after I’ve wakened and done what was needed to be done, and then fallen back into fitful slumber. This is prime time, my promised land of dreams.

But the problem with my dreams is that upon wakening, they go flitting off to the place where dreams go to die. They may leave a brief and faint footprint on the shoreline of my mind, but even these get washed away with the incoming tide of a new day. Only the mystery remains.

I’ve been so obsessed with dreams of late that for the past several days I’ve been working on a short story about a young Goan boy who invents…. No; sorry. I’m not ready to let that cat of the bag just yet; when it appears in The New Yorker, I’ll be sure to let you know. Suffice it to say that the Bard had it right when he penned “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

There is a school of thought that ponders the question, “What if dreaming is the whole point of sleep?” Now this intrigues me! Does that mean I don’t really need eight hours of beauty sleep every night? Just some aboriginal dream time? Fine by me!

Neuroscience and the inner workings of the brain are beyond my ken. I can’t keep up with my own rapid eye movements, let alone yours. I know I CAN dream. I just can’t remember my dreams the next day. You would think that someone—some purveyor of artificial intelligence—could devise a dreamcatcher, a device that would capture and record our dreams, then download them to an App on a smart phone. That way, when we awake, we could just push the play button and watch all our dreams over and over until we finally deciphered their hidden meanings. Maybe we could even email them to a therapist for analysis and interpretation. Good idea? Hmmm… Come to think of it, maybe dream ignorance is bliss. Do we really want to know what it’s all about, Alfie?

And yet, science tells us, humans, and probably animals too, are committed to dreaming. If it’s true that we indeed spend about two hours every night dreaming, and if you do the math, that works out to an entire month spent in dreamland every year, not an insignificant portion of our lives. But, if you’re like me, and all your dreams die with daylight, doesn’t all that dreaming seem like a giant waste of time? And yet it’s not. I can say this because I rarely have unpleasant dreams; weird, maybe, but not unpleasant and hardly ever a nightmare. I tend to wake up whistling.

I get the feeling that my dreams are trying to tell me something, but that they’re speaking a language I don’t understand. I WANT to understand my dreams; I TRY to remember them; it’s just that when I wake up, I’m grabbing at ghosts who are gone with the sunrise. Sigh.

Maybe I’ll have to settle for daydreams. Maybe I’ll follow in Walter Mitty’s footsteps and invent an entire secret life to live, a shadow of the one I’m living. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a lucky guy and many of my dreams have come true. It’s just that my nocturnal visions are so vivid, so whacky, so not me, that I’d like to discover some way of settling in to watch them instead of the nightly news. That’s usually a nightmare!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

His new novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon.

Just over a year ago, I decided to begin work on a sequel to my debut novel, “This Salted Soil.” In that book, I introduced readers to a young Irish journalist named Declan Shaw. Shaw was based in Tunisia (where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer more than fifty years ago!), and assigned to cover the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942, America’s bloody entry into the European theater in World War II. For more than seven months, American and British forces engaged their German and Italian adversaries in the epic battle for Tunisia. Their victory in that conflict paved the way for the invasion of Sicily and, through the painful lessons learned in the deserts and mountains of Tunisia, eventually for the Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day.

But I didn’t want Declan Shaw’s story to end in Tunisia. I wanted to explore the next chapter in his journalistic life, and so I began to write a sequel novel, one in which I sent Shaw first to Hungary to cover the siege of Budapest, and then to Palestine to cover events unfolding there. Thus was born “The Tales of Bismuth,” my personal investigation into the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Little did I know…

In the book, Shaw arrives in Palestine in the summer of 1945, during the waning days of the British Mandate.  Upon his arrival, he encounters his old Tunisian friend Bismuth, aTunisian Jew  who has recently immigrated to Palestine. With Bismuth’s help, Shaw begins to wind his way through the origins of this ancient and heart-breaking conflict. He explores Jerusalem and Palestine, travels to Petra and Amman, and in the process, he falls in love with a place and a person. His life will never be the same.

The novel ends in 1948 with the creation of the new state of Israel and the outbreak of the war Israelis call their War of Independence, and what Palestinians have come to call their “Nakba,” their catastrophe. The question lingers: how can two peoples who claim the same land ever peacefully coexist?

Last fall, within days of finishing my manuscript, Hamas fighters invaded Israel killing scores of innocent civilians and taking more than 300 people hostage. In response, Israel launched a massive invasion of Gaza, an act which has almost destroyed the infrastructure of that territory and resulted in more than 30,000 civilian deaths. And the battle rages on…

Not only does that battle rage on, but it inches the region closer and closer to a wider, deadlier conflict. The recent exchange between Israel and Iran only serves to underscore the potential for a new conflict that threatens to engulf the region and beyond. Armageddon—the “end of days”—is a biblical concept, but today it seems as real and as present as ever.

At one point in my novel, Declan Shaw, in one of his dispatches, writes that should we fail to understand what (was) happening in Palestine in the months leading up to May, 1948, we would do so at our own peril.  Back when Declan “wrote” that dispatch, little did he know how prescient his words would become.

“The Tales of Bismuth” is both timely and readable history. It is twice-dedicated: first, to all the innocent victims of this ancient and excruciating conflict, and second, to the next generation of peacemakers, whoever and wherever you are.

“The Tales of Bismuth” is available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions on Amazon.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” and a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” are available on Amazon. His new novel, “The Tales of Bismuth,” has just been released.

 

Maybe it’s due to the fragility of our aging infrastructure made apparent by the tragic demise of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, or maybe it’s just some misplaced molecule wandering through my brain that is reminding me to learn more about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but whatever the reason, I’ve woken the last few mornings thinking about the Colossus of Rhodes. Which, of course, leads me to consider Salvador Dali’s surreal depiction of that ancient monument, which in turn, steers me in the direction of Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus,” which, as we all know, is inscribed upon the Statue of Liberty… I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to burden you with the strange meanderings of my own ancient grey matter. Welcome to my world.

I think what’s really going on up there in my brain is that I’m still trying to come to terms with my own bifurcated relationship with the Eastern and Western Shores of the Chesapeake Bay. For more than twelve years now, we (Herself and I) have used the the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, née the William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bridge, as our own personal colossus, the monumental structure that connects us to our lives on both sides of the bay. I readily admit that there is nothing remotely colossal about our lives here and there, except perhaps that which binds us to two places at the same time. On the western side of the bay, there are children and grandchildren, a colossal group of friends, houses to sell (her), and students to counsel (me). Over here on the Eastern Shore, there is another colossal group of friends, an historic home with a welcoming front porch to maintain, and a lifestyle that soothes our separate souls. Neither is more important than the other; I’m beginning to believe that they can peacefully coexist.

That said, we drive across the Bay Bridge and deal with the Washington Beltway at our own peril. We time our journeys to avoid traffic jams as best we can. We drive carefully; while crossing the bridge, I keep my focus on the lanes ahead while she counts the giant container ships at anchor out in the bay because one of the grandkids always needs to know that number. (Why? Because.) On the Beltway, we each hold our breath amid the big rigs and speeding cars which seem, to me at least, to go a lot faster than they used to before NASCAR wormed its way into our collective consciousness. Sigh; yet another apparent reason why I should stay in the curmudgeon lane while I’m driving.

But back to the island of Rhodes and its Colossus : construction of the wondrous monument began in 292 B.C.E. It stood more than one-hundred feet high (approximately the same height as the Statue of Liberty) near the entrance to Rhodes’ harbor. Dedicated to Helios, Greek god of the sun, it was constructed to celebrate the successful defense of the city from an invading Macedonian army. However, remarkable as it was, the giant statue didn’t last long. The Colossus collapsed during an earthquake in 226 B.C.E., and although parts of it were preserved, it was never rebuilt because the Oracle of Delphi advised against it. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but then Oracles know things the rest of us do not.

Anyway, colossi may rise and fall, bridges may collapse, but life goes on. Kudos to those working to repair and rebuild the Francis Scott key Bridge, and to those who keep the lanes open and moving on that other colossus, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. You make it possible for us to live our best lives on both shores of the bay.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” and a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” are available on Amazon. His new novel, “The Tales of Bismuth,” is coming soon…

Despite T.S. Eliot’s bleak assessment of this new month, now that we’ve entered the territory of April, maybe the tide will change. I sure hope so. So far, this spring has been stuck in low gear: there have been a string of cold, gray, damp days, and if the sun did indeed dare to shine, it wasn’t warm enough to do any serious basking. But, as with all things, this, too, will change and before we know it, we’ll be sitting on the porch wishing we had one of those big rotating ceiling fans to cool the sweat on our brow. Nature doesn’t know stasis; she plays a coy hand.

Let’s face facts: spring is a fickle friend. Remember Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time?”

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

I couldn’t say it any better myself, nor would I dare to try.

And yet, for all its fickle foolishness, I like April. My wife’s birthday is in April. So is her daughter’s. Baseball emerges from its winter den in April, while down in Georgia, the azaleas behind the twelfth green at Augusta National Golf Club are in full bloom, framing The Masters in its annual vernal glory.

And this year, there is a solar eclipse scheduled for April 8, during which a thin strip of land from red Texas to blue Maine will suddenly be plunged into almost total darkness for several minutes causing a few million people to get a crick in their neck. Don’t forget to wear your sunglasses!

A week after the eclipse, we’ll pay our taxes. That’s another dark day in our household, but I know that, just like the sun, we’ll reemerge from the moon’s shadow, thankful for the many benefits we derive from all those tax dollars flowing seamlessly into the efficient coffers of the Internal Revenue Service. Or so I tell myself.

And then there are all those April showers headed our way; you know the ones I mean, the ones that promise May flowers. Eternal optimist that I am, I look on all forms of April precipitation in the same way I look at my tax obligations: they are a necessary evil to endure if we are to eventually get to the other side of spring and on into summer. Or so I tell myself.

A friend of mine who is a faithful reader of these weekly Musings recently told me he has discerned a “streak of melancholy” in my writing of late. My first reaction was to deny, deny, deny, but maybe he’s right. There is a lot to unpack in the months of March and April, and it may well be that I have indeed succumbed to a touch of seasonal affect disorder. But all things being equal, maybe it’s finally time to put away my snow shovel and the fire pit, reattach the garden hose, do a little spring spruce up, and get back to sitting on the front porch where I can watch April deliver on its promise of better days to come. Or so I tell myself.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” and a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” are available on Amazon, as are two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”). Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.

 

In heady anticipation of Ewan McGregor’s upcoming streaming adaptation, I am reading “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles for the second time. But now, instead of gulping it down like a glass of my favorite rosé wine, I’m savoring it sip-by-sip, marveling at Mr. Towles’ unerringly delightful descriptions of the life and times of Count Alexander Rostov, an erudite aristocrat who thankfully managed to avoid all the firing squads of the Russian Revolution. Instead, in Towles’ novel, the Count is serving a life sentence in Moscow’s fabled Metropol Hotel, and oh what a life he leads there! 

This second reading is such a guilty pleasure: each time I turn the page, or encounter a marvelous metaphor, or stumble upon a sentence—even a word—that is so utterly perfect, I am compelled to set the book down and ask myself, “How the hell did Amor Towles do that?” And then, almost as soon as I pick the book up and begin to read, it’s not long before the same thing happens all over again. 

When I first started writing seriously ten years ago, I was beset with moments of mortification because I was prone to comparing myself to other writers. Thank God I gave that up! In any worthwhile endeavor, there is nothing—absolutely nothing!—to be gained by entertaining bouts of self-doubt. We are who we are, and if the cream doesn’t rise to the top, so be it. Now, I have my own writing credo. It paraphrases the oath recited by all Special Olympics athletes before going into competition: “Let me write well, but if I cannot write well, let me be brave in the attempt.”

And so, more than eight years ago, I began writing these weekly Musings for The Spy. During the pandemic, I wrote my first novel, “This Salted Soil.” With the help of an artist friend who also happens to be a charming illustrator, last year, we produced a children’s book and song, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay.” Now, my second novel, “The Tales of Bismuth,” stands on the brink of publication. Like a tiny meandering stream that starts as snow melt high in the mountains before eventually joining the sea as a broad river, I’ve learned to take my writing life as it comes, drop by drop, bend by bend, mile by mile, tide by tide. Believe me: it’s better that way. Comparisons and self-doubt are rocks that lie in shallow water.

But back to Count Rostov and his forced confinement to a few spare rooms on the topmost floor of the Metropol Hotel. I think that kind of banishment wouldn’t be such a bad life sentence. Oh sure, Count Rostov’s new residence is a steep fall from his aristocratic heights, but what a graceful descent he makes! He never once rues his politically-motivated situation; in fact, one could even argue that in light of all the political and cultural fervor swirling outside the Metropol’s polished glass doors, the Count is far better off than he ever was in the immediate aftermath of the glorious revolution. He doesn’t just make the best of his new situation, he embraces it, turning the all those soggy boiled potatoes handed down to him by a kangaroo court into the finest Russian vodka.

If you have already read “A Gentleman in Moscow,” then you understand what I’m talking about. If you haven’t read it yet, run to the bookstore nearest you or to your local library and get a copy. Turn off all your expectations and give yourself over to the simple pleasure of reading a well-told tale that will both entertain and educate you. And, if I may, don’t do what I did the first time: don’t read it cover-to-cover, rushing to get to the finish line. Instead, do what I’m doing now: read it slowly. Relish it. Let it trickle down your throat like a velvety dram of aged brandy from one of Count Rostov’s crystal snifters, tasting all the earthy ingredients and the love that have been distilled into such a worthy concoction. 

Bravo, Mr. Towles! As Count Rostov might exclaim, “Za Zdorovie!” To your good health!

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” and a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” are available on Amazon, as are two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”). Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.

 

Sixteen years ago, Cortona, Italy…. On a cool but unmistakably spring morning, I rose early and wandered up one of the many hills in town. I sat on an old stone wall beside the locked door of the convent, closed my eyes, and turned my face toward the rising sun. Coming from inside, I could faintly hear the cloistered sisters singing—no, chanting—their first devotions of the day. All else was still. I remember there was a tabby cat on another nearby wall who seemed to hear the music, too. The nuns’ voices seemed to come from far away, maybe almost from heaven.

Funny how memories come sneaking back across the years. Don’t ask me why this particular one came back to me today; maybe it was something in the slant of the morning sunlight, or perhaps it was the bunny rabbit I saw in the shadows just before I went to sleep last night. He was standing stone still in front of the house, just watching me as I turned out the lights before heading upstairs to bed. Whatever it was, when I woke up this morning, it all came flooding back. I could hear those distant voices all over again, faint but clear, just as I did on that other spring morning so many years ago.

And I thought about all the other distant voices in my life: my parents, talking to each other from opposite ends of the dining room table. My two sisters, both now gone: one encouraging me, the other berating me for being such a brat. My own two children, both now living far away and largely silent. Some old friends, either estranged or just out of touch. Former teachers and coaches and colleagues. Even the old muezzin in the little village I lived in when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, the one who removed his false teeth before calling the faithful to prayer five times a day.

But, please, I’m not asking for your pity. Believe me, I still hear plenty of nearby voices: from my vibrant and chatty wife; from our boisterous grandchildren; from all the friends who still surround and support me: their laughter, their secrets, their stories. Trust me: I lack for nothing now, but I do remember the days when I was sorting this all out, trying to make some sense out of life’s hubbub. Trying to find a moment of calm silence in the eye of the hurricane. Straining to hear what I needed to hear, and filtering out all the extraneous voices.

But back to that spring morning In Italy, and those sweet voices that seemed to seep through the rude, stone walls of the convent. I’d like to hear them again. To feel the rising sun warm my face; to make friends with that cat; to walk back down the hill, and sit in the piazza with a coffee and a croissant, watching the village begin another busy day in an endless string of busy days that never seemed to change anything very much. The buzz and hum of life, rising and falling like the tide on my life’s shore. 

All those distant voices.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” and a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” are available on Amazon, as are two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”). Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.

 

Yet another dank and dreary pre-spring day, the kind of weather my Scottish forebearers would refer to as dreich. I have to go out. I reach into the depths of the hall closet searching for some  measure of protection against the rain and wind buffeting the windowpanes. My hand gropes in the darkness and finally settles on my worn, loden Barbour jacket. Other coats have been pressed into service this winter, but somehow this trusty outerwear has gone unnoticed. Until today. I pull it out and slip it on. Somehow it knows it has been recalled into action, and like a sled-pulling husky, it can’t wait to do its duty. Just before I step out into the elements, I slip my hand into one of the coat’s several pockets and my fingers close on two small stones that have been wintering deep in the waterproof cloth. Two? There used to be three. Three talismans. What has happened to the third?

The stones come from Scotland. One—a white, heart-shaped pebble—comes from the shores of Loch Lomond, hard by the wee village of Luss, the seat of our ancestral clan. Another, a smooth and faded green stone comes from the Castle Sands in St. Andrews where I lived for a few months while on sabbatical. The third—the missing one—came from a cold, clear stream called Luss Water that flows down from the hills above the village of Luss before emptying into the cold, deep water of Loch Lomond. Once I thought I would ask a friend to deposit my ashes in that stream so that I could be carried out into eternal repose in the depths of that loch, but now I’m not so sure about that. I like where I am these days, so maybe I’ll just stay here.

For many years now, these three small stones were the talismans that kept me connected to a land I love. I kept these talismans buried deep in my jacket pocket, tumbling them between my fingers like prayer beads, feeling their smoothness, remembering their provenance. They soothed me like a lullaby. Now, I have found them for a second time, and their power is as strong as ever. But today there’s a cloud hanging over them. Two stones have been waiting patiently for me, but the third one—the one from Luss Water—has gone missing. Stones don’t just jump from deep pockets, so how did number three become separated from numbers one and two?

A talisman is nothing more than a common object—often a ring or a stone—that is thought to have magic powers and to bring good luck. Feeling my three small stones always centered me. Just knowing they resided in the pocket of my old Barbour gave me a pacific sense of connection. Even on the hottest day of the summer, I knew those cool stones lay there, waiting to be called forth into action as soon as the weather changed. But now one is mysteriously gone, and I’m left to ponder if a third of my mojo has also gone missing. That would explain a lot.

On that morning, I had donned my old jacket at our home over on the Western Shore. I wore it coming over the Bay Bridge. There were several big cargo ships out in the bay waiting for berths in Baltimore. The rain was abating, but the day was as blustery and dreich as ever. 

Back in our cozy home in Chestertown, I shed my jacket and carried our suitcases upstairs. I was happy to be back on the Eastern Shore. As I turned to go back downstairs, my eye fell on a glass dish that lives on our dresser. My wife uses it for her jewelry. It’s there every day, but I don’t pay it much mind. But today I did. Because there, amid my wife’s rings and necklaces and knickknacks was the third small stone, the one pulled from the icy stream flowing into Loch Lomond. 

I cannot explain how it became separated from the others, nor why it escaped my notice these many months, nor when it came to rest on this side of the bay when both its mates were closeted on the other side. But it’s back home now, and so am I.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” and two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”), are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.

 

Sometimes, it’s all-too-easy to overlook the obvious. In the photograph that accompanies this Musing, maybe you glanced at it and saw a work boat, some bare winter trees, fleecy white clouds, and even the wind moving across the water in Turner’s Creek. But now look closer. Do you see the eagle soaring high above the scene? I’d like to tell you that I knew he/she was smack-dab in the center of my composition, but the truth is I didn’t. It was only when I was reviewing my photos at the end of the day that I saw what I had missed in the moment. It was just a lucky shot!

And now I’m wondering what else have I missed seeing along the way. I move through my days glancing, but not always seeing. Seeing takes time, patience, and a willingness to look deeply into the world around me. Am I always successful? Of course not, but in those few rare moments when I do spot the eagle, the juice is always worth the squeeze.

Seeing the unseen is hardly a new concept. It’s biblical; it crosses the territories of many faiths and philosophies. Artists, poets, writers, and thinkers are always striving to reveal the unseen through their creative work. Some even succeed, but by definition, they hunt an elusive prey. Face it: most of us are just too darn busy to make the effort or take the time to part the curtain, look into the beyond, and see the unseen. 

It took a blind woman, Helen Keller, to help me begin to understand the challenge of seeing the unseen. “It gives me a deep comforting sense,” she once wrote, “that things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.” Plato used fewer words, but landed on the same spot: “The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging.” In other words, we use our eyes to see what is visible, but it’s our heart—our faith—that sees the unseen.

But let’s not get carried away with the epistemology or all the philosophical intricacies of seeing the unseen. Remember: this all started when I unexpectedly found an eagle soaring through my photograph, an uninvited wedding guest who went on to become the life of the party. And that’s more than sufficient to make me a believer in seeing the unseen.

That day at Turner’s Creek when I was looking through the viewfinder of my camera, I must not have been seeing the world very well. After all, a voracious raptor was right there in front of me and I missed it completely. When I did finally see it, I thought it must have been a speck of dust on my camera’s lens. Imagine my surprise when I looked closely enough to discern it wasn’t a speck of dust; it was an eagle! 

A couple of paragraphs ago, I cut off Helen Keller before she had finished. She went on write this: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” 

Leave it to a blind woman,,,

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His debut novel, “This Salted Soil,” a delightful children’s book, “The Ballad of Poochie McVay,” and two collections of essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”), are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is Musingjamie.net.