First edition as new

This collection of essays originally published in an Iowa paper reads just like some of the columns in my local small town paper, i.e. interesting look at our community on a weekly basis (including sporadic mention of local characters) but generally nothing worth remembering. My reading of this book was stretched out over a couple months. Now that I'm at the end I've completely forgotten what the first half was like. He does care about vanishing species and some vague environmentalism, so I should like his writings more than I do. I did remember to note a more introspective article "The Turning of Fifty", with ruminations of what makes a meaningful life and a quote from Tagore "The song that I came to sing remains unsung in this day...". Waller expands on this, saying you know you have found your meaning when "...you are becoming a tapestry rather than a conglomeration of tangled threads, and you are doing the weaving..."(103). Nice imagery for a fiber artist to read. He gives various thoughts on why so many people have difficulty reaching this wholeness: that first we need to develop the skills, that "the things you're good at and the things you love are not necessarily the same" (p 103), that our lives are filled with clutter which takes up our time & thwarts our impulse towards wholeness, that our social structures don't give us the tools for this,that our fear of dying inhibits us from experiencing fully. Then he goes on to wish that only those people who have found their inner wholeness/meaning should be allowed to have power, but unfortunately our society is led by "half-baked little generals with overblown egos and no more understanding of the search for meaning than some primitive, base organism spending its time feeding on the lives and feelings of others" (105) ( )

A collection of autobiographical essays that were originally published in the Des Moines Register. They are gentle and reflective. My favourites were Excavating Rachel's Room, A Canticle for Roadcat and A Matter of Honor. ( )

I liked some of these essays very much. My favorite was "Jump Shots." ( )