I can never forget: the ever abiding, ever shifting sea – the most timeless of us all.
Alexandra de Steiguer, Facebook post, November 8, 2026
Alexandra de Steiguer is the winter caretaker and a photographer of the Isles of the Shoals off the costs of Maine and New Hampshire. She is the author of a book about the Isles that contains her photographs and her wintertime thoughts/impressions.
Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen
white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the
great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
Another writer comes to mind: Anaïs Nin. Totally self absorbed. There is nothing to be taken from her diaries or fiction.
Yes, Moby-Dick is semi autobiographical. I suppose Huckleberry Finn is too.
Think also: Thomas Wolfe.
Beginning writers are told to write about themselves. To draw upon their own experience.
Let’s take Anaïs Nin for the moment. Her works are all about herself and her love affairs. I believe that this is true of her fiction as well,
How about Henry Miller, Nin’s companion and admirer?
Walt Whitman?
Miller’s works are all about him and his adventures. Yet somehow he gets outside of himself. And the people he encounters are not just reflections of him.
As did Walt Whitman.
The persona (Whitman himself) is omnipresent in Leaves of Grass.
So we encounter Whitman and conclude, take away from it, that he had an interesting life and interesting experiences in nineteenth century America? And nothing more?
Thinking more about this, what I am trying to say is that irrespective of the fact that a lot of writing tends to be autobiographical, at least partially, if not straightforwardly, so. But that does not mean it has to be self absorbed, as I find Joan Didion’s writing to be.
Regarding “Goodbye to All That,” the reading of which was the original impetus for this post, I expected to learn something about what New York was like in the early and mid 60s; and found that any such content or description was completely absent.
I often bring my personal experiences into a piece when they show how some incident, experience, or person came into play and illuminate, illustrate what I am trying to convey.
A writer who often does this — skillfully, in my opinion — is the New York Times ‘s Maureen Dowd.
Consider George Orwell’s essay ” Such, Such Were The Joys” about the horrors of British boarding schools. It is based totally on Orwell’s experience, yet it goes much further in its implications and effect on the reader.
“U.S. to Send Dozens Back to Afghanistan, Despite Risk of Persecution”
The Trump administration plans to fly the Afghan immigrants from Louisiana to Pakistan, where they are expected to be expelled over the border to Afghanistan.
By Pranav Baskar, Hamed Aleaziz, and Elian Peltier
These were the words of former FBI agent Michael Feinberg, in a segment of MS NOW’s Dateline White House on October 27.
The program featured an interview with the parents of Alex Pretti, who was murdered by ICE on January 24, 2026.
Feinberg criticized ICE’s response, noting a statement by secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem that Pretti had committed an act of “domestic terrorism.”
And noted that, during his time with the FBI, notorious criminals were arrested, who deserved their punishment. But (as Feinberg noted), “we also recognized their baseline humanity.”
In other words, did not exercise, inflict, gratuitous cruelty.
They could have come from Matthew 7:12, updated in terms of the parlance of present day officialdom.
They express pointedly something deliberately ignored by practitioners of state sanctioned cruelty.
Which, of course, is everywhere you look.
Which delights the MAGA crowed and is (or was) A — if not THE — guiding principle of acolytes like Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Markwayne Mullin, Pete Hesgeth, Kristin Noem, and Pam Bondi. Donald Trump.
“Don’t Write Off Cursive; Teaching kids how to write in script is no longer a priority in American schools, but it should be.” By Bobby George, June George, and Quartz. The Atlantic, October 1, 2013
I remember — and so does my wife — the Palmer Method of penmanship as it was applied, mostly, if I recall correctly, in the second and third grades. The letters hanging on the wall, circling the classroom, each like a sign.
The letter I proudly wrote to my third grade teacher upon her retirement in 1954.
And the following, for example:
Mrs. Dorothy Handy (my mother’s great-grandmother) to her son Henry Handy, when the latter was at sea: December 1875
Как ни старались люди, собравшись в одно небольшое место несколько сот тысяч, изуродовать ту землю, на которой они жались, как ни забивали камнями землю, чтобы ничего не росло на ней, как ни счищали всякую пробивающуюся травку, как ни дымили каменным углем и нефтью, как ни обрезывали деревья и ни выгоняли всех животных и птиц, — весна была весною даже и в городе. Солнце грело, трава, оживая, росла и зеленела везде, где только не соскребли ее, не только на газонах бульваров, но и между плитами камней, и березы, тополи, черемуха распускали свои клейкие и пахучие листья, липы надували лопавшиеся почки; галки, воробьи и голуби по-весеннему радостно готовили уже гнезда, и мухи жужжали у стен, пригретые солнцем. Веселы были и растения, и птицы, и насекомые, и дети. Но люди — большие, взрослые люди — не переставали обманывать и мучать себя и друг друга. Люди считали, что священно и важно не это весеннее утро, не эта красота мира божия, данная для блага всех существ, — красота, располагающая к миру, согласию и любви, а священно и важно то, что они сами выдумали, чтобы властвовать друг над другом.
ЛЕВ НИКОЛАЕВИЧ ТОЛСТОЙ, воскрешение (1899), Часть первая, глава первая
Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town. The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did not get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the paving-stones as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards. The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons, filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready; the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine. All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration not the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving one another.
— Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection (1899), Part One, Chapter One; translated by Louise Maude
