All posts tagged: Dowling

Tim Dowling: my wife is on a quest to restore my thinning hair | Life and style

Tim Dowling: my wife is on a quest to restore my thinning hair | Life and style

Published by Sam Flores

In the beginning I used not to be able to tell Kelly and Hayley – the identical twin hairdressers who came to the house appointments – apart. Eventually my wife furnished me with a handy mnemonic: Kelly cuts, Hayley highlights. From then on, I knew them by their tools. I don’t need that crutch any more: since my wife decided to go grey, we only have Kelly. She arrived at 11, and I am already in the chair, hair wet, a towel over my shoulders. Kelly is on her phone. My wife is sitting across the table from me. “That was Hayley,” Kelly says. “She says hi.” “We haven’t seen Hayley in ages,” my wife says. “So, what are we doing?” says Kelly, turning to me. “The same as always,” I say, taking off my glasses. “Making the most of what remains.” “He’s going bald, I’m afraid,” my wife says. “After a certain age you’re meant to be bald,” I say. “I’m sorry for your loss,” my wife says. I only hear snatches of the subsequent conversation above the buzz …

Tim Dowling: our campaign to become theatregoers isn’t going well… | Family

Tim Dowling: our campaign to become theatregoers isn’t going well… | Family

Published by Sam Flores

At the start of the year, my wife launched a campaign for us to go to the theatre more. It bears many of the hallmarks of my 2018 campaign for us to go to the theatre more, which failed miserably after my wife pronounced it stupid. She claims not to remember this. My wife’s campaign is hampered by her refusal to accept the kind of outlay that modern theatre-going requires. She comes into the kitchen and places her open laptop in front of me. “Uh-oh,” I say. Her laptop screen shows a schematic representation of a partially filled London theatre, with available seats highlighted. “The tickets are £50 each, which is ridiculous,” she says, “but what do you think of these seats?” “What’s wrong with them?” I say. “What do you mean?” she says. “All the seats around them are £75,” I say. “Will I be sitting behind a pillar? Are the seats facing the wrong way or something?” I say. double quotation mark We arrive early, but my wife cannot find the tickets on her phone. In the …

Tim Dowling: a curious incident with the dog in the nighttime | Life and style

Tim Dowling: a curious incident with the dog in the nighttime | Life and style

Published by Sam Flores

In the middle of the night I feel the warm breath of a creature stirring my hair. It’s too dark to see anything, but I know from experience that the dog is standing by the bed, chin resting on the mattress next to my head, gently exhaling into my face. The point is this: to wake me up without waking my wife. “What?” I whisper, even though I know what. Every night I go to bed to find the dog already there, in my place, head on my pillow. Every night I shoo the dog off, and the dog obediently retreats to its own bed, and falls asleep. That used to be the routine, until I started waking up in the dark with the dog staring at me. double quotation mark The dog manages to take up a huge amount of bed without disturbing my wife in any way, because that would be a disaster for both of us The dog wants to be allowed to climb back up on to the bed. I will relent – if not yet, then eventually – but if my …

Tim Dowling: I could look out the window all day – so why bother having curtains? | Family

Tim Dowling: I could look out the window all day – so why bother having curtains? | Family

Published by Sam Flores

I’ve never needed to be convinced of the cognitive benefits of looking out the window. I would do it all day if I thought people couldn’t see me. I’m currently staring out of our front window, arms folded, at the large puddle running along the road’s edge outside our house. It normally appears after a sustained period of rain, and disappears after a day or two. But as a dedicated observer of things happening outside this window, I can testify that the puddle has now been there for three uninterrupted months. It’s a foot deep in the middle and too wide to jump across – more moat than puddle. I’ve come to suspect that rain has nothing to do with it: the puddle is being fed by an underground source. Today’s events seem to confirm my opinion: as I watch, a man in a hi-vis vest is placing cones around the edge of the puddle. “This is a big day for you, isn’t it?” my wife says. I don’t know how long she’s been standing …

The Million Wings of May by Charles Dowling Williams

The Million Wings of May by Charles Dowling Williams

Published by José Betancourt

There is something profoundly brave about choosing the haiku form to document an entire year of living. The constraints are severe, the margin for error nonexistent. Yet Kentucky tree farmer and poet Charles Dowling Williams embraces these limitations with the confidence of someone who has spent decades listening to the land. The Million Wings of May by Charles Dowling Williams represents his fifth haiku collection, and it arrives as perhaps his most ambitious and spiritually resonant work to date. The collection opens with borrowed wisdom from Mary Oliver, whose three-line instruction serves as both epigraph and methodology: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. Williams has clearly internalized this directive. What unfolds across these pages is not merely nature poetry but a sustained act of witness, a devotional practice disguised as verse. The Architecture of Attention Williams structures his collection chronologically, beginning in May 2024 and concluding in June 2025. This calendar-year framework allows readers to experience the full rotation of seasons at West Wind Farm, the Kentucky property that serves as both home and …