What the Year of Walking Taught Me
The year of walking is over and the tally is this: a hundred and forty walks, most of them the same valley, a good third of them in weather I would not have called weather at all.
The Second Reading Is a Different Book
A second reading is not the same book. The sentences are the same and the page is the same, but the thing you have in your hands has changed, and the change is in you.
Losing a Game on Time
I am bad at resigning. For years I would carry a lost position for another twenty moves, against a patient opponent who had already won, purely because the words would not come out.
Walking in Rain That Does Not Quite Arrive
The forecast said rain from two o'clock and I went out at one, because the rain did not arrive for three hours and I wanted to be in the valley when it did.
Books I Read for Company
There is a reason to read a book that has nothing to do with learning anything, and I have stopped pretending that it does not.
The Blunder I Could See Coming
I lost a game in July to a move I had seen coming for about four minutes and could not stop seeing, because I had already decided what I wanted.
A Notebook of Small Observations
For about six months I have carried a notebook on walks. Nothing elaborate: a soft-covered exercise book, a pencil, and the small discomfort of an extra thing in your coat.
Endgames Are a Different Sport
The endgame is a different sport. Not a different phase of the same sport, a different sport, with different rules, that happens to use the same board.
On Rereading
I reread a book every year now, and the book I have picked this year is one I loved at seventeen and would not have looked at twice since.
The Hill at the End of the Valley
There is a hill at the end of the valley I walk to. Forty minutes from my door along the river, then twenty minutes up. It is not a serious hill. It does not reward you with a view you can…
Chess Without a Clock
There are two games I play and they are not the same game, although the pieces are identical and the board is the same size.
Reading Someone Else's Letters
I read a volume of collected letters this spring, the letters of one person to another across about thirty years, and it changed the way I think about time on the page.
The Opening I Keep Losing To
Every player has an opening they lose to. Mine is the Sicilian, and I have been losing to it in roughly the same way for six years, which is a fairly useless sentence but an honest one.
A Long Walk with No Destination
For years I walked the same loop every evening: out past the allotments, along the canal, in through the gate with the broken latch, and home by the row of sycamores. It was a good walk and…