The One Outstanding

. . . the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something,and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion,—all in one.
John Ruskin, “Of Modern Landscape,” Modern Painters III, 4.16 (91)

Restated, one individual among hundreds has the ability to think.
Among thousands of thinkers will be one with the ability to see.
The one left standing who is capable of seeing clearly and expressing it in a plain way delivers the product we recognize as art.

Buried somewhere amid thousands of perfume launches lies one uniquely worthy gem of a fragrance. And it won't necessarily be carried in any chain or department stores.


Shelley Waddington
Carmel, California

Well Kept Secrets

October - the glorious month when Carmel breaks free from the immovable summer pileup of fog and tourist visitors. Residents stoll the sunny, breezy beach accompanied by doggie companions. Long-faced students gaze from classroom windows, vaguely sensing the unfairness of their recent darkly chilled summer vacations.

Yesterday, descending the stone steps at the Thirteenth Street beach, I observed a gray haired man in a woolen blazer, pipe in mouth, tossing a tennis ball for his exuberant black lab as they progressed liesurely along the surf line. Glancing up at tree-lined Scenic Drive, I tried to envision what that once houseless, treeless grassy field along the sand would be like today had Robinson Jeffers not planted his hundreds of cypress seedlings so many years ago. To the visitor it must appear that once upon a time the forest naturally grew to the edge of the sea. And that most of the houses that appear old really are.

Shelley Waddington
October 8, 2008