Alexander Stuart

    It's vital, I think - especially as the father of two young children - to have some moments in the day of silence and stillness, time in which you can be totally "alone" and quiet and reflect on who fundamentally you are, and ask the question: what is this world - this extraordinary and beautiful though sometimes savage - cosmos that we live in? For me, that time is early morning, sometimes very early morning. I especially love the dawn, although often I wake to write much earlier, sometimes as early as 3am or 4am (I also mostly go to bed early and I only ever wake naturally; I would not be so happy getting up at 3am if it were forced on me by an alarm). In summer especially the dawn is a truly magical time, especially when it is warm enough (it usually is in Los Angeles, although this summer has been unusually cold) to sit outside by the large Buddha in our garden and meditate. I have been a Buddhist for about 20 years, ever since the death of my

     “If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you” - Winnie-the-Pooh (from Sarah Louise Wilson's Facebook page, she is really worth checking out, a beautiful soul). Pooh is the Dalai Lama is love. There is nothing that is not beautiful in the Hundred Acre Wood...I would love to live there for eternity with all my family and friends. I am trying. (My favorite edition of Pooh is A. A. Milne's The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the -Pooh , with illustrations by the incomparable E. H. Shepard . Ours is a much-loved and much-thumbed copy:)      

The Gulp, drawn by Hudson (aged six) using a trackball mouse. Our six year old son, Hudson, and I have been writing a children's book together, called Hudson's Fantastickal Club House . Most of the ideas are Hudson's - the story is inspired by his imaginary Club House in a graceful old olive tree in our garden - and we have had enormous fun writing it. We also have ambitious plans to build the Club House/tree house one day! At some point we will put it all together into a book, perhaps in this form, perhaps geared more toward illustrations. We will also publish more chapters here and probably on its own blog page. In the meantime, we thought you might enjoy the first chapter, " The Gulp. " Click here to read. We hope you enjoy...and please feel free to comment!     

   Yesterday, at the end of a day of writing, we took our children to the beach for dinner al fresco as the sun set. It was a reminder of just how beautiful the simplest things can be. Watching children enjoying the ocean is magical in itself...as is the sun dipping down over the hills and the beach. We cannot create anything as intensely moving and memorable as a single moment in the company of those we love, or the astonishing complexity and beauty of each instant on this planet...  

   It's really worth checking out the astonishing Ecosystems Experience at the LA Science Museum (actually it's called the California Science Center ) on Exposition Boulevard. There is a truly beautiful kelp tank with the shoal of fish I photographed here, as well as swell sharks, bat rays and other marine life that you would find in a kelp forest. The kelp has even started to reproduce in the tank - watch out for the tiny yellow triangles that show where baby kelp is growing. Really worth a visit. We took our young children and they loved it - as did I.