About

The first time I saw the Milky Way, I sank into nothingness before its expanse. The Great Mind yawned from the stars, and I wondered: Why should anything matter? Do I matter?

But that is the point of life, is it not? To find out what matters in the grand scheme of things . . . and then to find out, specifically, what matters to us.

But it is not from space that I must seek my dignity. I should have no more if I possessed whole worlds. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me as an atom . . .  by thought I comprehend the world. ~Pascal, Pensées (1669)

Writing is my passion and I never lack for material. My background is in languages, history, journalism, and museums, but especially the never ending story of what it means to be a human being.

I am a scavenger of the “long ago and far away,” a lover of old art, letters, and books that other people have long since discarded — the more mysterious the better. Those are my private “pearls,” and God help the soul who ever steals my incomplete 1906 Americana set.

A believer in the role of beauty in culture, I am also a semi-minimalist who thinks that industrialization should have stopped in 1910. (Believe me, if I could go back and make it happen, I would.) And, like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, I love to walk — even in the rain (but not the mud).

I hope you enjoy the material in this site. It took ten years to get it up and running — probably because I hate making public appearances and getting my picture taken. But for you, I did it.

Best to all,

Kathryn Sommer