It takes a long time for the street lamps to turn off now. In the morning the only sound is the thrum of the interstate off the valley walls or the geese flying away. The interstate cuts through the land… Read More ›
The acts of being and pretending are one and the same through an artful delusion of self. That form of delusion is how people with big dreams make them a reality: by not letting reality get in the way.
On that gray November day we settled into a small town on the west coast of Scotland. Most of the leaves were down and the colors resigned to brown, the red on the roadside you’d mistake for leaves was really… Read More ›
I had to turn off my notifications and head to the hills for a few hours. I was glad for the smell of wet leaves and patchwork of brown and yellow on the ground, glad for the sweat in my… Read More ›
It is the last thing they have to hold on to, perhaps. Winston and his girlfriend have broken from the state and formed a tryst. When they are captured, they’re separated and taken into confinement for weeks, months, possibly years of interrogation and reconditioning.
There is a space between us and the ones we love and I want to understand why we allow that distance. Or talk about what gets in our way of crossing it.
I muscled my way through writing as I did with mountaineering, relying more on brute force than actual technique. In mountaineering it nearly got my killed and as a writer it kept me at the junior varsity level of blogger…. Read More ›
I walked eight miles and didn’t see another soul. Another hundred and I’d cross the Oregon border. I got to the lake, cleared a ledge of snow off by a small stand of trees and pulled out my tent, moving fast to stake it out.
We’d drive the twisted road down from France across the border and into the crowded dusty parking lot in Spain then return home with cases of wine and if they had it, the Bols oude genever.
Those petty, pernicious forms of hatred were woven into the fabric of our upbringing. Though my parents did their best to undo it we learned cruelty early on, it was in our DNA, and there was always someone to make fun of or put down to make us feel more powerful.
