At the back of the property the blackberry vines were advancing but the fruit was anemic and as I sampled it there was deer scat in the grass and fruit flies that made me feel uneasy. I went back once with a machete and cut it back but you really need goats if you want it done right, to get to the roots. And doing that would only expose the space between our house and the neighbors so having it filled with green, albeit invasive vines, was better psychologically. Those queer orange-pink sunsets were back from California’s smoke. I was getting up and walking in the morning in the dark with no phone or flashlight, just night vision. Sometimes my shadow by the street lamp super imposed on the pavement, a crude facsimile of me. I thought hard about it each time, and felt about as deep as my own shadow when I tried to extend myself outwards in words. And about as real and far-reaching…but more so when I did.

Categories: identity, Memoir, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, existentialism, journal writing, pacific northwest, prose, William Pearse writer