A few years ago I did a 30-day challenge to write 50K words, inspired by an outing to the Washington coast and in part, the singer Chris Cornell’s tragic death. Cornell sang for the band Soundgarden, one of the primary Seattle grunge bands, and his death probably affected people in the Seattle area differently than elsewhere. People joked, now with Kurt and Chris gone we need to wrap Eddie (Vedder) in bubble wrap.

I’m on the coast now at that same place but wanted to share one of those posts while I’m out and picked this one, featuring my mom’s partner Eberhard whom some of you know. It’s the story about why he goes back to a small Austrian village in the Alps every August, to honor the friend who introduced him to that place.

Here’s an excerpt:

Eberhard and I made a routine of hanging outside by the farmhouse around dusk each night smoking cigarettes, drinking beer. It was early August, some Catholic holiday. It was a big deal in this part of Austria, all the stores had signs saying they’d be closed. Eberhard told me the name of the place but I never could remember it, had to write it down. He said Hemingway had been there; Eberhard’s friends owned a place in the same village they rented out. We could get a room for me and Lily, and Eberhard and my mom would stay in the other.

Here’s the full post, and thanks for reading.

Categories: Memoir, travel, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, Memoir