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Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

  • Bookends

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    It’s fitting this should end with a hangover, on my last day before I go back to work. The cell phone went off a record five times this morning: – Ramin, wanting to meet at the Museum of Flight –… Read More ›

  • The Last Week

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    I spent Monday morning in the bath with William Basinski and a battery-powered candle I got at Costco. The candle came in a box that said “THE BEAUTY OF CANDLELIGHT WITHOUT THE RISK OF FIRE.” When I started this sabbatical… Read More ›

  • Exterminator

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    It’s a kind of loss of innocence when you first have to deal with rats. We discovered them in our home two years ago: they were coming from the basement through the floor, behind the refrigerator, into the nursery. We… Read More ›

  • Dark

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    The wind is coming in from the south today, and sounds like the ocean when it’s going out. Pine needles are everywhere. This is the time of year marked by a moodiness in the northwest, when we all comment about… Read More ›

  • You Don’t Have To Go Away To Go Somewhere

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    That’s easy to say after four months off. We’ve been given the gift of zen and insight now, without the distraction of work. The mind requires a certain about of stress though, and fabricates its own if you don’t feed… Read More ›

  • White Space

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    I got my foot stuck on the baby gate earlier this week and went down on my side, yielding a bruise the size of a small country. It is hard being empathetic: while it gives you the appearance of emotional… Read More ›

  • Is God An Apple?

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    I saw a ladder leaned against an apple tree today, and was reminded of a paper I wrote in high school on Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking.” It was back in the day when we were required to hand-write… Read More ›

  • Famous Last Words

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    My mom’s older brother Dave had a dream the night before my grandfather died. In the dream his sister, who had died from a heartattack, was in a car trying to warn Dave about something. Dave contacted the family the… Read More ›

  • The Old Barn

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    Now that we are leaving in a week, we have a list of things to do. We’ve been away from work so long, it’s hard to get anything done as our brains have just about dried up. There are a… Read More ›

  • The Rattling Fan

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    We got back from Ireland this week, and my mom was tweaking about her refrigerator, which rattles when the door is shut. You have to keep the door ajar to stop the rattling, but that lets out the cool air,… Read More ›