Author Archives
Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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Field notes from the Pacific coast | The influence of the tides on the streams
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with… Read More ›
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“Birth Ritual” | Field notes from the Pacific coast
When Chris Cornell died it was the same as with Johnny Cash. I woke to my 6 AM radio program and they were playing a Soundgarden song, then a second one (which was strange), and by the third one I… Read More ›
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Field notes from the Pacific Coast | up Ulrich’s Couloir, Stuart
I was probably the only student in class who fell that day, and the instructors pretended not to notice, either to save me the embarrassment or because they were embarrassed themselves. How do you fall on a belay? I couldn’t… Read More ›
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Field notes from the Pacific Coast (day 3 of 40)
I cleaned out the refrigerator, what I didn’t think Dawn or the kids would eat while I was gone, put it in a cooler with a freezer pack while I was at work then got it out once I came… Read More ›
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Field notes from the Pacific Coast | 101 to Aberdeen
This is a series of posts from three days out on my favorite stretch of the Pacific Coast. The posts don’t need to be read in order and serve as a memoir experiment with side-stories from related trips and themes… Read More ›
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Entering Elma | field notes from the Pacific Coast
May 28, SAMMAMISH By the time I got to Kalaloch they’d stopped serving breakfast and were turning things over for lunch, but not in a rush for anyone. We were backing up in the lobby and I was second, a… Read More ›
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Love songs, prose, for the Pacific coast
How the clouds hung on the horizon off the water and made two lines, I thought they were grinding their teeth. All the mountains ground down from the pressure of the sky pushing on them and the earth, where they… Read More ›
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‘One more time around’
Now there’s a new sound in the back yard, the sound from the cottonwood leaves when the wind comes in from the west, and all those tiny hands clap, and remind me of the tide coming in or going out,… Read More ›
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Jupiter’s Beard in B minor
I wound back up Cougar Mountain, the A7, the seam air shaft to primrose mine—and there at the end was a pit, a deep hole in the ground with a large rock bearded in moss, dripping, making cave sounds. And… Read More ›
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“Superunknown” | eulogy for Chris Cornell
Before this car I owned just two: an ’84 Thunderbird and a Toyota Celica I got for $500 and abandoned in Philadelphia. The Thunderbird was a gift for college graduation but I wasn’t responsible enough for a car and I… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 