We spent the aftermath of Christmas on Whidbey island, a town called Langley, so idyllic they still have phone booths with free local calls, wild bunnies, signs in the shop windows promoting inclusion, views of the water, a bell to… Read More ›
identity
It could nearly be like a picture print by Currier and Ives
I went back to a small box of memories from 1986, a cassette I bought and the Sony Walkman I played it on wearing a second-hand coat and buying my first pack of cigarettes, walking the hillsides and small neighborhoods… Read More ›
The corrections
No matter how much I worried I was growing apart from my kids (or vice versa), there was still time. I picked Charlotte up after work and asked where she wanted to go for dinner. We drove to Issaquah and… Read More ›
The same deep water as you
We went back to the old elementary school, Charlotte’s last year, for the annual Halloween bash. Dawn and I stood in the playground feeling tired and out of sorts, trying to make out the identities of kids running by as… Read More ›
‘Cuts you up’
Lily (who now goes by Lee) and I drove to the Teanaway river valley on the east side of the Cascades, stopping at a Safeway in the small town of Cle Elum for junk food. I didn’t bring the guts… Read More ›
Song from a shell
In the icy depths of sleep, in dreams, you held me when I was no one, just myself, a shell You held me at the edges where I could have been anyone, but wasn’t— and in sleep, in dreams, is… Read More ›
The flavor is in the blood
Any cook will tell you, when you brown meat and rest it on the plate, blood will accumulate there and you always use that blood, or whatever juice comes out, when you put it in the pot. I sat in… Read More ›
My name is Bill
I tried to step outside of my name, to look at it objectively. It was a plain name, handed down from my dad—and to him, from his father. It was like all the other things that get handed down, the… Read More ›
Gone are the 8 o’clock sunsets
How much was left undone by summer’s end, in the corner of our back yard by the maple tree. The work was coming in again, with everyone coming back from vacations and wanting their things fast-tracked, rush jobs. Learning all… Read More ›
Song for late summer’s sorrow
When the sun came out it hardly mattered with the wildfire smoke and clouds and cloying mood that comes from late summer days you’ve seen enough of: No, the sun was going under, swallowed and swollen, buried by messy, careless… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 