Mom and I walked the trails by the häckselplatz and went to Berne’s at the top of the hill for an alkoholfrei Hefe. I said this is sublime, and then realized with horror the beer was not alkoholfrei (!) though… Read More ›
Memoir
That last Friday in August
What I must have looked like, running through the airport trying to get to Border Control. Trying to get as close as I could to the front of the line so I could get to the other side and make… Read More ›
First night sober in Germany
It was a really strong cup of coffee, the first one I made back at my mom’s house. It had been four years now, three since we’d last seen each other. She was worried she’d look a lot older to… Read More ›
Sunrise over Cutthroat Pass
The moon was waxing gibbous over the ridge line coming into the North Cascades. I drove past the sad town of Oso where they had the mudslide, past the town of Darrington where I lived one summer. Past a mountain… Read More ›
Carry the zero
27th July 2022—WHITEFISH, MT Took a down day on our week in Montana, what PCT through-hikers would call a zero. Everyone left for the lake but I insisted on staying behind to read. Soon regretted my decision. Dabbled in Philip… Read More ›
Silent lucidity
The sun fell on the hills again, the same way it falls every night. Falling off myself, a stranger passing through another town, another rented room. Taking stock of all we’ve taken in and everywhere we’ve been. We are in… Read More ›
The world of clocks and mirrors
We dropped Lily off at her new school, a “step-down school,” just 40 students with half coming from a residential treatment center and the others a wilderness therapy program like Lily. The town is in somewhere Utah, a town like… Read More ›
The past imperfect
Most nights Lily would leave the bedroom window open and I’d look up to it in the mornings when I let the dog out. I’d look up to her window and consider her inside, Christmas lights on the ceiling, glimpses… Read More ›
This ocean size
I went back to Forks, the small logging town on the Washington coast, back to the gas station with the sandwich shop and the formica booth out front beneath the mossy overhang, the old sign with 1960s font that says… Read More ›
The drugs don’t work
At first there is not much to remember. Our phone number, which mom makes me memorize. Our address, which is where we live. Both have a rhythm that helps me retain the pattern and I can hear the numbers in… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 