Even though they had holes in them, I kept wearing the same socks. I walked the back yard in my socks when it wasn’t wet. Charlotte was up at the trampoline and I went back up to apologize for what… Read More ›
Memoir
That last Friday in April
Dawn quit her job so she could spend more time with the kids, and that meant her office was up for grabs. Dawn’s office is kind of ideal, with good morning light flanked by book shelves, and a door that… Read More ›
The first death
The dog’s warm tongue on my cheek, the den by the window where the sun comes in to expose the hair on my carpet, the dust on the lamps, the dirt on my legs from the morning’s hike. Going up… Read More ›
Down stellar stream
The rain is hypnotic like the static on the black and white TV I used to fall asleep to growing up. It was my first digital-assisted relaxation, when the programming ended and the Star-Spangled Banner played, and then it all… Read More ›
Call me rapture
All those sweet, heady blooms of spring came back, and outside it was warm and had just rained, it felt clammy and moist, so I got a beer and a lawn chair and collapsed into both. Dawn accumulated three heads… Read More ›
Outside the frame
I made plans to see friends I hadn’t seen in about 30 years, since high school. I took a Lyft to the bar and sat in a table by the front, and sent one of them a text: Pat fell… Read More ›
What was left
What was left in Charlotte’s bowl wasn’t worth saving. But I ate it on principle, so it wouldn’t go to waste. And there was an analogy in that, to going back to my hometown for our annual visit, gumming the… Read More ›
Real time
Probably the most comforting thing I could do was drink in bed. When I quit drinking I wrote a list of all the things I pledged I wouldn’t do when I started drinking again and one of the top 3… Read More ›
Frost circus, Portland
Peeling potatoes I took off my finger tip and imagined a piece of it there among the red bliss skins in the sink, something small and pink you’d find on a beach. But it got me out of cooking, and… Read More ›
Sunday’s flattened head
On the five-hour drive to Brad’s cabin I kept it cool in the car to stay awake, to keep my cold tolerance up. Driving across the state to the east, how it all flattens to farmlands and big skies, windmills,… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 