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 ›
Climbing
‘Like frogs or rabbits’ | on living in the present, and wandering
May 15, 2017 Faint rain, imagined snow. Mid May and it’s still stew weather, heavy stouts. I have to run the heat in the morning driving in to work but refuse to wear a jacket and then turn off the… Read More ›
First there is a mountain then there is no mountain, then there is
There was the outfit I’d worn the day before and probably the day before that, in a pile on the floor by the bed. I sat up and got into it like I was going in reverse, stood up, slapped… Read More ›
Meditation on a nameless day
Climbing mountains you get high enough you can see above the cloud deck, the tips of the other peaks coming through, how the clouds look like soup from above, and in every direction just the land stretching out, no cities—like… Read More ›
Lost in the Funhouse with Barth: on meta, Brecht, and what’s behind The Fourth Wall
With social media and technology what they are, metafiction has become more a part of our lives than ever: we’re constantly stepping outside the frame to capture ourselves in it, and our story of documenting our life story is as much a story as the story itself. But as we step outside the frame, we’re straddling two worlds and cease to exist fully in either — like tourists on an Alaskan whale-watching cruise with our cameras out trying to catch the breaching whales as proof we were there, we miss the reality just beyond our lens and I wonder, did we really see anything at all?
Peeing on Switzerland
Ralf pokes the scat with the tip of his trekking pole and says in English it’s fresh, from earlier today. And the wind changes direction, it’s coming from Switzerland now, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad but… Read More ›
Say goodbye to the Hoh
The sea spills its guts out to anyone who will listen, just hurls itself up and forgets it’s told the same story before: two black heads in the water floating that could be humans staring at us but they are seals,… Read More ›
The Safeway in Chewelah, WA
On the drive back I make my kids listen to Townes Van Zandt since it feels like we could be in Texas it’s so hot, everything flat and beaten down by the sun. The songs about places he’d been in… Read More ›
Climbing cocks, steep peaks, dry tools (2)
Brad and I camp in the snow by an abandoned hunter’s cabin up Black Canyon with my dog Ginger, who puts her nose in Brad’s eye and causes it to swell up like a walnut because Brad’s convinced there’s foreign… Read More ›
The unabashed quality of the selfie
It is inherently unabashed, the selfie. It has this I Don’t Care I’m Vain aspect I’ll Even Do It Publicly, then push it to my friends. And it’s true, once you embrace the vanity it can set you free to… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 