Time distends when we’re in France. We get up late, stay up late, eat late and we don’t make plans. No one is open for lunch on a Saturday so we order eight pizzas and Laurent gets out the fresh… Read More ›
Creative Nonfiction
The A8 to Karlsruhe
Outside it was so cold I could see my breath, with frost on the grass and all the trees looking shriveled. I waited until just before sunrise to climb the Himmelsleiter and that made the steep hillsides look pink-gold. Evenly… Read More ›
What the French would do
More of the pfeffer schnitzel with the light brown sauce and French fries, a side salad and dessert: what looks like little sugar-coated, deep fried donuts is an apple cake thing with a vanilla sauce, fresh whipped cream, fruit garnish… Read More ›
Still-life red
Woke late, found it October all of the sudden, took the route through the wooded valley off the Himmelsleiter. Got caught behind a class of students also taking the steps up but who mysteriously vanished. Pocketed a fresh chestnut fallen… Read More ›
On mouse traps and handcuffs
I couldn’t make sense of the mouse trap; it was a catch and release model. Two doors on either side of the cage with what looked like a metal toothpick to spear a piece of cheese, or something you’d use… Read More ›
Erste und Letzte (firsts and lasts)
That first walk up the Himmelsleiter was the best and darkest, my first morning back in Germany. The Himmelsleiter, that long set of narrow steps up the vineyards, through the spooky underpass beneath the train tracks in the dark, crossing… Read More ›
Vivid Youth
Tired as I was I still had that Christmas morning feeling of excitement that had me wanting to get out of bed. I’d been up since 01:11 and committed myself to staying in bed until 3. Something about 3 vs…. Read More ›
First Sunday in Germany
Trying to sleep on the plane. Amazing you can sit right next to someone in close quarters for ten hours and not say a word. Bisecting Canada and then Greenland. Always the longest slog, inching down over Iceland with the… Read More ›
The lift
For as excited as I was to be back in Europe I knew I’d miss my daily routine back home. Especially the drive to the park in the early mornings down the long, straight road. It’s curled like a tongue,… Read More ›
New moon
It’s the first day of fall. The new moon rose this morning but being the new moon, no one noticed. Sitting with The Cure’s 1989 album Disintegration, it feels like the end. The end of an important decade for the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 