I took the trail to Shy Bear Pass, the same one in the Issaquah Alps I walked with Ginger last spring, before we moved to Germany. I looked down at my legs, the zip-off trekking pants and poles Eberhard had… Read More ›
expats
‘Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund’
Some of the girls in the beer tent wear their hair braided Princess Leia style and some of them look like nymphs on a Led Zeppelin album cover crawling on rocks, or a Maxfield Parrish print lazing by the pool… Read More ›
Some may say I’m wishing my days away
On Saturdays we only play reggae. I set the iPod by genre, select All, and it starts with Augustus Pablo, 1 of 275 songs, and ends with Serge Gainsbourg. It takes all day. When Laurent and his family were here… Read More ›
‘Einmal ist keinmal’
It’s like the Germans are all on some schedule here that we’re not getting. In February, everyone was pruning on the same day, stacking limbs in neat piles to dry and burn. Last week Dawn went to a bonfire where… Read More ›
Leaving the Intercontinental, Frankfurt via the A67
Something like 7 AM in the Frankfurt airport parking garage and the lift is out of order so we take the stairs and right away, it’s that Cold War vibe from the paint tones and the little signs and starkness… Read More ›
Understanding ist einfach
I tried wearing the same pair of jeans every day until something happened but nothing did. It was hard to remember what day it was. They asked us at the airport when we talked to the Bundespolizei, who were nicer… Read More ›
That one winter in the UK
By the time we got to Bath there was nothing left to see. I could have skipped London which would have been dumb, hiding instead in some quiet town by a river in the Cotswolds, some place even the English don’t… Read More ›
They packed the gaps with sand and mud
Old, half-timbered houses with uneven beams buckling and bent into one another like two drunks steadying themselves. Everything on its side, lead pipe handrails caught in their footings, ivy-choked trees. Pale morning birdsong, footpaths leading down the valley ending in… Read More ›
Salthill Serenade, Galway
Wet snow tangled in the hair of the grass outside of London, topping the cars like confetti. Going back to a Sunday a month ago in Galway, a neighborhood ten minutes outside of town called Salthill, that day we started… Read More ›
That last Christmas in Cork
We debated what to do with the uneaten ham. It was impractical to stuff it in the car with all our things, tacky to leave it behind for the owners, wasteful to throw it out, and so I climbed the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 