Tag Archives: identity

How the house felt after the kids left for summer camp

Posted on July 3, 2019 by

Outside it was warm and the lupine stalks were bending down, some on their faces like mollusks gumming the ground but not making it very far, frozen mid-suck. The dog smelled bad, a telltale bad like she’d rubbed herself in … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, Memoir, parenting, prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Fifty-fifty clown

Posted on June 15, 2019 by

The crow’s wings are magician hands that flap and disappear through the swirl of animal souls and the gray marine layer of morning. The lake is gray too, ribbed by a breeze or by paddle boats, the same each day … Continue reading →

Posted in poetry, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The first death

Posted on April 25, 2019 by

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in death, Memoir, parenting, prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Outside the frame

Posted on April 17, 2019 by

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, Memoir, parenting, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Real time

Posted on March 28, 2019 by

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, parenting, prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

No breaks (from a plane)

Posted on March 23, 2019 by

There were times I felt like I had to write, I had the impulse, to save the moment. I thought I could just throw my arms out and surround it, I could throw my line in the water and bring … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, prose, travel, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Excavation of self, through rotten banana peels and skin

Posted on March 2, 2019 by

At last the smell that was really me came to bare, to fully express itself, as a piece of rotten fruit or uneaten meat, table scraps left to bloom in some dark, neglected space. A smell, an essence, of toxins … Continue reading →

Posted in prose, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments