We’d drive the twisted road down from France across the border and into the crowded dusty parking lot in Spain then return home with cases of wine and if they had it, the Bols oude genever.
John Pearse
Song for April, 2008
It took me way too long to appreciate the nuance in that record, called April and released on April 1, 2008.
Letters and passageways (5): trial runs
This is a series of rewritten journal entries from the summer I spent in the south of France, the first entry here. You wear it on your body, and you don’t even know what it means? Allanah grated potatoes onto… Read More ›
Letters and passageways: the summer of ’98, south of France
I went back to that summer I spent in the south of France, to recall what I could from my journals, letters, and photos. They resurfaced with the news of a friend who’d died, I’d last seen there—and played on… Read More ›
Walking down the unlit hallway of life
Outside in the mid-afternoon there was just the sound of birds and kids and cars going by. It was too hot for anything, everyone hanging onto the edges by the shade. I’d gotten up when the church bells struck six… Read More ›
“In the morning there would be no Monday”
Though I didn’t have the heat set high, when I came home the house felt warm. It felt warm with the aroma of life, lived in, of home cooking and freshly washed towels, kids coming of age, house plants, pets…an… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (20 Dezember)
Chocolates with brandy inside, cheese, special cakes from Saxony. Taking pictures of the cats before they took down the tree. The tree, the one mom got the year John was sick and couldn’t come down for Christmas, so she set… Read More ›
Life Before Fabric Softener (a memoir) | 2
The second entry in my to-be written memoir (v.3)—that starts 20 years ago as I was making plans to move to the south of France, looking after my parents’ house in Pennsylvania. First chapter is here. December, 1997 New Tripoli,… Read More ›
“Life Before Fabric Softener” (a memoir)
Interrupting my journal-in-Germany series today with an excerpt from my new, to-be written memoir “Life Before Fabric Softener.” It starts on the 20-year anniversary of my first extended stay in Europe, in the south of France. December, 1997 Capitol Hill,… Read More ›
The Chris Cornell rat scene reveal | Field notes from the Pacific coast
This is the last in a series of posts I started in late May and have published daily for 37 days now. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with side-story memoir scenes wrapped by a… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 