I got up and drank coffee, cooked bacon, went back to bed. I lay on the sofa with my face against the leather and the pale mid-morning light, the sound of blues music and the cat mewing, the laundry machine,… Read More ›
journal writing
When everything matters
It was like I’d just discovered the scale of life, that there was more of it than I could ever consume.
The intensely masculine act of splitting wood
I fantasized regularly about having a good woodpile. For me, woodpiles always represented a unique combination of order and comfort. Everything in its right place. But after three days of splitting wood every part of me hurt. On the third… Read More ›
The last Sunday in September
The drive from Portland to Seattle on a Sunday morning in early fall. Fog lifting, leaves changing, the look of the clouds. Later how the fire consolidated down to a few logs glowing red. The pink in the western sky… Read More ›
The last day of the fair
Going to the fair was less about going to the fair and more about reliving past times we wanted to hold onto. I’d never noticed it before, but all the rides were basically the same. In the same positions even…. Read More ›
The phone can’t see what’s really real
The month wore on. Though it was cool at night I left the windows open to hear the rain slap the patio. The light was different now, and struggled to make it over the trees. The grass had gone to… Read More ›
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 (2): Shawn and Seamus
This is a series of rewritten journal entries from the summer I spent in the south of France, the first entry here. Shawn Lee is my favorite bartender at my favorite bar, The Six Arms. He is often smiling, and… 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 ›
Song for late summer
The kids take pictures of me napping at unflattering angles. The first colors of fall start along the highway: the pink-purple fireweed against the green, the coming yellows and browns. Those black spruces leaning in the muskeg, long patches of… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 