The sun fell on the hills again, the same way it falls every night. Falling off myself, a stranger passing through another town, another rented room. Taking stock of all we’ve taken in and everywhere we’ve been. We are in… Read More ›
Memoir
For the other parents at the wilderness therapy graduation ceremony
In a lather of memory, in the coffee shop, I splashed the faces of the people I had known for a small time onto my face and thought, how intermingled we all are in this dance, how unnatural it must… Read More ›
Future letters to our former selves
We came down to the end of June and I hung the flag for the Fourth. I had the summer off from work, and wouldn’t accept any new contracts until September. That gave us the flexibility to see Lily whenever… Read More ›
Then the mid-life part began
In a sense it is like I am not here. And that is the thing about parenting, perhaps the point. To be there when you’re needed and then not at all. You see it in the wild with mother whales… Read More ›
Fall back
It’s the last Sunday in October, dry, and I’ve just torn up the front garden beds and transplanted everything to the back. Like Dawn used to say about our basement in West Seattle, the back of the yard is where… Read More ›
On my way to the woodpile
The spider by the woodpile was the size of a magician’s hand and moved as quickly out of view. How wild it was when you went outside! Life or death! All the bushes and trees hanging on for dear life…. Read More ›
Get rid of unwanted back hair
We forget how good we have it, we read books about the apocalypse for entertainment. We get a taste of that and the first thing we do is run for the toilet paper. We’re like domesticated dogs, we wouldn’t last long in the wild.
Desert island selection
It was nearly impossible to love our house as much as it needed to be loved. I’d sit in the backyard and pretend I was at a resort the way the tall trees looked, the angle of the moon coming… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific Coast
A few years ago I did a 30-day challenge to write 50K words, inspired by an outing to the Washington coast and in part, the singer Chris Cornell’s tragic death. Cornell sang for the band Soundgarden, one of the primary… Read More ›
Pain is the toughest riddle
Alan talks about his time in the SEALs but I never probe for more because he knows I’m a writer and I feel like a thief casing someone’s mansion when he starts telling a story.
Bill Pearse 