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 ›
Memoir
Kaleidoscope of life and death on the PCT
On the fourth day we rested only a couple hours from the last camp, still in the burn area. It was already getting hot by mid morning and I got there before Brad, eager to secure a camp. There was… 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 (3): Rob and Paul
This is a series of rewritten journal entries from the summer I spent in the south of France, the first entry here. Rob and Paul seem like an unlikely gay couple to me, not knowing what gay couples are supposed… 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 ›
The wind through our windows, Anchorage
We tottered down the runway, wriggling inside the plane. Pale lead morning, 18 years since I’d flown to Alaska. That weekend before 9/11, the end of the tourist season, closing down the shops. Our kids now taking pictures outside the… Read More ›
A fair way to go
It is the hour of 4, and the light is best for where I sit on the chaise-lounge, beside the scabby hot tub that’s been dry all summer. The hot tub is kaput because the large fir popped up the… Read More ›
Hero’s pose
We waited and waited but it didn’t seem like the marine layer would ever burn off. Lily had a date with a boy we hadn’t met named Colin, and I texted her to come outside so we could talk. And… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 