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 ›
Memoir
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 ›
No breaks (from a plane)
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… Read More ›
LGBTQIA, the new strong password
I took Lily to her LGBTQIA support group for kids with mental and behavioral issues, dropped her in the lobby with her phone, then drove to Bellevue for a quiet drink. I sat at the bar with a shrimp cocktail,… Read More ›
The corrections
No matter how much I worried I was growing apart from my kids (or vice versa), there was still time. I picked Charlotte up after work and asked where she wanted to go for dinner. We drove to Issaquah and… Read More ›
The rhythm of trees falling down
Twelve days in a row writing the same marketing copy for a project we started in July that was supposed to end in September. Sitting at my desk in the bedroom while the sun set reading it a final time… Read More ›
‘Wax and wane’
By the time we got to the end of October I was done with it. The Halloween decals on the windows, the witches and skulls…it seemed to go on forever, like it should have been over by now. The skeleton… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 