I came unstuck in time again and reappeared 20 years later pawing the glass on some Argentinian steakhouse window in the Red Light district with a bull’s head in the window convinced I’d been there before. Two days in Amsterdam… Read More ›
Memoir
What we saw once in the future
When mom wakes and sees Eberhard’s bed lamp is still on she goes downstairs and finds him at the table with a bunch of dead roots, a screwdriver and a bottle of Port that’s half empty or half full, depending… Read More ›
Final thoughts during the flight safety video leaving Newark
When my mom asked if I needed a pair of warmer socks for our walk (I’m 45) I reminded her this is the guy who’s slept on the side of glaciers and gotten up in the middle of the night… Read More ›
What happens in March stays in March
I got into Eberhard’s cigarettes in the Schrank which he said I could help myself to but I didn’t for a variety of reasons until last night, after booking a flight to Newark to see my grandma, and talking with… Read More ›
Leaving the Intercontinental, Frankfurt via the A67
Something like 7 AM in the Frankfurt airport parking garage and the lift is out of order so we take the stairs and right away, it’s that Cold War vibe from the paint tones and the little signs and starkness… Read More ›
Understanding ist einfach
I tried wearing the same pair of jeans every day until something happened but nothing did. It was hard to remember what day it was. They asked us at the airport when we talked to the Bundespolizei, who were nicer… Read More ›
Siddhartha, the waiting room, ‘nowness’
The waiting room in the colon treatment center the morning after Fat Tuesday could be purgatory, where people wait to have their insides filmed through a probe, to hear how long they have to live, what they have, when they… Read More ›
Four months 18 summers ago in France
In the fall of ’97 I announced I would be leaving my job at Starbucks that December, moving home to Pennsylvania for a few months and then on to southern France, to live in a condo on the beach a… Read More ›
They packed the gaps with sand and mud
Old, half-timbered houses with uneven beams buckling and bent into one another like two drunks steadying themselves. Everything on its side, lead pipe handrails caught in their footings, ivy-choked trees. Pale morning birdsong, footpaths leading down the valley ending in… Read More ›
Salthill Serenade, Galway
Wet snow tangled in the hair of the grass outside of London, topping the cars like confetti. Going back to a Sunday a month ago in Galway, a neighborhood ten minutes outside of town called Salthill, that day we started… Read More ›