Dawn had to take Charlotte out of the restaurant for bad behavior while Lily and I stayed behind and split an order of deep-fried, green tea ice cream, reminiscing about Christmases past, starting with one in Ireland that led to… Read More ›

memory
The denial phase
Dawn and I sat at the top of our yard after we got our things out and talked. I had everything drying in the driveway, the sleeping bags draped over the cars. They didn’t need dried out, I just liked… Read More ›
What became of camp | Field notes from the Pacific coast
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with… Read More ›
The jet hold | Field notes from the Pacific coast
I climbed the webby trail to the established sites at Mosquito Creek in search of the pit toilet. I asked two guys I’d seen at the big rock, by the overland trail: they said it’s easy to find, there’s a… Read More ›
A stream of consciousness, passing through April
We felt it winding down, that April. Who gets to be in Europe for nine months like that? I had no business complaining about having to go, it was time. It was starting to leaf out on the trees along… Read More ›
‘How little remains’ (on youth, memory, memoir)
I went back to the old apartment. The old apartment was best going back to alone. I tried taking my kids there or Dawn, but to them it was just an old apartment. To me, there was so much more…. Read More ›
Now vaguely familiar
We rode the Tube to the West Kensington stop and got off to visit my old friend there, who lives across the road from her ex. We took the elevator to the top floor and when we got out she… Read More ›
Don’t blame Belfast, ’16
It was in Belfast this time of year we learned Charlotte can sleepwalk. It’s not like a special power sleepwalking, more a defect. The house was really small with steep stairs and I had the coal stove going all night… Read More ›
The must of memories trapped in jackets
The smell of the book is the same as memories musty, vague— its only distinction is in itself how it sits there unattended: different memories, different books, all smell the same.
The last days before the equinox
Fall’s moody shadows, pine needles, leaves: all that starts from above one day will drop, past the mountain peaks Jack Kerouac walked, they probably looked the same to him too, it’s hard to believe those photos of people in the… Read More ›