Thank god for the gold-red leaves for without them, I think there’d be no color. Old relatives like dead leaves fall off shriveled-brown-unnoticed and swept to the side, the cold takes them, a different kind of harvest. In the morning… Read More ›
mid-life crisis
Portrait of a subject reduced to a thread
The ticking of the clock, the rain drops, the same sound of the wood burning when it pops. There’s no sound like that on digital clocks. And at the traffic light we converge for a time: everyone looking down, in… Read More ›
Wednesday’s twilight anthem
The Jupiter’s Beard is fanned-out pornographic in our front yard, exposed to the root. And the grass is so dead, it’s what Gregg Allman’s beard must have looked like before he died, the same gold-straw color, drawn out thick. It’s… Read More ›
‘Essence of Cessna’ | on success
Thirty-one years ago the film Pretty in Pink came out. We watched it on Netflix but didn’t remember anything: not Andrew McCarthy’s flickering eyes, nor Molly Ringwald’s quivering lips. Nor the scene with the two of them in a library… Read More ›
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 ›
Six days in the bush, Pacific Northwest style
I came to the bridge above the river, the one described in the guidebook. I’d taken a picture of it last time but it was only a green braid in the gray canyon rock, reduced down to that…. Read More ›
First light for August
The plane resembled a bird in the sky, reflecting back in the lake. There were a few on the dock fishing, spread out to give each other space. They were all having their moments with the lake, the morning light…. Read More ›
One window ajar, first light on Pine Lake
I sat outside under a tree with King Tubby playing on my Bluetooth speakers and crocosmia fronds tickling the air, the moon a half melon, the whites of my nails. Talked to my dad across the country, the sound of… Read More ›
Falling down days, deep July
A stark, backcountry walk along the roads of Grand Mound, Washington outside Centralia: its claim to fame the halfway point between Seattle and Portland. Across the road from the Great Wolf Lodge resort, a +21 legal weed pop-up called King… Read More ›
Over the hills where the spirits fly | Field notes from the Pacific coast
It’s almost over, second-to-last post! This is a series I started in late May and have published daily for 36 days now. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with side-story memoir scenes wrapped by a few… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 