I imagined the house quiet, after they’d left. I could hear the memory of their voices as they were now, an echo. I could feel my heart pull in the way a hand contracts to a fist, the way a… Read More ›
Nostalgia
Weights
At this time of day, this time of year, the butterfly glows gold in the window of our den it’s hung by chains, framed, with dust in the old border and cobwebs strung to the window’s edge the butterfly is… Read More ›
Lisbeth Salander will have her reckoning
The upsetting quality of the music I play. The look of my hair after several days without shampoo. The sense I should be outside but don’t feel like it, the look of the snow after it finally seeps into our… Read More ›
Frost circus, Portland
Peeling potatoes I took off my finger tip and imagined a piece of it there among the red bliss skins in the sink, something small and pink you’d find on a beach. But it got me out of cooking, and… Read More ›
First time hearing Can with my percussionist friend, Loren
How many memories do you keep in a jar on that shelf? Here’s one from my 20s, driving across a bridge at night with the stereo up loud. Were we out of our minds high on the energy of our… Read More ›
Refraction (- – – — — — – – -)
Charlotte and I tried to play Scrabble but got frustrated, and dumped all the tiles back in the box. The best we came up with was Mosaic and Pirana, Pirana hers, not exactly right, needing an H or a symbol… Read More ›
The stress-free Christmas tree erection
No holiday satisfies or disappoints quite like Christmas. In the Pacific Northwest, December is a dark, charmless month. This year, I announced November as scotch month and December, the month of brandy. The month of all things “ch,”—cheese, chocolate, champagne—a… Read More ›
November 22, 2018 (Thanksgiving). I went back in time to the chauffeur’s flat, that place we stayed in a remote corner of Scotland one Thanksgiving, unlike any other. Near some small, port town on the coast by the ferries over… Read More ›
The same deep water as you
We went back to the old elementary school, Charlotte’s last year, for the annual Halloween bash. Dawn and I stood in the playground feeling tired and out of sorts, trying to make out the identities of kids running by as… Read More ›
October 14, 2018 (Sunday) Sadly, I let myself get too annoyed often and it cut into my enjoyment of life. We rode in the Pilot to the pumpkin patch, all six of us, and I reminded Loren and Lily to… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 