When it’s almost dark you can hear the wind picking up across the desert. Maybe a flagpole clanking, some far-off dogs, the day’s last birds. We are in a new development surrounded by farmlands and distant mountains. The ground is… Read More ›

pacific northwest
No more the mystery
Automating music discovery through algorithms has forever changed the way we learn about and consume new music. But have we lost something precious along the way? I moved to Seattle in the summer of ’96 and left just after a… Read More ›
Farmers’ almanac
I read the weather forecast and despite the gloom, felt good about living in the Pacific Northwest again. The mild winters, the sing-song pattern to the forecasts: rain changing to showers, showers changing to rain. Heavy rain tapering off before… Read More ›
MELT
In the morning I checked the weather report but felt some distance from it, like it was talking about a place I was supposed to be but wasn’t. The rain made the snow melt, a mixture of solemnness and hope,… Read More ›
New emptiness
Loren and I stay up late watching old Genesis concert footage on his sofa, angling the laptop so we can both see. He has a retro light projector propped in the corner that spins on a slow orbit and is… Read More ›
Out the other end
I came out the Enchanted Valley the day after I got in, 27 miles (43.4 km) round trip. My phone said I hadn’t gone that far in step count since my last trip to the Hoh River. I ached in… Read More ›
Up the enchanted valley
I sat there by the bees in the lupine with my knees muddy and the birds singing and the sound of some far-away traffic like a low tide going out. I chewed on an apple in a nonthinking way and… Read More ›
Concourse A
Let me curl up with this book, Let me fold in on myself, Let me carve out a sliver of comfort in the corner Of this goddamned airport Oh to the sounds of the airport waiting to be somewhere else… Read More ›
He not busy being born
Late May the grass by the pond’s grown tall where the frogs like to sing and screw and the song draws the dark down with the dew and we are all awash in it, spring! A medley of smells of… Read More ›
This ocean size
I went back to Forks, the small logging town on the Washington coast, back to the gas station with the sandwich shop and the formica booth out front beneath the mossy overhang, the old sign with 1960s font that says… Read More ›