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 (now +25% complete!). It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the… Read More ›
parenting
“Birth Ritual” | Field notes from the Pacific coast
When Chris Cornell died it was the same as with Johnny Cash. I woke to my 6 AM radio program and they were playing a Soundgarden song, then a second one (which was strange), and by the third one I… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific Coast (day 3 of 40)
I cleaned out the refrigerator, what I didn’t think Dawn or the kids would eat while I was gone, put it in a cooler with a freezer pack while I was at work then got it out once I came… Read More ›
“In the midst of life we are in debt, et cetera”
Wednesday, that day time slows every week, with Lily on a late-start for school, the possibility we could all sleep in until 7:30 but never do, a day I work from home with Charlotte on early release, meaning she gets… Read More ›
‘We’re a happy family’
We craved some intimacy with each other that was probably sexual in nature but we didn’t know how to express it yet so we stayed up late talking on the phone and fell asleep next to the handset, and when… Read More ›
The clouds above the development like medical gauze papery, multi-layered
In the area where they’re building new homes, where before it was trees and native plants and now they’ve cleared it out, razed and re-sculpted it, planted new grass and trees to make it look like it was always there,… Read More ›
Right before the storm the sky turned a queer pink
The wind came on hard so of course I had to go out in it: why does being out in extreme weather make us feel so alive (because at any moment it feels we may not be)? Is it really… Read More ›
‘Reentry Burns,’ coming back to America
When I got back from Germany Dawn met me at the airport and we went for lunch at the brewhouse. The bathroom smelled the same as it always did and I think the bartender recognized me, even though we’d been… Read More ›
‘Here always is,’ on parenting
And there was the time I got arrested for furnishing alcohol to minors and underaged drinking—and you wouldn’t think you could be guilty of both, but that’s the law. The night I called my parents late from Erie, PA (from… Read More ›
Fireflies trapped in a jar, the days, prose
Some of the days flew by so fast, others you could trap in a jar. They were on the internet or in your computer on a spinning carousel, going back as far as you could right up to the present…. Read More ›