Spring cleaning comes when I just can’t take it anymore. All the cobwebs we haven’t seen, the dust, the feeling the whole house smells. Everything needs to be taken apart and blown out. A half pot of coffee followed by… Read More ›
parenting
Sonata for flute and harpsichord
Happy plumes of smoke from the chimney, the log house behind ours. Now that it’s for sale, they leave the lights on all night and day, and it glows through the trees and bushes, happy plumes of smoke like a… Read More ›
Stormy skies one Sunday
After all the noise from the weekend, it was good to come down to our den and just sit in the morning quiet. Outside the skies looked stormy, and I thought about the porn star and the president, the interview… Read More ›
Leading the witness
3/24/18 Pulling into Wenatchee on a Friday night just before dark. The Olive Garden family restaurant, a long time since I’d been to one and longer still before I’ll go back. Charlotte, slap happy / punch drunk on two Cokes,… Read More ›
Moss-petting in Portland (March, ’18)
Signs for deaf children, hand-painted Volvo’s, driving into Portland on a Friday night. By morning the rain had brought down the cherry blossom blooms like confetti, and the children across the street were young enough they could walk on walls… Read More ›
When the saints go marching in
Softly the deer who live behind our house burrow down in a patch of green at night, and in the morning appear outside the abandoned house next door like figurines. The house has been abandoned for three years since it… Read More ›
The first of the 7 o’clock sunsets
Sunday, the first day +60 degrees in a long time. In the morning under the trees it sounds like the birds are filling into the auditorium, taking their seats. They all know when to come back and they all know… Read More ›
Last night on 29th place, SE
We really lived in that house, if it was the wrapping we were the candy, the present, and inside there stirred our souls and the house bore witness and the calendar pages flipped, the seasons passed, our photos on the… Read More ›
The importance of first impressions and personal grooming
The top of my head, my scalp, felt dry like I imagined snake skin would feel, and I took to it with the perverse interest of dried glue. I was in the tub trying to relax. I had a high-grade… Read More ›
Stones and bones [cemetery song]
Once you make a major purchase (house, car, major appliances) things invariably start breaking down and costing more money. Things break in multiples, the same with bad omens (in 3’s, 5’s, 7’s, like the number of days you can expect… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 