I worked a couple hours in the yard cleaning up branches and breaking down limbs clipping, sweeping, yanking out roots and pruning, stuff we probably should have done in the fall—then just got in the car and drove out to… Read More ›
suburbs
A degree off from beige
I don’t know why, but I built a fire out back in the afternoon and stood by it. It got so cold one night a planting pot blew out the side and hung open like a cartoon mouth on a… Read More ›
How the week ends
The leather couch in the family room I thought would break in but never did, that reminds me of times we paused while climbing a mountain and the care required to anchor yourself on a glacier for fear of slipping… Read More ›
How we managed to stay friends with the friends who rented our house
There was probably not much more bad that could happen to it, the Modest Mouse shirt, so I put it in the dryer with the rest and closed the lid. And I checked on the girls because the door was… Read More ›
The stain that won’t abate becomes a feature
The never-ending stain on the rug at the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room has the tenacity of a birth mark, it’s as hard to remove, has become my daily penance, a Greek who’s upset the gods now on… Read More ›
Coming back, Perimeter Road (SeaTac)
All the houses in the new developments are the color of graham crackers with about as much variety as you’d find in the grocery store, the only difference is in the finishes. The CD player on the Honda Pilot keeps… Read More ›
Morning sky drawn in sidewalk chalk
Passage from Dover to Dunkirk, via Reims, to southern Germany Past the old vicarage down the hill in time for the last of the owls, bending at the bottom through a valley to the lake for disabled anglers — No… Read More ›
Trying to get lost in Belfast by foot
Charlotte’s clothes (8) are mismatched the way they might be for the homeless, for function only, stained, holes, slanted — and I’m collecting plastic bags in my pockets for function too, to tie around my shoes as makeshift rubbers or… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany
At the end of 2009 we returned from a four-month sabbatical in Germany, France, Ireland and Italy. I was eligible for another sabbatical seven years later, which would make me 46 the summer of 2017, and seemed too far away…. Read More ›
Half a summertime ago
I’ve taken to a big steer named Cowboy who lives over the hill from my mother-in-law’s at the Second Hand Ranch, where they take in animals who would otherwise be turned into coats or eaten. But flies gather around his… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 