For me, too

A flat, leggy chicken keeps company with more full-figured wooden squirrels and moose; long sparkly white icicles with warm, colored globes of light. I sit in my chair across from this Christmas tree, the one I picked out, stood by steadfastly while Chris explored the lot for other options. A smallish, crooked glowing thing; my clue, my symbol that this holiday is for me, too.

Old House

From the bathroom, this house looks like the old farmhouse it might have once been. Not encumbered with a shower head or curtain, the claw foot tub looks like one my grandmother might have used when she was a little girl. The cabinet, second-hand, hand painted, could have been born here with the house seventy years ago. I feel now like I have been born here, too.

The Chill

The leaves on the rhododendron fold lengthwise and bow low, as if curling inward against the cold. Trees shed and go bare in winter; this bush stays put, keeps everything, shows everything when the chill comes. I sit on the porch and feel it for myself, my first stepping out after a few days of sick. In pajama shorts I curl up too, not ready yet to go back inside.

The Great Fall

Twenty-two years ago, this day was a Sunday too. This was the day my father, like a great giant, fell. Not from a tree, like he had years before that, surviving in traction with a broken pelvis. This time he fell from bed, knocked still by a blood clot; still, except for one hand, gripping an aspirin. None of us thought he would stay down. But three days later, his eyes told me goodbye.

Waiting for Breath

It's when I notice my own breath, how I have to pull it in like a thin rope, how the lack of it pushes at my eyeballs, how it leaves behind a burn and a cough. If it weren't for that, I would not think about it, not the way I notice wind in trees or rain blown sideways. To not notice feels like a gift, the one I earned in the children's wards of hospitals, behind oxygen tents waiting. 

Waking Up

From the bathroom window, I watch the rain tap, drip down; pooling on the flat roof. It's like watching music being played with the sound turned off. Light inside, dark outside like predawn or a nap that stretched across the borders of the afternoon. Time outside of time, the distortion of just waking up. The silence before the gears engage and the stillness ends.

Autumn Closing

Yellow leaves, almost petal shaped, shake down from the pear tree under the weight of heavy rain. This tree is the last to hold on; the nakedness of everything else makes the yellow yellower. A surrender, autumn closing its eyes, I open my own hands to let go of whatever is left of the no longer present. Today the leaves are falling, have fallen, and the tree is still here.

Shoulder Season

Water swells in what they call shoulder season. It carries the burden of the change, from winter to thaw. There are still places one can't go; where white caps of mountains and slopes could warm up enough to lose grip. There are places we could not see; waterfalls, wilderness. What we have is this water, growing bigger and milkier, from ice and silt washing down and away.

Flurries

Surprised in the morning by the white crusty lacework, left sometime when I was not here to see the quiet softness fall. This feels like the coldest winter in some time; about time, we say, we who wish this were the mountains. I feel that feeling again, what it was like turning on skis in deep snow. Snow that falls for months without melting, no matter how the sun shines.

December Beach

A bleached, swept roadway; we know it, see it behind our eyelids when we are only wishing we were here. Sand creeps over the lines on the asphalt, into our winter shoes, into my eyes and mouth, where I taste salt on the grit. I will not touch the water this time, but feel fondly beaten by it, by the exhales it hurls across the parts of the earth it can't reach with its fingers.

My Cricket Dream

In this dream I am a shepherd, a guardian. Across the city, some city somewhere, we traverse one small grass blade or concrete crack at a time. Me, and a cricket. I feel close love, a familiarity. It is either not an option, or just not okay, to pick up my bug and whiz him (he is a him) to the outskirts of town, where he will continue without me and I will have to let him go.

In Here

Words swirl in an orbit, I sit in a chair, the kind they call easy. The dogs stretch on their backs in the warm bake of the gas logs. Words from four different books; the tao, the blues, the counting of syllables and lines, the nature of meaning from four different directions. Somewhere is the center, but not out there. In here. This swirl, us, unfixed objects in our own glow.

Happy Forty

Sometimes I forget there was a time when I was without her; or even that she is a separate person from me. Maybe I've made her up, my perfect other. I knew her when I heard her voice, when I saw her thick, black hair traced with some grey. Today she is a little greyer, tomorrow she will be forty. I am hungry for more decades, more of her natural, brilliant joy.

Bryan Park

Planned wilderness, tailored with stone paths and walls; wide, tidy greens and thick spurts of forest. One of the city's parks, I rambled there as a child, at birthday parties or on days when our mothers didn't know what else to do with us. And later, when I didn't know what to do with myself, I took my bike there and rode around, and around. A second, outside home. 

Third Day

Free of the expectations of that first day, where we did everything and said, what a good day. The next day sank like a cave under the weight of what now. What about the things that escape notice or attention while our lives spin like tops, when those things? Third day and I wake not caring, not feeling the usual self-inflicted stabs for choosing what I want, leaving the rest. 

Stain Fighting

Holidays, the smell of winter smoke and the warm, warm giving and getting make me giddy. Then there is a turn I will take, often somewhere in sleep, a stain spreads and I wake into it. I do not have to remember to remember. If it just happens like this, is it the more natural, the more real state for all things to roll backwards, like downhill? Progress says no, absolutely no.

One Hundredth

A body made of a hundred pieces so far; I may have just shaped out a pinky toe. Or roughed out a thin outline of where a body could be. Not just the creation of something bigger by the dogged little deposits; the persistence itself, the thing before the writing becomes a thing, the being in the doing. I cannot see the body yet, I just know that when I write, I am writing.

Neighbor Down

Fallen, not breathing, gone grey. His buddy presses on his stomach and he emerges, sucking in deep, blowing out white foam. A mysterious mission interrupted, he dropped while walking across the yard with a chain saw. Adam, we say, help is coming. Not old, he has aged himself drinking like he does. Pulling myself away, I think, another neighbor down.

Walking Backwards

I walk out of our house through the neighborhood; past the old big houses from long past farm days. And newer little houses from 1960's development days, when my parents bought their first home here. I walk and imagine this land clear, in the beginning, before anything was built; nothing but forest, pasture or swamp, and me walking alone across it for miles.

Remembering

Land of my own, a volkswagen van, motherhood, trails to nowhere, complete presence. I want, I want, I want. Brought up from an interior stinginess, enforced by the sandpaper of catholic morals, smoothing any edge of longing. Worn down, it can become easier to look over, forget. Did I ever want a thing? Yes. Puppies, scooters, advanced degrees, girls. Now I remember.

Mushrooms

I feel the stems of mushrooms like twisted tree trunks; I imagine them pulled from a forest floor, popping up in an emerald humid. Pushed up from the ground, issued from it, each one with its own sense of self. I like to buy them as if I picked them, not wrapped in cellophane but loose, natural. I can plow my hand into a bin or bowl and drop fistfuls into my bag. 

Before Light

This morning I am awake before light fills the room. This bed faces east, and without moving I can see the sharp crimson glow of winter dawn through leafless trees. I feel grateful for opening my eyes in time; other mornings I miss it, instead just catching that paler orange, fuzzier crease between the land and sky. I wake up and watch the night shaking hands with the day. 

Wanting Things

Saturday, late afternoon, we do as we please. Right now that means climbing into bed, watching darkness fall. We talk about Christmas and wanting things; we talk about wanting that beautiful thing that terrifies me. My mind twists me up, you don't really want that, it says. Your whole life will change, you will have to give it everything, your heart. Perhaps just what I need.

Grace

Immaculate place settings greet my sister and I in the green, green dining room; carpet, drapes, wallpaper all shades of a placid sea green. Great Aunt Alice is busy heating the water for oatmeal. For each of us, she doles out one or two prunes into a small china bowl. And for her, there is piping hot tea. Well past 95 years old, she hosts us with a grace she's held since birth.

Sliding Through

Driving home the cold, cold air makes the outside cleaner, clearer. I watch the lights turn yellow, red, then green and I feel like I've never seen green like this before. It's because I don't want to be anywhere else but in this car, sliding through the dark city. The Chinese restaurant's broad windows show me everything; a scarlet neon open sign screams out, almost joyful. 

Mark's Church

This big and wide front room, two stories high, used to be where all the people sat on Sundays. That was years ago, before it declined, before Mark bought it, made it shine again. A stovepipe shoots straight upward to the high, high ceiling in the center of room. We sit in old wooden dining chairs and stoke a fire, drinking beer; holding a small, kind service between friends.

Marriage

I cook and she tells me about her day; what she did, what she felt good about, who she someday wants to be. Me in the kitchen, her in the dining room, I tell her she is going to get there from here. She looks at me and says I am so lucky, I could not have found anyone who matches me better than you. She is crying a happy cry, and I smile in agreement. This, I know, is marriage.

Whitegrass

Snow fell like the sky was pouring it from buckets. No sun, no light but the blinding white flakes, worming their way into our eyes and mouths. We drove in a slow crawl to the small cafe, the center of the ski universe in this little town. We came dressed to kick and glide, but coffee and pie seduced us, kept us sitting, watching the snowfall stick like paste to everything.

Mountain Rain

The broad front porch curls around the side of the house; from all angles I am looking at a sea of rooftops. Smoke and mist hover, thin layers on top of thicker clouds, all obscuring the mountains behind. On top of this hill in this big old house, I feel the deep chill and watch rain pound its million fists down on every surface. The velocity of it sprays me too, leaves its fingerprints.

Dog Joy

Wet leaves layered on the asphalt like a slick carpet, even in my rugged shoes I watch my step. I fall easily it seems, on steps, on trails, in port-a-johns. Two pulsing dogs pull me forward, one on each hand. They know the rules by now; we are walking, not shopping for grass salad or cat poo. Still, their electric joy makes me hum, too. Happy to be out in the air; to be, all in one moment.

In Bed

In bed, Chris sees me writing my five lines, says, can I help? I like helping you. Says, write about Wyoming. Yes, I say, I'll do that. Eight seconds later, she has more ideas. Say this and this, she says. I say, you go write your country song, and I'll write my blog. She laughs because she knows it's funny, then says, I'm not talking to you; I don't even like you. But I know she's lying. 

To Wyoming

Hundreds of miles, we chugged in the minivan all the way to Dubois. In Missouri we smoked cigars with the windows down, at a standstill in mystery traffic. And in the dead center of Kansas our hearts stopped, braking hard, we both said I think that was a coyote. When we arrived, without looking, we found rings we wanted to bind us. Then we turned around and drove home.

Brown Corduroy

Cold weather brings back to me a sharp, shocking clarity and the justification for winter coats I have loved. This one, brown corduroy, is new from last season. But today, as I absently fingered the buttons, I recalled another coat, my father's brown corduroy. A big bulk of a coat, sizes larger with different buttons, like pebbles, and a warm I will never recover.

Passenger

The bus rumbles north and I watch the sun rise; it was raining when I woke in the dark, the drops tapping on the back porch roof. But now that's over and an orange glow is spreading across the sky. A passenger, I feel a liberation in not having to look at any particular thing, like the road ahead of me. I look to my right, east, crossing the Occoquan River, illuminated.

The Thaw

These are the ice fields, I say as we take a marathon drive from Banff to Jasper. Like the top of the world, or a moonscape. The forests fall away and there is only rock and ice. I see signs of thaw; a roaring creek of pale green blue water carves through feet of frozenness. Water springs from everywhere, from rock on the side of the parkway. Water, sun and dust.

British Columbia

The river grows milkier each day from glacier silt; we've come just in time for melting season. Down the road from our cabin is the town where we eat breakfast and sometimes dinner; a rich, unapologetic, near Bavarian heaviness. At dusk, we troll past the train tracks in our car, watching for the bears that come to scrape up the grain falling from the boxcars. 

Disappear

Water pushes hard, past the waterfall, down through a worn groove of rock; glaciers or snow somewhere above are cracking, melting, falling apart, letting go. We watch it go by, climb further. The trees thin and the land opens up into the valley of the inkpots. I see the ridges continue on in all directions; I know I could disappear if that's what I wanted.

Full

Under bright yellow leaves we almost swallow our breakfast burritos whole. One dry picnic table despite recent dousings, we have this oasis to ourselves. We could call this morning kind of perfect; from the market we have bags full of greens, potatoes, cilantro, jalapenos; bellies full of eggs and chorizo. A slow happy moment of not needing another thing.

Just Us

My first double feature; four theatre hours of Newman and Redford. Just my father's speed; western, old-fashioned, good clean fun. It is another recollection of just us; he had four children and only I was there with him. Either no one else said yes or he'd asked only me, because there were things he thought I would enjoy as much as he did. He was usually right.

Almost Over

Wind twists our chimes until they speak; that and the rain are beginning to rub the trees bald of their leaves. It was just starting to glow outside with the yellow and orange, and now it's almost over. Soon it will just be black brown branches against a grey pink winter sky. But in the side yard, the fading hydrangea still clenches its fist around one obstinate bloom.

Obama

In the gap between polls closing and any useful information whatsoever, we fell asleep. So hungry to watch history, to take our place in it, raw and spent and despairing. It could be just like the last time, worse. I held my dear wife until she gave herself permission to let go, close her eyes. Hours later I woke, whispering into Chris' drowsy peaceful ear, it's looking good.

Compulsion

Morning rain visits us in bed on the back and paws of Bob the cat. So presumptive, he heads for the soft white of our still fresh pillows. Awake now, I try to keep hold of that moment of just waking. Seconds of calm, warm stillness in body and mind that I am always chasing myself out of. A stiff compulsion to get up, to fix or finish a thousand creeping demands.

Daylight Savings

A more sensible morning; my body's clock wakes me up at the same time as yesterday, but today there is light instead of the lingering envelope of night. With our one extra hour, we ignite the day with furious cleaning and cooking, then settle down and watch our longer Sunday unfold. More time, always I beg the universe for more time. Only today, it answers.

Adoration

Early morning, I am on my stomach, holding on to the slippery tail of sleep. Bob the cat is sitting on my back. I know, I can tell, he is staring at Chris. They have a love and a telepathy, and he wants to wake her with some projected electricity. He stretches out, his paw on the back of my head, his head next to my cheek. I turn as best I can and see him, in vigil.

Neuroses

In bed before dark, we watch the light go down through the front windows. In the television screen's reflection, I see us, reading. It has been long enough to feel like I've won a struggle, gained some leverage over what came before. But in sleep and other moments, I lose sight and imagine some wave washing it away, leaving me alone with handfuls of sand.

Seizing

We stand in her kitchen, talking. It's an abnormally normal moment with my mother. Ordinary things are said; I am saying something and I suddenly understand that she simply isn't there anymore. All signs of presence have left her eyes and I know she's about to go down. She seizes, a new experience for both of us, and I do what I can to help her fall.

Halloween Eve

Into the dark evening we walk the dogs, rattled at first by air colder than we expected. Houses in this part of town still have real fireplaces, and we smell burning wood, for us the smell of joy. No light left in the sky, we meant it this way, to better see the halloween exploding in lights, in inflated pumpkins, vampires, bats and ghosts. Better, much better than Christmas.

Somewhere Else

Looking in her element, my mother sat smiling by the window with a glass of iced tea. We were in a motel room in Times Square, 1985. This was a stillness between the carriage ride in the park and a shopping tour of Chinatown. She had a happy calm, not the false quiet of chronic sadness. We were where she always wanted to be, somewhere else.

Re-Entry

Golden brown tree tops glow in the late afternoon sun. I stand up from my desk and see just the illuminated tips against a marbly sky. The wind has blown out the rain and left the cold. Loosening my grip, I rise from my work to a new weather system. The day went by without my notice, and now it tells me I missed the world turning a little. 

Bird Wrestling

Two birds grapple in a parking lot. We wonder first if one is bound to the other, one just trying to free itself from a dead body. But they take turns looking like the dead body, and the best that we hope for seems to be true. They are fulfilling nature's imperative to survive. It looks otherwise, like they are killing each other, can't tear away even to save themselves.

Other Than Warm

Bone cold, the chill becomes an ache and it's easy to confuse tired with afflicted. There is no heating up. I know how it will go tonight; I will bundle up for bed and still shiver until sleep, wake up hours later in an incubated sweat, stripping layers, forgetting I was ever anything other than warm. Tonight and most nights, it's that moment I can't wait for.

Eastern Shore Ride

Moody October clouds and spit, but still warm enough for short sleeves on my bicycle. This isolated finger of Virginia is like a clearing, of land, of heads, of air. Onancock, Wachapreague, Pungoteague, Machipongo; any turn in the road can change our standing with the wind. We roll through hollows and between farmland, auburn woods and pale amber scrub. 

Night Swim

Some late night on a wide carolina beach, six or eight of us took to the water. New to college, I was happy to be in this new life with new people, doing new things. The mild waves crept over our ankles. We joined hands and in a line walked into the sea, soon a string of bobbing heads, pleased with ourselves. The warm dark wrapped around us like a womb.

Old Truck

Bouncing like a farm hand to my office job, I strong arm the big tall stick shift. Too loud to hear the radio or a phone, this is two-fisted driving. Left hand keeping me on the road, right hand keeping me in gear. When I'm driving this truck, I'm driving this truck. Utilitarian, honest, throwback, Buddhist. Like a calling, it demands all of me, responsive and present.

Looking Out

Still dark, I wander upstairs looking outward. The bathroom is full of moonlight; and the back porch bulb makes its make-do roof glow yellow like a honeycomb. The spare bedroom, where a silence and calm lives like nowhere else in the house, I can see out across rooftops eastward. And here, if I wait, I will watch the sun fight its way up through the trees.

Sixteen

I had my own universe at sixteen; a room of my own and a record player. I bought obscure albums from used bins, examined them in hours alone. This is when I wrote the poems, the epic melancholics, a squeezing of pain from one container into another. Sometimes after spending all the words I had, I looked out the front window at the world outside my head. 

Mine

My father's sweater, always in plain sight, I notice and remember sometimes. This I kept. Poly-blend grey and white, it's what he wore on Saturdays, hunting or napping. It stretched as he did; I wore it after he died until one of the pits wore out. Dead twenty-two years, there's almost nothing left of him. So I keep what I have, balled up, stuffed away, mine.

Autumn Greens

Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens, kale; I wash and pull the stems. In a line I boil then saute, store, refrigerate. This industriousness fueled by another morning at the market, stoked by my fond remembering that now is the time for greens. Larger, richer, sweeter; they only get better with the cold. Full-leafed abundance, Autumn blooms.

Deep Woods Home

A remote campsite; more what we had in mind, but not where our tent is pitched. We committed to a small national forest campground down the mountain, still too close to humans. But here, a mile and a half into a hike, we rest as if this was home. Sheltered by maples and hemlocks not a soul but us and a woodpecker. North Creek bubbles past and we doze.

Joanne's Pie

Yesterday we bought three pies. It seemed extravagant; we didn't know then that Joanne was dead. Our neighbor whittled away by hard years; she and I had a tenderness for each other. I knew this time with the ambulance was different. I knew she would go without me doing as much as I wanted. It happens that way; and it happened that the third pie, blueberry, was really for those left, the ones who helped her go.

Clay Mandala

No artistry here; I paid two dollars for a twenty-five pound bag of scrap. Red clay, it leaves a wet red residue and dries opaque over my fingernails; I could be up to my elbows on a riverbank. I pound and pull something from as deep as my small intestine. When I'm done, and when it dries, I'll break it up again into dust and let the river take it back. 

Hours

Waiting until morning; it must have been like this (or the origin of this) when everybody went home. Everyone but me leaving the sterile and silent, the dim-lit halls and elevators. Me, I was bound by I.V., bound by oxygen tent, bound by what I was told about what was best for me. And because sleep was also best, even nurses kept away. Awake, I waited for visiting hours.

Booksnobbery

I am grateful; I chisel through two book chapters, not a chore, but a peaceful exercise. This book is not chasing me through its bulk, keeping me up nights like an itch, tactically planting agonizing devices of suspense. It knows I don't want to be anesthetized; at least not today. Instead I want to learn a new language; to see my own world as new.

Restless

Our house and its contents have settled; Chris sleeps hard on this first night of ten days off. Even our antsy dog Scout has found this hour when she's wandered enough, scratched enough, sneezed enough. I am alone and awake, listening to our home exhale in the deep rhythm of rest. I am the real restless one; never ever finished, never ready to put down the day.

Fierce Logic

A radio reporter spoke reverently about Beethoven's piano sonatas; I could see again my grandfather's living room. We sat, much too young for this, listening to him play his grand piano. I wish I could hear what I remember seeing. I know now this music demands study to get beyond the surface sounds, inside the fierce logic, to know it. Just like my grandfather.

Just Tired

So little sleep last night it's not worth adding up the minutes, I feel what it might have been like to be three. Storms of confusion, euphoria, even tears pass through like a parade. Deep in there is the reasonable me, knowing full well that I could say to every blip, I am just tired. Like a sage in no other way than this, I know I'll feel better in the morning.

Home Body

Wiping clean the corners of our home, I remember making it ours. I pulled up the old, soiled carpet, hours stretched out on this floor with pliers, fighting long-toothed staples one by one. My brutalized fingers rubbed every quarter inch of this now revived wood. The more I grab hold, cleaning or restoring, the more this home feels like part of my own body.

Market Season

The first chill strong enough to see it as we exhale, we are picking out tomatoes and swiss chard. It's too early for the crowds, the familiar faces that turn this market into a social event. It's all business this morning. The farmers have brought almost everything, anticipating the end of the season. Sweet potatoes, kale, eggplant; we fill our bags while we can.

House Crazies

Embarking on the day, we left the house warm and peaceful. Then some strange madness set in. Scout the dog tore on the back door, desperate to get in; Billy the cat tore on the front door, desperate to get out. We came home to splinters and fallen blinds. Hours later now, and everyone is sleeping. As if the nervous terror ghost got what it wanted and left.

Word Cakes

All day, submerged. Long strings of words pulled out of me for this or that purpose. I muster the focus. Like applying a suction cup to my face, I've said to myself before. Keep your eyes front and center, look ahead, pour. I am a filter or an easy bake oven; taking in requests and specifications, mixing the mix, applying heat, spitting out perfect little word cakes.

Head Screws

I forget about early October weather. I only remember the air clearing and cooling. But it storms for a week, and in my head a crisis of tightening that takes away my reason. Six days, six headaches. The wind blows the still-green-leaved trees, shaking them like dolls. Something's turning the screws on the world, and I can feel every inch of lost circumference.

Betty's House Dresses

My grandmother made house dresses look good. Both long and short enough to be practical, these dresses let her clean and straighten and garden and just plain move about. Mostly sleeveless, she wore sweaters, cardigans with pockets, for tissues and miscellany. One day, I will wear house dresses too, and hope that I look like her.

Dreaming of Luggage

In sleep, I walked into unfamiliar buildings with teeming shelves like an old library. I found the green backpack from ten years ago, and the black hanging bag for dress clothes and shoes (from when I used to wear them). Then finally a trunk full of camping and wilderness gear—lost, forgotten, refound—just in time for waking plans. 

Cabin Dreams

Firelight makes the rafters blink with shadows coming and going. It will take another twenty minutes for the ash to win the fight, committing us to complete dark for the next eight hours. Our bed's in the loft, balcony seating for the whole cabin. Wrapped in a home-sewn bear and moose quilt, we fall asleep before the flames die.

South River Falls

The clouded sky makes the understory glow green technicolor against the soaked, black tree trunks and dark grey stones and slate. Thick, misted air proves that rain has been here, and will return at any moment. The stream is busting with water, tumbling out of its drought-drawn borders, down any channel it can find.

The Dousing

Deep in woods, we experience three degrees of rain. First the leftovers, shaken down from trees by wind. If it reaches us, it feels like grace. Then we hear new rain tapping down through leaves to our faces and shoulders, tiny cool needle pricks. A mile from the car, thunder. The dousing begins, and I am drinking from the sky. 

As Good as Home

Three days tired, I've finally stumbled back to our front door. Lula, big as a farm animal, sleeps in the back room. Her ribs heave up and down, and she's almost snoring. If only I could have had a little of what she's got; if only a hotel room could take me to that place. The older I get, the less anywhere else feels as good as home.

Big Mess

"Big boss is in town," the cabdriver says, apologizing for the United Nations-inspired tangle. I wouldn't have known the difference. "Big Bush, big mess." Somehow, for the same reasons, the taxi's credit card reader doesn't work either. I let him dispose of me two blocks early; a city wind blows in some late September to clear my head.

Sleeping in Times Square

Forty-two stories up, I might as well still be in flight. It took me ten seconds to get this high in the elevator; unnaturally catapulted. Just as a taxi hurled me like a roller coaster from airport to hotel. This is not my home. Sealed away up here, I could be sleeping on another planet; if I were sleeping. Times Square blinks behind my eyelids.

Cows on the Shenandoah II

I walk the country route along the river, in the margin of the asphalt where the natives drive too fast. Today I've walked farther from the monastery road than usual, and on a curve I stop. Right there, legs in the air is a toppled cow, car-stricken and long dead. It's hard to imagine how this cow got here, running for freedom, stopped short.

Younger and Stupider

Riding in the car, I say something, nothing in particular, and Chris bubbles out laughter like milk. It doesn't matter what I said. We're inhaling iced coffees, and it gives us the stupids. The same stupids that keep us up some nights like grade-schoolers. If only school had been this fun. Forty now, I'm younger than I was when we met. 

Red Bellied Killer

I put cinderblocks there for a reason; mine, not the black widow's. I look down into the cave-sized hole from where that red-dot belly screams at me. It screams hospital visit, ruined plans, disaster. In my fear-soaked mind, I don't have dominion here, no matter how much bigger I am, no matter what kind of shoes I have on.

Champions at Breakfast

Roasted potatoes, both white and sweet. Thick crusted garlic bread, egg whites with baby heirloom tomatoes. Crisp gala apples. Breakfast at home, the near-October air recommends long-sleeved shirts and hot, good coffee. Saturday mornings make us feel invincible. Caffeinated, we think of a million ways to change the world.

Meeting Notes

The second hour into a five-hour meeting, I am counting the change in my pockets. My ears are scrambling the words reaching me from the front of the room. I don't not care; I just wish I were in the woods, listening to the trees instead.

Emergency

I wake in a burst to a siren's whoop. I am safe in my bed, warm and stunned from sleep. It must be my neighbor's heart; in five years I've grown fond of her and her heart. This time I can't watch the stretcher, her frail and strong body strapped in for transport. But I keep vigil, whispering to no one, please bring her back home again.

River Trail

The trail, carved deep into the meadow, curves with the Deschutes River. On my bicycle, I feel like a ball bearing rolling in a groove. Progress takes me from the open land uphill into forest. At the crest, a horse and rider come out of nowhere, an orchestrated crash, reminding me that hooves made this path, and they were here first.

Cows on the Shenandoah

I walked to the river from the monastery where I was staying. This was farmland; no paths or trails. I wandered on a tractor road, past a working barn, over territory that rightly belonged to a herd of black and white cows. They pretended I wasn't there. But as I descended to the trees along the bank, I turned and saw them watching.

Waiting for October

In the back room, a warm lamp casts warm light on Billy the cat, curled up in Chris' empty chair. This is the axis of our home. Sometimes, all of the animals are in here with us, their happy, resting bodies strewn all over the rug. From my chair, I can't wait to watch October change the air and light, to hear dry leaves falling outside.

White Rock Falls

Moss-covered rocks surround the shrunken waterfall. These rocks were under water in a more rain-filled season. It's as if the faucet's been turned to the right, but a pool at the bottom survives. For Lula the dog, it's enough. We throw a log in and she jumps for it; her own game of puddle fetch. Mouth full of soggy wood, she begs for more.

Manchester

In an old, new part of town, I forget I've been here almost forever. A community from a wasteland, factories now homes and offices and coffeehouses. Industrious, less and less industrial. Worn bricks with ghosts of old white letters glow from the windows from the new lives inside of them. In a sudden rain, I love this somewhere else.

Coxswain

I faced forward as the fragile rowing shell skated. Four oar blades dipping in, engaging, following through and resurfacing. My rowers faced me. At 5 a.m. we were alone on the water with the herons and sometimes a tugboat. It terrified me to play this part—pilot and commander. Then the weather changed in me and I found my voice.

First Smoke

We hid behind the church, behind the playground. Me, my brother and Robbie. Robbie had the cigarettes; he was what our parents called a bad kid. We just thought he was interesting. Lighting up, it didn't matter to me that I'd spent most of my childhood so far in hospitals fighting for air. This was our chance to be interesting, too.

Salamanca

I watched birds rise and fall, black waves synchronized and maybe suicidal. With nervy speed they swarmed between tight stone walls—buildings against buildings, homes, storefronts, churches. Straight up, then down and forward, they flooded into the wider morning sunlight of the village plaza, more than a thousand years old. 

Waylon and Willie

The horses took us farther into the Grand Tetons than we would have taken ourselves. I was on Waylon and Chris rode Willie; or maybe it was the other way around. The meadows swelled around us, and over our shoulders rose impossibly tall rock. Then into a grove of trees, we stopped at a stream and took our shoes off.

Park Sunset

The dogs burn past us on the city park trail's small loop. We keep our knees bent to absorb a collision, in case the dogs miss the narrow gap. The sky looks like mashed potatoes as the sun sets earlier than it did last week. We move to the lake for the swimming part of our evening; clumsy bugs bounce off me in the growing dark.

Nap Time

On the big white wall next to my bed, I was drawing dinosaurs. A mural of big, unfamiliar animals. I was supposed to be taking a nap, but there was no sleeping with a mind full of stories like this. In a different moment, I would know I had broken the rules. But this wasn't then yet. I was just following the lines my hand was drawing.

Permission

In the warm, slow river I waded with my best friend and his mother. We were little kids, so William's mom said I could take my shirt off too. It was an easy, kind moment. With permission to be the little boy I was, I let go of the little girl I was not. All by ourselves in the brown current, summer trees arching softly over us.

Not Sleeping

We pulled our mattress downstairs. In that wind, it felt wise to sleep (or not sleep) closer to the ground. Electricity gone, we used an old radio to feel out how long the night would last. Adrenaline and boredom drove Chris to open the front door, to see what we could hear — the slow thump of trees losing their grip on the earth.

The Center

It was dim and busy in the back of the ambulance, moving me from one hospital to another. I was small, and my father rode with me. Because he was there, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I asked him to tell me when we passed our house; to know where I was in relation to the center of my universe. Truth was, he was the center.

Pig Brains

Afternoons in my grandmother's kitchen, our natural idleness would not stand. She put us to work. Scrubbing linoleum, squeaky olive and never that dirty. Sorting cans and jars that Grandma had canned and jarred. Or helping her cook up mysteries on the stove. Once, with a wooden spoon, she coaxed pig brains into my unknowing mouth.

Tree Feathers

Magnolia, holly, cherry blossom; these were my homes as a child. The cherry blossom was my least favorite to climb. The lowest branch was still too high. It took a long heave to reach up into it. One day I lost my grip, fell flat on my back and lost all my wind in one blasting sigh. Down into a bed of white blossoms, not quite feathers.

Mau-Har Trail

We sit in a cold pool in Campbell Creek, three miles in from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We descended through mountain laurel and rhododendron to get here, ankles bending and screaming. The dogs handled it like goats. This ice bath is our reward. We sit, before turning back around, back uphill, letting the sun and breezes find us. 

Night Fear

Faint thunder grumbles. Scout the dog pants and rattles the baby gate keeping her and her sisters downstairs. She is terrified. This is not the Scout we're used to; the Scout in no big hurry, the Scout who sleeps with all four feet in the air. But tonight, at midnight, three and four, I am trying to convince her that nothing bad is about to happen.

Bad Kitty

Waking up, I hear thumping. It's not familiar. Not the dogs banging out the back door's doggie flap; not the cats being actively bored. I go towards the sound, and it looks as if some stupid elf has been throwing my hiking boots around the room. Billy the cat is playing with a baby mouse, still alive; his brother Bob sits nearby, captivated.

Backyard Wild

Sometimes I wandered to the back of the yard—away from the house full of my mother, father, brother and sisters. Between the boxwoods and azaleas, I found a hollowed out space like a cave. There was only room for me, and I was invisible. I pretended I was in the middle of some wilderness, communing with it, holding my own.

Summer Nights

On the hottest summer nights, we sprawled on top of our sleeping bags on our parents' bedroom floor. It was the only room upstairs with an air conditioner. My father wanted nothing more than for all of us to just go to sleep, but the cool air made us giddy. We kicked and poked each other, and tried to laugh without making a sound.

The Great Rinse

Rain falls in a tumult and I remember my favorite rain, the dead summer kind I watched from my childhood wraparound porch. If the wind blew, I backed up as far as I could to stay dry. If it was a still rain, I sat on the steps. It was like a great rinse of the world I knew, the shiny black streets under light posts. And I felt cleaner, too.

A Clean Shot

A dry, cold December 30 years ago, I went with my father to the woods. The sky was grey and pink; and all was silent. We were deer-hunting. I couldn’t possibly ever find those woods again, or our place in them. I was a child, bundled and waiting for any sight or sound. My dad also waited—for a line of sight, a clean shot, a chance.

Church Bats

The big Baptist church across the street from our home had a lush, green courtyard. On summer nights, the neighborhood kids would gather there and run around with no clear purpose. Sometimes I stopped running and lay breathing in the grass, watching the warm sky. In the glow of church lights, bats flew crazily across the square.

Morning Sun

We visited the convent in Philadelphia when I was four; my Great Aunt Libet lived there. It was summer and I remember rabbits running across a big green lawn. I also remember having a room to myself for the first time. But I wasn't afraid. In the morning, the bright sun lit up the white walls and I felt warm from the inside out.

Senora Cranky

It's humid like August, but the light feels like October. The wind pushes big clouds across the sky. I labor on my bicycle like a dying mule. It's like reentering my own body after a long, long time away. I shift gears searching for some hidden pow. Like a blessing, a train roars beside me, and for a moment I forget to suffer.

Breakfast in Bend

I was living 3,000 miles from home, and nothing made it more special than the snow. Virginia wasn't like this. I was alone in a new way, making my own breakfast, listening to Saturday morning public radio. When it was time to take my dog for his walk, I bundled up, opened the door and we stepped out into the soft white.

Ice Water

It was my job to feed our family dog. Reb, our lonely English Setter, lived in a pen at the back of the yard. In the dead of winter, I pulled on my father's down coat and his very large work boots to make the cold walk out back. On the coldest nights, I used the heel of one of those boots to smash through the ice that covered Reb's water bowl.

Animal Kingdom

Billy the cat sits on my African drum, looking at Lula. Our dog Lula chews on a nubby bone. Lula dug the bone out of a basket, where all of her toys are. This is how she self-entertains; but when it all gets too much for her, she howls like Chewbacca from Star Wars. Billy just watches, amused.

Great Aunt Alice

My great Aunt Alice just turned 100. I hadn't seen her in over a year. I became really close to her a few years ago, when she was 94 and still running her own household (and what a big house it was). She even shoveled the snow. But now dementia's hit. And this evening, when I came to visit, she was so excited to have accidentally met me.

First Post

Here's the deal. This is an experiment. As of late, writing's been the last thing I've wanted to do. I'm going to attempt to jump-start my desire to write by keeping it short (short time, short length). My motto is: Better short than nothing. And I've always been a fan of the short form. So here's to developing a new practice -- by breaking some rules and making different ones. All based on following my own nose. 

Here are the rules:

1. Write no more than 5 lines.

2. Write for no more than 10 minutes.

3. Try to do it once a day.

4. Try to append a bad drawing as often as possible.

Time to start my engine.