Light snow here in Ohio, and the weather report was mixed with grim coronavirus forecasts.
The holidays remind me that I don’t have the type of family that appears in commercials and television specials.
Domestic rituals of all kinds will be critical during this long winter.
Sometimes I blame modern-day aesthetics for my difficulties. The optics seem wrong for devotion.
Tonight I am grateful because I have a safe place to sleep, food to eat, and the freedom to make my own decisions.
I miss the dopamine loop, the carrot and the stick, and the rhythm of stepping outside for five minutes after each page or paragraph.
I tuned into the voice looping over the P.A. system, struck by how it sounded simultaneously rational and insane.
There was a time when people believed the stomach’s gurgles and rumbles belonged to the voices of the dead.
We stopped at a rest area where a man stood on the grass, grinning at the moon.
I read about a temple where an image is treated as the living incarnation of an infant god.
I often hear people say they feel as if reality is slipping away. But perhaps reality is becoming more evident.
I found a rare picture of my mom young and smiling, caught beneath the overheated gloss of a 1970s photo.
I don’t want to become a prematurely old man, pining for a romanticized past.
Meanwhile, I keep forgetting the screen is a tool, not an environment.
I wanted to visit my favorite statues and paintings before things begin closing again.
Or take the word ‘disaster’, the inversion of ‘astro’, a term which means a negative star, a kink in the heavens that leads to catastrophe.
A profane old man would often tell me, “Fuck your feelings.” Then he’d remind me of the facts. That advice probably saved my life.
We knew it was coming. They’ve been telling us for months, and now it’s here.
How many times have I glimpsed a better, more spiritualized way to live—and retreated?
Words that haunt the unconscious: Trilobites, moonfish, and gorgons.
