Journal
Dispatches and speculations from the American roadside.
Grace
As I listened to a woman talk to the pigeons, I began humming that Jesus’ blood never failed me yet.
Sand
They’re calling it the Gorilla Dust Cloud, and you can see it from outer space.
Routine
For years I would reach for my telephone the moment I woke up, groping for it with a junkie sense of need.
Phase
She made a comment about her life that seems like a solid piece of wisdom for dealing with any kind of history: “I need to look back, but I don’t need to stare.”
Radioland
During commercial breaks, I sang along to radio jingles for machines that control your brainwaves while you sleep.
Solstice
People are edgy, their dreams infected with anxiety if they can sleep at all.
Midnight
I scrolled through streets named after Hank Williams and Big Mama Thornton while the radio worried about leftists and alien abductions.
Convulsion
More than ever, surrealism might be the best strategy for surviving these days.
Tactile
And I’m reminded that I think better without the screen tugging at my thoughts like a magnet.
Reconciliation
I want to square my life with these instructions from Thich Nhat Hanh: “Vow to work for reconciliation by the most silent and unpretentious mean possible.”
Wolf
They call it the hour of the wolf, and I think it’s reassuring there’s a name for this time, that others feel it too.
Need
Sometimes my mind lands on a jittery thought: screens have become our reality and the physical world simply exists to serve their needs.