I told myself it was a trick of the light rather than the result of the grey in my beard.
My little tics and anxieties seem to be moving from the vexing to the comic. Perhaps this is one happy side effect of getting older.
The usual clouds, the usual forty-something degrees, and there’s a photograph of my mom on the massive screen behind us.
The snow is melting quickly, leaving behind a scene like the bleary-eyed aftermath of a really good party.
Temps in the teens and a light coating of snow. Time gets funny when you start losing people.
A late April snowstorm blew through Ohio last night, quick and heavy.
Looking at these paintings, it’s hard to believe I’ve been sober for eight years.
Tonight I sat outside in the unfamiliar terrain of southeastern Ohio, lit a candle, and watched the stars.
First memories are such peculiar creatures, these fuzzy impressions and garbled snapshots that teach us how to see the world.
Maybe it was the barometer dropping, the rearrangement of air pressure.
Riffling through my small box of family memories, I came across a note written in an unfamiliar hand.
I remember watching the darkness in my bedroom when I was small, hypnotized by grey-pink flecks while I waited for sleep.
I find solace in these instructions from Epictetus: do not say something is lost, only that it is returned.
My grandmother was tradition personified, a west side Polish Catholic who served Saturday night dinners of kielbasa and fried smelt.
There was a time when I would count how many words I said each day. At night I logged the number into a notebook. Sixteen. Twenty-three.
I needed to work with my hands today. To be reminded that I can make something that takes up space and serves a need.
One of the finest things I own is a lamp with a stern brass pirate, one hand on his hip and the other gripping a long sword.
The 45th parallel is the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole, and you can feel the geography shift when you see all that big pine and cold water.
I wonder if deep down each of carries a fantasy of one day becoming an ascetic or a mystic, some hardwired notion of stripping our lives bare and praying in the gloom.
I remember smoking a cigarette in the subzero wind while watching the lights of freighters on the horizon. I thought we were at the edge of the earth.
