This is your first summer not out in the sun, and it is hard. This time last year, you were paddling a canoe up in Canada. And the year before that, you were watching the tide crash on Cape Cod. And the year before that, you were backpacking through the Adirondacks and finalizing your road …
to be alone
"There are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late." ---Charles Bukowski to be alone to be alone (with you) to be alone It was Friday night, and my friends and I were …
the art of looking
“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.” –Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Taxonomy is the "orderly classification of plants and animals." Meaning this is an orchid, this is a lupine, they are …
nothing ever ends as you think it will
If I'm a slut for anything, it's closure. I will do backbends, somersaults, aerial pirouettes (unsure if that's a thing) to ensure I get the ending that feels right. I want the memories gift wrapped and then safely shelved away, everything neat and easily retrievable. I want resolution like a knife sliding effortlessly through a …
dream(s) deferred
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? ---Langston Hughes In another …
from the ashes
You are unsure of where the guilt comes from. Do they hand it to you mid-conversation? Do you conjure it inside of yourself like smoke? Do you find it on the street like a discarded soda bottle or Sunday coupons, sullied and stepped-on and yet you still pick it up, still claim it as yours? …
life as told by seven unrelated facts
My thoughts have been scattershot lately. Ribbons of this. Shreds of confetti of that. I wish I had more of coherence, of weighty substance to write, but that's not where I am at. So here's this. This is what I've been thinking about lately: 1. Swell sharks---Cephaloscyllium ventriosum---live along the Californian coast. They are called …
liminal spaces
Liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. Threshold, among other things, means the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen or change. It's like this: You are water. Blue and blameless. Ebbing and flowing in a tide pool. Heat begins to build, and you, beautiful …
days the color of a monkeyface eel
A week and a half ago we asked our boss if we could purchase 1,000 carrion beetles. My coworker had found a monkeyface prickleback carcass and was interested in harvesting the delicate bones. Obviously, beetles were the way to go. That was a week and a half ago, but it feels like a different epoch. …
night walks
I've been taking a lot of night walks lately. Skulking, I call it. Disappearing into the Californian night, leaving my messy room, messy mind behind. I walk without light as often as possible. Sometimes I run. The town I live in is a wealthy geriatric place, million-dollar homes landscaped with succulents and neatly polished rocks, …
People in Parks 