It is fall, I guess, and none of the leaves are turning color. That's not true. The western sycamores in Big Sur are. The coast live oak whose leaves perpetually carpet camp's trails. The lone sugar maple in Yosemite whose blood heart leaves people drive three, four hours just to see, just to witness. I …
be your own 3AM
sk8r boi in a hospital vibes “I am not physically tired, just filled with a deep, vague, undefined sense of spiritual distress, as if I had a deep wound running inside me and it had to be stanched.” –Thomas Merton It's all about language these days. Still. Even with the lilacs in bloom and the …
an autobiography of writing
“Maybe it’s the gap, the feeling that someone isn’t listening, doesn’t get it, has half heard us, that compels us to write and explain. That’s why we turn around and speak to our past, as if others can hear us now, as if we can finally hear ourselves and catch our fleeting lives.” ---Natalie Goldberg …
Self-Portrait at 27
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 …
The Loneliness of Jupiter
“Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.” --- Toni Morrison, Sula I was sitting on my sister's couch when I found the picture of Jupiter. This picture of Jupiter. I don't remember where …
Thank You
"Strawberries first shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward; you cannot earn it, or call it to you, or even deserve it. And yet …
Now
Time is a sloshing, sticky thing. I first started this blog as a way to document my travels when I lived out of my car. That was nearly two years ago, and here we still are. I've kept writing because I've always written and I don't know another way to live. But I also write …
where do we go from here?
But I needed to witness someone wrestle With what it means to just exist -Dawes Existing is hard. A pair of lungs, working legs, synapses that fire and illuminate, you’d think the biology of it all would be the difficult part of it. But often it’s not. I’ve had a lot of what happens next …
Self-Portrait at Twenty-Five
You are 25. A quarter of a century. You feel 25. You're still young but somehow, without noticing, you've slipped into adulthood. You like being 25. You sport a $16.95 haircut, and thrift-store sweaters, and purple Vans you bought in California back in high school. You still own your Death Cab for Cutie hoodie …
A Year
One year ago, I was sitting at a desk. It was a nice desk. The chair was padded and it swiveled; I had an entire drawer dedicated to colored paper, glue sticks, and craft foam; a painted alligator made of egg cartons and cardboard boxes watched me work. It was a lovely desk. Fifty-two weeks …
People in Parks 