This past Sunday was Father’s Day. I talked on the phone with my stepdad and my dad and then with my daughter for a bit. While none of the calls felt forced, I don’t know that they would have happened were it not for the day. I talk to my mom once a week. I…
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 20, 2023
Every day in June has felt like an important date. I write the date, June 20th, and say to myself, I feel like something happened on the 20th, some distant anniversary long fogged over. These false or forgotten memories feel oddly comforting – as though I’ve been here before. I know this day.
A Serious Lust for Shawarma
I came out on the back deck to enjoy the balmy evening temperatures and bird song. It’s almost summer and the warm weather makes me want to sit out and watch the stars, or drive roads long into the night, or have never-ending conversations that while away the dusky hours. I brought out to the…
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 19, 2023
This sunlight on my closed eyes paints everything pink. I imagine a wall of pink and orange gradients. I imagine blackbirds mid-flight stark against the colored wall. Somewhere there’s a sky of blue and sidewalks the color of sand. A vendor wheels his metal lunch cart clanging over dips in the road.
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 18, 2023
Honeysuckle Sundays drip sweet sunshine in overgrown breezeways. Everything is coming up golden yet I can already taste fall’s brittle scarecrow. Today the corn is sweet. Whisper in the wind (today the corn is sweet). My shoes shuffle, my feet the street. We wear each other down in this slowly dying town.
Pheasants May Be Goats
The timing of the online sighting of my ex (the effects of which I chronicled here) got me wondering. Because our brains look for, or at least my brain does, connections and “coincidences” often where none exist, I was curious to see if our profiles matched up on the same day we had matched up…
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 17, 2023
In the morning sun, a squirrel hangs upside down from a bird feeder. She spills seeds onto the ground where two squirrels forage beneath. Some would see this as cooperation – evidence of a higher order. I feel smug in recognizing it as little more than opportunity – calling it by its rightful name.
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 16, 2023
In the hour just before midnight the music plays. This could go on all night. Sweet soul, saucy groove, the evening spools. Together, we’re hemmed in like the hard plastic cassette case of a mix tape. Bass drops, songs fade, this is the winding road to Reno. The stars are always there.
Two Minutes and Seven Seconds of Meditation
Just now, I tried a five-minute guided meditation. I stopped two minutes and seven seconds into it to write about the less-than-successful attempt. Unlike a lot of people I’ve talked to, I usually don’t have a problem clearing my mind. I suspect that had I sat down, set a timer and just gone at it,…
The Early Hours
“Thank god for TikTok and its endless stream of content. Without it, I would have nothing but time.” -Tano Rubio It’s 4 am. It’s that time of day (night/morning) when one can almost sink into the quiet like deep folds in a blanket – a time when one can almost feel the slow stretch of…
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 15, 2023
It’s 5 am. The thinnest slice of a curved moon hangs above the silhouetted trees. A robin talks and tweets her head silly. She has news to spread. The horizon begins to blush – barely able to keep its secrets, the embarrassment of riches it’s about to usher in. Sky lightens. World awakens.
Daily Fifty-Two: Jun. 14, 2023
A mourning dove coos her evening song. Everything grows tired: the fading light, the snoring dog, the head nods towards an open book. The cursor blinks and winks waiting to be fed, the cellphone buzzes with text notifications. The electronics are insomniacs. I whisper to them sweetly, listen to the dove’s lament.