I love the way he plays with fire and light. With water and mirrors and stars. Maybe because I’ve always loved those things, too? England’s Lake District. When I was still a Nikon girl, and would walk for hours to lay on my stomach with my lens. Where things still wear their old Norse names
He said, “You reckon that’s what Heaven looks like?” I said, “It ought to, I climbed high enough.” Then he stuck a fireball in his mouth and turned back to the TV and said “Watch this right here.” And that son of Katie Elder put dynamite under a bridge and it went BOOM, and so
To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. Thich Nhat Hanh said that. Or something like it. I sat on the river bank this morning. Before the fog had a chance to lift into the sky. Wondering how many people I’ve wounded. Because I didn’t love them right. Because I didn’t
I love the mornings. If the day’s my own, it’s when I feel my happiest. This morning I wanted to watch the sun rise across the lake. Instead, I found a field out in the middle of nothing by a road that dead-ended into the water. I got out of my car and stood and
Pa always grew the most amazing gardens. At an 80 degree angle. No low land in sight. Nowadays he has one small patch. Flat. He grows squash. And lettuce. And he sits in a chair to pick his beans. This chair. Sometimes his body gives out on him. He can’t stand. Or even sit. So
I don’t get nostalgic. I’m not a proud mountaineer. I don’t wear the gold and the blue. I don’t sing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” like I used to. “Oh I’m proud to be a coal miner’s daughter. I remember well, the well where I drew water. Nothing’s left, but the floors, Nothing lives here, anymore. ‘Cept
Last Fall I spent a lot of time in an old fishing boat that had been left on the bank. It became a sort of security blanket, when life became overwhelming. Sometimes I’d just sit in it and let squirrels throw nuts down at me. Other times, I’d push it out onto the lake, and
Ma never acted her age. She never sat down. Never stood still. She didn’t take naps like Pa did. Didn’t do “grown up” things, where children weren’t involved. She laughed and smiled at everyone. At 70, she still liked to skip and bounce. To go out for ice cream at 9pm. To throw big elaborate
I want to see Petra. I want to stand on the road to Damascus. I want to yell into the Grand Canyon and off of the Great Wall of China. I want to sit in that Milanese noodle hall. Stare at a Florentine’s image of a blue-eyed Christ. I want to climb Machu Picchu and
I spent three hours here, yesterday. On this stoop and on this porch. I humped up and wouldn’t budge when everyone else went to feed the donkey. Even though they knew good and well they weren’t supposed to feed that donkey. And I thought about my great-aunt Georgie, and Pa and Ma. And how they
I started cussing when Ma died. Hard core mouthfuls. Obscenities I never knew I knew. It was the only thing that made me feel better. It was the only thing that made me feel good. And I liked it. That’d be hard for Ma to handle, if she knew. I don’t have to imagine what
