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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Penned
Drugs can make us do stupid things — though, to be fair, drugs can also help us meet formidable demands. Meth can make you work hard as hell, the way my mom did, doing a full-time job at a farm-equipment company on weekdays and part-time retail jobs on weekends, until it all came crashing down.
January 2022
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
How We Met And What Happened Next
A middle-aged New England lawyer, you were dressed like a cowboy. This, as much as anything else, underscored that it was over between us. A suede-fringe jacket. Snakeskin boots with stacked heels. An oversized Stetson. What, I said, no spurs?
December 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Growth
Being in remission is like air: you only appreciate it when it’s gone. After four years of not appreciating it, I’m back on Vancouver Island, where I work at the university as a cafeteria dishwasher.
December 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Old Friend
I wasn’t good at sports, like he was, but when it was just the two of us, he liked to play pretend. That, I was good at. Whether we were knights or ninjas or mountain men or astronauts or soldiers in Vietnam, he listened with his whole self — intent, leaning in — to whatever story I was telling.
December 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
OR-93
The wolf has traveled a thousand miles in two months. A director of a wolf-advocacy group said his arrival here is “something akin to the [first] moonwalk.”
November 2021Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Between Notes
I add thirty-eight points to Dad’s side of the scorecard. “You’re kicking my ass,” I say. He gathers the cards and begins to shuffle, his hands clumsy, the cards slipping out onto the table. “Let me,” I say, but he says he can do it, that it’s his turn.
November 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Relationship Tips
I put aside the previous rejections and try again. This time I don’t mess around with coffee. I don’t want anything that might allow her a graceful out or result in a request to be friends. I have friends. I ask her on a dinner date.
November 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Life, Without Imitation
Some nights, when medication and meditation have failed to put me to sleep, I think of the relatives who abandoned my family to become white people.
November 2021
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Better
My eyes filled again. Filippo came by and murmured, “Think of the little light in your chest,” and somehow I understood him. I don’t know how. I let the light shine.
October 2021
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