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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.
December 2021
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?
November 2021
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.
November 2021
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.
November 2021
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.”
October 2021Between 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.
October 2021
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.
October 2021
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.
October 2021
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.
September 2021
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