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Healing
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Pistol In A Drawer
Ever since I first slipped it into my duffel bag those many years ago, I have guarded the pistol jealously, like a miser his coin. The more cause someone might have to take the pistol from me, the more care I have taken to conceal it.
December 2019
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Gritty All Day Long
I thought tryouts went great. I played catcher, just catcher. You may ask, How solid was my receiving with that lingering double vision? Well, I’m happy to report that squatting behind the plate was a miracle cure.
November 2019
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
What To Expect
Try to avoid symbolism and metaphors, and leave fate out of it, too. Fate was not preparing you for this loss when you were an eight-year-old farm girl and held that stillborn piglet for hours in the barn.
November 2019
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Button
The little button lying in my hand brought the violent history of the place to life. For a moment war wasn’t just pictures in textbooks. I could feel the residue of it, the half-life of violence.
October 2019
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Way Home
Jessica and I periodically take walks together. Her small dog, Ortiz, sometimes joins us. He spends his days eating shoes, peeing on the carpet, and jumping the backyard fence. But no matter where we go, I notice that he always knows the way home.
July 2019
Readers Write
Beyond Belief
A ghost in the house, the police at the door, a phone call in a dream
May 2019
The Dog-Eared Page
It’s All Happening To All Of Us, All Of The Time
It is impossible to be a human being connected by affection to others and not be vulnerable to pains beyond our own.
May 2019Poetry
Sightings
Shortly after her death, Mother Teresa appeared / in a cinnamon bun in Nashville, Tennessee. / She looked serious, perturbed even, as though / this epiphany were an inconvenience.
May 2019Photography
Guests
For the past two years Doug Winter has been photographing and interviewing people at Loaves & Fishes in Sacramento, California. The charity’s mission is to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless, but it also tries to meet less tangible needs for “love, acceptance, respect, and friendship.”
April 2019
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Love Running
Running is better for me than church; better than counseling, pills, or meditation; better than diet plans or twelve-step meetings. Running keeps me literally on the straight and narrow.
March 2019
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