Category: Essays

Views:  From Here To . . . .

This afternoon, I’m looking out to the east, watching the Big Belts. The 75 mile-long Rocky Mountain island chain stretches in an arc—a belt. Not quite 10,000 feet at its highest point. The Missouri River…

Finding My . . . .

High school debate reordered my life. Upended the way I looked at the world. Challenged my perceptions. But what was it that I found or discarded?  What was the epiphany?  Mostly I haven’t spent the…

So the Question of How to Age . . .

Begins with assuming: No special privileges No certainty of infirmity No guaranteed treatment Neither limits nor the absence of limits. And believing: Only that every day is the only day Only that every day, every…

When I Grow Too Old to Dream

When I Grow Too Old to Dream We have been gay, going our wayLife has been beautiful, we have been youngAfter you’ve gone, life will go onLike an old song we have sung When I…

Hibernation

That’s where the words have gone. Some special “extended state of torpor.”  Some deep drop in the metabolism of language and memory. Shocked into an energy-saving indolence. A lethargy designed to evade these dark days….

Want Ads

We used to call them that—the classifieds that filled the final pages of our local newspapers. And we really meant everything advertised for sale in small boxes, divided into categories that included jobs available, pets…

Lament

I come to this winter season—this icy interlude of cold and snow and thin light–lonely. I am struck by the yawning emptinesses once filled by friends and family and colleagues who are now gone. This…

Drawing the Line

I was in college, but likely on holiday. Mother and Daddy and I were driving home from somewhere—the Dreshers maybe. I considered myself grown up and wise  but was still in the backseat of the…

The “What Was I Thinking” Shoes

Notwithstanding the modest income that kept our family afloat, Mother insisted that we wear good school shoes. They had to fit well; perhaps allow for a bit of growth through the school year; offer arch…