Essays
Chronometry
We walk, my age-deaf dogs and I. The street light throws my shadow ahead of us. It moves lithely along, stretched slim. In the dark, I can be young and pretty again instead of old and …handsome. My softness is gone now, like my dogs’ hearing …
Read MoreFinding Walter
We stand outside Building 5 of the towering apartment complex, my German cousin Michael and I, shifting from foot to foot, gawping. At the black and once-white bricks in need of washing. At the door that’s locked.
Read MoreThe Elvis Bathhouse by Maddie Lock
I’m immersed in a deep wooden tub touted to be over 100 years old. Staring down at me with come-hither smoldering eyes and his signature sexy sneer, is Elvis Presley. I too, stare down at my naked body cradled in cloudy brine water and fight a desire to cover myself with the minuscule white square of washcloth I’m gripping…
Read MoreA Home of My Own
My German cousin, Thomas stares at me, mouth opening and closing silently as he organizes English words in his head, “You are quite unusual. I think you live comfortably with two feet firmly hovering over two continents,” he finally ventures…
Read MoreThe Practice of Writing (and Writing, and Writing)
Three years ago I fell in love with Rebecca Solnit. It was at the start of my re-decision to become a writer. A bibliophile with a BA in English and high hopes to make my mark as a writer, I had allowed myself, many years ago…
Read MoreThe Lusty Bavarian Rooster
KookooKOOroo! KookooKOOroo! KOOKOOKOOROO!
I wander from the kitchen through the open doors to the front landing. The insistent crowing comes again and now I see the proud cockerel as he struts into view inside the makeshift coop on the old town wall…
Read MoreChasing the ’Writing High’
Every day that I don’t write is a wasted one. There’s writing and there’s everything else. This creates a spiritual conflict.
Let me explain. I am a student of Buddhism now for four years. I call myself a student because I have yet to step over any definitive line that allows me to call myself…
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