LATEST POSTS

Down

When I woke up on the morning of the first big snow storm this season, I went to the picture window and looked out at the lake. There’s a tree rooted in the shoreline that leans out over the water, and everyone who visits wonders when it’s going to fall in. I see the tree
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Reno

Disenfranchised Grief #1 Yesterday, a friend texted me the cover of the recent issue of Mainer because there is a picture of Reno on it. They had written an article about him: “Everything Is Cool: Reflections on the life of Reno Libby, the Maine comic who died on the brink of stardom 30 years ago.”
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The Great Opting Out

The first thing to go was cigarettes. I think if I had been a heavy smoker, it would have been easier. I’d have stopped sooner because it would have been obvious and urgent. I justified it because I was one of those infuriating situational smokers. You weren’t going to find me standing out in the
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Let It Be

I just returned from a frustrating walk. Right away, one dog is licking something off wet leaves on the ground (oh god what is it?), while the other wraps his leash around a tree. My knee starts in on me. Every few feet, my little hunter tries to bolt into the woods, and my homebody
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Gravity

Yesterday, when I was walking in the woods after a couple days of rain, I saw a drop of water flashing on a pine bough, refracting sunlight and amplifying the blue hues in the sky or in the green needles it was clinging to. I don’t know how that works. Somehow, an azure nova had
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If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire…

When I walk my dogs on the trails, I often fall down a tricky rabbit hole. It’s a mental drama in which some fellow hiker confronts me about whether I am cleaning up after my dogs. I then set fire to precious time coming up with ways to prove to this imaginary busybody that I
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