Sometimes, I do this thing. In the evening, I go to a body of water (a bay is preferable) and I sit, cross-legged, on its edge—as far out over the water as I can get. I take my notebook and a pen, and I write. I write from the moment I sit until there’s no […]
Monthly archives for May, 2016
45th Parallel
Old Mission Peninsula, which splits the west and east arms of Grand Traverse Bay, is covered in cherry trees—their white flowers in full bloom like a seagull-feather coat upon the land. Grape vines, also common here but not as pervasive as the cherries, are barren this early in the spring. At the tip of the […]
Ebershoff
Outside the City Opera House, a lone evangelist cheerfully distributes hate lit. I dodge the outstretched pamphlet and pull out my phone, feigning interest in the AMBER Alert that’s been blowing up my notifications since I landed. In rural Michigan, you get crime alerts on your phone. This would not fly in Brooklyn. I wonder […]
Enders Edmundites
At the mouth of the Mystic River, Mason’s Island shelters mainland Connecticut from the storm surges of Long Island Sound. At the foot of Mason’s, eleven-acre Enders Island peers through the fog toward New York. Both islands are covered with boulders—glacial till from the Laurentide Ice Sheet which crowned this land 20,000 years ago. Dr. […]
Hanami
You come home, and you choose what to bring back with you. Maybe you unplug Friday evenings, or shave your armpits every forty days. Now you drive a stick-shift. Now you speak another tongue. Now you only toast when your eyes lock over a glass. This weekend, my first back in America, I went to Sakura […]