Author Archives for admin
Disappearing Act
August 7, 2018 2:20 pm 5 Comments Life does not ask if you want to see a dead body dredged from a river on your bike ride or if you want to wake up one day and realize that most everyone you thought you might marry someday is now engaged to someone else or if you were ready for another year to be two-thirds over, for everyone you love to be two-thirds a year older, for your checking account to be two-thirds a year emptier. The disappearing act forces you to put your thoughts in a centrifuge in a noise-cancelling vacuum and distill them and listen to them until you are aware just what they are.
A Nightmare is Still a Dream
August 2, 2018 4:09 pm 6 Comments I do not need distractions or white picket fences. I need to write. I need to push myself to the limits so I have something to say. And I need to read what others have said, that I may remember the vague, gnawing feelings I have all day have names.
Being Alive
July 16, 2018 6:39 pm 4 Comments Existing is a fickle thing, some combination of biological bare-minimums and feeling profoundly satisfied which ultimately makes us who we... View Article
Roadkill.
June 4, 2018 12:59 pm 1 Comment It might change people if they would stare at roadkill instead of averting their eyes.
Injuring Eternity
May 23, 2018 4:53 pm 2 Comments I hate circling dates on the calendar, because it always creates a disproportionate sense of the value of a given day.
Watering the Plants
May 4, 2018 11:33 am 3 Comments Spending too much time thinking may have its downsides, but that is only if you subscribe to the notion that there is such thing as “spending too much time thinking.”
Make Yourself Comfortable
April 4, 2018 2:33 pm 4 Comments I try to free myself of the thirst for material goods, only to notice that in lieu of spiritual satisfaction, a project car or a more specialized bicycle or new camera lens might offer up a convincing diversion. Besides, what is so wrong with just being comfortable?
Long White Line
April 2, 2018 1:45 pm 2 Comments The most violent loneliness is preferable to the most numb and superficial sense of inclusion; like a blizzard in Indianapolis, that feeling is real and palpable and will yield to something different, if only you keep driving.
Hurry Up and Teach Me the Lesson
March 14, 2018 5:07 pm 4 Comments There is a yearning within all of us to find more joy in a simple evening stroll than in a new Porsche, but there is also a reluctance which holds us back. We can work hard and save our shekels and buy the one, but the other requires solemn introspection and much harder work, and nothing which can be bought with ink on a dotted line. And that is what writing and conversation and coffee and whiskey are all about; it is why we must make a thousand words out of the way the sunlight dances along the sidewalk during the evening dog walk
Bear Country
February 27, 2018 12:17 pm 1 Comment In a way, it is a refreshing feeling to be constantly aware of your surroundings, to know what it is you are most afraid of. To have a common fear with all fellow men, to have a lingua franca that everyone speaks about dangers and preparations and the haughty laughs we must have if we are to survive it at all. In the Yukon, everyone has a bear story or ten. In Alaska, people speak more in “how bad” bears are than whether there are bears at all.
Situational Irony
February 20, 2018 12:59 pm 3 Comments I am fascinated by our variable tolerances; when it comes to solitude, silence, loneliness, or discomfort, we react violently and... View Article
Try Not to Let It Get You Down
February 3, 2018 12:00 pm 3 Comments Any time someone takes a real, human risk and shares real feelings, answers the question “How are you?” with something... View Article
The Year of the Dog: A Love Letter
January 15, 2018 1:54 pm 8 Comments We gradually fade from sharp-toothed puppy to hyperactive youngin’ to sleeping eighteen hours a day, and as is the nature of existing, we only really notice our most current state of being. A senior dog fades into the background and then occasionally surprises us with a half snarl or a flash of the spunk that used to wear us down through sheer quantity of energy. An old friend falls through the cracks as we see enough glimpses of them looking happy on the internet that we forget to check in and actually talk. The best moments of our life slowly fade into the shadows until we neither remember nor forget them; they are simply there until a tragedy brings them into high relief and we remember them wistfully.
New Year, Some Words
January 4, 2018 12:43 pm 5 Comments If there is one thing I have learned in more or less the last calendar year, it is that we are at our best when we can hold our own worst thoughts and fears in our hands at arm’s length and stare at them until they look less ugly and less daunting; less like shackles and more like spurs.
Echoes and Howls
December 16, 2017 6:27 pm 2 Comments I hoisted my knee up over the edge and we stood, above the Canyon once more, fierce winds howling in our ears, reminding us just how precarious standing atop a slick hoodoo is. But, everything is precarious in its own way. Is it not better to bring that to light instead of trying to hide it in the shadows?© JOHNTESI 2024 SITE BY ORCA