Tag Archive: essay

Picture Perfect

February 3, 2022 9:11 pm Published by

How many layers of a “picture perfect life” are our true selves buried beneath?  Perhaps the most pervasive question in my confusing life is which version of myself is the realest and where the edge between righteous discontent and selfish ingratitude really is. 

Different Stillness

January 4, 2022 4:51 am Published by

It costs us nothing to dream, it costs us everything to learn that we were dreaming the wrong thing. 

Bittersweet

May 10, 2021 4:38 pm Published by

Holding back doesn’t lessen the pain of the loss, but it sure as hell lessens the joy of the having.

Tattoos

April 4, 2021 10:09 pm Published by

We need physicality, need to feel some presence and ownership in the bodies we inhabit. Without it, the mind will run rampant, will run away with itself and constantly try to leave the flesh behind. 

Moving and Staying Still

February 20, 2021 7:15 pm Published by

The most unnatural thing we can do is ignore the calling to draw near and reflect, to suppress the urge to go out and seek, to demand a sameness from our souls that robs them of the very quality which makes them soulful.

Smoke

September 18, 2020 9:24 pm Published by

And indeed, my flesh is increasingly made of the smoke that our society has created. It is not just routine incense of aspen and pine. It is acrid smoke, spreading across an entire continent, filled with bits of electrical wiring and industrial paint, finer and lighter than ever because the vegetation is so dry.

Taller’n the Grass

May 12, 2020 5:22 pm Published by

Like the rootbound plant which withers when set free, we adapt to the particular habitat that sustains us.

Nostalgia

April 22, 2020 5:35 pm Published by

Nostalgia is the truest form of grief. It washes over us with deceptive warm waves of comfort and familiarity, reaching out with open arms to welcome us to the throes of something that never was.

Near Death Experience

March 9, 2020 6:15 pm Published by

The near death experience may be the moment before the fall is halted by the ground, it may be the first tumble when everything is pain and ringing noises and a flash of white light. Or it may be what happens months, or even years, later. It has nothing to do with injuries or lightning strikes or natural gas leaks. The more comfortable we get and the further from our dreams we stray, the nearer to death we truly become.

I Can’t Believe This is Happening to Me

February 24, 2020 7:06 pm Published by

Oftentimes, the reality of life is difficult to believe. Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but there is a noteworthy disconnect between our expectations, our perceptions, and the unflinching march of time.

No Depression

February 4, 2020 6:12 pm Published by

The word ‘depressed’ is ridiculously complicated. Not that any word in any language means just one thing, but few words mean more things than depression. Everything from measurable chemical imbalances to tropical storm systems to underperforming stock markets can lead to depression.

We Live in a Simulation

January 31, 2020 8:29 pm Published by

For all the advancements our society has made, the world still rewards those who can separate their conscience from their actions. Close the deal, shoot the wounded, put profit before people. There is not a visible cosmic arbiter of justice and this means only that one’s ingrained sense of right and wrong is a hindrance in the earthly realm.

Lost in Translation

January 27, 2020 7:39 pm Published by

Ultimately, we are confined to the languages we share with others. The spoken and written languages of the world. The things we trade in. The artistic media that leave everything open to interpretation yet create fleeting bits of solace and solidarity.

Measurements

January 6, 2020 9:05 pm Published by

Somewhere between January and December, between sunrise and sunset, life turns into a series of processes that can rob the days of their original potential. From the alarm clock to clocking in, the hours tick away marked by a ceaseless process that forces us into line.

Bumpy Roads

December 2, 2018 7:42 pm Published by

By the time we realize bumps could jolt us back awake after the smoothness becomes dangerously hypnotizing, it is too... View Article

Empty

November 2, 2018 5:34 pm Published by

Emptiness has a nearly universal negative connotation. It is forced to duke it out with its syntactical opposition ‘half full,’... View Article

Butterflies

October 24, 2018 7:32 pm Published by

My mind flashes back to that ride in the Ozarks, when fast-driving cars plowed through fluttering butterflies, when I stopped... View Article

Where It All Ends

September 26, 2018 3:23 pm Published by

It was hard to imagine two people trying very hard at anything after being paid that much to show up.

Disappearing Act

August 7, 2018 2:20 pm Published by

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 Published by

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 Published by

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 Published by

It might change people if they would stare at roadkill instead of averting their eyes.

Injuring Eternity

May 23, 2018 4:53 pm Published by

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 Published by

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.”

Bear Country

February 27, 2018 12:17 pm Published by

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 Published by

I am fascinated by our variable tolerances; when it comes to solitude, silence, loneliness, or discomfort, we react violently and... View Article

Sutherland Springs

February 11, 2018 12:34 pm Published by

As time passes, I am stricken by many things: the urgency a brush with death places upon us. Our ability to normalize and gloss over such a traumatic experience in order to ‘move on.’ The way survival is so fickle and random that it can all feel very pointless or extraordinarily meaningful. The difference a day makes.

Echoes and Howls

December 16, 2017 6:27 pm Published by

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?

It Feels Wrong to Write

November 27, 2017 1:35 pm Published by

I find beauty and hope in the individual and collective human ability to defy the odds. I am also radically overwhelmed by it. Isn't our existence a miracle that should be revered? Aren't we preposterously fleeting? Should we take things less seriously? Is it possible to take things seriously enough? 

The Arctic Ocean

November 1, 2017 1:56 pm Published by

in this moment, I stood still and shivering and let reality wash over me and blow into my core. It is hysterical how little marketing influences you or how much some other human’s selfish decisions can affect your faith or resolve when you are standing with your toes in the Arctic Ocean.

Peeing in the Arctic Circle

October 11, 2017 2:58 pm Published by

I stood there in a long sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans, exposed in all the most vulnerable ways to the elements, and felt a certain type of ridiculous freedom that men often chase their entire lives. One would never explicitly state that they aspire to something as trite as peeing atop Atiguin Pass, but that may be part of the problem.

Don’t You Ever Get Lonely?

August 31, 2017 7:11 pm Published by

I stood and let conditioned fear course through my veins and simply observed it from a few feet above my body. For all of these misguided warnings, there I was, completely, utterly alone and more alive than ever. Not even the smallest bone in my body felt lonely in that moment.

Welcome to Alaska

August 15, 2017 4:30 pm Published by

These intersections of theoretical and physical delight me to no end, and I wanted to ask an international legal expert all kinds of questions about what might happen in any number of potential scenarios in this exact spot. 

The Middle of Nowhere

July 5, 2017 3:44 pm Published by

“The middle of nowhere” is a loaded idiom. It’s a vague-yet-precise phrase that invokes a certain situation or location, and which could be positive or negative depending on who says it. It offers up visions of amber waves and orange plateaus, of abandoned filling stations and faded glimpses of the past’s future. It is a place devoid of the decades of social construction required to populate a city with its traps and trappings.

A Place to Call Home: The Almost-Ghosttown of Centralia, Pennsylvania

March 27, 2017 1:32 pm Published by

Signs stood in the trees warning hunters not to hunt in this area. We were quite near a State Game Land, of which Pennsylvania has many, and I suppose if you spent enough time in the woods and chased a deer far enough, you could wind up here. Of course, if you missed, your rifle shot might go through one of the remaining houses in Centralia. Or its sharp crack may just be the straw that breaks the asphalt’s back and sends you or the deer into a deep, hot hole.