Mindfulness for those who would rather not
More from “Everything Goes Away”
Don’t lie. You know exactly the heartache of your life. That primitive sadness you feel around the things you wanted to do but didn’t, or the things that to the core of your being you felt desperately needed to go one way, and they went the other. That horrible rendering of your heart when your…
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The Gas Station, et al.
Everything goes away, everything goes away. I always have music in my head. Never a full song, but a couple of lines or two. Tonight while I’m sitting on my boulder behind the house that sits in front of the forest, I hear the refrain from a Radical Face song. I don’t remember the name,…
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A Half Full Moon
The boys stood in the clearing behind the house before the first trees of the forest, a darkening sky above. Wow, that moon is exactly half a sphere! Half a circle. What? It’s a circle. What you can see is a circle, and only half of it. A sphere is an orb, like a ball.…
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Billy and Jim and You and Me
I’ve been asked on occasion who Billy and Jim are. It’s clear to most that there are elements of myself in both characters, but in my own mind, I am Billy. I’ve always been Billy. Who Jim is remains a mystery to me. I’ve written for years about the both of them, using their beings…
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An Introduction, midstream
I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll just jump in. I’m going to try to capture everything, but won’t. My wife and I moved to Canmore, Alberta back in 2001. For over 15 years – although not without our struggles – it was home. We purchased a place to live, built relationships and careers,…
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The Winds Whispering Among the Trees
“Fucking winter.” Billy spat. “Fuck you.” With every footfall his boots slipped in the snow. He was walking up the hill behind the house with the snow falling even now in the late days of February. “Fuck you.” Billy said to himself. “I hate you,” he said to himself. He stopped to catch his breath.…
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Three Days Past Full
The moon was three days past full, and Billy used its light in the darkness of the night to navigate to the wood pile in the snow. The snow was fresh but wet, and under the great pine trees it had frozen a thin crust which Billy broke through with his boots, down the hill…
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Against the Dimly Lit Sky
In the night Billy laid on the couch in front of the big bay windows looking out over the valley. A layer of cloud hemmed in the world, cutting off the tops of the mountains and muting the moon that was a few nights past being full. But the moon still lit the earth, it…
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A Thing on the Dirt
When Billy came upon William he was just a thing on the dirt. He laid there in a ball with his knees drawn to his chest and his left arm around his shins and then his right arm under his head, a very soft cradle. He could have been many things lying there; a rock,…
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Autumn, deep into it
Autumn, and deep into it. Glowing leaves in an absence of light, yellows to envy and a green so lime and bright, so tucked in, a little bit of sheen against the dark richness of the surrounding pines. Deep into autumn, long past the careening energy of summer, the hustle and bustle, the dragging of…
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