October 2011
3 posts
1 tag
On This Morning
The train glides with an unusual grace as cool morning droplets of dew pursue a skipping downward coarse along the wide window next to me. I look out over the stillness of the sound. The distant short, lightly cloaked in a disintegrating mist. Above, the full moon still shines brightly, watchful maybe, defying rebelliously the oncoming rise of the sun.
The tide has come and erased the shore....
1 tag
An Irritating Void
I miss my wife. Of course, I do. We’d been together for nearly a decade and she had been my ballast and best friend. She understood me better than anyone else; even moreso than the soulmates about whom I’ve recently written. She figured things out about me, illumined the darker regions of my personality, and provided order in areas of my self where chaos once ruled unchecked. I loved her—and still...
1 tag
A Legend Cannot Perish
When Apple announced the original iMac, our designer asked, ‘Why would anyone want a VT100 made out of colored plastic on their desk?’ Here at Eastgate, we’d predicted a very different product and expected the new machine would prove a debacle. We were completely wrong. A few weeks later, I spent a day visiting art galleries on Santa Fe’s Canyon Road, and the most...
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
A Dullness Pervades
Rolled out of bed on an early morning, an early morning in a sarcophagus of fog. There’s something enchanting about fog as there is about snow. Both bring a kind of stillness with them but they deliver their parcel in a different way. Early morning fog is the best. It seems to want to attenuate the night rather than blind it, letting it edge out with dignity, a slow retreating tide. And, of...
1 tag
Cathedrals of the Wastrel
It’s easy to put all of the blame on her, to formulate dense accusations, and in some ways it would be pleasing, to assuage any guilt I might be myself feeling. I want to clench my fists and say, ‘You should have talked to me…’ Actually, I did accuse her of giving up on me, on us, in one of the many tear-strained voicemails I left for her after she had gone and cut off all...
1 tag
A Mythology of the Unique
I’ve been thinking of some ex-girlfriends recently. I’ve actually been wandering down many old secluded paths. Sometimes I’m trying to find something, I think. But mostly I’m just revisiting pleasing avenues, good memories, resurgences of hibernated fondness. The thick undergrowth is resplendant in episodes made romantic through the passage of time which dulls and erodes...
1 tag
An Eruption of Italics
He’s not sure what to make of her, of her small glances and her nervous smile. He’s not sure what to think about her sudden and then more frequent presence. She seems nervous; perhaps as nervous as he. When they see each other suddenly, there seems to be a sudden shift in her: an eruption of italics about her face. Another tiny smile. He’s not sure what to make of her or their small, thrilling...
August 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Up With the Sun
It’s Saturday and I’m awake at 5 in the morning. For a long while, Saturday and Sunday mornings were a special time for me and my daughter. I was always the one to wake up early with her as my ex-wife was, and I presume still is, not at all in any stretch of the imagination a morning person. Add to that her having to wake up several times throughout the night to feed our tiny son and I was happy...
2 tags
The Old Man & the Courthouse
At the end of each work day, on my walk to the train station, I pass by the courthouse. Normally, there are just a number of dejected-looking people leaning up against the edifice smoking and looking miserable. One person, in particular, is there every day. The skin about his eyes looks melted by age and a rough life. His eyes simply look at nothing.
On this day, I pass by a lawyer talking to an...
1 tag
Once a Romantic
Once upon a time, I was a romantic and a hopeless one at that. In my teenage years, I was innocently eaten alive by the very thought of love: it was something I desperately wanted but my intent was dismantled by my shyness. I was simply terrified of rejection. I was also a rather homely teenager cursed with ridiculous glasses and what I later realized was an array of eccentricities which must have...
1 tag
Any Four Walls
I’ve been thinking about moving lately. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it since she left. At first, I expected it to be an easy choice: of course I was going to leave. How could I possible stay there when it is so engorged with memories. Isn’t it now merely a house rather than home with my family gone?
The notion is admittedly romantic but it isn’t practical. I struggled more with the...
1 tag
The Guilt & the Anger
At first, the evenings were a black misery, a drowning of all that is good and alight in this world, crushed by atmospheres of despair. I dreaded the winding down of the day, knowing that around 3, I would slowly be taken apart by the depressions I had earlier through the strength of day throughtout dismantled; I know too that she suffered equally. But that is no consolation.
Eventually, as...
1 tag
First Birthday
I tried to pretend that I wasn’t nervous. I deflected the anxiety, covered it up with helium-addicted mirth and watched with dismay as my solace gently drifted upward and, caught upon lofty currents, dissipated as if it had never existed in the first place.
It was our son’s first birthday and it would be the first time since the divorce that I had seen anyone other than my now ex-wife, our...
1 tag
Well, That Happened
On the drive home from work last night, after a quick jaunt to the grocery store, I passed by a yard where a young man was furiously digging post holes for what is probably an oncoming fence, while an older gentleman leaned against a nearby car, playing a tenor saxophone.
Of course.
• • • • •
I haven’t forgotten about the Feast. It is only just beginning. Unfortunately, the timing...
1 tag
A Beggar's Display
This morning, I took my ring off.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about since we finalizd the divorce. Part of me felt romantic, leaving it on: I remembered Leo McGarry leaving his on and he seemed strong. But, most of me felt stupid and slightly embarrassed, wondering if people who knew I was divorced and yet still saw me wearing the ring just quietly shook their heads while...
