Sunday is the two year anniversary of Tim’s death. In the two weeks leading up to this milestone, I dreamt about him often. I dreamt that I was in a van traveling up the east coast, carrying his suitcase and things around with me. He traveled with me in the cargo area, but nobody else could see him. I asked him if he was upset he died young. “I accomplished a ton before I died,” he said. It was something…
This time of year in the land without true seasons, Texas is a slur between spring and summer. Days start dipping into the 90’s and the air is a thick slug of humidity from the thunderstorms and rain that linger from spring. The bluebonnets are long gone, but they’re replaced by wild sunflowers that grow everywhere. Two years ago, I was driving around with Tim to the hill country. He had rented a cabin outside of Fredericksburg for us as…
I’m heading to Japan in less than a week for a trip I’ve wanted to go on since I was eighteen. A lot of people are drawn to Japan through anime or manga or all things kawaii. Though I have a healthy appreciation of Sanrio and certainly love miniature plastic food, I’ve been pulled to Japan by Bill Murray. I have this little game I ask people when the conversation is dull or I’m getting to know someone new. What’s the…
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed I miss Tim every day, but I am rarely lonely. To me, loneliness is a toxic state that leads to bad choices. People compromise when they’re lonely – they panic. It’s too easy to reach out to those you know are bad for you, and there’s this quiet fear in the background of loneliness. A little voice that says, this is how you’re going to be…
Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life. – Stephen King, “On Writing” I’ve made a lot of incorrect assumptions in my life. I assumed any Thoroughbred trained for racing would have easy lead changes. I assumed that if you were nice to people, paid your taxes and showed up to work on time that the universe would protect you from its worst. I also assumed writing a book would be…
Stephen Dunn is a celebrity in my house. I quote him all the time on this blog. If I write a passive aggressive this is meant to burn someone Facebook post, I do it with poetry — usually, that means Dunn’s poetry. He’s as famous to me as David Sedaris or Stephen King, which means he’s as notorious as James Cameron or Peter Jackson to a normal person who doesn’t douse their life with literature. I started reading his work in…
Last week I chatted with a coworker about his visit to a deprivation chamber. It’s a super small, enclosed tub with no light where you’re supposed to go float and meditate without anything around to stimulate your senses. I think it’s to re-create the feeling of being in the womb, or some crunchy granola hippy thing like that. I asked him how he liked it. “It was cool at first,” he said. “The thing that everyone talks about is that without any…
This whole “rebuilding my life” process isn’t going as smoothly as I hoped it might. Partially I blame grief, but when you grieve as long and as deep as I have it’s easy to blame grief for everything. Grief is like just getting out of the shower on a cold morning when the heat hasn’t kicked on yet, and someone throws a towel over your head. You’re wet and cold. You can’t see anything because there’s a fucking towel over your…