Little Epiphanies

I’m mostly a bus kind of guy – I like the hoi polloi. But I was running late and grabbed a taxi across town. The driver seemed genuinely glad to see me. I soon learned that he was gladder still that I didn’t have a cell phone in my hand. I’ve been studying the porteño,…

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – I want a bold love, the kind that flows like a steep mountain river, roaring over the rock bed, pushing fallen branches and stones out of its way. I want a love that overflows and missteps and clamors back, a little wiser for its mistakes. I want a love that throbs…

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – At the back of a closet, in a box that I was sure had been lost, I found a treasure trove of old diaries. As I write in my journal most every day, come rain or shine, depression or ecstasy, I have plenty of old journals lying around. But these were…

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – At the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, I met some poets for hire. The three of them sat in a prim line in front of their old typewriters, waiting for those in need of a poem. The came from all over. From Duluth, Minnesota; from Austin, Texas; from deep Oregon. They had…

I remember the times it happened. I remember a chaise longue by a pool at a roadside motel where several hundred prized teenagers were gathered one weekend. Alone, recently arrived at the conference, I sat in the smog-tinged roadside sun and read a copy of The New Yorker that I had purchased at a bookstore…

MT. SHASTA, CA – I had spent several days prowling around the mountain but I had absolutely no urge to go up it. I had been on it once before many years ago and I knew it couldn’t be conquered, that I didn’t even want to. I no longer had the hubris. The mountain had…