Little Epiphanies

Listen: The world is a mix of empty and filled spaces that yearn towards each other. Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum and it seems to be a universal mandate that empty spaces must be filled. Yet, as we all know, the empty spaces remain. A friend whose life is full writes to say that…

Small Notebook #117 is an unassuming pocket notebook small enough to be carried everywhere – which I do. It succeeded Small Notebook #116 and a long line of Small Notebooks stretching back across time to Small Notebook #1. When it is retired, it will take its rightful place on top of a distinguished stack of…

1. It was raining outside but I was warm inside you in that room scented of teas. When we went down to the river to gaze on something other than each other, we marveled at the fish jumping. Their dull “plops” echoed in the silence under the trees and left concentric circles on the dappled…

It was a long time ago, another life really. We sat in a restaurant of starched white table cloths and talked. Long after our plates were removed and we were coaxing the last drops of champagne from the night, we talked. And talked. The other diners left. The waiters hovered at a safe distance, at…

Two people approach each other. Sparks are flying off their bodies but they force themselves to slow down, like sports cars approaching the starting line, latent power sublimated. Once they are close enough to smell each other, they extend their spines upwards and roll their shoulders back, revealing – as if they were peeling away…

I saw her across the dance floor. It was an afternoon milonga at a downtown cultural center, one of my regular haunts. Huge paintings of Galicia hung on the walls, dulled by time but intended to remind immigrants from whence they came. The wooden floor was patched so poorly in places that it often caught…